Southampton Row (6 page)

“Do you think there isn’t?” Emily said quietly.

“No, I don’t!” Rose’s voice was steady with total conviction. “I am quite sure there is!” Then just as suddenly she relaxed. Emily was certain it had cost her a very deliberate effort. Rose looked at her, then away again. “Have you ever been to a séance?”

“Not a real one, only pretend ones at parties.” Emily watched her. “Why? Have you?”

Rose did not answer directly. “What’s real?” she said with a tiny edge to her voice. “Daniel Dunglass Home was supposed to be brilliant. Nobody ever caught him out, and many tried to!” Then she swiveled to look directly at Emily, a challenge in her eyes, as if now she were on firmer ground and there was no hurt waiting under the surface were she to misstep.

“Did you ever see him?” Emily asked, avoiding the direct issue, which she was quite certain was not Dunglass Home, although she was not sure what it was.

“No. But they say he could levitate himself several inches off the floor, or elongate himself, especially his hands.” She was watching Emily’s response, although she made light of it.

“That must have been remarkable to see,” Emily replied, unsure why anyone would wish to do such a thing. “But I thought the purpose of a séance was to get in touch with the spirits of those you knew who had gone on before.”

“It is! That was just a manifestation of his powers,” Rose explained.

“Or the spirit’s power,” Emily elaborated. “Although I doubt any of my ancestors had tricks like that up their sleeves . . . unless you want to go back to the witch trials in Puritan times!”

Rose smiled, but it went no further than her lips. Her body was still stiff, her neck and shoulders rigid, and suddenly Emily was convinced that the whole subject mattered intensely to her. The trivial manner was to shield her vulnerability, and more than the pain of being laughed at, something deeper, perhaps having a belief snatched from her and broken.

Emily answered with total seriousness she did not have to feign. “I really don’t know how the spirits from the past could contact us if they wanted to tell us something important. I cannot say that it wouldn’t come with all kinds of strange sights, or sounds, for that matter. I would judge it on the content of the message, not on how it was delivered.” Now she was not sure whether to go on with what she had intended to say, or if it were intrusive.

Rose broke the suspense of the moment. “Without the effects, how would I know it was real, not just the medium telling me what she thought I wanted to hear?” She made a casual little gesture of dismissal. “It isn’t what you would consider entertainment without all the sighs and groans, and the apparitions, the bumps and glowing ectoplasm and so on!” She laughed, a brittle sound. “Don’t look so serious, my dear. It’s hardly church, is it! It’s only ghosts rattling their chains. What is life if we can’t be frightened now and then . . . at least of things like that, which don’t matter at all? Takes one’s mind off what is really awful.” She swept one hand into the air, diamonds glittering on her fingers. “Have you heard what Labouchere is going to do with Buckingham Palace, if he ever has his way?”

“No . . .” Emily took a moment to adjust from the profoundly emotional to the utterly absurd.

“Turn it into a refuge for fallen women!” Rose said in a ringing voice. “Isn’t that the best joke you’ve heard in years?”

Emily was incredulous. “Has he actually said so?”

Rose giggled. “I don’t know . . . but if he hasn’t yet, he soon will! When the old Queen dies, I don’t doubt the Prince of Wales will do that anyway!”

“For heaven’s sake, Rose!” Emily urged, glancing around them to see who might have overheard. “Keep a still tongue in your head! Some people wouldn’t know sarcasm if it got up and bit them!”

Rose tried to look taken aback, but her pale, brilliant eyes were shining and she was too close to hilarity to carry it off. “Who’s being sarcastic, darling? I mean it! If they haven’t fallen yet, he’d be just the man to help them!”

“I know, but for heaven’s sake don’t say so!” Emily hissed back at her, and then they both burst into laughter just as they were joined by Mrs. Lancaster and two others who were aching to know what they might have missed.

The ride home in the carriage from Park Lane was entirely another matter. It was after one in the morning but the street lamps lit the summer night, making the way clear, and the air was warm and still.

Emily could see only the side of Jack’s face closest to the carriage lamp, but it was sufficient to show a seriousness he had hidden all evening.

“What is it?” she asked quietly as they turned out of Park Lane and moved west. “What happened in the dining room after we left?”

“A lot of discussion and planning,” he replied, turning to look at her, perhaps not realizing it cast his face into shadow. “I . . . I rather wish Aubrey hadn’t spoken so much. I like him enormously, and I think he’ll be an honest representative of the people, and perhaps more importantly, an honest man in the House . . .”

“But?” she challenged. “What? He’ll get in, won’t he? It’s been a Liberal seat for as long as anyone can remember!” She wanted every Liberal to win who could, so as to put the party back in power, but just at this moment she was thinking of Rose, and how crushed she would be if Aubrey failed. It would be humiliating to lose a safe seat, a personal rejection, not a difference of ideas.

“As much as anything is certain, yes,” he agreed. “And we’ll form a government, even if the majority isn’t as large as we’d like.”

“Then what’s wrong? And don’t tell me ‘nothing’!” she insisted.

Jack bit his lip. “I wish he would keep some of his more radical ideas to himself. He’s . . . he’s closer to socialism than I realized.” He spoke slowly, considering his words. “He admires Sidney Webb, for heaven’s sake! We can’t take reform at that pace! The people won’t have it and the Tories will crucify us! Whether we should have an empire or not isn’t the point. We do have, and you can’t cut it loose as if it didn’t exist and expect to have the trade, the work, the status in the world, the treaties, or anything else we do, without the reason and the purpose behind it. Ideals are wonderful, but without an understanding of reality, they can ruin us all. It’s like fire, a great servant, yet totally destructive when it’s master.”

“Did you tell Aubrey that?” she asked.

“I didn’t have the chance, but I will.”

She said nothing for a few moments, riding in silence, thinking over Rose’s sudden, strange questions about séances and the tension within her. She was uncertain whether to worry Jack with it or not, but it hung heavily with her, an unease she could not dismiss.

The carriage turned a corner sharply into a quieter street where the lamps were farther apart, shining up with ghostly gleam into the branches above.

“Rose was talking about spiritualists,” she said abruptly. “I think you should suggest that Aubrey tell her to be discreet about that, too. It could be misinterpreted by enemies, and once the election is called in earnest there’ll be plenty of those. I . . . I think perhaps Aubrey isn’t used to being attacked. He’s such a charming man almost everyone likes him.”

He was startled. He jerked around in the carriage seat to face her.

“Spiritualists? You mean mediums like Maude Lamont?” There was an edge of anxiety in his voice sharp enough that she did not need to see his expression to know what it would be.

“She didn’t mention Maude Lamont, although everybody’s talking about her. Actually, she talked about Daniel Dunglass Home, but I suppose it’s much the same. She spoke of levitation and ectoplasm and things.”

“I never know whether Rose is joking or not . . . was she?” It was not a question but a demand.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But I don’t think so. I had the feeling that under the surface she cared very much about something.”

He shifted uncomfortably, only half because of the carriage’s rattling over uneven cobbles. “I’ll have to speak to Aubrey about that, too. What is a social game when you are a private person becomes the rope for journalists to hang you with when you stand for Parliament. I can see the cartoons now!” He winced so acutely that she saw the movement in his cheek in the pool of light as they passed under a street lamp and back into darkness again. “Ask Mrs. Serracold who’s going to win the election! Damn it, better than that . . . who’s going to win the Derby!” he said in a mimicking voice. “Let’s ask Napoleon’s ghost what the Czar of Russia’s going to do next. He can’t ever have forgiven him for Moscow and 1812.”

“Even if he knew, he wouldn’t be likely to tell us,” she pointed out. “He is even less likely to have forgiven us for Waterloo.”

“If we couldn’t ask anyone with whom we’ve ever had a war, that would rule out just about everybody on earth, except the Portuguese and the Norwegians,” he retorted. “Their knowledge about our future might be rather limited; they probably don’t give a farthing.” He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Emily, do you think she’s really seeing a medium, other than just for fun at a house party?”

“Yes . . .” Emily spoke with a chill conviction. “Yes . . . I’m afraid I do.”

The following morning brought news of a different and disturbing kind. Pitt was looking through the newspapers over breakfast of poached kippers and bread and butter—one of the few things he was quite good at cooking—when he came across the letter to the editor. It was the first one on the page, and given particular prominence.

Dear Sir,

I write in some distress, and as a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party and all that it has achieved for the people of this nation, and thus indirectly of the world. I have admired and endorsed the reforms it has initiated and passed into law.

However, I live in the constituency of South Lambeth, and have listened with growing alarm to the opinions of Mr. Aubrey Serracold, the Liberal candidate for that seat. He does not represent the old Liberal values of sane and enlightened reform, but rather a hysterical socialism which would sweep away all the great achievements of the past in a frenzy of ill-thought-out changes, possibly well-meaning, but inevitably benefiting the few, for a short while, at the expense of the many, and to the eventual destruction of our economy.

I urge all others who normally support the Liberal Party to pay the closest attention to what Mr. Serracold has to say, and consider, albeit with regret, whether they can indeed support him, and if they do, what path of ruin they may be setting us upon.

Social reform is the ideal of every honest man, but it must be done with wisdom and knowledge, and at the pace at which we can absorb it into the fabric of our society. If it is done hastily, to answer the emotional self-indulgence of a man who has no experience and, it would seem, little practical sense, then it will be to the cost and the misery of the vast majority of our people, who deserve better of us.

I write with the greatest sadness,

Roland Kingsley, Major General, retired

Pitt let his tea go cold, staring at the printed sheet in front of him. This was the first open blow against Serracold, and it was hard and deep. It would damage him.

Was this the Inner Circle mobilizing, the beginning of the real battle?

CHAPTER
THREE

Pitt went out and bought five other newspapers and took them home to see if Major General Kingsley had written to any more of them in similar vein. Almost the same letter was in three of them; there was only a variation of phrase here and there.

Pitt folded the papers closed and sat still for several minutes wondering what weight to attach to it. Who was Kingsley? Was he a man whose opinion would influence others? More importantly than that, was his writing coincidence or the beginning of a campaign?

He had reached no conclusion as to whether there was a necessity for learning more about Kingsley, when the doorbell rang. He glanced up at the kitchen clock and realized it was after nine. Mrs. Brody must have forgotten her keys. He stood up, resentful of the intrusion although he was grateful enough for her work, and went to answer the increasingly insistent jangle of the bell.

But it was not Mrs. Brody on the step, it was a young man in a brown suit, his hair slicked back and his face eager.

“Good morning, sir,” he said crisply, standing to attention. “Sergeant Grenville, sir . . .”

“If Narraway wants to tell me about the letter in the
Times
, I’ve read it,” Pitt said rather sharply. “And in the
Spectator
, the
Mail
and the
Illustrated London News
.”

“No, sir,” the man replied with a frown. “It’s about the murder.”

“What?” Pitt thought at first that he had misheard.

“The murder, sir,” the man repeated. “In Southampton Row.”

Pitt felt a stab of regret so sharp it was almost a physical pain, then a surge of hatred for Voisey and all the Inner Circle for driving him from Bow Street, where he had dealt with crimes he understood, however terrible, and for which he had the skill and the experience in almost all cases to find some resolution. It was his profession, and he was good at it. In Special Branch he was floundering, knowing what was coming and powerless to prevent it.

“You’ve made a mistake,” he said flatly. “I don’t deal with murders anymore. Go back and tell your commander that I can’t help. Report to Superintendent Wetron at Bow Street.”

The sergeant did not move. “Sorry sir, I didn’t say it properly. It’s Mr. Narraway as wants you to take over. They won’t like it at Bow Street, but they just got to put up with it. Mr. Tellman’s in charge in Southampton Row. Just made up recent, like. But I expect you know that, seeing as you was used to working with ’im all the time. Begging your pardon, sir, but it would be a good thing if you went there right away, seein’ as they discovered the body about seven, an’ it’s coming up ’alf past nine now. We just got to ’ear of it, and Mr. Narraway sent me right over.”

“Why?” It made no sense. “I’ve already got a case.”

“’E said this is part of it, sir.” Grenville glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got a cab waiting. If you’d just like to lock the door, sir, we’ll be on our way.” The manner in which he said it, his whole bearing, made it apparent he was not a sergeant suggesting something to a senior officer; he was a man who was very sure of his position passing on the order of a superior whose word could not be disobeyed. It was as if Narraway himself had spoken.

Slightly irked and unwilling to intrude on Tellman’s first murder case as commander, Pitt did as he was bidden and followed Grenville to the hansom. They rode the short distance along Keppel Street, around Russell Square and a couple of hundred yards down Southampton Row.

“Who is the victim?” he asked as soon as they were moving.

“Maude Lamont,” Grenville replied. “She’s supposed to be a spirit medium, sir. One of them what says she gets in touch with the dead.” His tone and the expressionless look on his face conveyed his opinion of such things, and the fact that he felt it inappropriate to put it into words.

“And why does Mr. Narraway think it has anything to do with my case?” Pitt asked.

Grenville stared straight ahead.

“Don’t know that, sir. Mr. Narraway never tells nobody things as they don’t need to know.”

“Right, Sergeant Grenville, what can you tell me, other than that I am late, I am going to walk in on my erstwhile sergeant and take away his first case, and I have no idea what it’s about?”

“I don’t know either, sir,” Grenville said, glancing sideways at Pitt and then forward again. “Except that Miss Lamont was a spiritualist, like I said, and ’er maid found ’er dead this morning, choked, it seems. Except the doctor says it wasn’t an accident, so it looks like one of ’er clients from last night must ’ave done it. I suppose ’e needs you to find out which one, and maybe why.”

“And you have no idea what that has to do with my present case?”

“I don’t even know what your case is, sir.”

Pitt said nothing, and a moment later they pulled up just beyond Cosmo Place. Pitt climbed out, closely followed by Grenville, who led the way to the front door of a very pleasant house which was obviously that of someone in most comfortable circumstances. A short flight of steps led to a carved front door, and there was deep white gravel along the frontage to either side.

A constable answered the bell and was about to turn them away until he looked beyond Grenville to Pitt. “You’re back at Bow Street, sir?” he said with surprise, and what seemed to be pleasure.

Before Pitt could reply, Grenville stepped in. “Not for the moment, but Mr. Pitt is taking over this case. Orders from the ’ome Office,” he said in a tone which cut off further discussion of the subject. “Where’s Inspector Tellman?”

The constable looked puzzled and interested, but he knew how to read a hint. “In the parlor, sir, with the body. If you’ll come wi’ me.” And without waiting for an answer he led them inside across a very comfortable hallway decorated in mock Chinese style, with lacquer side tables and a bamboo-and-silk screen, and into the parlor. This too was of Oriental style, with a red lacquer cabinet by the wall, a dark wooden table with carved abstract designs on it, a series of lines and rectangles. In the center of the room was a larger table, oval, and around it were seven chairs. Double French doors with elaborate curtains looked out into a walled garden filled with flowering shrubbery. A path curved away around the corner, presumably to the front of the house or to a side gate or a door to Cosmo Place.

Pitt’s attention was drawn inevitably to the motionless body of a woman half reclined in one of the two upholstered chairs on either side of the fireplace. She seemed in her middle to late thirties, tall and with a fine, delicately curved figure. Her face had probably been handsome in life, with good bones, and framed by thick, dark hair. But at the moment it was disfigured by a terrible, gasping contortion. Her eyes were wide and staring, her complexion mottled and a strange white substance had bubbled out of her mouth and down over her chin.

Tellman, dour as always, his hair slicked back from his brow, was standing in the middle of the room. To his left was another man, older, thicker-set, with a strong, intelligent face. From the leather bag at his feet Pitt took him to be the police surgeon.

“Sorry, sir.” Grenville produced his card and held it out to Tellman. “This is a Special Branch case. Mr. Pitt will be taking over. But to keep it discreet, like, it would be better if you were to remain ’ere to work with ’im.” It was said as a statement, not a question.

Tellman stared at Pitt. He tried hard to mask his feelings, and the fact that he was taken by surprise, but his chagrin was clear in the rigidity of his body, his hands held tightly at his sides, the hesitation before he was able to master himself sufficiently to think what to say. There was no enmity in his eyes—at least Pitt thought not—but there was anger and disappointment. He had worked hard for his promotion, several years of that work in Pitt’s shadow. And now, faced with the very first murder of which he was in charge, with no explanation, Pitt was brought back and given command of it.

Pitt turned to Grenville. “If there’s nothing else, Sergeant, you can leave us to get on with it. Inspector Tellman will have all the facts we know so far.” Except why Narraway considered this anything whatever to do with Voisey. Pitt could not imagine anything less likely to interest Charles Voisey than spiritual séances. Surely his sister, Mrs. Cavendish, could not have been so credulous as to have attended such a gathering at so sensitive a time? And if she had, and had been compromised by her presence here, was that a good thing or bad?

He felt cold at the thought that Narraway expected him to use it to their advantage. The idea of becoming part of the crime, of using it to coerce, was repellent.

He introduced himself to the doctor, whose name was Snow, then turned to Tellman.

“What do you know so far?” he asked politely and as noncommittally as he could. He must not allow his own anger to reflect in his attitude now. None of this was Tellman’s fault, and to antagonize him further would make it more difficult to succeed in the end.

“The maid, Lena Forrest, found her this morning. She’s the only servant living in,” Tellman replied, glancing around the room to indicate his surprise that in a house of this obvious material comfort there was no resident cook or manservant. “Made her mistress’s morning tea and took it up to her room,” he continued. “When she found no one there, and the bed not slept in, she was alarmed. She came down here to the last place she had seen her—”

“When was that?” Pitt interrupted.

“Before the start of last night’s . . . doings.” Tellman avoided the word
séance
, and his opinion of it all was evident in his very slightly curled lip. Otherwise his lantern-jawed face was carefully devoid of expression.

Pitt was surprised. “She didn’t see her afterwards?”

“She says not. I pressed her about that. No last cup of tea, no going up, drawing a bath for her or helping her undress? But she says not.” His voice allowed no argument. “It seems Miss Lamont liked to stay up as long as she wanted with certain . . . clients . . . and they all preferred the privacy of no servants around, no one to bump into accidentally or interrupt when . . .” He tailed off, his lips pursed.

“So she came in here, and found her?” Pitt inclined his head towards the figure in the chair.

“That’s right. About ten minutes after seven,” Tellman responded.

Pitt was surprised. “Early for a lady to get up, isn’t it? Especially one who didn’t begin work until the evening and frequently stayed late with clients.”

“I asked her that, too.” Tellman glared. “She said Miss Lamont always got up early and took a nap in the afternoons.” His expression suggested the pointlessness of trying to make sense of any of the habits of someone who thought she spoke to ghosts.

“Did she touch anything?”

“She says not, and I can’t see any evidence that she did. She said that she could see straight away that Miss Lamont was dead. She wasn’t breathing, she had this bluish look, and when the maid put a finger on her neck, it was quite cold.”

Pitt turned enquiringly towards the doctor.

Snow pursed his lips. “Died sometime yesterday evening,” he said, staring at Pitt with sharp, questioning eyes.

Pitt looked towards the body again, then took a step closer and peered at the face and the strange sticky mess spilling out of her mouth and down over the side of her chin. At first he had thought it vomit from some ingested poison; on closer examination there was a texture to it, a thickness that looked almost like a very fine gauze.

He straightened up and turned to the doctor. “Poison?” he said, his imagination racing. “What is it? Can you tell? Her face looks as if she’s been strangled, or suffocated.”

“Asphyxia.” Snow inclined his head in a very slight nod. “I can’t be sure until I get to my laboratory, but I think that’s white of egg—”

“What?” Pitt was incredulous. “Why would she swallow white of egg? And what is the—the . . .”

“Some sort of muslin or cheesecloth.” Snow’s mouth twisted wryly as if he were on the brink of some deeper knowledge of human nature, and afraid of what he would find. “She choked on it. Inhaled it into her lungs. But it wasn’t an accident.” He moved past Pitt and pulled open the lace front of the bodice to the dead woman’s gown. It came away in his hand where it had obviously been torn before in the need to examine her, and closed over again for decency’s sake. On the flesh between the swell of her breasts was the beginning of a wide bruise, only just darkening when death had cut off the flow of blood.

Pitt met Snow’s eyes. “Force to make her swallow it?”

Snow nodded. “I’d say a knee,” he agreed. “Someone put that stuff down her throat and held her nose. You can see the very slight scratch of a fingernail on her cheek. They pinned her down with considerable weight until she couldn’t help breathing in, and choking.”

“Are you certain?” Pitt tried to rid his mind of the picture, the sense of the thick liquid gagging in her throat, the woman fighting for air.

“As certain as we can be,” Snow answered. “Unless on autopsy I find something completely different. But she died of asphyxia. Can tell that from her expression, and from the tiny blood clots in her eyes.” He did not show them and Pitt was glad. He had seen it before and was content to accept Snow’s word. Instead he picked up one of the cold hands and turned it slightly, looking at the wrist. He found the slight bruises as he had expected. Someone had held her, perhaps only briefly, but with force.

“I see,” he said softly. “You’d better tell me if it is egg white, but I’ll assume it is. Why would anyone choose such a bizarre, unnecessary way of killing someone?”

“That’s your job,” Snow said dryly. “I can tell you what happened to her, but not why, or who did it.”

Pitt turned to Tellman. “You said the maid found her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Not much, only that she did not see or hear anything after she left Miss Lamont when her clients were due. But then she says she took care not to. One of the reasons they liked Miss Lamont was the privacy she offered them . . . as well as her . . . whatever you call it?” He frowned, searching Pitt’s face. “What is it?” He had steadfastly refused to call him “sir” right from the first difficult days when Pitt himself was newly promoted. Tellman had resented him because he considered him, as a gamekeeper’s son, not to be suitable for command of a station. That was for gentlemen, or returned military or naval men, such as Cornwallis. “What do you call it—a skill, an act, a trick?”