Twenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt #1)(33)

Had Ebony and Graves quarrelled over cost? And what treatment he should receive, or was best for him? Perhaps they had not agreed. He did not wish to ask Sarah. The butler would know.

‘May I sit down?’ he asked Arthur.

‘Of course,’ Arthur replied immediately. ‘Falthorne came up and told me who you are and what you are here for. I’m afraid I won’t be much use to you. I’ve really got no idea what happened.’ He had a nice voice, deeper than Daniel would have expected, and his diction was beautiful. No doubt he had been privately tutored. Being too disabled to join any community activities, he had all day to learn those things of the mind. Anything to take his thoughts off the pain, and to enlarge his limited world.

‘I understand,’ Daniel said quietly, his mind racing as to what he could ask this young man. ‘Were you aware of your mother’s battles regarding female suffrage, for example? My mother doesn’t allow me not to know.’

Arthur smiled. ‘Sounds like my mother. Yes. And I think she is right.’ He spoke instinctively in the present tense. He had not absorbed the idea that she was gone. ‘They’ll win, in the end. Have to. They are half the human race, after all. But most people cling onto the past, as if it were a life raft, and all of us on a sinking ship.’

‘That’s a grim analogy,’ Daniel remarked.

Arthur gave a rueful little gesture, infinitely expressive.

‘Father didn’t approve, and he made it very heavily known.’ He glanced quickly at Sarah, and then, assured of her approval, back to Daniel again. ‘Is your father like that?’

Daniel tried to think clearly. ‘He keeps his rebellions pretty quiet. They are more effective that way.’

‘Are they?’ Arthur looked doubtful.

‘Yes. I think so. You see, he has the power to actually do something. So, it’s better if he says nothing, and takes people by surprise.’

This time Arthur’s smile was wide, showing beautiful teeth. ‘Your father sounds like a fine fellow. I think I should like him.’

‘Is your father not the same?’ It was a delicate question, but as soon as Daniel spoke, he felt it was too obvious.

Arthur shrugged. ‘I would have said devious, rather than subtle.’ It was a candid admission – and Arthur’s eyes were on Daniel as he made it.

Sarah was watching Daniel. He could feel her gaze. The moment he threatened Arthur in any way, even emotionally, she would shut down the interview. He knew it as surely as if she had said so.

Was Graves a bully? How could he find out? Surely, he would not be a physical one – strike a crippled son? No. Ebony would have fought him if he had. Or was that what had happened? And she had lost? Mrs Warlaby had said that Graves had hit his wife . . .

They were waiting.

‘He’s a writer, isn’t he?’ He looked from Arthur to Sarah, and back again.

‘Yes,’ Arthur agreed.

‘Biography, not literary work,’ Sarah added.

‘I think you underestimate him,’ Arthur said with a bitter edge to his voice. ‘There’s more art than truth to some of his work.’

‘Creative?’ Daniel asked. He chose his word with care.

‘Not really,’ Arthur said. ‘You can stick very strictly to the truth, and as long as you omit the right points, tell a completely different story. The best lines are those that are implied. Everything you say is true and proven, and yet it doesn’t add up the way the real truth does.’

Daniel thought that was correct. There was a lot more wisdom to that than at first appeared. ‘Do you think that is what the police, and the courts, think about the cause of your mother’s death?’ he asked.

Sarah cut across him, her voice sharp. ‘Arthur doesn’t know! We don’t know, either of us. There wasn’t anybody else here, apart from the family, and of course the staff.’

‘It’s all right, Sarah,’ Arthur assured her. ‘He just has to make certain.’ He turned to Daniel. ‘Do you think there is any chance that my father is not guilty, Mr Pitt? You don’t suspect Falthorne, do you? If he was going to do anything against Father, he would have done it ages ago. The first time Father took a horse whip to the groom, when we still had horses.’

‘Arthur! Stop it!’ Sarah said sharply. ‘Mr Pitt, that was years ago, and Falthorne would never attack anybody unless it were to protect us.’

‘And did he?’ Daniel asked.

‘What?’ She looked as if he had struck her.

‘No!’ Arthur said fiercely. ‘Of course, he didn’t!’

‘Excuse me, sir, but how would you know?’ Daniel asked.

Arthur’s faced flushed, but it was with shame rather than anger.

Daniel felt appalling for having asked, but the idea was not out of character with the man Daniel had seen in court, and in prison: quick-tempered, arrogant, defensive.

Arthur struggled for an answer and was left speechless.

‘Will you please leave?’ Sarah meant it as an order, but all she could do was plead. ‘Arthur is quite right. He would know if Falthorne had been in a fight with Father. Father is heavier and stronger. Falthorne is sixty, and not used to violence. He looks after Arthur, doing the things . . . a . . . man needs to do to help him. Looks after him with . . .’ she swallowed, ‘a little dignity. Father would have half killed him if he had raised a hand against him. Please go!’