Brunswick Gardens by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online

overwrought, because I made remarks about burning atheists? Yes, I probably am. It isn’t every day that someone dies in this house and we have the police supposing it was murder. That is why you’re here, isn’t it? Doesn’t it upset most people a bit? I thought you would be used to people weeping and fainting.” It was almost a question. She waited for a moment to give him time to answer.
    “I am used to people being very shocked,” he agreed. “Notmany people actually faint.” He moved back, inviting her to be seated.
    “That’s convenient.” She perched on the edge of the chair opposite the fire. “I don’t suppose fainting people are much use to you.” She shook her head a little. “I’m sorry. That has nothing to do with anything, has it? I didn’t like Unity particularly, but I do care very much about my father. I really don’t believe he would have pushed her, no matter how much she annoyed him, at least not intentionally. They may have struggled. Could she have pushed him and slipped?” She looked up at him hopefully. “Perhaps if he stepped aside or tried to push her away? That’s possible, isn’t it? That would be an accident. And anyone can have an accident.”
    He sat down opposite her. “That is not what he said, Miss Parmenter. He said he did not leave his study at all. And your mother’s maid and the valet both heard Miss Bellwood call out ‘No, no, Reverend!’ So did your sister.”
    She said nothing. Her face reflected her misery and confusion, and equally her complete refusal to believe her father responsible for anything more than mischance.
    “Would he have been involved in an accident like that and then lied rather than own to it?” Pitt asked, hoping she would say yes. It would answer all the evidence and still not be murder.
    She thought about it for several seconds, then lifted her chin and met his eyes squarely. “Yes. Yes, he would.”
    He could tell that she was lying. It was precisely what Tryphena had said. She was putting her personal feelings for her father before truth. And he thought he might well have done the same thing were he ever to be in a similar dilemma.
    “Thank you, Miss Parmenter,” he acknowledged. “I am sorry I have had to trouble you. I believe there is also a curate living in the house, is that so?”
    She tensed slightly. “Yes. Do you want to see him? I don’t suppose he can help either, but you have to go through the motions, don’t you? I’ll fetch him.” She stood up and went to thedoor, and then turned as he rose also. “What are you going to do, Superintendent? You can’t arrest my father, can you, without proof or a confession?”
    “No, I can’t.”
    “And you don’t have either, do you.” That was a challenge, a statement she desperately wanted to be true.
    “Not so far.”
    “Good! I’ll get the curate for you.” She went out with quick, light steps, and Pitt was left alone to turn over in his mind the peculiar situation in which he found himself. It seemed, from Tryphena’s evidence, and that of the maid and the valet, as if Unity Bellwood had quarreled violently with Ramsay Parmenter, and after being highly abusive, stormed out of the room in temper. He had followed her, continuing the quarrel, and there had been some sort of struggle at the top of the stairs. She had called out, and then had fallen with such impetus she had pitched right to the bottom and broken her neck. It was absurd to enter into a physical struggle over issues of theories of God and the origin of man. It was the last way on earth to prove either argument true. Any bodily conflict between a middle-aged clergyman and a young female scholar was unseemly and held elements of farce. Clarice, the one person who disbelieved it, was certainly right.
    And yet it seemed undeniably what had happened.
    He did not hold any hope that the young curate would be any use whatever. He would probably support Ramsay Parmenter, out of professional and religious