Resurrection Row by Anne Perry Page B

little startled. Perhaps he had not thought of Charlotte with children. He and Sarah had not had any—instantly Pitt regretted his bragging. Already, with these few emotion-driven words, he had made detachment impossible, destroyed the professionalism he had intended to observe.
    “I hope you’re well?” He floundered a little. “This is a very wretched business about Lord Fitzroy-Hammond.”
    Dominic’s face colored, then the blood drained away. “Ghastly,” he agreed. “I hope you can find whoever did it and have him put away. Surely he must be mad and not too hard to recognize?”
    “Unfortunately, insanity is not like the pox,” Pitt replied. “It doesn’t give you a rash that can be seen by the eye.”
    Alicia stood silently, still absorbing the fact that the two men obviously knew each other and that it was no chance or merely formal acquaintance.
    “Not by the untrained eye,” Dominic agreed. “But you are not untrained! And haven’t you doctors, or something?”
    “Before you can do anything with a disease, you need to be familiar with it,” Pitt pointed out. “And grave robbing is not something that happens more than once in a policeman’s career.”
    “What about selling them for medical research, wasn’t there a trade? I’m sorry, Alicia—” he apologized.
    “Resurrectionists? That was quite a while ago,” Pitt replied. “They get cadavers quite legally now.”
    “Then it can’t be that.” Dominic’s shoulders slumped. “It’s grisly. Do you think—no, it can’t be. They didn’t harm the body. It can’t be necromancers or satanists or anything like that—”
    Alicia spoke at last. “Mr. Pitt is obliged to consider the possibility that they did not choose Augustus by chance, but quite deliberately, either out of hatred for him or for one of us.”
    Dominic was not as surprised as Pitt would have expected. The thought occurred to him that perhaps she had already said as much before he came into the room. Perhaps that was even what they were discussing when he had broken in on them.
    “I can’t imagine hating anyone so much,” Dominic said flatly.
    It was Pitt’s chance, and he took it. “There can be many reasons for hatred,” he said, trying to make his voice lighter again, as though he were speaking impersonally. “Fear is one of the oldest. Although I have not yet been able to discover any reason why anybody should have feared Lord Augustus. It might turn out he had a power I know nothing of, a financial power, or even a power of knowledge of something someone else would greatly prefer kept secret. He may have learned of something, even unintentionally.”
    “Then he would have kept it so,” Alicia said with conviction. “Augustus was very loyal, and he never gossiped.”
    “He might consider it his duty to speak if the matter were a crime,” Pitt pointed out.
    Neither Alicia nor Dominic spoke. They were both still standing, Dominic so close to the fire his legs must be scorching.
    “Or revenge,” Pitt continued. “People can harbor a desire for revenge, nursing it over the years till it becomes monstrous. The original offense need not have been grave; indeed, it may not have been a genuine offense at all, merely a success where the other failed, something quite innocent.”
    He drew in breath and came a little closer to what he really wanted to say.
    “And of course there is greed, one of the commonest motives in the world. It may be that someone stood to benefit from his death in ways that are not immediately obvious—”
    The blood ebbed out of Alicia’s face and then rushed back in scarlet. Pitt had not meant anything quite so simple as inheritance, but he knew she thought he did. Dominic too was silent, shifting from one foot to the other. It may have been unease, or merely that he was too close to the fire and unable to move without asking Pitt to move also.
    “Or jealousy,” Pitt finished. “A desire for freedom. Perhaps he stood in the way of