Twenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt #1)(44)

Daniel shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. But we have still got seventeen more days to find out.’

‘Less.’ Kitteridge climbed to his feet. ‘We can’t lodge an appeal on the last day. Not that we’ve got anything to appeal about. I wish I wanted to save him.’ His mouth twisted with an expression of complicated regret. ‘What you just told me makes me want to see him hang. I don’t like being made to question my government. There’s so much else in the world that’s changing, or questioning everything. I want to have somebody to believe in.’

Daniel watched him retreat, and was aware with a sudden sense of pity that Kitteridge had not said he wanted to believe in his own family. But Daniel did, profoundly.

Sometime later, Daniel looked up from his note-making to see Impney standing in front of him. ‘Yes?’

‘Miss fford Croft is here to see you, sir. I’ve asked her to wait in Mr fford Croft’s rooms, since he is not in at the moment. You will not be disturbed.’

Daniel rose to his feet, not feeling ready for this at all. ‘Thank you, Impney.’

He knocked briefly on fford Croft’s door, and as soon as he heard an answer he went in. He did not know what he expected, but it was not the woman who stood in the centre of the floor. Miriam was not tall, but she was slender, which gave the impression of more height than she had. Daniel had only ever known fford Croft with white hair, so he had no idea what colour it had been in his youth. Hers was bright auburn; one might say less politely, red. She had the fair blemishless skin that sometimes goes with that shade, and her eyes were unmistakably greenish-blue. She was not beautiful, which was a surprise, given her colouring. Her face was too strong, her nose too bold. But she was entirely unforgettable. On this occasion, she wore a business-like full-length skirt; there was no concession to fashion in it. Her jacket was tailored, and her blouse crisp white, but unadorned by lace or frills.

‘You’re Daniel Pitt?’ she asked, as if surprised by his appearance. Perhaps she had expected someone older, like Kitteridge, perhaps, who was thirty-four, nearer to her own age, which looked to be just under forty.

‘Yes. How do you do, Miss fford Croft?’ he replied a little stiffly. This woman was a doctor and a chemist. Why, for heaven’s sake?

‘Please sit down, Mr Pitt,’ she directed. ‘Tell me everything you know about the case about which you want advice. And when I say know, I mean only those facts that are beyond dispute. I will sit at my father’s desk so I may make notes.’

Daniel obeyed, slowly. In her own way, she was as intimidating as her father.

She looked at him enquiringly, pencil poised.

He tried to marshal his thoughts: definitely facts only, no conclusions. He told her what the police had reported about the finding of the body: when, where, who, how, and what they believed to be the cause of death.

She wrote many notes. She worked so rapidly that he wondered if she had her own form of shorthand.

‘And Mr Graves was tried for the crime and found guilty?’ she asked.

‘Yes . . .’ He did not know what to call her, whether she was Doctor or Miss, so he left it open.

‘What evidence is there that it was he?’ she asked.

‘There was no break-in, and he was the only one in the house unaccounted for at the time she died. The body was discovered at ten in the evening. There were no other people present except the family, and the household servants.’

‘So, could she not have let someone in, or it was someone already in the house?’ she said quietly. ‘Interesting . . . and sad. It is always sad when someone is killed by a person they know well, a family member. But I believe it happens quite often. Tell me about the burning you mentioned.’

‘All I know is that there was blood on the corner of the hearthstone, and a lot of the carpet was burned where her head and upper body must have been . . . where they said the head and body were.’ He would be as precisely accurate as she had requested, although he could not think of any way in which she could help.

She looked down at her notes, and then up at him. She met his eyes with complete candour. ‘Precisely what is it you wish me to do, Mr Pitt? Do you believe that there is any doubt about his guilt?’

‘Very little,’ he answered. ‘When you look at all those facts, I think the jury came to the only conclusion they could.’

‘But . . .?’

‘There were other facts that they did not know. Graves knew them, so I don’t know why he didn’t raise them then. He mentioned them to me privately, and I found proof when I searched the study in his house. He is writing a book that is a complete destruction of the character and reputation of two very important people, both now dead, so they cannot defend themselves, nor could he be accused of libelling them. There is another in the biography who is alive, and in an important government position. Graves accuses him of corruption and covering up serious crimes. Leaders are always subject to such charges. I suppose they have to be . . .’

‘So, he guided his way well between maligning the dead, whom he cannot libel, and accusing only of duplicity the one man he could,’ she concluded. ‘Are you suggesting that someone, on their behalf, could have killed his wife? Is that what he suggested?’

‘I don’t remember exactly what he said, but yes, he suggested it.’

‘Do you think there is any truth in it?’ She frowned slightly. Whether she doubted it, or simply found it distasteful, he could not tell.