Southampton Row (12 page)

Tellman paced the floor. He dipped into the other scrapbook, of watercolors of various seaside towns in Britain; very pretty but less interesting to him. Perhaps if it had included the hamlet in Dartmoor where Gracie and Charlotte were staying it would have been a different matter. But Pitt had not told him the name of it anyway. He let his mind wander, trying to picture what they might be doing now, as he was standing here in this alien room. Would Gracie be having to work much, or would she be free to enjoy herself, walk over the hills in the sun? In his mind’s eye he saw her, small, very straight, her hair pulled back from her sharp, bright little face, gazing at everything with interest. She would never have seen such a place before, a hundred miles from the narrow city streets in which she had grown up, crowded, noisy, smelling of old cooking, drains, wood rot, smoke. He imagined the countryside around the hamlet would be wide open, almost like a nakedness of the land.

Come to think of it, he had never been in a place like that himself, except in dreams, and while looking at pictures like this.

Would she even think of him while she was there? Probably not . . . or not often. He was still not certain what she felt about him. During the Whitechapel affair it had seemed as if at last she had softened. They still disagreed about a hundred things, important things like justice and society and what it was appropriate for a man or a woman to do. All his teaching and his experience said she was wrong, but he could not put into words any specific instance of precisely in what way. He certainly could not explain it to her. She just looked at him with that withering, impatient air, as if he were an obstreperous child, and went on with whatever she was doing, cooking or ironing, immensely practical—as if women kept the world going while men just argued about it.

Should he write to her while she was away?

That was a difficult question. Charlotte had taught her to read, but only fairly recently. Might the necessity of replying be an embarrassment to her? Worse, if there were something she could not read, might she show his letter to Charlotte? The thought made him cringe with embarrassment. No! Definitely he would not write. Better not to take the risk. And perhaps better not to have her address written anywhere—just in case.

He still had the scrapbook open when Rose Serracold came in at last and both he and Pitt stood to attention. Tellman did not know what kind of a person he had been expecting, but not the striking woman who stood in the doorway dressed in lilac and navy stripes with huge sleeves and a tiny waist. Her ash-fair hair was dressed in an unusually straight style, swirled around on her head rather than piled in curls, her azure-blue eyes very pale, staring at them both in surprise.

“Good morning, Mrs. Serracold,” Pitt said after the first moment’s silence. “I am sorry to intrude upon you without notice, but the tragic circumstances of Miss Maude Lamont’s death didn’t allow me the time to seek an appointment. I realize you must be very busy during the parliamentary election, but this will not wait.” There was a steel in his tone which cut off argument.

She stood strangely motionless, not even turning to notice Tellman, although she could not have been unaware of him only a few feet from her. She stared at Pitt. It was impossible to tell if she had already known of Maude Lamont’s death. When she spoke at last it was very softly.

“Indeed. And exactly what is it you think I can say that will help, Mr. . . . Pitt?” She was obviously remembering his name from what the butler had told her, but with an effort. It was not intended as rudeness, simply that he was not part of her world.

“You were one of the last people to see her alive, Mrs. Serracold,” Pitt replied. “And you also saw the others who were present at the séance, and must know what took place.”

If she wondered how Pitt was aware of that, she did not say so.

Tellman was curious to see how Pitt was going to speak to this woman to draw everything of use from her. They had not discussed it and he knew it was because Pitt was uncertain himself. She was part of his new role in Special Branch. Her husband was standing for Parliament. Pitt would not share with Tellman exactly what his task was, but Tellman guessed it was to keep her out of scandal, or if that proved to be impossible, then to deal with it discreetly, and perhaps rapidly. He did not envy him. Solving a murder was simple by comparison.

She raised elegant eyebrows very slightly. “I don’t know how she died, Mr. Pitt, or if anyone was responsible, or could have acted to prevent it.” Her voice was perfectly level but she was very pale and so still that the mastery of emotion in her could be judged simply by the absence of any sign. She dared not allow it to be seen.

Tellman was aware of a very slight air of perfume from her, and that were she to move he would hear the rustle of silks, as he had when she came in. She was a kind of woman who alarmed and disturbed him. He was acutely conscious of her presence, and he understood nothing of her life at all, her feelings or her beliefs.

“Someone was responsible.” Pitt’s voice cut across his thoughts.

She made no gesture to indicate that they should be seated.

“She was murdered,” Pitt finished.

She took a very long, slow breath and let it out in a barely audible sigh. “Did someone break in?” She hesitated a second. “Perhaps she forgot to lock the side door to Cosmo Place? The last person to arrive came in that way, not through the front door.”

“She was not robbed,” Pitt replied. “No one had broken anything.” He was watching her intently. His eyes never moved from hers. “And the manner in which she was killed seemed to be peculiarly personal.”

She brushed past him and sank into one of the dark red chairs, her skirts billowing around her in a soft swish of silk on silk. She was so white Tellman thought that she had at last realized the meaning of what Pitt had told her.

Did it startle her? Or was it that she already knew, and this was remembrance, and the moment of grasping the fact that others knew also, specifically the police?

Or could it be that the knowledge that it had been personal betrayed to her who was responsible?

“I don’t think I wish to know about it, Mr. Pitt,” she said quickly. She seemed to be completely in command of herself again. “I can tell you only what I observed. It appeared to me a perfectly ordinary evening. There were no quarrels, no ill feeling of any kind that I saw, and I believe I would have seen it had it been there. In spite of what you say, I can’t believe it was one of us. It was certainly not I . . .” Now her voice cracked a little. “I . . . I was most indebted to her skill. And I . . . liked her.” She seemed about to add something, then changed her mind and stared at Pitt, waiting for him to continue.

He did not wait any longer to be invited, but sat down opposite her, leaving Tellman free to do the same. “Can you describe the evening for me, Mrs. Serracold?”

“I suppose so. I arrived a short while before ten. The soldier was already in the room. I know nothing about him, you understand, but he is most concerned about battles. All his questions are about Africa and war, so I assume he is a soldier, or was.” Her face registered momentary pity. “I formed the opinion that he had lost someone he loved.”

“And the third person?” Pitt prompted.

“Oh.” She shrugged. “The grave robber? He came last.”

Pitt looked startled. “I beg your pardon?”

She pulled a little face, an expression of dislike. “I call him that in my mind because I think he is a skeptic, trying to take from us the belief in a resurrection of the spirit. His questions were . . . academic, in a cruel way, as if he were probing a wound. . . .” She searched Pitt’s eyes, trying to gauge with what exactness he understood, if he were capable of grasping at least an idea of what she was describing, or if she were laying herself open to unnecessary embarrassment.

Tellman felt a sudden stab of knowledge, as if he saw her in an ordinary dress such as his mother or Gracie would wear, the rustling silks obscured by a clearer sight. She needed to believe in Maude Lamont’s powers. There was something she was seeking that had driven her there, compelled her, and now that Maude was dead, she was lost. Behind those bright, pale eyes there was desperation.

Then she spoke again, and shattered the moment. He heard her perfect diction and the brittleness of it, and they were a world apart once more.

“Or perhaps it was my imagination,” she said with a smile. “I really hardly saw his face. He might have been afraid of the truth, mightn’t he?” Her lips curved as if it were only the inappropriateness of the situation which kept her from actually laughing. “He came and went through the garden door. Perhaps he is a highly important personage who committed a terrible crime and wants to know if the dead will betray him?” Her voice lifted at the fancy. “There’s an idea for you, Mr. Pitt.” She looked at Pitt steadily, ignoring Tellman, her face calm, vivid, almost challenging.

“It had occurred to me, Mrs. Serracold,” Pitt replied, his own face expressionless. “But I am interested that it also came to your mind. Was Maude Lamont a person who was likely to have used such knowledge?”

Her eyelids flickered. The muscles in her throat and jaw tightened.

Pitt waited.

“Used it?” Her voice was a little rough. “Do you mean some sort of . . . of blackmail?” There was surprise in her face, perhaps a little too much.

Pitt smiled very slightly, still polite, as if he thought far more than he could say. “She was murdered, Mrs. Serracold. She had made at least one desperate and very personal enemy.”

The blood drained out of her skin. Tellman thought she might even faint. He knew with absolute certainty now that she was the one Pitt was concerned with. It was her presence at the séance which had brought Special Branch into the case and taken it from the police, from him. Did Pitt have some secret reason for believing her guilty? Tellman looked at him, but in spite of all the time they had worked together, the passion and the tragedies they had been involved with, he could not read Pitt’s emotions now.

Rose moved her position in the chair. In the silence of the room, even a faint creak of whalebone and taut fabric in her bodice was audible.

“I appreciate that it is terrible, Mr. Pitt,” she said quietly. “But I cannot think of anything which will help you. I was aware that one of the men cared intensely about his son and needed to know something of the manner of his death, which occurred in a battle somewhere in Africa.” She swallowed, lifting her chin a trifle as if her throat were constricted, although her gown was not high. “The other man I cannot say, except that he gave the impression that he had come to mock or disprove. I don’t know why such people bother!” Her delicate eyebrows rose. “If you disbelieve, why not simply leave it alone and allow those who care to pursue knowledge do so in peace? It is surely a decency, a compassion one should allow. Only a complete boor would disturb someone else’s religious rites. It is an unnecessary intrusion, a piece of gratuitous cruelty.”

“Can you describe what in his manner, or his words, gave you that impression?” Pitt asked, leaning forward a little. “As much as you can remember please, Mrs. Serracold.”

She sat without answering for several moments, as if clarifying it in her mind before beginning. “I have a feeling he was trying to catch her in a trick,” she said at last. “He moved his head from side to side, always watching just on the edge of his vision, as if not to miss anything. He would not allow his attention to be directed.” She smiled. “But there was never anything. I could feel his emotion, but I don’t know what it was. I only looked at him now and then because I was naturally far more concerned with Miss Lamont.”

“What was there to watch?” Pitt asked, his face perfectly serious.

She seemed uncertain how to reply, or perhaps whether to trust him. “Her hands,” she said slowly. “When the spirits spoke through her, she would look quite different. Sometimes she seemed to change shape, her features, her hair. There was a light in her face.” Her expression dared him to mock. There was irony in her, as if she would rob his charge of its power by making it first herself. Yet her body was rigid and her hands, on the edge of the chair, were white-knuckled. “A glowing breath came from her mouth, and her voice was utterly unlike her own.”

He felt an odd sensation well up inside him, a mixture of fear, almost a desire to believe, and at the same time an impulse to laugh. It was terribly human and vulnerable, so transparent, and yet so easy to understand.

“What did he ask her, as clearly as you can remember?” he said.

“To describe the afterlife, to tell us what there was to see, to do, how it looked and felt,” she replied. “He asked if certain people were there and what they were like now. If . . . if his Aunt Geor-gina were there or not, but I felt as if it were a question intended as a trick. I thought perhaps he didn’t even have such an aunt.”

“And what was the answer?”

She smiled. “No.”

“How did he react?”

“That was the odd thing.” She shrugged. “I think he was pleased. It was after that he asked all the questions as to what it was like, what people did, especially if there were any kind of penance.”

Pitt was puzzled.

“What were the answers?”

There was a flash of humor in her eyes. “That he was asking things that it was not yet his time to know. That is what I would have answered him had I been the spirit!”

“You disliked him?” he asked. She was sharp in her observation, critical, opinionated, and yet there was a vitality in her that was extraordinarily attractive and her humor appealed to him.

“Frankly, yes.” She looked down at the rich silk of her skirt. “He was a frightened man. But we are all frightened of something, if you have any imagination at all, or anything you care about.” She raised her eyes and met his. “That does not give you a reason or an excuse to mock the needs of others.” A shadow crossed her eyes, as if instantly she had regretted being too candid with him. She stood up and in a graceful movement turned away, keeping her back half towards Pitt and completely towards Tellman. It obliged them both to stand also.