The Silent Cry (4 page)

Evan acknowledged the truth of it, and with one last look at the ashen face of the young man lying in the bed, he turned and went about the only duty he dreaded more.

Ebury Street was quiet and elegant in the cold morning air. There was a slick of ice on the pavements and housemaids were indisposed to linger in gossip. The two or three people Evan saw were all keeping moving, whisking dusters and mop heads out of windows and in again as quickly as possible. An errand boy scampered up steps and rang a bell with fingers clumsy with cold.

Evan found number thirty-four and unconsciously copying Monk, he went to the front door. Anyway, news such as he had should not go through the kitchens first.

The bell was answered by a parlour maid in a smart uniform. Her starched linen and lace immediately proclaimed a household of better financial standing than the clothes worn by the dead man suggested.

"Yes, sir?”

"Good morning. I am Police Sergeant Evans. Does a Mr. Leighton Duff live here?”

"Yes, sir, but he isn't home at the moment." She said it with some anxiety. It was not a piece of information she would normally have offered to a caller, even though she knew it to be true. She looked at his face, and perhaps read the weariness and sadness in it. "Is everything all right, sir?”

"No, I'm afraid it isn't. Is there a Mrs. Duff?”

Her hand flew to her mouth, her eyes filled with alarm, but she did not scream.

"You had better warn her lady's maid, and perhaps the butler. I am afraid I have very bad news.”

Silently she opened the door wider and let him in.

A butler with thin, greying hair came from the back of the hallway, frowning.

"Who is the gentleman, Janet?" He turned to Evan. "Good morning, sir.

May I be of assistance to you? I am afraid Mr. Duff is not at home at present, and Mrs. Duff is not receiving." He was less sensitive to Evan's expression than the maid had been.

"I am from the police," Evan repeated. "I have extremely bad news to tell Mrs. Duff. I'm very sorry. Perhaps you should remain in case she needs some assistance. Possibly you might send a messenger for your family doctor.”

"What… what has happened?" Now he looked thoroughly horrified.

"I am afraid that Mr. Leighton Duff and Mr. Rhys Duff have met with violence. Mr. Rhys is in St. Thomas's hospital in a very serious condition.”

The butler gulped. "And… and Mr… Mr. Leighton Duff?”

"I am afraid he is dead.”

"Oh dear… I…" He swayed a little where he stood in the magnificent hallway with its curved staircase, aspidistras in stone urns and brass umbrella stand with silver-topped canes in it.

"You'd better sit down a minute, Mr. Wharmby," Janet said with sympathy.

Wharmby straightened himself up, but he looked very pallid. "Certainly not! Whatever next? It is my duty to look after poor Mrs. Duff in every way possible, as it is yours. Go and get Alfred to fetch Dr.

Wade. I shall inform Madam that there is someone to see her. You might return with a decanter of brandy… just in case some restorative is needed.”

But it was not. Sylvestra Duff sat motionless in the large chair in the morning room, her face bloodlessly white under her dark hair with its pronounced widow's peak. She was not immediately beautiful her face was too long, too aquiline, her nose delicately flared, her eyes almost black but she had a distinction which became more marked the longer one was with her. Her voice was low and very measured. In other circumstances it would have been lovely. Now she was too shattered by horror and grief to speak in anything but broken fractions of sentences.

"How…" she started. "Where? Where did you say?”

"In one of the back streets of an area known as St. Giles," Evan answered gently, moderating the truth a little. He wished there were some way she would never have to know the full facts.

"St. Giles?" It seemed to mean very little to her. He studied her face, the smooth, high-boned cheeks and curved brow. He thought he saw a slight tightening, but it could have been no more than a change in the light as she turned towards him.

"It is a few hundred yards off Regent Street, towards Aldgate.”

"Aldgate?" she said with a frown.

"Where did he say he was going, Mrs. Duff?" he asked.

"He didn't say.”

"Perhaps you would tell me all you can recall of yesterday.”

She shook her head very slowly. "No… no, that can wait. First I must go to my son. I must… I must be with him. You said he is very badly hurt?”

"I am afraid so. But he is in the best hands possible." He leaned a little towards her. "You can do no more for him at present," he said earnestly. "It is best he rests. He is not fully sensible most of the time. No doubt the doctor will give him herbs and sedatives to ease his pain and help him to heal.”

"Are you trying to spare my feelings, Sergeant? I assure you, it is not necessary. I must be where I can do the most good, that is the only thing which will be of any comfort to me." She looked at him very directly. She had amazing eyes; their darkness almost concealed her emotions and made her a peculiarly private woman. He imagined the great Spanish aristocrats might have looked something like that: proud, secretive, hiding their vulnerability.

"No, Mrs. Duff," he denied. "I was trying to find out as much as I can from you about what occurred yesterday while it is fresh in your mind, before you are fully occupied with your son. At the moment it is Dr. Riley's help he needs. I need yours.”

"You are very direct, Sergeant.”

He did not know if it was a criticism or simply an observation. Her voice was without expression. She was too profoundly shocked from the reality of what he had told her, to touch anything but the surface of her mind. She sat upright, her back rigid, shoulders stiff, her hands unmoving in her lap. He imagined if he touched them he would find them locked together, unbending.

"I am sorry. It seems not the time for niceties. This matters far too much. Did your husband and son leave the house together?”

"No. No… Rhys left first. I did not see him go.”

"And your husband?”

"Yes… yes, I saw him leave. Of course.”

"Did he say where he was going?”

"No… no. He quite often went out in the evening… to his club.

It is a very usual thing for a gentleman to do. Business, as well as pleasure, depends upon social acquaintances. He did not say…

specifically.”

He was not sure why, but he did not entirely believe her. Was it possible she was aware that he frequented certain dubious places, perhaps even that he used prostitutes? It was tacitly accepted by many, even though they would have been shocked if anyone had been vulgar and insensitive enough to speak it. Everyone was aware of bodily functions. No one referred to them; it was both indelicate and unnecessary.

"How was he dressed, ma'am?”

Her arched eyebrows rose. "Dressed? Presumably as you found him, Sergeant? What do you mean?”

"Did he have a watch, Mrs. Duff?”

"A watch? Yes. Oh, I see. He was… robbed. Yes, he had a very fine gold watch. It was not on him?”

"No. Was he in the habit of carrying much money with him?”

"I don't know. I can ask Bridlaw, his valet. He could probably tell you. Does it matter?”

"It might." Evan was puzzled. "Do you know if he was wearing his gold watch yesterday when he left?" It seemed a strange and rather perverse thing to go into St. Giles, for whatever reason, wearing a conspicuously expensive article like a gold watch, so easily visible.

It almost invited robbery. Was he lost? Was he even taken there against his will? "Did he mention meeting anyone?”

"No." She was quite certain.

"And the watch?" he prompted.

"Yes. I believe he was wearing it." She stared at him intently. "He almost always did. He was very fond of it. I think I would have noticed were he without it. I remember now he wore a brown suit. Not his best at all, in fact rather an inferior one. He had it made for the most casual wear, weekends and so forth.”

"And yet the night he went out was a Wednesday," Evan reminded her.

"Then he must have been planning a casual evening," she replied bluntly. "Why do you ask, Sergeant? What difference does it make now?

He was not… murdered… because of what he wore!”

"I was trying to deduce where he intended to go, Mrs. Duff. St.

Giles is not an area where we would expect to find a gentleman of Mr.

Duffs means and social standing. If I knew why he was there, or with whom, I would be a great deal closer to knowing what happened to him.”

"I see. I suppose it was foolish of me not to have understood." She looked away from him. The room was comfortable, beautifully proportioned. There was no sound but the crackle of flames in the fireplace and the soft, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the mantel.

Everything about it was gracious, serene, different in every conceivable way from the alley in which its owner had perished. Quite probably St. Giles was beyond the knowledge or even the imagination of his widow.

"Your husband left shortly after your son, Mrs. Duff?" He leaned a little forward as he spoke, as if to attract her attention.

She turned towards him slowly. "I suppose you want to know how my son was dressed also?”

"Yes, please.”

"I cannot remember. In something very ordinary, grey or navy I think.

No… a black coat and grey trousers.”

It was what he had been wearing when he was found. Evan said nothing.

"He said he was going out to enjoy himself," she said, her voice suddenly dropping and catching with emotion. "He was… angry.”

"With whom?" He tried to picture the scene. Rhys Duff was probably no more than eighteen or nineteen, still immature, rebellious.

She lifted her shoulder very slightly. It was a gesture of denial, as if the question were incapable of answer.

"Was there a quarrel, ma'am, a difference of opinion?”

She sat silent for so long he was afraid she was not going to reply. Of course it was bitterly painful. It was their last meeting. They could never now be reconciled. The fact that she did not deny it instantly was answer enough.

"It was trivial," she said at last. "It doesn't matter now. My husband was dubious about some of the company Rhys chose to keep. Oh… not anyone who would hurt him, Sergeant. I am speaking of female company. My husband wished Rhys to make the acquaintance of reputable young ladies. He was in a position to make a settlement upon him if he chose to marry, not a good fortune many young men can count upon.”

"Indeed not," Evan agreed with feeling. He knew dozens of young men, and indeed older ones, who would dearly like to marry, but could not afford it. To keep an establishment suitable for a wife cost more than three or four times the amount necessary to live a single life. And then the almost inevitable children added to that greatly.

Rhys Duff was an unusually fortunate young man. Why had he not been grateful for that?

As if answering his thought she spoke very softly.

"Perhaps he was… too young. He might have done it willingly, if… if it had not been his father's wish for him. The young can be so… so… wilful… even against their own interests." She seemed barely to be able to control the grief which welled up inside her. Evan hated having to press any questions at all, but he knew that now she was more likely to tell him an unguarded truth. Tomorrow she could be more careful, more watchful to conceal anything which damaged, or revealed.

He struggled for anything to say which could be of comfort, and there was nothing. In his mind he saw so clearly the pale, bruised face of the young man lying first in the alley, crumpled and bleeding, and then in St. Thomas's, his eyes filled with horror which was quite literally unspeakable. He saw again his mouth open as he struggled, and failed even to ut tera word. What could anyone say to comfort his mother?

He made a resolve that however long it took him, however hard it was, he would find out what had happened in that alley, and make whoever was responsible answer for it.

"He said nothing of where he might go?" he resumed. "Had he any usual haunts?”

"He left in some… heat," she replied. She seemed to have steadied herself again. "I believe his father had an idea as to where he frequented. Perhaps it is known to men in general? There are…

places. It was only an impression. I cannot help you, Sergeant.”

"But both men were in some temper when they left?”

"Yes.”

"How long apart in time was that?”

"I am not sure, because Rhys left the room, and it was not until about half an hour after that when we realised he had also left the house. My husband then went out immediately.”

"I see.”

"They were found together?" Again her voice wavered and she had to make a visible effort to control herself.

"Yes. It looks as if perhaps your husband caught up with your son, and some time after that they were set upon.”

"Maybe they were lost?" she looked at him anxiously.

"Quite possibly," he agreed, hoping it was true. Of all the explanations it would be the kindest, the easiest for her to bear. "It would not be hard to become lost in such a warren of alleys and passages. Merely a few yards in the wrong direction… he left the rest unsaid. He wanted to believe it almost as much as she did, because he knew so much more of the alternatives.

There was a knock on the door, an unusual thing for a servant to do.

It was normal for a butler simply to come in and then await a convenient moment either to serve whatever was required, or to deliver a message.

"Come in?" Sylvestra said with a lift of surprise.

The man who entered was lean and dark with a handsome face, deep-set eyes and a nose perhaps a trifle small. Now his expression was one of acute concern and distress. He all but ignored Evan and went immediately to Sylvestra, but his manner was professional as well as personal. Presumably he was the doctor Wharmby had sent for.

"My dear, I cannot begin to express my sorrow. Naturally anything I can do, you have but to name. I shall remain with you as long as you wish. Certainly I shall prescribe something to help you sleep, and to calm and assist you through these first dreadful days. Eglantyne says if you wish to leave here and stay with us, we shall see that you have all the peace and privacy you could wish. Our house will be yours.”