Southampton Row (13 page)

“Unfortunately, I cannot tell you who he was or where to find him,” she said quietly. “I regret very much now that I ever went there. It seemed harmless at the time, an exploration of knowledge, a little daring. I believe passionately in freedom of the mind, Mr. Pitt. I despise censorship, the curtailment of learning . . . for anyone at all!” Her voice had a completely different tone; there was no banter in it now, no guard. “I would have absolute freedom of religion built into the law, if I could. We have to behave in a civilized fashion, respect each other’s safety—and property, too, I suppose. But no one should set bounds to the mind, above all to the spirit!” She swiveled around, staring at Pitt with color back in her face at last, her chin high and her marvelous eyes blazing.

“And was this third man trying to do that, Mrs. Serracold?” Pitt asked.

“Don’t be naive!” she said tartly. “We spend half the energy in our lives trying to dictate what other people will think! That is mostly what the church is about. Don’t you listen?”

Pitt smiled. “Are you trying to destroy my belief in it, Mrs. Serracold?” he enquired innocently.

The color glowed up her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It is just that one person’s freedom so easily tramples upon another’s. Why did you go to Miss Lamont? Whom did you wish to contact?”

“Why is it your business, Mr. Pitt?” She gestured for him to sit down again.

“Because she was murdered either while you were there or shortly after you left,” he answered, relaxing back into the chair and seeing Tellman do the same.

Her body stiffened. “I have no idea who was responsible for that,” she said almost under her breath. “Except that it was not I.”

“I have been told that you wanted to contact your mother. Is that not true?”

“Who told you?” she demanded. “The soldier?”

“Why should he not? You told me he wished to contact his son, to learn how he died.”

“Yes,” she conceded.

“What was it you wished to learn from your mother?”

“Nothing!” she said instantly. “I simply wanted to speak with her. Surely that is natural enough?”

Tellman did not believe her, and he knew by the way Pitt’s hands stayed motionless and stiff on his knees that he did not, either. But he did not challenge her.

“Yes, of course it is,” Pitt agreed. “Have you visited other spirit mediums?”

She waited so long that her hesitation was obvious, and she gave a slight gesture of capitulation. “No. I admit that, Mr. Pitt. I didn’t trust anyone until I met Miss Lamont.”

“How did you meet her, Mrs. Serracold?”

“She was recommended to me,” she said, as if surprised that he should ask.

His interest quickened. He hoped it did not show in his face. “By whom?”

“Do you imagine it matters?” she parried.

“Will you tell me, Mrs. Serracold, or do I have to enquire?”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“That would be embarrassing! And unnecessary.” She was angry. There were two spots of color high on her smooth cheekbones. “As far as I can recall, it was Eleanor Mountford. I don’t remember how she heard of her. She was really very famous, you know—Miss Lamont, I mean.”

“She had a lot of clients from society?” Pitt’s voice was expressionless.

“Surely you know that.” She raised her brows slightly.

“I know what her appointment book says,” he agreed. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Serracold.” He rose to his feet again.

“Mr. Pitt . . . Mr. Pitt, my husband is standing for Parliament. I . . .”

“I know that,” he said softly. “And I am aware of what capital the Tory press may make of your visits to Miss Lamont, if they become known.”

She blushed, but her face was defiant and she made no immediate answer.

“Was Mr. Serracold aware you were seeing Miss Lamont?” he asked.

Her look wavered. “No.” It was little more than a murmur. “I went in the evenings he spent at his club. They were regular. It was quite easy.”

“You took a very great risk,” he pointed out. “Did you go alone?”

“Of course! It is a . . . personal thing.” She spoke with great difficulty. It cost her a very visible effort to ask him. “Mr. Pitt, if you could . . .”

“I shall be discreet for as long as possible,” he promised. “But anything you remember may be of help.”

“Yes . . . of course. I wish I could think of something. Apart from the question of justice . . . I shall miss her. Good day, Mr. Pitt . . . Inspector.” She hesitated only an instant, forgetting Tellman’s name. But it was not of importance. She did not bother to wait for him to supply it, but sailed out of the room, leaving the maid to show them out.

Neither Pitt nor Tellman commented on leaving the Serracold house. Pitt could sense Tellman’s confusion and it matched his own. She was nothing that he could have foreseen in the wife of a man who was running for potentially one of the highest public offices in the country. She was eccentric, arrogant enough to be offensive, and yet there was an honesty about her he admired. Her views were naive, but they were idealistic, born of a desire for a tolerance she herself could not achieve.

Above all she was vulnerable, because there was something she had wanted from Maude Lamont so intensely that she had gone to her séances time after time, even though she was aware of the potential political cost if it became known. And her hair was long and pale silver-gold. He could not forget the hair on Maude’s sleeve, which might mean anything, or nothing.

“Find out more about how Maude Lamont acquires her clients,” he said to Tellman as they lengthened their pace down the footpath. “What does she charge? Is it the same for all clients? And does it account for her income?”

“Blackmail?” Tellman said with his disgust unconcealed. “It’s pathetic to be taken in by that . . . that nonsense. But plenty of people are! Is it worth paying to keep silent about?”

“That depends what she’s found out,” Pitt replied, stepping off the curb and dodging a pile of horse manure. “Most of us have something we’d prefer to keep private. It doesn’t have to be a crime, just an indiscretion, or a weakness we fear having exploited. No one likes to look a fool.”

Tellman stared straight ahead of him. “Anyone who goes to a woman who spits up egg white and says it’s a message from the spirit world, and believes it, is a fool,” he said with a viciousness that sprang from a pity he did not want to feel. “But I’ll find out everything about her that I can. Mostly I’d like to know how she did it!”

They stepped up onto the pavement at the far side of the street just as a four-wheeled growler passed by within a yard of them.

“Mixtures of mechanical trickery, sleight of hand, and power of suggestion, I should think,” Pitt answered, stopping at the curb to allow a coach and four to pass by. “I assume you know it was egg white from the autopsy?” he said a little caustically.

Tellman grunted. “And cheesecloth,” he elaborated. “She choked on it. It was in her throat and lungs, poor creature.”

“Anything else you didn’t mention?”

Tellman glanced at him with venom. “No! She was a healthy woman of about thirty-seven or eight. She died of asphyxia. You already saw the bruises. That’s all there is.” He grunted. “And I meant find out the things people don’t want known. Was she clever enough to guess from the bits and pieces people asked, like where did Great-uncle Ernie hide his will? Or did my father really have an affair with the girl in the house opposite? Or anything at all!”

“I expect with a lot of listening at parties,” Pitt replied, “watching people, asking a few questions, exerting a little pressure now and then, she could piece together enough to make some very good guesses. And people’s own conclusions for what she gave them probably supplied the rest. Guilt runs from imaginary threats, as well as real ones. How many times have you seen people betray themselves because they thought we knew, when we didn’t?”

“Lots,” Tellman said, dodging around a costermonger’s cart of vegetables. “But what if she pushed too hard and somebody turned on her? That’d be the end of it all for her.”

“Seems as if it was.” Pitt shot him a sideways glance.

“Then what’s it to do with Special Branch?” Tellman demanded, anger quick in his voice. “Just because Serracold’s running for Parliament? Does Special Branch play party politics? Is that it?”

“No, that’s not it!” Pitt snapped, wounded and angry that Tellman should think it a possibility. “I don’t care that much”—he snapped his fingers—“who gets in. I care that the fight is fair. I think most of the ideas I’ve heard from Aubrey Serracold are totally daft. He hasn’t got the faintest idea of reality. But if he’s beaten I want it done by people who disagree with him, not people who think his wife committed a crime, if she didn’t.”

Tellman walked in silence. He did not apologize, although he opened his mouth and drew in his breath as if to speak a couple of times. When they came to the main thoroughfare he said good-bye and strode off in the opposite direction, back stiff, head high, while Pitt went to find a hansom to report to Victor Narraway.

“Well?” Narraway demanded, leaning back in his chair and staring up at Pitt unblinkingly.

Pitt sat down without being asked. “So far it seems to have been one of her three clients that evening,” he answered. “Major General Roland Kingsley, Mrs. Serracold, or a man whose identity none of them knew, except possibly Maude Lamont herself.”

“What do you mean ‘none’? You mean neither?”

“No I don’t. Apparently, the maid also didn’t know who he was. She says she never even saw him. He came in and left through the French doors and the door in the garden wall.”

“Why? Was the door in the wall left open? Then anyone could have come or gone.”

“The door in the garden wall to Cosmo Place was locked but not barred,” Pitt explained. “Other clients had keys. We don’t know who. There’s no record of it. The French doors were self-closing, so there’s no way of knowing if anyone left that way after she was dead. As to why, that’s obvious—he didn’t wish anyone at all to know he was there.”

“Why was he there?”

“I don’t know. Mrs. Serracold thinks he was a skeptic, trying to prove Maude Lamont a fraud.”

“Why? Academic interest, or personal? Find out, Pitt.”

“I intend to!” Pitt retorted. “But first I’d like to know who he is!”

Narraway frowned. “You said ‘Roland Kingsley’? Is he the same man who wrote that damning piece about Serracold?”

“Yes . . .”

“Yes, what?” Narraway’s clear, dark eyes bored into Pitt’s. “There’s something more.”

“He’s afraid,” Pitt said tentatively. “Some pain to do with his son’s death.”

“Find out about it!”

Pitt had been going to say that Kingsley’s personal opinions did not seem as virulent as those he had expressed in his letter to the newspapers, but he was not sure enough of it. He had nothing but an impression, and he did not trust Narraway, did not know him well enough to venture something so nebulous. He was uncomfortable working for a man of whom he knew so little. He had no sense of Narraway’s personal beliefs; his passions or needs, his weaknesses, even his background before their first meeting, were all shrouded in mystery to him.

“What about Mrs. Serracold?” Narraway went on. “I don’t like Serracold’s socialism, but anything is better than Voisey with his foot on the ladder. I need answers, Pitt.” He sat forward suddenly. “This is the Inner Circle we are fighting. If you doubt what they can do, think back to Whitechapel. Think of the sugar factory, remember Fetters lying dead on his own library floor. Think how close they came to winning! Think of your family!”

Pitt was cold. “I am doing that,” he said between his teeth. It cost him an effort precisely because he was thinking of Charlotte and the children and he hated Narraway for reminding him of it. “But if Rose Serracold murdered Maude Lamont, I’m not hiding it. If we do that, then we’re no better than Voisey is, and he’ll know that as well as we do.”

Narraway’s face was dark. “Don’t lecture me, Pitt!” he spat. “You are not a constable on the beat blowing his whistle if somebody picks a pocket! There’s more than a silk handkerchief or a gold watch at stake, there’s the government of the nation. If you want simple answers, go back to arresting cutpurses!”

“And precisely what did you say was the difference between us and the Inner Circle, sir?” Pitt exaggerated the last word, and his voice was sharp and brittle as ice.

Narraway’s lips tightened, and there was anger deep in his face, but there was a flash of admiration also.

“I haven’t asked you to protect Rose Serracold if she’s guilty, Pitt. Don’t be so damned pompous! Although it sounds as if you think she might be. What did she go to this wretched woman for anyway?”

“I don’t know yet.” Pitt relaxed into the chair again. “To contact her mother, she admits that, and Kingsley said that was the reason she gave Maude Lamont, but she hasn’t told me why, or how it can matter so much she’s prepared to deceive her husband and risk his career if some Tory journalist wants to make a fool of her.”

“And did she contact her mother?” Narraway asked.

Pitt looked at him with a sudden tingle of shock. Narraway’s eyes were clear, without irony. For an instant it was as if he had believed either answer were possible.

“Not to her satisfaction,” Pitt replied with certainty. “She is still searching for something, an answer she needs . . . and fears.”

“She believed in Maude Lamont’s powers.” That was a statement.

“Yes.”

Narraway breathed in and out silently, very slowly. “Did she describe what happened?”

“Apparently, Maude Lamont’s appearance changed, her face shone and her breath seemed luminous. She spoke with a different voice.” He swallowed. “She also seemed to rise in the air, and her hands to elongate.”

The tension eased out of Narraway’s body. “Hardly conclusive. Many of them do that. Vocal tricks, oil of phosphorus. Still . . . I suppose we believe what we want to believe . . . or what we dread to.” He looked away. “And some of us feel compelled to find out, however much it hurts. Others leave it forever hanging unknown . . . can’t bear to take away the last hope.” He straightened up sharply. “Don’t underestimate Voisey, Pitt. He won’t let desire for revenge get in the way of his ambition. You aren’t that important to him. But he won’t ever forget it was you who beat him in Whitechapel. He won’t forget, and he certainly won’t forgive. He will wait for his time, and it will be when you can’t defend yourself. He won’t be precipitated, but one day he’ll strike. I’ll watch your back for you as I can, but I’m not infallible.”