Cater Street Hangman (22 page)

“She found a landlord who protected her, but then he started taking more and more of her money. But this time she had friends—of many sorts, not just customers. She’s a handsome girl, shrewd, but not unkind, and I’ve seldom seen her when she couldn’t smile about something.”

“What did she do?” Charlotte cared.

“She had a steady lover who was a screever, a writer of letters, a forger of certificates, false testimonials and so forth. He had an uncle who was a kidsman. He organized all his little protégés to plague the landlord every time he went out of the door. His watch was stolen, his seals, his money. But worse than that, they jeered at him, pinned notes to him, and made him a laughingstock.”

“If he was robbed, why didn’t he call the police?” she felt compelled to ask. “Especially if he saw who did it, and it continued?”

“Oh he did! That’s how I came to know of it.”

“You arrested them?” she was horrified and angry.

He smiled at her, meeting her eyes squarely.

“Unfortunately I had a stiff leg that day, and I was unable to run fast enough to catch any of them. Sergeant Flack got something in his eye, was obliged to stop and get it out, and by the time he could see again, they had gone.”

She felt a wave of relief. “And Belle?”

“She got a reasonable rent, and kept the rest of the earnings.”

“And did she continue—as—as a prostitute?”

“What else? Go back to stitching shirts at two and a half pence each?”

“No, of course not. I suppose it was a silly question. It makes me realize a little how lucky I am to be born as I was. I always used to think it was unjust, that saying about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children to the third and fourth generations. But it isn’t, is it? It’s just a fact of life. We reap what our parents have sown.”

She looked up and found Pitt’s eyes on her. The softness in them embarrassed her, and she turned away.

“What about the hangman? Do you think he—can’t help it?”

“I think it’s possible he doesn’t even entirely know it. Which is perhaps why even those closest to him don’t know it either,” he answered.

The black tie came back to her mind with cold horror. For a while she had forgotten it, forgotten Pitt as a threat and thought of him only as—no, that was ridiculous!

She stood up a little stiffly. “Thank you for coming to tell me about Lord Ashworth. It was extremely courteous of you, and has set my mind at rest, at least from the worst fear.”

He stood up also, accepting the dismissal, but there was disappointment in his face. She was sorry for it; he did not deserve it. But she was too afraid of him to let him stay. He had an ability to anticipate her, to understand her thoughts too well. His quick sympathy, his intelligence, would lead her into betraying herself, and Dominic.

He was still looking at her, damn him!

Oh God! Had she dismissed him so hastily he sensed her fear? Had she dismissed him so soon after their mention of the hangman and his possible ignorance of his own actions, that he guessed she knew something? She must make amends.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pitt. I did not mean to appear rude. I have not even offered you any refreshment.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. She smiled, her face stiff. She must look ghastly. “May I ring for something for you?”

“No, thank you.” he walked to the door, then turned, frowning a little. “Charlotte, what are you afraid of?”

She drew a deep breath, her throat tight. A moment passed before she could make any sound come.

“Why, the hangman, of course. Isn’t everyone?”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Possibly even the hangman himself.”

The room swung round her. An earthquake must feel like this. It was ridiculous. She must not faint. Dominic might be weak, give way to his appetites, but then one must accept that all gentlemen were like that. But Dominic could have had nothing to do with murder, wires round choking white necks in the street! She must have been insane, weak, and treacherous to have let such suspicions come into her mind.

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “I imagine so. But you must catch him all the same, for everyone’s sake.” She deliberately put a lift into her voice, a positive sound as if it were all only peripherally to do with her, a social concern and not a personal one.

His mouth curled a little at the corner and with a tiny gesture like a bow, he turned and went out of the room. She heard Maddock opening and closing the front door for him.

Her knees gave way and she collapsed onto the sofa, tears running down her face.

When Dominic returned in the evening she could not meet his eyes. Sarah also sat through dinner in silence. Emily was out with George Ashworth and a group of his friends. Grandmama delivered a monologue on the decline of social manners. Edward and Caroline maintained the rudiments of a conversation that no one else listened to.

Afterwards Sarah said a little stiffly that she had a headache, and retired to bed. Mama accompanied Grandmama up to her sitting room to read to her for an hour or so, and Papa went into the study to smoke and write some letters.

Dominic and Charlotte were left alone in the withdrawing room. It was a situation Charlotte had dreaded, and yet it was almost a relief to face it. The reality might not be as bad as her fears had become.

She waited for a few minutes after the others had gone; then she looked up, afraid that if she did not speak soon, he might also leave.

“Dominic?”

He turned to face her.

She was alone with him; she had his entire attention. The dark eyes were fully on her, a little worried. It should have turned her heart over. But all she could think of was Lily Mitchell, and Sarah upstairs unhappy over a trifle, when there was so much more Sarah did not even guess—or did she? And Pitt. She could see Pitt’s face in her mind, the light, probing eyes that made her feel so close. She shook herself hard. The thought was ridiculous.

“Yes?” Dominic prompted.

She had never been gifted with tact, never been able to approach things obliquely. Mama would have been so much better at this.

“Did you like Lily?” she asked.

His face puckered in surprise. “The maid Lily, Lily Mitchell?”

“Yes.”

“Did I like her?” he repeated incredulously.

“Yes, did you? Please answer me honestly. It matters.” It did matter, although she was not sure what she wanted the answer to be. The thought that he had cared for her was sharply painful, and yet the thought that he had used her without caring was worse; it was shabbier, dirtier, wider in its meaning.

There was a faint colour in his face.

“Yes, I liked her well enough. She was a funny little thing. Used to talk about the country, where she grew up. Why? Do you want to do something about her? She was an orphan, you know, actually illegitimate, I think. There’s no family to speak of.”

“No, I wasn’t thinking of doing anything,” she said a little sharply. She had not known Lily was an orphan. She had lived in the same house with her all those years, and for all the interest she had shown, Lily might as well not have existed. Was Dominic really any worse? “I wanted to know because of you.”

“Me?”

Was she mistaken, or had the colour deepened in his face?

“Yes.” There was no point in lying, in trying to be evasive. He was staring at her. Why on earth should she want so much to touch him now? To reassure herself he was still the same person, the Dominic she had loved all her womanhood? Or was she feeling something like pity?

“I don’t understand you,” he said slowly.

She met his eyes with an honesty she could not have imagined a month ago. For the first time she looked deep into him, without fluttering heart or beating pulse. She looked at the person, and forgot the man, the beauty, the excitement.

“Yes, you do. Millie brought me the necktie she found at the back of the bed when she turned the mattress. It was yours.”

It seemed not to occur to him to lie. The colour came to his face painfully now, but he did not look away.

“Yes, I liked her. She was very—uncomplicated. Sarah can be desperately stuffy sometimes.”

“So can you,” she said brutally, and to her own surprise. A new, angry thought occurred to her, and as soon as it was in her head, it, too, was on her tongue. “How would you feel if Sarah went and made love to Maddock?”

His face dropped in amazement. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“What’s ridiculous about it?” she asked coolly. “You lay with the maid, didn’t you? Lily wasn’t even a butler, just a maid!”

“Sarah wouldn’t dream of such a thing; she isn’t a trollop. It’s extraordinary and degrading of you to have said it, even in fun.”

“The last thing I intended was to be funny! Why are you insulted that I should speak of it hypothetically for Sarah, and yet you can admit it of yourself without any shame at all? You’re not ashamed, are you!”

The colour came back again to his face, and for the first time he looked away from her.

“I’m not very proud of it.”

“Because of Sarah, or because Lily’s dead?” Why was she suddenly seeing him with such clarity? It was painful, like morning light on the skin, showing all the flaws.

“You don’t understand,” he said exasperatedly. “When you’re married, you will.”

“Understand what?”

“That. . . .” He stood up. “That men—men sometimes go—”

He stopped, unable to finish it delicately.

She finished it for him.

“That you have one set of rules for yourselves, and another for us,” she said tartly. Her throat hurt, as if she wanted to cry. “You demand perfect loyalty from us, but feel free to give your own love wherever you like—”

“It’s not love!” he exploded. “For God’s sake, Charlotte—”

“What? It’s appetite? License?”

“You don’t understand!”

“Then explain it to me.”

“Don’t be naive. You are not a man. If you were married you would perhaps understand that men are different. You can’t apply women’s feelings, women’s rules to a man.”

“I can apply rules of loyalty and honour to anybody.”

He was angry now. “This has nothing to do with loyalty or honour! I love Sarah; at least, God help me, I did until she”—suddenly his face was white—“until she started to think I could be the hangman.” He was staring at her and she could see helplessness and pain in his eyes.

She stood up also, and without thinking she put her hand out to touch him, catching his hand. He clung to it.

“Charlotte, she does! She clearly said so!”

“She believed Emily,” she said quietly. “And perhaps she knew about Lily as well.”

“But for God’s sake! That’s hardly the same as murdering four helpless girls and leaving their bodies in the street!”

“If she knew about Lily, and believes something about me, then you have hurt her. Perhaps she merely wanted to hurt you back?”

“But that’s preposterous! She can’t be so hurt—that—” He stared at her.

She looked back gravely. “I would be. If I’d given you all my love, my heart and body, and been loyal to you and thought of no one else, I would be hurt beyond anything I could imagine if I knew you had slept with my maid, and if I thought you had courted my sister. I might hurt you as deeply as I could. If you could betray me that way, murder might not seem so very much worse.”

“Charlotte!” his voice cracked a little and went higher. “Charlotte, you can’t think that? Oh, please heaven! I mean, I didn’t—I never hurt anyone!” He grabbed at her hand again, holding it so tightly he crushed her fingers.

She did not pull away.

“Except Sarah, and perhaps Lily? Did she love you, too, or are maids allowed to have appetites, like men?”

“Charlotte, for God’s sake don’t be sarcastic! Help me!”

“I don’t know how to!” She gave him, for a moment, an answering pressure of her own hand. “I can’t make Sarah feel differently; I can’t take back whatever she said, or make you forget she said it.”

He stood still for a long time, close to her, looking at her eyes, her face.

“No,” he said at last. He closed his eyes. “And dear God,” he said very softly, “you can’t make me absolutely sure I didn’t do it. That damnable policeman of yours said this man could be unaware himself of what he’s doing. That means it could be me. I could be doing this, and not know it. I saw your father in the street; no one else seems to have realized yet that that means I was also there. And I knew all four of the girls—and was out when each one of them was killed.”

She could think of only one thing to say that would be of any comfort, and still be true. “If Pitt thought you could have done it, he would have been back here, questioning you. He wouldn’t exclude you just because you’re a gentleman.”

“Do you think he really has any idea?” he said eagerly. It was painfully clear how much he wanted to believe her, and how hard it was for him.

“I know you don’t like him, but do you think you could deceive him for long?”

His mouth turned down in self-mockery. “I don’t think I really dislike him. I think I’m afraid of him.”

“Because you think he’s clever?”

“Yes.” He sighed. “Thank you, Charlotte. Yes, I suppose Pitt has looked at us closely enough. Perhaps, if it were one of us, he would be closing in now. You don’t think he is, do you?” The sharp fear was back again.

This time she lied, as if to protect a child.

“No.”

He let out his breath again, and sat down. “How can Sarah think I could have done it? Surely anyone who knew me at all . . . ? You said she loves me, how could you love anyone and think that of him?”

“Because being in love with someone is not the same as knowing them,” she said, hearing her words harshly and clearly in her head. Would they mean as much to him as they did now to her?

“She doesn’t really love me,” he said slowly, “or she would not have thought it.”

“You thought it of yourself!”

“That’s different. I know myself. But I never thought ill of her, not in any way.”

“Then you don’t know her, any more than she knows you.” Charlotte meant it, although she was discovering her thoughts even as she spoke them.

“What do you mean?”

“We all have faults—Sarah, too. If you expect her to be perfect that is a wrong you’re doing her that is as great as the wrong she is doing you.”