Southampton Row (36 page)

“Thank you,” he said, satisfied, and put the paper in his pocket. He led the way out, Pitt following closely behind.

It was necessary to go to the station to catch the next train back towards London. The first stop would be Teddington, and from there it was only a short distance to Wray’s house.

From the outside it looked just the same, the flowers brilliant in the sun, tended with love but not discipline. The roses still tumbled around the doors and windows and ran riot over the arch above the gate. Pinks spilled over the pathways, filling the air with perfume. For a moment it was hard to remember that Wray was gone from here forever.

And yet there was a blind look to the windows, a sense of emptiness. Or perhaps that was only in his mind.

Narraway glanced at him. He seemed about to say something, then kept silent. They walked one behind the other up the flagstoned path and Pitt knocked on the door.

It was several moments before Mary Ann came. She looked at Narraway, then at Pitt, and her face lit with remembrance.

“Oh, it’s you, Mr. Pitt! It’s nice o’ yer to ’ave come, ‘specially after the rotten, stupid things some folk are saying. Sometimes I give up! Yer know ’bout poor Mr. Wray, o’ course.” She blinked, and the tears welled up in her eyes. “Did yer know as ’e left yer the jam? ’E didn’t actually write it down, like, but ’e said it to me. ‘Mary Ann, I must give Mr. Pitt some more o’ the jam, ’e was so kind to me.’ I meant to, an’ then Mrs. Cavendish came an’ the chance rather slipped away. Yer know the way ’e used to talk.” She sniffed and searched for a handkerchief, blowing her nose hard. “I’m sorry, but I miss ’im summink terrible!”

Pitt was so touched by the gesture, so overwhelmingly relieved that even if Wray had taken his own life, it was not with ill thought towards him, that he felt his throat tighten and a sting in his eyes. He would not betray it by speaking.

“That’s very kind of you,” Narraway spoke for him, whether he sensed the need or simply was accustomed to taking control. “But I think that there may be other claimants to his possessions, even those of the kitchen, and we would not wish you to be in any difficulty.”

“Oh no!” she said with certainty. “There in’t no one else. Mr. Wray left everything to me, an’ the cats, o’ course. The lawyers came and told me.” She gulped and swallowed. “This whole house! Everything! Can you imagine that? So the jam’s mine, except ’e said as Mr. Pitt should ’ave it.”

Narraway was startled, but Pitt saw with surprise a softness in his face, as if he also were moved by some deep emotion.

“In that case, I am sure Mr. Pitt would be very grateful. We apologize for intruding, Miss Smith, but in light of knowledge we now have, it is necessary we ask you certain questions. May we come in?”

She frowned, looking at Pitt, then back at Narraway.

“They are not difficult questions,” Pitt assured her. “And in nothing are you to blame, but we do need to be sure.”

She pulled the door and stepped backwards. “Well, I s’pose yer’d better. Would yer like a cup o’ tea?”

“Yes, please,” Pitt accepted, not bothering to see whether Narraway did or not.

She would have had them wait in the study, where Pitt had met with Wray, but partly from haste, mostly out of revulsion at the idea of sitting where he had talked so deeply with a man now dead, they followed her into the kitchen.

“The questions,” Narraway began, as she put more water in the kettle and opened the damper in the stove to set the flames burning inside again. “When Mr. Pitt was here for tea, the day Mr. Wray died, what did you serve them?”

“Oh!” She was startled and disconcerted. “Sandwiches, and scones and jam, I think. We ’adn’t any cake.”

“What kind of jam?”

“Greengage.”

“Are you sure, absolutely certain?”

“Yes. It was Mrs. Wray’s own jam, ’er favorite.”

“No raspberry?”

“We didn’t ’ave any raspberry. Mr. Wray’d eaten it all. That was ’is favorite.”

“Could you swear to that, before a judge in court, if you had to?” Narraway pressed.

“Yes. ’Course I could. I know raspberry from greengage. But why? What’s ’appened?”

Narraway ignored the question. “Mrs. Cavendish came to visit Mr. Wray just as Mr. Pitt was leaving?”

“Yes.” She glanced at Pitt, then back at Narraway. “She brung him some tarts with raspberry jam in them, an’ a custard pie an’ a book.”

“How many tarts?”

“Two. Why? What’s wrong?”

“And did he eat them both, do you know?”

“What’s wrong?” She was very pale now.

“You didn’t eat one?” Narraway insisted.

“’Course I didn’t!” she said hotly. “She brung them for ’im! What d’yer think I am, to go eating the master’s tarts what a friend come with?”

“I think you are an honest woman,” Narraway answered with sudden gentleness. “And I think that honesty saved your life to inherit a house a generous man wished you to have in appreciation for your kindness to him.” She blushed at the compliment.

“Did you see the book Mrs. Cavendish brought?” Narraway asked.

She looked up quickly. “Yes. It were poems.”

“Was it the book that was found beside him when he died?” Narraway winced very slightly at the baldness of the question, but he did not retreat from it.

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Can you write, Mary Ann?”

“O’ course I can!” But she said it with sufficient pride that the possibility of her not having been able to was very real.

“Good,” Narraway said with approval. “Then will you please find a paper and pen and write down exactly what you have told us—that there was no raspberry jam in the house that day, until it was brought in by Mrs. Octavia Cavendish, and that she came with two raspberry jam tarts, both of which Mr. Wray ate. Also, if you please, that she brought the book of poetry found beside him. And put the date on it, and sign your name.”

“Why?”

“Please do it, then I shall explain to you. Write it first. It is important.”

She saw something of the gravity in his face, and she excused herself and went to the study. Nearly ten minutes later, after Pitt had taken the kettle off the stove, she returned and offered Narraway a piece of paper very carefully written on and signed and dated.

He took it from her and read it, then gave it to Pitt, who glanced at it, saw that it was wholly satisfactory, and put it away.

Narraway gave him a sharp look but did not demand it back.

“Well?” Mary Ann asked. “You said you’d tell me if I wrote that for you.”

“Yes,” Narraway agreed. “Mr. Wray died as a result of eating raspberry jam that had poison in it.” He ignored her pale face and her gasp of breath. “The poison, to be specific, was digitalis, which occurs quite naturally in the foxglove plant, of which you have several very fine specimens in your garden. It has been supposed by certain people that Mr. Wray took some of the leaves and made a potion which he drank, with the intention of ending his life.”

“He’d never do that!” she said furiously. “I know that, even if there’s some as don’t!”

“No,” Narraway agreed. “And you have been most helpful in proving that to be the case. However, you would be very wise, in your own safety, not to say so to anyone else. Do you understand me?”

She looked at him with fear in her eyes and in her voice. “You’re saying as Mrs. Cavendish gave ’im tarts what was poisoned? Why would she do that? She was real fond of ’im! It don’t make no sense! ’E must ’ave ’ad a ’eart attack.”

“It would be best that you think so,” Narraway agreed. “By far the best. But the jam is very important, so no one ever supposes that he took his own life. That is a sin in his church, and they would bury him in unhallowed ground.”

“That’s wicked!” she cried furiously. “It’s downright vicious!”

“It is wicked,” Narraway said with profound feeling. “But when did that ever stop men who consider themselves righteous from judging others they think are not?”

She swung around to Pitt, her eyes burning. “’E trusted yer! Yer got to see they don’t do that to ’im! You’ve got to!”

“That is what I am here for,” Pitt said softly. “For his sake, and for my own. I have enemies, and as you know, some of them are saying that I was the one who drove him to it. I tell you that so I have not misled you; I never believed he was the man who went to Southampton Row, and I did not even refer to it the last time I was here. The man who visited the spirit medium was called Bishop Underhill, and he is dead too.”

“’E never . . .”

“No. He died by accident.”

Her face creased with pity “Poor man,” she said softly.

“Thank you very much, Miss Smith.” No one could have mistaken Narraway’s sincerity. “You have been of the greatest help. We will take care of the matter from here. The coroner will bring in a verdict of death by misadventure, because I will see to it that he does. If you have any care for your own safety, you will agree to that, regardless to whom you speak or in what circumstances, unless brought to a court of law by me, or by Mr. Pitt, and questioned on the subject under oath. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, swallowing hard.

“Good. Then we shall leave you and be on our way to the coroner.”

“Yer don’t want a cup o’ tea? Anyway, yer got to take your jam,” she added to Pitt.

Narraway looked at the kettle. “Actually, yes, we can stay for tea, just a cup. Thank you. It has been an unusually trying day.”

She glanced at the dirt and the tears in his clothes, and in Pitt’s, but she made no remark. She would have considered it rude. Anyone can fall on hard times, and she knew that very well. She did not judge people she liked.

Pitt and Narraway walked as far as the station together.

“I am going back to Kingston to the coroner,” Narraway announced as they crossed the road. “I can enforce the verdict we wish. Francis Wray will be buried in hallowed ground. However, there is little purpose in proving that Mrs. Cavendish’s tarts poisoned him. She would be charged with murder, on unarguable circumstantial evidence, and I doubt very much that she had the slightest idea of what she was doing. Voisey either gave her the jam, or more probably the tarts themselves, in order to make sure no one else was affected, both for his own safety in case it was traced back to him, and because insofar as he cares for anyone, it is she.”

“Then how in God’s name did he bring himself to use her as an instrument of murder?” Pitt demanded. Such callousness was utterly beyond him. He could not conceive of a rage consuming enough to use any innocent person as a weapon of death, let alone someone you loved, and above all who trusted you.

“Pitt, if you are to be any damned use to me at all, then you must stop imagining everyone else operates on the same moral and emotional plane as you do!” Narraway demanded. “They don’t!” He glared savagely at the footpath ahead of him. “Don’t be so bloody stupid as to think what you would do in a situation! Think what they would do! You are dealing with them . . . not a hundred mirror images of yourself. Voisey hates you with a passion you can’t even think of. But believe it! Believe it every day and every hour of your life . . . because if you don’t, one day you will pay for it.” He stopped and held out his hand, causing Pitt to all but collide with him. “And I will have Mary Ann’s testimony. That, and the autopsy result, are going where even Voisey will never find them. He needs to know that, and he needs to know that if anything happens to you, or to your family, then they will become public, which would be very unfortunate for Mrs. Cavendish, very unfortunate indeed, and ultimately for Voisey himself, whether she were prepared to testify against him or not.”

Pitt hesitated only a moment. It was safety for his family, and bought without compromise, without surrender. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out Mary Ann’s testimony. If he could not trust Narraway then he had nothing.

Narraway took it and smiled, thin-lipped. “Thank you,” he said with mild sarcasm. He knew Pitt had doubted, for an instant. “I am perfectly happy to have a photograph made of both papers and lodged wherever you wish. The originals must remain where even Voisey can never reach them, and it is best you also do not know where that is. Believe me, Pitt, they will be safe.”

Pitt smiled back. “Thank you,” he accepted. “Yes, a photograph of each would be nice. I daresay, Commissioner Cornwallis would appreciate that.”

“Then he shall have it,” Narraway answered. “Now, catch your train back to the city and see what election results have come in. There should be some by now. I would suggest the Liberal Club. They will have news as fast as anyone, and they put it up in electric lights for all to see. If I didn’t have to speak to the coroner, I’d go myself.” A flicker of pain crossed his face. “I think the fight between Voisey and Serracold may be far closer than we wish, and I won’t call it. Good luck, Pitt.” And before Pitt could answer, he turned and walked smartly away.

Pitt, exhausted, stood in the crowd on the pavement outside the Liberal Club staring up at the electric lights which flashed the latest news of the results. He cared about Jack, but the Voisey-Serracold contest filled his mind, and he refused to let go of the last hope that Serracold could still ride the Liberal tide and win, by however narrow a majority.

The result at the moment was one in which he had no interest, a safe Tory seat somewhere in the north of the city.

Two men were standing a yard or two from him.

“Did you hear?” one of them demanded incredulously. “That fellow got in! Would you believe it?”

“What fellow?” his companion asked irritably.

“Hardie, of course!” the first man replied. “Keir Hardie! Labor Party indeed!”

“You mean he won?” The questioner’s voice was high with disbelief.

“I told you!”

Pitt smiled to himself, although he was not sure what it would mean for politics, if anything. His eyes were fixed on the electric lights, but he began to realize it was pointless. Results were coming in as they were known, but Jack’s seat, or the Lambeth South seat, might already have been declared. He needed to find someone who could tell him. If there were time, he could even get a hansom and go to Lambeth and hear the result in person.