Southampton Row (20 page)

“Rose Serracold,” Pitt reminded him. “Her family?”

“Her mother was a society beauty, as far as I know,” Jack replied. “Her father was from a good family. I did know who, but I forget. I think he died quite young, but it was illness, nothing suspicious, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Pitt was reaching after every possibility. “A lot of money?”

They crossed the alley and turned left, feet echoing on the cobbles.

“I don’t think so,” Jack answered. “No. Aubrey has the money.”

“Any connection with Voisey?” Pitt asked, trying to keep his voice light, free from the emotion that surged up in him at even the mention of his name.

Jack glanced at him, then away again. “Rose, you mean? If she has, then she’s lying, at least by implication. She wants Aubrey to win. Surely if she knew anything about him at all, she would say so?”

“And General Kingsley?”

Jack was puzzled. “General Kingsley? You mean the fellow who wrote that harsh piece in the newspaper about Aubrey?”

“Several harsh pieces,” Pitt corrected. “Yes. Has he any personal enmity against Serracold?”

“None that Aubrey knows of, unless he’s concealing something as well, and I’d swear he isn’t. He’s actually quite transparent. He was pretty shaken by it. He’s not used to personal attack.”

“Could Rose know him?”

They were halfway along a stretch of narrow pavement outside a warehouse wall. The single street lamp lit only a few yards on either side, cobbles and a dry gutter.

Jack stopped again, his brows drawn together, his eyes narrow. “I presume that is a euphemism for having an affair?”

“Probably, but I mean any kind of knowing,” Pitt said with rising urgency. “Jack, I have to find out who killed Maude Lamont, preferably show beyond any doubt at all that it was not Rose. Mocking her for attending séances will be nothing compared with what Voisey will see that the newspapers do to her if any secret emerges which suggests she committed murder to hide it.”

They were still under the light. Pitt saw Jack wince, and he seemed almost to shrink into himself. His shoulders drooped and the color ebbed from his face.

“It’s a hell of a mess, Thomas,” he said wearily. “The more I know of it the less I understand, and I can explain almost nothing at all to people like those.” He jerked a hand backwards to indicate the crowd near the dockside, now out of sight beyond the jutting mass of the warehouse.

Pitt did not ask him to explain; he knew he was going to.

“I used to imagine the election rested on some kind of argument,” Jack went on, starting to walk again. Ahead of them, the Goat and Compasses public house was glowing invitingly in the rapidly thickening dusk. “It’s all emotion,” he went on. “Feeling, not thought. I don’t even know if I want us to win . . . as a party, I mean. Of course I want power! Without it we can’t do anything. We might as well pack up and leave the field to the opposition!” He glanced at Pitt quickly. “We were the first country in the world to be industrialized. We manufacture millions of pounds worth of goods every year, and the money that earns pays most of our population.”

Pitt waited for the rest of it after they entered the Goat and Compasses, found a table and Jack sank into a chair and requested a large ale. Pitt fetched his usual cider and returned with both tankards.

Jack drank for several moments before continuing. “More and more goods all the time. If we are to survive, then we need to sell all those goods to someone!”

Pitt had a sudden perception where Jack was reaching. “The Empire,” he said quietly. “Are we back to Home Rule again?”

“More than that,” Jack replied. “We’re on the whole moral subject of should we have an empire at all!”

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Pitt asked dryly.

“Several hundred years. As I said, it isn’t based on thought. If we divest ourselves of the Empire now, who do we sell all our goods to? France and Germany and the rest of Europe, not to mention America, are all manufacturing now as well.” He bit his lip. “The goods are growing more and the markets less. It’s a wonderful ideal to give it all back, but if we lose our markets, untold numbers of our own people will starve. If the country’s economy is ruined there’ll be no one with the power to help them, for all the good intentions in the world.” A wet glass slipped from someone’s hand and splintered on the floor. They cursed fluently. A woman laughed too loudly at a joke.

Jack gave an abrupt, angry little gesture. “And try campaigning by telling people, ‘Vote for me and I’ll free you of the Empire you are so against. Of course, unfortunately it will cost you your jobs, your homes, even your town. The factories will go out of business because there’ll be too few customers being courted to buy too many goods. The shops will close, and the factories and the mills. But it’s a high-minded thing to do, and must surely be morally right!’ “

“Are our manufactured goods not competitive against the rest of the world?” Pitt asked.

“The world doesn’t need them.” Jack picked up the second half of his beer. “They’re making their own. Can you see anybody voting you in on that?” He raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide. “Or do you think we should tell them we won’t, and then do it anyway? Lie to them all in the name of moral righteousness! Isn’t it up to them whether they want to save their souls at that price?”

Pitt said nothing.

Jack did not expect an answer. “It’s all in the uses and balances of power, isn’t it?” he went on softly, staring into the distance of the crowded tavern. “Can you pick up the sword without cutting yourself? Someone must. But do you know how to use it any better than the next man? Don’t you believe anything enough to fight for it? And what are you worth if you don’t?” He looked at Pitt again. “Imagine not caring for anything sufficiently to take a risk for it! You’d lose even what you had. I can imagine what Emily thinks of that.” He stared down at the mug in his hand, smiling a trifle twistedly. Then suddenly he looked up at Pitt. “Mind, I’d sooner face Emily than Charlotte.”

Pitt winced, a new set of images in his mind, racing away, one melting into another. For an instant he missed Charlotte so much it was a physical ache. He had sent her away to be safe, but he was not stepping forward to fight some noble battle by choice. Looking at it now with hindsight, if he could have evaded Voisey, perhaps he would have. “Are you thinking of what will happen if you are given office?” he said suddenly.

A swift color stained Jack’s cheeks, making a lie impossible. “Not exactly. They asked me to join the Inner Circle. Of course I won’t!” He spoke a little too quickly, his eyes fixed on Pitt’s. “But it was very clearly pointed out to me, if I were not with them, then my opponents would be. You can’t step outside it all . . .”

Pitt felt as if someone had opened the doors onto a winter night. “Who was it that asked you?” he said softly.

Jack shook his head, only a tiny movement. “I can’t tell you.”

It was on the edge of Pitt’s tongue to demand if it had been Charles Voisey, but he remembered at the last moment that Jack did not know what had happened in Whitechapel, and for his own safety it was better it should remain so. Or was it? He looked at Jack now, sitting at the other side of the table with the beer tankard between his hands, his expression still carrying some of the charm and a kind of innocence he had had when they had first met. He had been so worldly wise in the manners and rules of society, but naive of the truly darker alleys of life, the violence of the mind. The facile betrayals of country house parties, the selfishness of the idle, was an uncomplicated thing compared with the evil Pitt had seen. Would knowledge be a greater protection? Or a greater danger? If Voisey guessed Jack was aware of his position as leader of the Inner Circle, it might mark Jack as another he had to destroy!

And yet if Jack did not know, was Pitt leaving him without shield against the seduction of twisted reason? Was Jack more than just another Liberal candidate? Disarmed, was he also another way to wound Pitt? Corruption would be infinitely more satisfying than mere defeat.

Or perhaps it was coincidental, and Pitt was creating his own demons?

He pushed his chair back and stood up, drinking the last of his cider and setting the glass down. “Come on. We’ve both got a long way to go home, and there’ll be all sorts of traffic on the bridges at this time of night. Don’t forget Rose Serracold.”

“Do you think she killed that woman, Thomas?” Jack climbed to his feet also, ignoring the dregs of his ale.

Pitt did not answer until they had pushed their way through the crowd and were outside in the street, which was almost completely dark.

“It was she, General Kingsley, or the third person, who kept his identity secret,” Pitt replied.

“Then it was the third person!” Jack said instantly. “Why would any honest man hide his identity over what is an eccentric pursuit, perhaps a trifle absurd, even pathetic, but quite respectable and far from any kind of crime?” His voice picked up enthusiasm. “There was obviously more to it! He was probably slipping back after the others left and having an affair with her. Perhaps she blackmailed him, and he killed her to keep her quiet. What better way to conceal his visits than in the open, going to a séance with other people. He’s looking for his great-grandfather, or whoever. Foolish, but innocent.”

“Apparently he wasn’t looking for anyone in particular. He appeared to be a skeptic.”

“Better still! He’s trying to discredit her, prove her a fraud. That shouldn’t be difficult. The very fact that he didn’t expose her suggests another motive.”

“Perhaps,” Pitt agreed as they passed under the street lamp again. The wind was rising a little, blowing up from the river, carrying loose sheets of old newspapers, drifting over the cobbles and settling again. There were beggars in the doorways; it was too early to huddle down for the night. A street woman already kept an eye hopeful for custom. The air was sour in the throat as they walked abreast towards the bridge.

Pitt slept badly. The silence in the house was oppressive, an emptiness, not a peace. He woke late with a headache and was sitting at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang. He stood up and went in his stocking feet to answer it.

Tellman stood on the step looking cold although the morning was mild and the high clouds were already thinning. By midday it would be bright and hot.

“What is it?” Pitt asked, stepping back in tacit invitation. “Judging by your face, nothing good.”

Tellman stepped in, frowning, his lantern jaw set tight and hard. He glanced around as if for a moment he had forgotten that Gracie would not be there. He looked forlorn, as if he too had been abandoned.

Pitt followed him back to the kitchen. “What is it?” he repeated as Tellman went to the far side of the table and sat down, ignoring the kettle and not even looking for cake or biscuits.

“We might have found the man written in the diary as a pic-ture . . . what did you say . . . a cartouche?” he replied, his voice flat, struggling to keep all expression out of it, leaving Pitt to make all his own judgments.

“Oh?”

The silence in the room was heavy. A dog was barking somewhere in the distance, and Pitt could hear the slithering sound of a bag of coal being emptied into a cellar chute next door. He felt a curious, sinking sensation. There was a premonition of tragedy in Tellman’s face, as if already a weight of darkness had settled inside him.

Tellman looked up. “He fits the description,” he said quietly. “Height, age, build, hair, even voice, so the informant says. I suppose he would, or Superintendent Wetron wouldn’t have passed it on to us.”

“What makes him think it’s this man rather than any of a thousand others who also fit the description?” Pitt asked. “All we have is middle height, probably in his sixties, neither thin nor fat, gray hair. There must be thousands of men like that, tens of thousands within train distance of Southampton Row.” He leaned forward across the table. “What is the rest, Tellman? Why this man?”

Tellman did not blink. “Because he’s a retired professor, apparently, who just lost his wife after a long illness. All their children died young. He has nobody else, and he’s taken it very hard. Sort of . . . started behaving oddly, wandering around talking to young women, trying to recapture the past. His dead children, I suppose.” He looked wretched, as if he had been caught intruding on someone’s acute private embarrassment, like a voyeur. “He’s got himself talked about . . . a bit.”

“Where does he live?” Pitt asked unhappily. Why on earth did Wetron think this unfortunate man had anything to do with Maude Lamont’s death? “Is it near Southampton Row?”

“No,” Tellman said quickly. “Teddington.”

Pitt thought he had misheard. Teddington was a village miles up the Thames, beyond Kew, beyond even Richmond. “Where did you say?”

“Teddington,” Tellman repeated. “He could come in on the train quite easily.”

“Why on earth should he?” Pitt asked incredulously. “Aren’t spirit mediums common enough? Why Maude Lamont? She’s rather expensive for a retired teacher, isn’t she?”

“That’s it.” Tellman was totally miserable. “He’s still noted as a deep thinker and very highly respected. Writes the definitive textbooks on some things. Obscure, but then it would be, to most of us. But his own people think the world of him.”

“Having the means doesn’t explain coming all the way into the city to consult a spirit medium whose sessions go on till nearly midnight,” Pitt argued.

Tellman took in a deep breath. “It might if you were a senior sort of clergyman whose reputation rested on your insight into the Christian faith.” Again the pity and contempt struggled in his face. “If you took to looking for answers from women who spit up eggs and cheesecloth and tell you it’s ghosts, I should think you’d be looking to go as far away from home as possible. Personally, I’d want it to be another country! I’m not surprised he came and went by the garden door, and wouldn’t even tell Miss Lamont his name.”

Suddenly it was tragically clear to Pitt. It answered all the anomalies of secrecy, evasion, and why he was so frightened of anyone guessing his identity that he would not even name those spirits he wanted to find. It was tragic, yet so fallible and, with a little imagination, easily understood. He was an old man left bereaved of all things he had loved. The final blow of his wife’s death had been too much for his balance. Even the strongest have a dark night of the soul somewhere in the long journey of life.