Cardington Crescent

by Anne Perry

  The one he could not place was a Clarabelle Mapes, at 3 Tortoise Lane. The only Tortoise Lane he knew of was a grubby little street in St. Giles, hardly an area where Sybilla March would have occasion to call. Possibly it was a charity of some sort to which she gave her support, an orphanage or workhouse. It was a matter of diligence, overly fussy and probably a waste of time—his superior was certainly of that opinion and said so witheringly—but Pitt decided to call at 3 Tortoise Lane. It was just possible Mrs. Clarabelle Mapes might know something which would add to the close but still indistinguishable picture he had of the Marches.

  Much of St. Giles was too narrow to ride through and he left his cab some half mile from Tortoise Lane and walked. The buildings were mean and gray, jettied stories overhung the streets, and there was a fetor of hot air and old sewage. Spindly clerks with stovepipe hats and shiny trousers hurried by clutching papers. A screever, wire-rimmed spectacles on his nose, shuffled aside to allow Pitt to pass. The sun was beating down from a flat, windless sky, and there was smoke strong in the air.

  A one-legged man on a crutch hawked matches, a youth held a tray of bootlaces, a girl offered tiny homemade childrens’ clothes. Pitt bought something from her. It was too small for his own children, but he could not bear the pain of passing her by, even though he knew dozens would—if not today, then tomorrow—and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  A coster pushed a barrow of vegetables down the middle of the street, the wheels jiggling noisily over the cobbles. The girl went to him immediately and spent all the few coins Pitt had given her, disappearing with the vegetables in her apron.

  Had Eustace March really murdered George to keep secret his affair with his daughter-in-law, and then murdered her when she realized his guilt? He would like to have believed it. Almost everything about Eustace offended him; his complacence, his willing blindness to other people’s need or pain, his unctuous overbearing manner, his virility and dynastic pride. But perhaps he was not wildly untypical of many socially ambitious patriarchs possessed of vigor and money. He was self-absorbed, insensitive rather than deliberately malicious. Most of the time he was convinced he was totally in the right about everything that mattered, and a lot that did not. Pitt had no awareness of a violence or fear in him that would drive him to commit a double murder, least of all in his own house.

  Then there was Charlotte’s lurid story of Tassie creeping up the stairs splattered with blood. And in spite of her protestations, he was still not absolutely sure she had not walked in a nightmare—the whole idea was so absurd. Perhaps in the faint gaslight of the night lamps, ordinary water splashed on a dress, or even wine, might have looked to a frightened imagination like blood. Above all, there was no one who had been stabbed. Except, of course, the horrific murder in Bloomsbury—but there was no reason to believe that had any connection with Cardington Crescent.

  The other possibility, occurring to him even as he walked along the miserable streets towards Tortoise Lane, was that this Clarabelle Mapes was an abortionist, and Sybilla had procured her address for Tassie—that it was after a hasty, ill-done operation that Charlotte had seen Tassie’s return in the night. And what she had mistaken for a look of joy had in fact been a grimace of pain, mixed with intense relief at being safe, back in her own house and relieved of an intolerable disgrace.

  It was an unpleasant thought, and he hoped with surprising depth that this was not true. But he knew the frailties of nature well enough to accept that it was not impossible.

  The other answer stemmed from George’s affair with Sybilla—William as the wounded husband, in spite of Eustace’s claim that he had wanted to divorce Sybilla until he knew of the child. But Pitt did not believe William March would have killed his unborn child, no matter how furious he was at his wife’s infidelity. And Pitt did not yet know how far that had gone. It could have been no more than vanity and a stupid exhibition of power.

  Or was the child Eustace’s, and not William’s at all?

  No. If that were so and William knew it, surely he would have killed Eustace, not George, and perhaps felt himself justified. And there would certainly be many who, whatever their public pronouncements, would privately agree with him.

  And the pregnancy predated George’s arrival at Cardington Crescent, so he could not be blamed by anyone.

  That left Emily and Jack Radley. They might have acted either together or separately, for love, or greed—or both. Emily he refused to think of until there was no other possibility and it was forced upon him; and if that happened, please God Charlotte would know it for herself and he would not have to be the one to tell her.

  He turned the last corner and was in Tortoise Lane. It was as shabby and squalid as the others, indistinguishable except to those who understood the labyrinth and could smell and taste in the thick air their own familiar row of crooked jetties and angled roofs. There were two grubby children of about four or five years playing with stones outside number 3. Pitt stopped and watched them for a moment. They had scratched a pattern of squares on the pavement, including about ten of the slabs, and were skidding the marker stone to a chosen one, then doing an elaborate little dance in and out of the squares, bending gracelessly on one leg to pick up the stone when they were finished.

  “Do you know the lady in there?” Pitt pointed to the door of number 3.

  They looked at him with confusion. “Which lady?” the bigger one asked.

  “Are there a lot of ladies?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Mapes?”

  “Mrs. Mapes,” the child said soberly. “Course we do!”

  “Do you live in there?” Pitt was surprised. He had already half decided it was an abortionist, and children did not fit his preconception.

  “Yeah.” The older child answered; the smaller child was pulling at his sleeve, frightened, and Pitt did not want to get them into trouble for the crumb of information they might be able to give him.

  “Thank you.” He smiled, touched the child’s matted hair, and went up to the door. He knocked gently, afraid that a peremptory rap would sound like authority and perhaps elicit no answer, or at best put them on their guard.

  It was opened after a very few moments by a small, thin girl who might have been anywhere between twelve and twenty. She was wearing a brown stuff dress, taken in from several sizes larger, a mobcap that held back no more than half her hair, and an outsize apron. Her hands were wet and she carried a kitchen knife. Obviously Pitt had disturbed her at her chores.

  “Yeah?” she said with a lift of surprise, her eyes washed-out china blue, already tired.

  “Is Mrs. Mapes at home?” Pitt inquired.

  “Yeah!” The girl swallowed, put the knife in her pocket, and wiped her hands on her apron. “Yer’d better come in.” Turning, she led the way through a dark, rush-matted corridor, past narrow stairs on which sat a child of about seven, nursing a baby and holding by the hand an infant just old enough to stand. But large families were common; what was less so was that so many within a few years of each other should have survived. Infant mortality was enormous.

  The girl knocked on the last door, at the very end of the passage before it turned towards the huge kitchens he could see a dozen yards away.

  “Come!” a throaty voice called from inside.

  “Thank you.” Pitt dismissed the girl and pulled on the handle. It opened easily and soundlessly into a sitting room that was almost a parody of old Mrs. March’s boudoir. It was doubly startling for its contrast with the threadbare outside and the other rooms Pitt had glimpsed as he passed, and for its joke of familiarity.

  The windows looked onto the blind walls of an alley rather than the March’s gracious garden, but it was curtained in a similar hectic pink, faded even by this mean and dirt-filtered light. Probably the curtains had hung unmoved for years. The mantel was draped as well, although in smarter houses fashion had freed the beauty of fine wood or stone from such ornate and destructive prudery. A piano was s
imilarly covered, and every table was bristling with photographs. Lamp shades were fringed and knotted and plastered with mottoes; Home, Sweet Home, God Sees All, and I Love You, Mother.

  Seated on the largest pink armchair was a woman of ample, fiercely corseted bosom and prodigious hips, swathed with a dress that on a woman half the size would really have been quite handsome. She had stubby, fat hands with strong fingers, and on seeing Pitt they flew to her face in a gesture of surprise. Her black hair was thick, her black eyes large and shining, her nose and mouth predatory.

  “Mrs. Mapes?” Pitt asked civilly.

  She waved him to the pink sofa opposite her, the seat worn where countless others had sat.

  “That’s me,” she agreed. “An’ ’oo are you, sir?”

  “Thomas Pitt, ma’am.” He did not yet intend to tell her his office. Policemen were not welcome in places like St. Giles, and if she had some illegal occupation then she would do everything to hide it, probably successfully. He was in hostile territory, and he knew it.

  She regarded him with an experienced eye, seeing immediately that he had little money; his shirt was ordinary and far from new, his boots were mended. But his jacket, in spite of its worn elbows and cuffs, had originally been of fine cut, and his speech was excellent. He had taken his lessons with the son of the estate on which his father worked and never lost the timbre or the diction. She summed him up as a gentleman on hard times, but still considerably better off than herself, and perhaps with prospects.

  “Well, Mr. Pitt, wot can I do for yer? This ain’t where you live, so wot you ’ere for?”

  “I was given your address by a Mrs. Sybilla March.”

  Her black eyes narrowed. “Was yer now? Well, Mr. Pitt, me business is confidential, like. I’m sure yer understands that.”

  “I take it for granted, Mrs. Mapes.” He was hoping that if he continued he would learn something from her, however tenuous, that he might pursue. Even a clue as to Mrs. Mapes’s occupation might yield something about Sybilla he had not known. At least she had not denied the acquaintance.

  “Course yer do!” she agreed heartily. “Or yer wouldn’t be ’ere yerself, eh?” She laughed, a rich gurgle in her throat, and looked at him archly.

  Pitt could not remember ever having been quite so revolted. He forced an answering smile that must have been sickly.

  “’Ave a cup o’tea, wiv a drop o’ suffin?” she invited. “’Ere!” She reached for a grubby bellpull. “I could do wiv one meself. An’ it’s only perlite ter keep yer company.”

  Pitt had not had time to decline when the door opened and yet another girl peered round, eyes wide, face gaunt. This one might have been fifteen.

  “Yes, Mrs. Mapes, ma’am?”

  “Get me a cup o’ tea, Dora,” Mrs. Mapes ordered. “An’ you make sure Florrie is doin’ the pertaters fer supper.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Mapes, ma’am.”

  “An’ bring the good pot!” Mrs. Mapes called after her, then turned back to smile at Pitt. “Now wot’s yer business, Mr. Pitt? Yer can trust me. I’m the soul o’ discretion.” She held her finger up to her nose. “Clarabelle Mapes ’ears ev’rythin’ an’ tells nuffin’.”

  He knew already that if he had hoped to trick her or intimidate her he was foredoomed to failure. She was one of life’s survivors—a venturer, not a victim. Behind all the thrusting flesh and the curls and smiles she was as careful as a miser and suspicious as a dog in strange territory. He decided to appeal to her greed and at the same time see what effect surprise might have on her. Guilt he did not imagine, but there was a measure of fear deeper than mere caution that would have meaning to her.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. March is dead,” he said watching her closely.

  But her face did not alter by a shadow or hairsbreadth of movement. “Wot a shame,” she said expressionlessly, her black eyes meeting his squarely. “I ’ope as it wasn’t in pain, poor thing.”

  “She didn’t go easily,” he parried.

  But there was not a tremor in her. “Not many of us do.” She shook her head, and the black curls bounced. “Very civil of you ter tell me, Mr. Pitt.”

  He pressed on. “There’ll be a postmortem.”

  “Will there? An’ wot’s that?”

  “The doctors will examine her body to decide exactly why she died. Cut her open if necessary.” He locked his eyes on hers, trying to see inside her, to get beyond the gross, shining exterior—and failed.

  “’Ow disgustin’,” she said without flinching. Her sharp, curved nose wrinkled a little but the distaste was assumed; she had seen infinitely worse—anyone who lived in St. Giles had. “Wouldn’t yer think doctors’d ’ave suffin better ter do than cut up someone as is already dead? Can’t ’elp ’er now, poor thing. Be better ter doctor them as is livin’—not that that’s a lot o’ use, often as not.”

  Pitt felt he was losing ground rapidly.

  “They have to,” he plunged on. “Something of a mystery about her death.” That was literally true, even if the implication was not.

  “Often is.” She nodded again, and there was a rap on the door, followed by yet another girl, of about ten, bringing the awaited tea on a painted lacquer tray, chipped in several places. But in pride of place was a silver teapot, which from his experience on robbery detail Pitt judged to be genuine Georgian. The child staggered awkwardly under its weight, her spindly arms shaking. Even as she left again her eyes were fixed hopelessly on the currant cakes on the china plate.

  “’Ave a drop o’ suffin ter refresh yer?” Mrs. Mapes offered when the door was closed, and fished in a cupboard beside her, twisting her huge bulk in the chair till it creaked. She brought up an unmarked green glass bottle from which she poured what from the smell could only be gin.

  Pitt refused quickly. “No, thank you. Too early. I’ll just have the tea.”

  “Often is a mystery, death,” she said, finishing her previous train of thought. “Please yerself, Mr. Pitt.” And she poured a generous dollop into her own cup before adding tea, milk, and sugar. She passed a good-quality china cup across to Pitt and invited him to help himself as he wished. “But only the rich as gets doctors ter cut them up afterwards. Stupid, I calls it! As if slicin’ up corpuses is goin’ ter tell anyone the secrets o’ life an’ death!”

  He gave up on the postmortem. Obviously it did not frighten her, and he was beginning to believe she had no hand in any abortion that could be traced to the March household. And yet Sybilla had kept her address, and there was no conceivable possibility of it being a social acquaintance. What did this fearsome woman do to provide for herself?

  He glanced round the room. By St. Giles standards it was comfortable bordering on luxurious, and Mrs. Mapes herself all too clearly ate well. But the children he had seen looked half starved and were dressed in shabby hand-me-down clothes, ill-fitting and iller kept.

  “You set a good table, Mrs. Mapes,” he began cautiously. “Mr. Mapes is a fortunate man.”

  “There ain’t no Mr. Mapes these ten years.” She looked at him with brightening eyes. Then she caught sight of the neat mending on his jacket sleeves and breathed in sharply, pinching her nostrils. That was a wife’s work, if ever she saw it. “Died o’ the flux, ’e did. But ’e thought well o’ me when ’e was ’ere.”

  “My mistake,” Pitt said immediately. “I thought with all the children ...”

  Her eyes were hard and her hand tightened very slightly in her fat lap.

  “I’m a soft ’earted woman, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a guarded smile. “Takes in all sorts to care fer ’em, when they ain’t got nobody. Looks after ’em fer neighbors an’ cousins an’ the like. Always carin’ fer somebody, I am. All Tortoise Lane’ll tell yer that, if they’re honest.”

  “How commendable.” Pitt could not keep all the sarcasm out of his voice, although he tried; he was far from finished with Mrs. Mapes. There was the beginning of an ugly idea in his mind. “Mr. Mapes must have left you very well provided for that you have the mea
ns and the time to be so charitable.”

  Her chin came up, and her smile widened, showing hard, yellow-white teeth. “That’s right, Mr. Pitt,” she agreed. “Thought the world o’ me, did Mr. Mapes.”

  Pitt put down his cup and remained silent for a moment, unable to think of another line of attack. She was no longer afraid and he could see it in every curve of her strong, bulging body. He could smell it in the hot air.

  “Good o’ yer ter come all this way ter tell me o’ Mrs. March’s death, Mr. Pitt.” She was preparing to dismiss him. Time was short; he had no cause to search the premises, and what was he to look for even if he returned with men and a warrant?

  Then a lie occurred to him that might work. Forget her fear, try the paramount urge in her character—greed.

  “No more than my duty, Mrs. Mapes,” he replied with only the barest faltering. Please heaven the Metropolitan Police would honor the debt he was about to contract. “Mrs. March remembered you in her will, for—services rendered. You would be that Clarabelle Mapes, wouldn’t you?”

  The caution fighting avarice in her face was grotesquely comical, and he waited without interruption while she sought a compromise with herself. She let out her breath in a huge, gusty sigh. Her eyes gleamed.

  “Very good of ’er, I’m sure.”

  “You are the right person?” he persisted. “You performed some service for her?”

  But she was not outmaneuvered so easily—she had already seen that trap. “Private,” she said, staring at him boldly. “Between ladies, as I’m sure yer’ll unnerstand, and not pry, as would be indelicate.”

  He allowed a look of doubt to cross his face. “I have a responsibility—”

  “Yer got my haddress, or yer wouldn’t be ’ere,” she pointed out. “There ain’t no Clarabelle Mapes ’ere but me. I gotta be the right one, ain’t I? An’ I can prove ’oo I am, never you fear. Wot I done forrer ain’t none o’ your business. Mighta bin no more’n a kind word when she needed it.”