Free Resurrection Row by Anne Perry Page B

still weighing the public scandal against the private fears. She made a last attempt. “His mother would not permit it.”
    “On the contrary.” He could afford to be a little gentler now. “She has written to request it. Perhaps she wishes these voices silenced as much as anyone else.”
    Alicia pulled a face of derision. She knew as well as Pitt, who had read the letter, what the old lady wanted. And she also knew what the old lady would say, and go on saying until the day she died, if there were no postmortem. It was the deciding factor, as Pitt had intended it should be.
    “Very well,” she agreed. “You may add my name to the request and take it to whoever it is who decides such things.”
    “Thank you, ma’am,” he said soberly. The victory had no pleasure in it. He had seldom fought so hard for something that tasted so bitter.
    The postmortem was a gruesome performance. They were never pleasant, but this one, performed on a body that had now been dead for nearly a month, was grimmer than most.
    Pitt attended because in the circumstances it was expected that someone from the police be there, and he wanted to know for himself each answer the minute it was obtained. It was a day when the cold seemed to darken everything, and the autopsy room was as bleak and impersonal as a mass grave. God knew how many dead had passed across its scrubbed table.
    The pathologist wore a mask, and Pitt was glad of one, too. The smell caught at the stomach. They worked for hours, calmly and in silence but for brief instructions as organs were removed and handed over, samples taken to search for poisons. The heart was looked at with particular care.
    At the end Pitt walked out, numb with cold, his stomach tight from nausea. He huddled his jacket round him and pulled his muffler up to his ears.
    “Well?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” the pathologist replied dourly. “He died of heart failure.”
    Pitt stood silently. Half of him had wanted that answer, and yet the other half could not believe it, could see no sense in it.
    “Don’t know what brought it on,” the pathologist went on. “Heart’s not in a bad condition, for a man of his age. Bit fatty, arteries thickening a little, but not enough to kill him.”
    Pitt was obliged to ask. “Could it have been poison?”
    “Could have,” the pathologist answered. “Quite a lot of digitalis there, but his doctor says the old lady had it for her heart. He could have taken it himself. Doesn’t look like enough to have done him any harm—but I can’t say for certain. People don’t all react the same way, and he’s been dead awhile now.”
    “So he could have died of digitalis poisoning?”
    “Possibly,” the pathologist agreed. “But not likely. Sorry I can’t be more help, but there just isn’t anything definite.”
    Pitt had to be content. The man was professional and had done his job. The postmortem had proved nothing, except confirm to the world that the police were suspicious.
    Pitt dreaded having to tell the news to his superiors. He treated himself to a hansom from the hospital back to the police station and got out in the rain at the other end. He ran up the steps two at a time and dived into the shelter of the entrance. He shook himself, scattering water all over the floor, then went in.
    Before he reached the far side of the room and went up the stairs to break the news, he was confronted by the red face of a young sergeant.
    “Mr. Pitt, sir!”
    Pitt stopped, irritated; he wanted to get this over as soon as possible. “What is it?” he demanded.
    The sergeant took a deep breath. “There’s another grave, sir—I mean another open one—sir.”
    Pitt stood stock-still. “Another grave?” he said fatuously.
    “Yes, sir—robbed, like the last one. Coffin—but no corpse.”
    “And whose is it?”
    “A Mr. W. W. Porteous, sir. William Wilberforce Porteous, to be exact.”

4
    P ITT DID NOT tell Charlotte about the second grave, nor indeed about the result