Southampton Row (29 page)

“Courage, my dear,” Vespasia said gently, but her voice cracked. “I think this is going to be very hard, but we will not cease to fight. We will not allow evil to triumph without giving everything we have in the cause against it.”

He looked at her, frailer now than she used to be, her back ramrod stiff, her thin shoulders square, her eyes burning with tears. He could not possibly let her down.

“No, of course not,” he agreed, though he had not the faintest idea even where or how to begin.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

The next morning was one of the worst in Pitt’s life. He had finally gone to sleep holding on to his gratitude that at least Charlotte, the children and Gracie were safe. He awoke with them pictured in his mind and found himself smiling.

Then memory returned and he knew that Francis Wray was dead, possibly by his own hand, alone and in despair. He could remember him so clearly sitting at the tea table, apologizing for having no cake or raspberry jam to offer, and giving Pitt the precious greengage instead, with such pride.

Pitt lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. The house was silent. It was shortly after six, two hours before Mrs. Brody would come. He could think of nothing to get up for, but his mind would not let him go back to sleep. This was Voisey’s revenge, and it was perfect. Had Wetron known he was helping to accomplish it for him when he had sent Tellman to prompt Pitt to go back to Teddington a second time and ask around the village?

Wray was the perfect victim, a bereaved and forgetful old man, too honest to guard his tongue in his hatred of what was to him a sin against God in the calling up of the dead. Voisey would certainly have known the story of the young woman, Penelope, who had lost her child and in her grief sought a spirit medium who had used her, duped her, taken her money and then been caught in a cheap fraud. After all, it had happened in the very village where his sister lived! A situation too ideal to pass by.

Perhaps it was even Octavia Cavendish who had left the tract on Maude Lamont in Wray’s house. Simple enough to do, and right where Pitt would see it. They had both been led like lambs to the slaughter . . . and in Wray’s case it was literal. In Pitt’s it would be slower, more exquisite. He would suffer and Voisey would watch, taking his pleasure sip by sip.

It was stupid lying here thinking about it. He got up quickly, washed, shaved and dressed, then went downstairs in the silence to make himself a cup of tea and feed Archie and Angus. He did not feel like eating.

What would he tell Charlotte? How could he explain to her yet another disaster in their fortunes? His mind was almost numb with pain at the thought.

He was not aware of time as he sat letting his tea go cold, before finally standing up, fishing in his pockets to see what change he had, and going out to buy a newspaper.

It was still not yet eight o’clock, a calm summer morning, the light pale through the haze of the city, but the sun already high. It was the middle of summer, and the nights were short. There were many people up and busy, errand boys, delivery carts, peddlers looking for early business, maids banging around in the areaways as they put out rubbish, bossed around the bootboys and scullery maids, or told the tweenies what to do and how to do it. Every now and again he heard the hard thwack of someone beating a rug and saw a fine cloud of dust rise in the air.

There was a newsboy on the corner, the same one he knew from every other day, but this time there was no smile, no greeting.

“Yer’ll not be wantin’ it, I should think,” he said grimly. “I’m surprised, I’ll say that for yer. Knew yer was a rozzer, for all yer live in a nice area ’n all. Never thought yer’d ’ound an old man ter ’is death. That’ll be tuppence, if yer please.”

Pitt held the money and the newsboy took it without a word, half turning his back as soon as the exchange was made.

Pitt walked home without opening the paper. Two or three other people passed him. None of them spoke. He had no idea whether they would have normally. He was too dazed to think.

Once inside he sat down at the kitchen table again and spread the paper open. It was not in the front pages—they were dominated by the election, as he had expected them to be—but as soon as he was past that, on page 5, it was there at the top, in the middle.

We are deeply sorry to report the death of the Reverend Francis W. Wray, discovered at his home in Teddington yesterday. He was seventy-three years old, and was still grief-stricken at the recent death of his beloved wife, Eliza. He leaves no children, all having died in their early years.

The police, in the person of Thomas Pitt, lately relieved of his command of the Bow Street station, and with no acknowledged authority, called upon Mr. Wray several times, and spoke to other residents in the area, asking them many intrusive and personal questions regarding Mr. Wray’s life and beliefs and his recent behavior. He denied that this was in his so-far-unsuccessful pursuit of the murder in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, of the spirit medium and conductor of séances, Miss Maude Lamont.

After Mr. Pitt’s latest enquiries in the village he visited Mr. Wray in his home, and a later caller found Mr. Wray in a state of extreme distress, as if he had been reduced to weeping.

The next morning Mr. Wray’s housekeeper, Mary Ann Smith, found Mr. Wray dead in his armchair, leaving no letter, but a book of poetry marked at the verse by the late Matthew Arnold which appears his tragic, despairing farewell to a world he could no longer endure.

The doctor was called, and gave his opinion that the cause of death was poison, most likely of the type that creates damage to the heart. Speculation has occurred that it might have been something from the wide variety of plants within Mr. Wray’s garden, because it is known that he did not leave home after Mr. Pitt’s call.

Francis Wray had an outstanding academic career . . .

It then went on to list the achievements of Wray’s life, followed by tributes from a number of prominent people, all of whom mourned his death and were shocked and grieved by the manner of it.

Pitt closed the paper and made himself another cup of tea. He sat down again, nursing his tea between his hands, trying to think exactly what he had said to the people in Teddington that could have gone back so quickly to Wray, and how it could possibly have hurt him so deeply. Had he really been guilty of such crass clumsiness? Certainly he had said nothing to Wray himself. The distress Octavia Cavendish had seen was the grief for his wife . . . but of course she could not know that, nor in the circumstances would she be likely to believe it. No one would. That Wray had grieved for his wife only added to Pitt’s sin.

How could he fight Voisey now? The election was too close. Aubrey Serracold was losing ground, and Voisey gaining it with each hour. Pitt had made not the slightest mark in Voisey’s success. He had watched it all happen and had about as much effect on it as a member of the audience has on a play on the stage in front of him, visible, audible, but totally beyond his reach.

He did not even know which one of her three clients had killed Maude Lamont. All he felt certain of was that the motive had been the blackmail she was exercising over them because of their different fears: Kingsley that his son had died a coward’s death; Rose Serracold that her father had died insane, and the truth or falsity of that was still unknown; and the man represented by the cartouche, and Pitt had no idea who that was or what his vulnerability might be. Nothing he had heard from Rose Serracold or Kingsley shed any light on it. There was not even a suggestion. Those already dead could in theory know anything at all. It could be a family secret, a dead friend betrayed, a child, a lover, a crime concealed, or simply some foolishness that would embarrass by its intimacy. All it had to be was sufficient for the knowledge of it to be worth paying a price to keep hidden.

Perhaps if he started at the other end of the reasoning it would make more sense? What was the price? If it was connected with Voisey, then it was something that provided fuel in his campaign for power. He had all the help he needed in his own speeches, his funds, the issues to address. What could help him was to undermine Serracold. That is what he had had Kingsley do. His own supporters were already won; the victory lay in turning those who would be natural Liberals, holding the balance of power. Who had attacked Serracold to any effect . . . who that one would not have expected?

Reluctantly, he picked up the newspaper again and looked through the political commentary, the letters to the editor, the reports of speeches. There were plenty praising and blaming candidates on both sides, but most of them were general, aimed more at party than individual. There were several barbed comments about Keir Hardie and his attempt to create a new voice for the workingman.

Underneath one such Pitt found a personal letter criticizing the immoral and potentially disastrous views of the Liberal candidate for Lambeth South and praising Sir Charles Voisey, who stood for sanity rather than socialism, the values of thrift and responsibility, self-discipline and Christian compassion rather than laxity, self-indulgence and untried social experiment which took away the ideals of worth and justice. It was signed by Reginald Underhill, Bishop in the Church of England.

Of course Underhill was entitled to political opinions, and to express them as fiercely as he wished, like any other man, regardless of whether they were logical, or even honest. But was he doing so from his own conviction or because he was being blackmailed into it?

Except what reason could there possibly be for a bishop of the church ever to have consulted a spirit medium? Surely, like Francis Wray, he would have abhorred the very idea.

Pitt was still considering the possibility when Mrs. Brody arrived. She said good morning to him civilly enough, then stood moving her weight from one foot to the other, obviously embarrassed.

“What is it, Mrs. Brody?” he asked. He was in no mood to care about a domestic crisis today.

She looked miserable. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pitt, but arter wot’s in the papers this mornin’, I can’t keep on comin’ ter do for yer. Me ’usband says it in’t right. There’s plenty o’ work goin’ ’round about, an’ ’e says I gotta find another place. Tell Mrs. Pitt I’m very sorry, like, but I gotta do like ’e says.”

There was no point in arguing with her. Her face was set in unhappy defiance. She had to live with her husband, whatever her own opinions. She could walk away from Pitt.

“Then you’d better go,” he said flatly. He took half a crown out of his pocket and put it on the table. “That’s what I owe you for this week so far. Good-bye.”

She did not move. “I can’t ’elp it!” she accused.

“You have made your decision, Mrs. Brody.” He stared at her with equal anger, all the hurt and helplessness boiling up inside him. “You have worked here for over two years, and you have decided to believe what is written in the newspapers. That’s an end of the matter. I’ll tell Mrs. Pitt that you left without notice. Whether she gives you a character or not is her decision. But then as you are believing ill of her by inference because she is my wife, I doubt that as my wife her recommendation would be of much value to you anyway. Please close the front door as you leave.”

“It in’t my doing!” she said loudly. “I don’t go out ter some poor old man an’ ’ound ’im ter ’is death!”

“You think I suspected him without grounds?” he asked, his own voice louder than he had meant it to be.

“That’s wot it says!” She stared back at him.

“Then if that is sufficient for you, you had better judge me equally without grounds, and leave. As I said, please make sure the front door is closed behind you. It is the kind of day when anyone might come in off the street with ill will. Good-bye.”

She snorted loudly, picked up the money off the table, then swiveled on the heel of her boot and went marching down the passage. He heard the front door bang loudly, no doubt so he would entertain no question as to whether she had left.

It was another miserable quarter of an hour before the doorbell rang. Pitt very nearly ignored it. It rang again. Whoever it was did not intend to accept refusal lightly. It rang a third time.

Pitt stood up and walked the length of the passage. He opened the door, ready to defend himself. Cornwallis stood on the step looking miserable but resolute, his face set grimly, eyes meeting Pitt’s.

“Good morning,” he said quietly. “May I come in?”

“What for?” Pitt asked less graciously than he meant. He would find criticism from Cornwallis harder to take than from almost any other man. He was surprised and a little frightened by how vulnerable he felt.

“Because I’m not going to talk to you standing here on the step like a peddler!” Cornwallis said tartly. “I’ve no idea what to say, but I’d rather try to think of something sitting down. I was so damned angry when I read the newspapers I forgot to have any breakfast.”

Pitt almost smiled. “I’ve got bread and marmalade, and the kettle’s on. I’d better stoke the stove. Mrs. Brody’s just given her notice.”

“The daily?” Cornwallis asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him as he followed Pitt back down the passage.

“Yes. I’ll have to start fetching for myself.” In the kitchen he offered tea and toast, which Cornwallis accepted, making himself reasonably comfortable sitting on one of the hard-backed chairs.

Pitt stoked the stove with coal and poked it until it was burning brightly, then put a slice of bread on the toasting fork and held it to brown. The kettle started to whistle gently on the hob.

When they had a piece of toast each and the tea was brewing, Cornwallis began to talk.

“Did this man Wray have anything to do with Maude Lamont?” he asked.

“Not so far as I know,” Pitt replied. “He had a hatred of spirit mediums, especially those who give false hope to the bereaved, but so far as I know not to Maude Lamont in particular.”

“Why?”

Pitt told him the story of the young woman in Teddington, her child, her consulting of the spirit medium at the time, the violence of her grief and then her own death.

“Could it have been Maude Lamont?” Cornwallis asked.

“No.” Pitt was quite certain. “When that happened she could not have been more than about twelve years old. There’s no connection, except the one Voisey created to trap me. And I did everything to help him.”

“So it would seem,” Cornwallis agreed. “But I’m damned if I’m going to let him get away with it. If we can’t defend ourselves, then we must attack.”

This time Pitt did smile. Surprise and gratitude welled up inside him that Cornwallis should so fully and without question take his part. “I wish I knew how,” Pitt answered. “I have been considering the possibility that the real man behind the cartouche was Bishop Underhill.” He was startled to hear himself say it aloud, and without fear that Cornwallis would dismiss it as absurd. Cornwallis’s friendship was the only decent thing in the day. He knew inside himself that Vespasia would react similarly. He was relying on her to help Charlotte in what would be a very difficult time to bear—not only for herself, both in her anger and inability to help, and her pain for him, but also for the cruelty the children would endure from school friends, even people in the street, barely knowing why, only that their father was hated. It was something they had never known before and would not understand. He refused to think about it now. Terrible enough when he had to, no need to anticipate the pain when he could do nothing about it.