Southampton Row (11 page)

“Who left last?” Pitt asked him.

“The woman,” Kingsley said. “She was still there when I went.” He looked unhappy, as if the answer gave him no satisfaction or sense of escape.

“The other man went out of the garden doors?” Tellman asked for confirmation.

“Yes.”

“Did Miss Lamont go with him and lock the gate to Cosmo Place after him?”

“No, she remained with us.”

“The maid?”

“She left shortly after we arrived. Went out of the kitchen door, I suppose. Saw her walk across the garden just about dusk. She was carrying a lantern, which she left outside the front door.”

Pitt visualized the garden path from the back of the house on Southampton Row. It led only to the door in the wall and Cosmo Place. “She went out of the side door?” he said aloud.

“Yes,” Kingsley agreed. “Probably why she took the lantern. Left it on the front step. Heard her footsteps on the gravel, and saw the light.”

Tellman finished the meaning for him. “So either the woman killed Miss Lamont, or you or the other man came back through the side gate and killed her. Or someone we know nothing about came for a later meeting of some sort and Miss Lamont herself let them in through the front door. But that was unlikely, and according to the maid, Miss Lamont was usually tired after a séance and retired to her bed when her guests left. There was no one else in the diary. No one else has been seen or heard. What time did you leave, General Kingsley?”

“About quarter to midnight.”

“Late to have a further client,” Pitt remarked.

Kingsley rubbed his hand over his brow as if his head pained him. He looked weary and beaten. “I really have no idea what happened after I left,” he said gently. “She seemed perfectly well then, and not in any state of anxiety or distress, certainly not as if she were afraid of anyone, or indeed expected anyone. She was tired, very tired. Calling upon the spirits of those gone before was always a very exhausting experience. It usually left her with barely the strength to wish us good-night and to see us to the door.” He stopped, staring miserably into emptiness stretching ahead of him.

Tellman glanced at Pitt and away again. The depth of emotion in Kingsley, and the bizarre subject of the discussion, embarrassed him. It was plain in the rigidity of his body and the way his hands fidgeted on his lap.

“Can you describe the evening for us, please, General Kingsley?” Pitt prompted. “What happened after you arrived and were all assembled? Was there a conversation?”

“No. We . . . we were all there for our own reasons. I had no desire to share mine with others, and I believe they felt the same.” Kingsley did not look at him as he said this, as if the matter were still private. “We sat around the table and waited while Miss Lamont concentrated upon . . . summoning the spirits.” He spoke hesitantly. He must have been aware at least of Tellman’s disbelief and a hovering between pity and contempt. He seemed almost to breathe it in the air.

Pitt was uncertain what he felt, not contempt so much as unease, a kind of oppression. He could not have said why, but he believed it was not right to be attempting to reach the spirits of the dead, whether it was possible or not.

“Where did you sit?” he said aloud.

“Miss Lamont at the head of the table in the tall-backed chair,” he replied. “The woman opposite her, the man to her left with his back to the windows, I to her right. We held hands, naturally.”

Tellman fidgeted slightly in his seat.

“Is that usual?” Pitt asked.

“Yes, to prevent suspicion of fraud. Some mediums will even sit inside a cabinet to be doubly restrained, and I believe Miss Lamont did that on occasion, but I have not seen her do it.”

“Why not?” Tellman asked abruptly.

“There was no need,” Kingsley replied with a swift, angry glance at him. “We were all believers. We would not have insulted her with such a . . . a piece of physical nonsense. We were seeking knowledge, a greater truth, not cheap sensations.”

“I see,” Pitt said quietly, without looking at Tellman. “Then what happened?”

“As far as I can recall, Miss Lamont went into a trance,” Kingsley replied. “She seemed to rise in the air several inches above her chair, and after some moments she spoke in a totally different voice. I . . .” He looked down at the floor. “I believe it was her spirit guide speaking to us through her.” The words were so quiet Pitt had to strain to hear them. “He wished to know what we had come to find out. He was a young Russian boy who had died in terrible cold . . . in the far north, up near the Arctic Circle.”

This time Tellman made no movement at all.

“And what did any of you reply?” Pitt asked. He needed to know what Rose Serracold had attended for, but he was afraid that if Kingsley gave that answer first, and saw or sensed Tellman’s response, he would then conceal his own reasons. And perhaps they, too, were relevant. After all, he had written the virulent political attack on Aubrey Serracold, albeit without knowing he was the husband of the woman who sat beside him at Maude Lamont’s table. Or had he?

Kingsley was silent for a moment.

“General Kingsley?” Pitt pressed. “What did you wish to learn through Miss Lamont?”

With great difficulty Kingsley answered, still staring at the floor. “My son Robert served in Africa, in the Zulu Wars. He was killed in action there. I . . .” His voice cracked. “I wanted to assure myself that his death was . . . that his spirit was at rest. There have been . . . different accounts of the action. I needed to know.” He did not look up at Pitt, as if he did not want to see what was in his face, or reveal the raw need inside him.

Pitt felt some acknowledgment at least was required. “I see,” he said softly. “And were you able to obtain such a thing?” He knew even as he asked that Kingsley had not. The fear in him was tangible in the room, and now too the grief was explained. In Maude Lamont’s death he had lost his contact with the only world he believed could give him an answer. Surely he would not willingly have destroyed it?

“Not . . . yet,” Kingsley replied, his words so swallowed in his throat Pitt was not sure for a moment if he had heard them at all. He was aware of Tellman beside him and his acute discomfort. Ordinary grief he was accustomed to, but this confounded and disturbed him. He was unsure of his own responses. He ought to feel ridicule and impatience, that was what all his experience of life had taught him. Looking for a moment at Tellman’s face, it was compassion that Pitt saw.

“What did the woman want?” Pitt asked.

Kingsley was jerked out of his own thoughts. He glanced up, his eyes puzzled. “I’m not sure. She was very eager to contact her mother, but I was not certain why. It must have been a very private matter, because all her questions were too oblique for me to understand.”

“And the answers?” Pitt found himself tense, afraid of what Kingsley might tell him. Why was Rose Serracold risking the expense and possible ridicule at this extraordinarily sensitive time? Had she no perception at all of what it meant? Or was her search so important to her that all other things were subject to it? What could that possibly be?

“Her mother?” Pitt said aloud.

“Yes.”

“And did Miss Lamont contact her?”

“Apparently.”

“What did she ask to know?”

“Nothing specific.” Kingsley looked puzzled as he recalled it. “Just general family information, other relatives who had . . . gone over. Her grandmother, her father. Were they well.”

“When was that?” Pitt pressed. “The night of Miss Lamont’s death? Before that? If you can remember exactly what was said it would be most helpful.”

Kingsley frowned. “I find it very difficult to imagine that she would have hurt Miss Lamont,” he said earnestly. “She seemed an eccentric woman, highly individual, but I saw no anger in her, no unkindness or ill feeling, rather . . .” He stopped.

Tellman leaned forward.

“Yes?” Pitt prompted.

“Fear,” Kingsley said quietly, as if it were an emotion with which he had long intimacy. “But there is no point in your asking me of what, because I have no idea. She seemed concerned if her father were happy, if he were restored to health. It was an odd question, I thought, as if disability could be carried beyond the grave. But perhaps when one has loved somebody such concerns are understandable. Love does not always go by the rules of reason.” Still he kept his eyes averted, as if it were his only privacy.

“And the other man, who was he seeking?” Pitt asked.

“I don’t recall anyone in particular.” Kingsley frowned as he said it, as if realizing only now how it puzzled him.

“But he came at least three times that you know of?” Pitt insisted.

“Yes. He was deeply in earnest,” Kingsley assured him, looking up now, no more emotion to guard. The man had stirred nothing in him, no specific compassion. “He asked some very telling questions and would not rest until they were answered,” he explained. “I did ask Miss Lamont on one occasion if she thought he were a skeptic, a doubter, but she appeared to know his reasons and was quite undisturbed by them. I . . . I find that . . .” He stopped.

“Odd?” Tellman supplied.

“I was going to say ‘comforting,’ ” Kingsley answered.

He did not explain himself, but Pitt understood. Maude Lamont must have been very confident in her skill, whatever its nature, to be unthreatened by the presence of a skeptic at her séances. But then she had apparently not been aware of the hatred which had ended in her death.

“This man did not ask to contact anyone by name?” he persisted.

“Several,” Kingsley contradicted him. “But none with particular eagerness. It seemed almost as if he were picking names at random.”

“Any subject that he sought?” Pitt would not give up so easily.

“None that I was aware.”

Pitt looked at him gravely. “We don’t know who he is, General Kingsley. He may be the one who murdered Maude Lamont.” He saw Kingsley wince and the lost look return to his eyes. “What did you gather from his voice, his manner, anything at all? His clothes, his deportment! Was he a well-educated man? What were his beliefs in anything, or his opinions? What would you guess his background to be, his income, his place in society? If he has an occupation, what is it? Did he ever mention any family, wife, or where he lives? Did he come far to attend the séances? Anything at all?”

Again, Kingsley waited for so long in thought that Pitt was afraid he was not going to reply. Then he began to speak slowly. “His accent suggested an excellent education. The little he said inclined more towards the humanities than any science. His clothes, so much as I could see them or thought to look, were discreet, dark. His manner was nervous, but I attributed that to the occasion. I cannot remember any specific opinions, but I had the feeling that he was more conservative than I.”

Pitt thought of the newspaper article. “Are you not conservative, General Kingsley?”

“No, sir.” Now Kingsley looked up directly at Pitt, meeting his eyes. “I have served in the army with all manner of men, and I would dearly like to see a fairer treatment of the ranks than exists at the present moment. I think when one has faced hardship and even death side by side with a man, one sees the worth of him far more clearly than his worldly opportunities may make apparent.”

From the candor in his face disbelief was impossible. And yet what he said was deeply at odds with what he had written to four separate newspapers. Pitt was more convinced than ever that Kingsley was involved with Voisey and the election, but whether willingly or not he had no idea. Nor did he know if with sufficient pressure he might have contributed to Maude Lamont’s death.

He considered mentioning the articles against Serracold, and telling him that the woman at the séances was Serracold’s wife. But he could think of nothing to gain by it now, and once told he could never achieve that possible advantage of surprise.

So he thanked Kingsley and rose to take his leave with Tellman behind him, morose and unsatisfied.

“What do you make of that?” Tellman demanded as soon as they were out on the footpath in the sun. “What makes a man like that go to a . . . a . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know how she did it, but it’s got to be a trick. How does anybody with education not see through it in moments? If the leaders of our army believe in that sort of . . . of fairy tale . . .”

“Education doesn’t stop loneliness or grief,” Pitt replied. There was still a certain innocence in Tellman, in spite of the harsh realism of so many of his views. It irritated Pitt, and yet perversely he liked Tellman the better for it. He was not unwilling to learn. “We all find our own way of easing those wounds,” he went on. “We do what we can.”

“If I lost someone and tried that way of comforting myself,” Tellman said thoughtfully, glancing down at the pavement, “and if I found someone had tricked me, I can’t say I wouldn’t lose my head and try to choke them. If . . . if someone thought that white stuff was part of a ghost, or whatever it’s supposed to be, and they pushed it back into her mouth, is that murder, or would it be accident?”

Pitt smiled in spite of himself. “If that had happened, there were three of them there and at least two of them would have called a doctor, or the police. If all three of them were party to it, then it would be a conspiracy, intended or not.”

Tellman grunted and kicked at a small stone in front of him, sending it into the gutter. “I suppose we’re going to see Mrs. Serracold now?”

“Yes, if she’s in. If not, we’ll wait for her.”

“I suppose you want to conduct that interview yourself, too?”

“No, but I will. Her husband is standing for Parliament.”

“Are the Irish bombers after him?” There was a touch of sarcasm in Tellman’s voice, but it was still a question.

“Not so far as I know,” Pitt said dryly. “I should doubt it; he’s for Home Rule.”

Tellman grunted again, and muttered something under his breath.

Pitt did not bother to ask him what it was.

They had to wait nearly an hour for Rose Serracold to come in. They were left in a deep red morning room with a crystal bowl of pink roses on the table in the center. Pitt smiled to himself as he saw Tellman wince. It was an unusual room, almost overpowering at first, with its lush, delicate paintings on the walls and its simple white fireplace. But as he was in the room over a space of time he found it increasingly pleasing. He looked at the scrapbooks set out on the low table. They were beautifully made, put there to while away the time of callers. The first was of botanical specimens, and beside each in neat, rather eccentric handwriting was a short history of the plant, its native habitat, when it was introduced into Britain and by whom, and the meaning of its name. Fond of his own garden, when he had the time, Pitt found it totally absorbing. His imagination was fired by the extraordinary courage of the men who had scaled mountains in India and Nepal, China and Tibet, in search of yet one more perfect bloom, and lovingly brought them back to England.