Traitors Gate (18 page)

“There is no point in asking Thomas,” Charlotte said honestly, keeping pace beside her. “He thinks just as Matthew does.”

“That Sir Arthur was murdered?” Harriet was amazed. “Really? But he is a policeman! How could he seriously believe … are you sure?”

“Yes. You see, there are such societies….”

“Oh, I know there are criminals. Everyone who is not totally sheltered from reality knows that,” Harriet protested.

Charlotte remembered with a jolt that when she had been Harriet’s age, before she met Pitt, she had been just as innocent about the world. Not only the criminal aspect of it was unknown to her, but perhaps more seriously, she had not had the least idea of what poverty meant, or ignorance, endemic disease, or the undernourishment which produced rickets, tuberculosis, scurvy and such things. She had imagined that crime was the province of those who were violent, deceitful and innately wicked. The world had been very black and white. She should not expect of Harriet Soames an understanding of the shades of gray which only experience could teach, or a knowledge outside the scope of her life and its confines. It was unfair.

“But you didn’t hear what Sir Arthur was saying,” Harriet went on. “Who it was he was accusing!”

“If it is quite untrue,” Charlotte said carefully, choosing her words, “then Thomas will tell Matthew, however it hurts. But he will want to look into it himself first. And that way, I think Matthew will accept it, because there will be no alternative. Also, he will know that Thomas wants Sir Arthur to have been right, and sane, just as much as he does himself. I think it would be best if we said nothing, don’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, you are right,” Harriet said with relief. They were fast approaching the last section of the driveway to the house. The elms had fallen away behind them and they were in the open sunlight. There were several carriages standing on the gravel before the front doors, and the gentlemen ahead were going into the Hall for the funeral meats. It was time they joined them.

It was when he was almost ready to leave that Pitt was given the opportunity to speak to Danforth and ask him further about the episode of the dogs. Sir Arthur had always cared deeply about his animals. If he took the matter of finding homes for his favorite bitch’s pups lightly, then he had changed almost beyond recognition. It was not as if he had forgotten the matter entirely; according to Danforth he had sold them to someone else.

He found Danforth in the hallway taking his leave. He still looked uncomfortable, not quite sure if he should be here or not. It must be his testimony at the inquest weighing on his mind. He had been a close neighbor and agreeable friend for years. There had never been bad blood between the estates, although Danforth’s was much smaller.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Danforth.” Pitt approached him as if by chance. “Good to see you looking so well, sir.”

“Er—good afternoon,” Danforth replied, squinting a little in an effort to place Pitt. He must have looked as if he came from London, and yet there was an air about him as if he belonged, and a vague familiarity.

“Thomas Pitt,” Pitt assisted him.

“Pitt? Pitt—oh yes. Gamekeeper’s son, I recall.” A shadow crossed his face, and quite suddenly the past flooded back and Pitt could recall the disgrace, the fear, the shame of his father’s being accused of poaching, as if it were yesterday. It had not been Danforth’s estate, but that was irrelevant now. The man who had pressed the charge and seen him sent to prison, where he had died, had been one of Danforth’s social class and background, one who owned land as he did; and poachers were a common enemy.

Pitt felt his face burn and all the old humiliation come back, the resentment and the feeling of being inferior, foolish, of not knowing the rules. It was absurd. He was a policeman now, a very senior policeman. He had arrested better men than Danforth, wiser, richer, and more powerful men, men of better blood and lineage.

“Superintendent Pitt, of Bow Street,” Pitt said coldly, but the words fumbled on his tongue.

Danforth looked surprised.

“Good God! Not a police matter, for heaven’s sake. Poor man died of …” He let out his breath with a sigh. “They don’t send superintendents for—suicide. And you’ll never prove it. Certainly not through me!” Now his face was equally cold, and there was a bitter affront in his eyes.

“I came to pay my respects to a man I loved deeply,” Pitt said with a clenched jaw. “And to whom I owe almost all I have. My occupation has no more to do with my presence here than does yours.”

“Then dammit, sir, why did you say you were from the police?” Danforth demanded. He had been made to look a fool, and he resented it.

Pitt had done it to show that he was no longer merely a gamekeeper’s son, but he could hardly admit that.

“I was at the inquest.” He evaded the subject. “I know what you said about the pups. Sir Arthur always cared very much about his dogs.”

“And his horses,” Danforth agreed with a frown. “That’s how I know the poor fellow was really losing a grip on things. He not only promised me the pick of the litter, he actually came with me to choose. Then, dammit, he went and sold them to Bridges.” He shook his head. “I could understand simple forgetfulness. We all forget the odd thing now and again as we get older. But he was convinced I’d said I didn’t want them. Swore blind to it. That’s what was so unlike the man. Terribly sad. Fearful way to go. But glad you came to pay your respects, Mr. er—Superintendent.”

“Good day, sir,” Pitt acknowledged him, and then without
giving it conscious thought, turned and went back through the baize door into the kitchens. He knew precisely where he was going. The paneled walls were so familiar he could recognize every variation in the wood, every place worn smoother and darker by countless touches of the hand, or brushes of fabric from the shoulders of footmen and butlers, and skirts of maids, housekeepers and cooks for generations past. He had added to the patina of it himself when his mother had worked here. In the history of the Hall, that must seem like only yesterday. He and Matthew had crept down here to beg biscuits and milk from the cook, and odd titbits of pastry. Matthew had teased the maids, and put a frog in the housekeeper’s sitting room. Mrs. Thayer had hated frogs. Matthew and Pitt had laughed themselves nearly sick when they heard her scream. Tapioca pudding for a week had been a small price to pay for the savoring of such a delight.

The smell of furniture polish and heavy curtains and uncarpeted floors was indefinable, and yet so sharp he would hardly have been surprised to face the mirror and see himself reflected a twelve-year-old boy with lanky limbs, steady gray eyes and a shock of hair.

When he turned into the kitchen, the cook, still in her black bombazine with her apron over it, looked up sharply. She was new since Pitt’s time, and to her he was a stranger. She was flustered as it was, with the loss of her master, being allowed to attend the service herself, while still being in charge of the funeral meats.

“You lost, sir? The reception rooms are back that way.”

She pointed to the door through which he had come. “’ere, Lizzie, you show the gentleman—”

“Thank you, Cook, but I am looking for the gamekeeper. Is Mr. Sturges about? I need to speak to him about Sir Arthur’s dogs.”

“Well I don’t know about that, sir. It isn’t ‘ardly the day for it….”

“I’m Thomas Pitt. I used to live here.”

“Oh! Young Tom. I mean …” She colored quickly. “I didn’t mean no …”

“That’s all right.” He brushed it aside. “I’d still like to speak to Mr. Sturges. It’s a matter Sir Matthew wished me to look into, and I need Sturges’s help.”

“Oh. Well ’e was ’ere about ’alf an ‘our ago, an’ ’e went out to the stables. Land needs to be cared for, funeral or no funeral. You might find ’im out there.”

“Thank you.” He walked past her, barely glancing at the rows of copper pans and kettles, or the great black cast-iron range still emanating heat, even with all its oven doors closed and its lids down. The dressers were filled with china, the larder door closed, the wooden bins for flour, sugar, oatmeal and lentils were tight. All the vegetables would be in racks outside in the scullery, and the meat, poultry and game would be hung in the cold house. The laundry and still room were along the corridor to the right.

He went out of the back door, down the steps and turned left without conscious thought. He would have known his way even in the dark.

He found Sturges just outside the door to the apple room, the ventilated place with shelf after shelf of wooden slats where all the apples were placed in the autumn, and as long as they did not touch each other, usually kept all through the winter and well into the late spring.

“‘Allo, young Tom,” he said without surprise. “Glad as you made it for the funeral.” He looked Pitt directly in the eye.

It was a difficult relationship and it had taken many years to reach this stage. Sturges had replaced Pitt’s father, and to begin with Pitt had been unable to forgive him for that. He and his mother had had to leave the gamekeeper’s cottage and all their furnishings which had gone with it, the things they had grown accustomed to: the kitchen table and dresser, the hearth, the comfortable chair, the tin bath. Pitt had had his own room with a small dormer window next to the apple tree. They had moved up into the servants’ quarters
in the Hall, but it was nothing like the same. What was a room, when you had had a house, with your own doorway and your own kitchen fire?

Of course he knew with his head how lucky they were that Sir Arthur either had believed Pitt’s father innocent or had not cared, and had given his wife and child shelter and made them welcome. Many a man would not have, and there were those in the county who thought him a fool for it, and said so. But that did not stop Pitt from hating Sturges and his wife for moving into the gamekeeper’s cottage and being warm and comfortable there.

And Sturges had then walked the fields and woods that had been Pitt’s father’s work and his pleasure. He had changed a few things, and that also was a fault not easily forgiven, especially if in one or two instances it was for the worse. Where it was for the better, that was an even greater offense.

But gradually memory had softened at least a little, and Sturges was a quiet, patient man. He knew the habits and the rules of the country. He had not been above poaching on the odd occasion as a youth, and he also knew it was by the grace of God, and a landowner willing to look the other way, that he had never been caught himself. He made no judgment as to whether Pitt’s father had been guilty or innocent, except to remark that if he were guilty, he was more of a fool than most men.

And he loved animals. At first tentatively, then as a matter of course, he had allowed young Thomas to help him. They had begun in suspicious silence, then as cooperation necessitated speed they had broken the ice between them. It had melted completely one early morning, about half past six when the light was spreading across the fields still heavy with dew. It had been spring and the wildflowers were thick in the hedges and under the trees, the new leaves opening on the chestnuts, and the later beeches and elms thick with bud. They had found a wounded owl, and Sturges had taken it home. Together they had cared for it
until it mended and flew away. Several times all summer they had seen its silent form, broad winged and graceful, swooping in flight around the barn, diving on mice, crossing the lantern’s ray like a ghost, and then gone again. From that year on there had been an understanding between them, but never any blunting of criticism.

“Of course I came,” Pitt answered him, breathing in deeply. The apple room smelled sweet and dry, a little musty, full of memories. “I know I should have come earlier. I’ll say it before you do.”

“Aye, well, so long as you know,” Sturges said without taking his eyes off Pitt’s face. “Look well, you do. And very fancy in your city clothes. Superintendent now, eh? Arresting folk, no doubt.”

“Murder and treason,” Pitt replied. “You’d want them arrested, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh aye. No time for murdering people, at least not most people. Done well for yourself then?”

“Yes.”

Sturges pursed his lips.

“Got a wife? Or too busy bettering yourself to go a-courting?”

“Yes, I have a wife and two children: a son and a daughter.” He could not keep the lift of pride out of his voice.

“Have you indeed?” Sturges looked him straight in the eye. He tried to keep his dour manner, but the pleasure shone out of him in spite of it. “Where are they then? Up London way?”

“No, Charlotte is here with me. I’ll bring her to meet you.”

“You do that, if you want.” Sturges was damned if he was going to appear as if he cared. He turned away and began absentmindedly tidying some of the old straw.

“Before I do, can you tell me what happened about the dogs and Mr. Danforth?” Pitt asked.

“No I can’t, Tom, and that’s a fact. Never took to
Danforth a lot, myself, but he was always fair, far as I knowed. And bright enough, considering.”

“He came over and chose two pups?”

“Aye, he did that.” He heaped the straw in a pile. “Then a couple o’ weeks later sent a note by one o’ his men to say he didn’t want ’em anymore. And a couple o’ weeks after that, came back to collect ’em and was as put out as all hell that we hadn’t still got them. Said a few unkind things about Sir Arthur. I’d have liked to ’ave given ’im a piece of my mind, but Sir Arthur wouldn’t ’ave wanted me to.”

“Did you see the note, or did Sir Arthur just tell you about it?”

He stared at Pitt, abandoning the straw.

“‘Course I saw the note! Were writ to me, me being the one as cares for the dogs, and Sir Arthur himself up in London at the time anyway.”

“Very strange,” Pitt agreed, thoughts racing in his head. “You are quite right. Someone is playing very odd games, and not in any good spirit, I think.”

“Games? You mean it weren’t Mr. Danforth going a bit gaga?”

“Not necessarily, although it does look like it. Do you still have the note?”

“Whatever for? Why should I keep a thing like that? No use to anyone.”