Cater Street Hangman (15 page)

Charlotte took a deep breath. She knew Emily was going to be angry.

“George Ashworth was very well-acquainted with Chloe just before she was murdered. He took her to a great many places.”

Emily’s eyebrows rose. “Did you imagine I did not know that?”

Charlotte was surprised. “Yes, I did. But perhaps you do not know what kinds of places? Apparently they were places where moral women do not go.”

“You mean whorehouses?”

“Emily, please!” Sarah said sharply. “I appreciate you are angry, but there is no need to be coarse.”

“No, I do not mean—whorehouses!” Charlotte said sharply. “At least I don’t think I do. But this is not a matter to be taken lightly. Remember that Chloe is dead, and remember how she died. Mrs. Abernathy believes that it was her association with George Ashworth that led to her death, either directly or indirectly.”

Emily’s face was white. “You have not left me unaware that you dislike George, even perhaps that you are jealous, but this is spiteful and quite beneath you! Goodness knows, I am sorry enough for Chloe’s death, but it had nothing to do with George!”

“How do you know?”

“Because it is only your prudish spite that imagines it might have! I know George and you do not. Why on earth should he do such a thing?”

“I don’t know! But I am not telling you for spite, and it is very wrong of you to say so! I am telling you because I could not bear it if the same thing were to happen to you, if through George Ashworth you met someone who—”

Emily let out a sigh of impatience. “If Chloe mixed in bad company then it was because she had not the wit to recognize it. I hope you do not put me in the same category?”

“I really don’t know, Emily,” Charlotte said honestly. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Emily was defensive again. “So what are you going to do? Tell Papa?”

“What for? He could forbid you to see George Ashworth but you would still do whatever you wished—only secretly, which would be even worse. Just—just be careful!”

Emily’s face softened. “Of course I shall be careful. I suppose you mean well. But really sometimes you are—so pompous and such a prude I despair of you! Well, I’m too tired to stand here any longer. Good night.”

Charlotte stared at Sarah when Emily had gone.

“You can’t do any more,” Sarah said quietly. “And honestly, I don’t think Ashworth had anything to do with it. It’s just Mrs. Abernathy’s imagination. Don’t worry about it. Good night.”

“Good night, Sarah. And thank you.”

Chapter Eight

O
N THE SECOND
of October, autumn rain cooling the streets, Maddock knocked on the withdrawing room door after dinner and came in immediately. His trousers were splattered with rain, and his face was gray.

Edward looked up, opened his mouth to question his behaviour, and then saw him. He stood up sharply.

“Maddock! What’s the matter, man? Are you ill?”

Maddock stiffened and swayed a little on his feet. “No, sir. If I might speak to you outside, sir?”

“What is it, Maddock?” Edward obviously was afraid now, too. The room was silent.

Charlotte stared at them, cold knotting up inside her.

“If I might speak to you in confidence, sir?” Maddock asked again.

“Edward,” Caroline said very quietly, “if something has happened, we shall have to know. Maddock had as well tell us all as leave us in suspense.”

Maddock looked to Edward.

“Very well,” Edward nodded. “What is it, Maddock?”

“There has been another murder, sir, in an alley off Cater Street.”

“Oh, my God!” Edward went sheet-white and sat down hard on the chair behind him. There was a low moan from Sarah.

“Who was it?” Caroline said so quietly she could barely be heard.

“Verity Lessing, ma’am, the sexton’s daughter,” Maddock answered her. “A constable has just come from the police to tell us, and warn us all to stay in the house, and not to let the maids out, even into the areaway.”

“No, of course not,” Edward looked stunned, staring into the room blindly. “Was it the same—?”

“Yes, sir, with a garotting wire, like the others.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Perhaps I had better go and check all the doors again, sir? And close the shutters on the windows. It would reassure the women.”

“Yes,” Edward agreed absently. “Yes, do that, please.”

“Maddock?” Caroline called as he turned to leave.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Before you do, please bring us a bottle of brandy and some glasses. I think we could do with a little—help.”

“Yes, ma’am, certainly.”

A moment after he had brought them in and left there was another clatter outside as Dominic came in, shaking the rain off his jacket.

“Should have taken a coat,” he said, looking at his wet hands. “Didn’t expect the change.” His eyes moved from their faces to the brandy and back again. “What’s the matter? You look awful! Come to think of it, there were people all over the street. Mama?” He frowned, peering at her. “Grandmama’s not ill, is she?”

“No,” Edward answered for Caroline. “There’s been another murder. You’d better sit down and have some brandy, too.”

Dominic stared at him, his face blanching. “Oh God!” He drew in his breath and let it out. “Who?”

“Verity Lessing.”

Dominic sat down. “The sexton’s daughter?”

“Yes.” Edward poured him some brandy and passed the glass.

“What’s happening?” Dominic said bewilderedly. “Was this in Cater Street, too?”

“In an alley just off it,” Edward replied. “I suppose we must face it; whoever this madman is, he is someone who lives here, near Cater Street; or else he has business here, some reason to come here regularly.”

No one answered him. Charlotte watched his face. All she could think of was her overwhelming relief that he had been home all evening, that this time when Pitt came—as she did not doubt he would—there would be no questions for Papa.

“I’m sorry,” Edward went on. “We can no longer pretend it is some creature from the criminal slums invading us by mischance.”

“Papa?” Emily said tremulously. “You don’t imagine it could be—could actually be someone we know, do you?”

“Of course not!” Sarah said sharply. “It must be someone quite deranged!”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t someone we know.” Charlotte painfully gave expression to the thoughts that had been forming in her mind. “After all,
someone
must know him!”

“I don’t know what you mean?” Sarah frowned at her. “I don’t know anyone deranged.”

“How do you know that you don’t?”

“Of course I don’t!”

Dominic turned to her. “What are you trying to say, Charlotte? That we wouldn’t know if someone were as mad as this?”

“Well, would you?” Charlotte looked back at him. “If it were so easy to see, wouldn’t those who do know him have said something, done something by now? After all, someone must know him—tradesmen, servants, neighbours—even if he doesn’t have a family!”

“Oh, but how awful.” Emily stared at her. “Imagine being servant to someone, or neighbour, and knowing they were—mad like that, that they killed women—”

“That’s what I’m trying to say!” Charlotte turned from one to another of them urgently. “I don’t think you
would
know, or he would have been captured long ago. The police have talked to all sorts of people. If someone knew, it would have come out by now.”

“Well, there are several people I can think of who are not all they seem to be on the surface,” Grandmama spoke for the first time. “I’ve always said you can’t tell what wickedness lies underneath the smooth face people show to the world. Some that appear saints are devils underneath.”

“And some that appear devils are still devils, no matter how far underneath you look,” Charlotte said instinctively.

“Is that remark supposed to mean anything?” Grandmama asked very tartly. “It’s time, young woman, that you learned to control your tongue! In my young day a girl your age knew how to behave herself!”

“In your day you were not faced with four murders in the streets where you lived.” Caroline came to Charlotte’s defence, and obliquely her own. “Or so you frequently inform us.”

“Perhaps that is why!” Grandmama returned.

“Why what?” Sarah asked. “We all know that Charlotte’s tongue runs away with her, but are you suggesting that it is responsible for Verity Lessing’s murder off Cater Street this evening?”

“You are impertinent, Sarah!” Grandmama snapped. “And it is quite unlike you.”

“I think you are being unfair, Grandmama,” Dominic smiled at her. He could usually charm her—he knew it, and used it. “We are rather badly shocked, both by the loss of someone we know, and the thought that the murderer may also be someone we know, or at least have seen.”

“Yes, mama.” Edward stood up. “Perhaps you should retire. Caroline will see that you are brought something to drink before you sleep.”

Grandmama stared at him belligerently.

“I do not wish to go to bed. I will not be dismissed!”

“I think it is better,” Edward said firmly.

Grandmama sat where she was, but she had met her match, and a few minutes later she allowed him to help her up and, with considerable ill grace, went to bed.

“Thank God,” Caroline said wearily. “It really is too much.”

“Nevertheless,” Dominic scowled, “we cannot avoid the truth that, as Charlotte said, it could be anyone—even someone we speak to, someone we have always felt perfectly at ease with—”

“Stop it, Dominic!” Sarah sat upright. “You will have us suspecting our neighbours, even our friends. We will become unable to conduct a proper conversation with anyone without wondering in our hearts if they could be the one!”

“Perhaps it would be as well,” Emily said thoughtfully, “until he is found.”

“Emily! How can you say such a thing, even in jest? And it is a bad enough time for humour of any sort.”

“Emily is not being humorous,” Dominic put in for her. “She is being eminently practical, as always. And to an extent she is right. Perhaps if Verity Lessing had been more suspicious, she would now be alive.”

A new thought occurred to Charlotte. “Do you think so, Dominic? Do you think that is why no one has heard screams—because whoever did it was known to each victim, and they were not afraid until it was too late?”

Dominic paled. Obviously he had not thought of it: his mind had been following his words, not leading them. His imagination was still far behind.

Charlotte was surprised. She thought he had seen the conclusion before her. “It would explain it,” she said unhappily.

“So would being taken by surprise from behind,” Sarah pointed out.

“I think this conversation is unprofitable,” Edward interrupted. “We cannot protect ourselves by indulging in speculation about all our acquaintances, and we may do them grave injustice. We will only end by frightening ourselves even more than is already unavoidable.”

“That is easy to say.” Caroline looked at her brandy glass. “But it will be very hard to do. From now on I believe I shall find myself thinking about people in a different way, wondering how much I really know about them, and if they are thinking the same of me, or at least of my family.”

Sarah stared at her, eyebrows arched. “You mean they might suspect Papa?”

“Why not? Or Dominic? They do not know them as we do.”

Charlotte remembered when it had crossed her mind, hers and Mama’s, for a black, shaming hour, and they themselves had considered the possibility of Papa’s involvement. She did not look at her mother. If she could forget it, so much the better.

“What I am afraid of,” she said honestly, “is that one day I might meet someone, and my suspicions show, as they might concerning anyone—but that
this
time they would be justified. And when he recognized my suspicions I would see in his face they were right. Then we would look at each other, and he would know that I knew, and he would have to kill me, quickly, before I spoke or cried out—”

“Charlotte!” Edward stood up and banged his fist on the piecrust table, knocking it over. “Stop it! You are very foolishly frightening everyone, and quite unnecessarily. None of you is going to be alone with this man, or any other.”

“We don’t know who he is,” Charlotte was not put off. “He could be someone we had considered a friend, as safe as one of us! It could be the vicar, or the butcher’s boy, or Mr. Abernathy—”

“Don’t be ridiculous! It will be someone with whom we have the barest acquaintance, if indeed any at all. We may not be excellent judges of character, but at least we are not capable of so gross a mistake as that.”

“Aren’t we?” Charlotte was looking at a blank space on the wall. “I’ve been wondering how much of a person is on the surface, how much we really know about anyone at all. We don’t really know very much about each other, never mind those with whom we have only an acquaintanceship.”

Dominic was still staring at her, surprise in his face. “I thought we knew each other very well?”

“Did you?” She looked back at him, meeting the dark, bright eyes, for once seeking only meaning, without her heart leaping. “Do you still?”

“Perhaps not.” He looked away and walked to the brandy decanter to pour himself some more. “Anyone else wish for another glass?”

Edward stood up. “I think we had better all have an early night; after sleep we may have composed ourselves and be able to face the problems a little more—practically. I shall think about it, and let you know in the morning what I have decided is best for us to do until this creature is caught.”

The following day there were the usual grim offices to perform. A police constable called, in the early morning, to inform them officially of the murder, and to ask them if they had any information. Charlotte wondered if Pitt would come, and was curiously both relieved and disappointed when he did not.

Lunch was a more or less silent affair of cold meat and vegetables. In the afternoon all four of them went to pay their respects to the Lessings, and offered to give any assistance they could—although, of course, there was nothing that would do anything to dissipate the shock or ease the pain. Nevertheless, it was a visit which must be paid, a courtesy that would cause hurt if not observed.

They all wore dark colours. Mama wore black itself. Charlotte regarded herself in the mirror with distaste before leaving. She had a dark green dress with black trim, and a black hat. It was not flattering, especially in the autumn sun.

They walked, since it was only a short distance. The Lessing house had all the blinds drawn and there was a constable outside in the street. He looked solid and unhappy. It crossed Charlotte’s mind that perhaps he was used to death, even to violence, but not to the grief of those who had loved the dead. It was embarrassing to be obliged to watch grief one cannot help. She wondered if Pitt felt it, the helplessness, or if he were too busy trying to fit the pieces together: who was where; loves; hates; reasons. She suddenly realized how deeply she would dislike the task, how the responsibility would frighten her. All the neighbourhood looked to him to rescue them from their alarms, to find this creature, to prove it was not someone they loved, each of them with his separate loves, secret suspicions and desperate, unspoken fears. Did they look for miracles from him? He could not alter truth. Perhaps he could not even find it!

They were met at the door by the maid, red-eyed and nervous. Mrs. Lessing was in the front parlour, darkened in respect for the dead, gas lamps hissing on the wall. Mrs. Lessing was dressed in black, her face bleached pale, her hair a little untidy, as if she had not taken it down last night but merely pulled it back with a comb this morning and rearranged a few pins.

Caroline went straight over to her and put her arms round her, kissing her on the cheek. Verity had been an only child.

“My dear, I’m so sorry,” she said softly. “Can we help with anything? Would you like one of us to stay with you for a little while, to help with things?”

Mrs. Lessing struggled to speak, her eyes widening with surprise, then hope. Then she burst into tears and hid her face on Caroline’s shoulder.

Caroline put both her arms round her tighter and held her, touching her hair, arranging the stray wisps gently, as if it mattered.

Charlotte felt a painful welling up of pity. She remembered the last time she had seen Verity. She had been brusque with her, and had meant to apologize for it. Now there would be no chance.

“I’d like to stay, Mrs. Lessing,” she said clearly. “I was very fond of Verity. Please let me help. There will be a lot to do. You shouldn’t do it alone. And I know Mr. Lessing still has—duties—that cannot be left.”