Midnight at Marble Arch - By Anne Perry Page 0,119

and holding her even closer.

“Is that the question you’re asking yourself?” she said. “Why on earth Rawdon Quixwood would lie to protect Neville Forsbrook?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Assuming he is lying.”

Charlotte weighed it in silence for several moments before she spoke.

“People lie for several reasons,” she said thoughtfully. “To protect themselves, or someone they love; or, of course, someone they are being pressured to protect. Or they lie to achieve something, or to avoid something. Do people lie to protect an ideal? Or because the truth is something they can’t afford to believe, for some reason? Something they just don’t want to believe? Refuse to?” She watched him, waiting for the answer. “Or are afraid to?” she added.

“Or maybe because of blackmail?” he answered. “Or debt? And if that’s the case, then the question arises, what could Rawdon Quixwood possibly owe either Neville or his father?”

“Maybe they knew something about Catherine that he wants to keep secret?” she suggested. “After all, the poor woman can’t protect herself now.”

“But she was already dead when Quixwood stepped forward to swear Forsbrook was innocent regarding Angeles,” he said grimly.

“Then it would have to be something that mattered very much. Considering how Catherine died, Rawdon Quixwood would be the very last man in London to protect a rapist.”

“And yet I think he’s lying,” Pitt responded. “I just can’t work out what the truth could be. Nothing I imagine makes any sense.”

“Let’s go through the scenarios one by one, then,” she suggested. “What might Forsbrook have, either father or son, that Quixwood would want? Not money, I don’t think. Vespasia said Quixwood got out of an African investment before the Jameson Raid, and she is all but certain that Forsbrook didn’t. She said he looked like a ghost at the Jameson trial.”

“All right,” Pitt agreed. “Not money. To protect someone? That’s obvious—to protect Neville, but why? Pelham Forsbrook certainly had nothing to do with Angeles’s rape. And she and the other young girl, Alice Townley, specifically said they were raped by Neville. Neither of them mentioned his father.”

“You’re right,” she said, biting her lip. “It’s difficult. Fear? Who is afraid of what? Or … Quixwood and the Forsbrooks are not related, are they?”

“No,” he said, turning it over in his mind. “Not by blood, or any business alliance that we can see.”

“Then something else,” Charlotte suggested. “If we start off assuming that Angeles and Alice Townley are telling the truth, then Quixwood is lying.”

“Indeed,” Pitt said, putting his other arm around her and tightening his hold. “But how do we find out why?”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “If it isn’t the men, try the women,” she suggested. “Neville Forsbrook’s mother must have had some influence on him.”

“She’s dead,” he reminded her, but as he said it the beginning of an idea stirred in his mind. “But I’ll try that tomorrow.”

CHAPTER

18

NARRAWAY HAD HARDLY STARTED his breakfast when his manservant interrupted him to say that Commander Pitt had called to see him, and the matter was urgent.

Narraway glanced at the clock, which read just before half-past seven.

“It must be,” he replied a trifle waspishly, perhaps because he was touched with a moment of fear. Only an emergency could bring Pitt at this time of the morning. “Ask him if he would like breakfast, and show him in,” he instructed.

A moment later Pitt came into the dining room dressed formally, and rather more neatly than usual. He looked excited more than alarmed.

Narraway waved at the opposite chair and Pitt sat down.

“Well?” Narraway asked.

“Let’s assume that Angeles Castelbranco and Alice Townley were telling the truth,” Pitt began without preamble. “We are left with the conclusion, then, that Rawdon Quixwood must be lying about being with Neville Forsbrook at the time of Angeles’s rape.” He leaned forward a little. “Which raises the question as to why he would do such a thing. One would presume he would be the last man in England to defend a rapist.”

“So why should we presume it?” Narraway asked. With anyone else he would have been sarcastic, but he knew Pitt better than to assume he spoke without an answer in mind. “What have we missed?”

Pitt gave a very slight, rueful gesture. “I’m not certain. Some connection between Forsbrook, either father or son, and Quixwood. Or if not that, then possibly between the women.”

“What women? There’s no connection between Angeles and Quixwood. And no connection between Catherine and Angeles, or Catherine and either of the Forsbrooks,” Narraway pointed out. “And as far as the