Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 14]

by The Hyde Park Headsman

“Oh …” She struggled desperately. “I fear I have expressed myself very badly. I think I have misunderstood something that was said to me. Please forgive me.” She did not dare to look at him, and she had temporarily entirely forgotten Mina’s presence.

  But he would not let her escape so easily.

  “Mrs. Arledge?” he questioned.

  “Yes—I …” She trailed off. There was nothing whatever which could explain her remark.

  “She seems a woman of some dignity,” he went on. “But not someone with whom I have any but the briefest and most formal acquaintance. In fact I think the Requiem service for her husband was the only occasion in which I have met her. Do you know her well?”

  “No! I—I gathered the impression you were … but it must have been someone else. I daresay I was not listening properly, and misheard or misunderstood. I am so sorry.” At last she looked up and met his eyes. “Please forget I spoke. It was most foolish of me.”

  “Of course, if you wish.”

  “Do have some more lemonade,” Mina offered, speaking for the first time since the subject of Africa had been raised. She had been listening with attention and pleasure, but had not interrupted. Now she lifted the silver jug invitingly.

  “No thank you. It is most kind, but I must be leaving.” Charlotte rose to her feet with rather more haste than grace. She was aching to escape. “I do not wish to outstay what has been a most delightful visit. Thank you so much for receiving me so generously when I called entirely without warning or invitation. I really only wished to tell you that your advice has been most successful, and I am truly obliged to you.”

  “It was a trifling thing,” Mina said with a wave of her hand. “I am delighted if it worked out to your liking.”

  “Perhaps—in a little while, later on, you will be kind enough to call?” Charlotte invited her, offering one of her newly printed cards with the new address upon it. Only after Mina had taken it did she remember that in all probability she and Pitt would no longer be there. Not unless they were a great deal more successful than so far in solving the case.

  “Perhaps you will call upon us again, Mrs. Pitt?” Bart asked with a smile that did not conceal a genuine wish.

  “Thank you,” she accepted, vowing to herself never to set foot in the place again. “I shall look forward to it!”

  She fled out into the hall and out of the door as the maid opened it for her, and walked with indecent haste along the footpath towards the main thoroughfare and the first omnibus she could find.

  Emily, on the other hand, had no trepidation whatever in finding Landon Hurlwood. It required a little more ingenuity to discover where he would be. Once that was accomplished she dressed in the height of fashion, in a white muslin with sprigs of Delft blue, pointed at the top of the shoulder, broad sleeved, and a marvelous hat with high crown and one ostrich feather over the brim, and called her carriage.

  It necessitated the most precise timing in order to catch him. In fact she had to have her carriage stand still, causing some obstruction, for a full fifteen minutes, before she saw him leave his offices in Whitehall and head for Trafalgar Square. Fortunately it was the nicest of spring weather, and not at all a miserable day in which to walk.

  She climbed down without the assistance of the somewhat startled coachman, and set off towards her quarry.

  “Mr. Hurlwood!” she exclaimed with delight when she was within a dozen yards. “How pleasant to see you!”

  He looked startled. Obviously his mind had been upon whatever matters of government and administration he had discussed last, or proposed to discuss next. Social acquaintances were not expected at this time in the afternoon, in the middle of the city.

  “Good afternoon … Mrs. Radley,” he said with surprise. He raised his hat and stopped, moving a little aside to allow others to pass. “How are you?”

  She smiled charmingly. “In most excellent health, thank you. What a lovely day, isn’t it? One feels filled with boundless optimism at such a time.”

  “Indeed,” he agreed pleasantly. “You have every reason. It was an excellent victory, and the sweeter for having been unexpected, at least by some.”

  “Oh yes! I am afraid I did not even believe it myself at first. I should have had more confidence, shouldn’t I?”

  He smiled. “As events proved, yes, but I think it is far wiser to be modest beforehand, and then rejoice afterwards, than the other way around.”

  “Oh indeed. I am afraid poor Mr. Uttley did not take his defeat very well. One must learn to be discreet, do you not agree? Keeping one’s emotions to oneself is a great part of success in public life, I think.” She made it a question, and gazed at him with wide innocent eyes.

  “I expect you are right,” he said slowly, obviously uncertain quite what she was referring to in addition to Uttley, but he had realized she meant more than simple observation.

  “What one knows about but has been conducted with the utmost discretion is quite another matter.” She inclined her head with a knowing little smile. “Love affairs that are … quite private.”

  He looked a trifle uncomfortable, but she did not know if it was guilt or merely embarrassment at a rather tasteless remark.

  “I think Mrs. Arledge is bearing up very well after such a wretched bereavement, don’t you?” she went on. “Such a difficult time for it to have happened. But I am sure you will be of the utmost comfort to her, and the soul of good judgment and discretion.”

  He blushed deeply and his hand on his cane was clenched. His voice was a little husky when he replied.

  “Yes—quite. One does what one can.” It was a meaningless remark, and they both knew it. His hot, uncomfortable eyes gave her the answer she was seeking. An admission in words was unnecessary.

  “I will not keep you, Mr. Hurlwood,” she said graciously. “I am sure you have some business of importance to attend, and you have been so courteous to me already. I wish you a good day. It was most agreeable to have met you.” And with a charming smile, all innocent pleasure, she swept away and crossed the street back towards her waiting carriage and a footman who knew better than to wonder what his mistress was about.

  “What do we do now?” Emily said eagerly, but with a faintly puckered brow. She and Charlotte were sitting in Emily’s boudoir in Ashworth House. It was a better place than the withdrawing room, because although Jack was supposed to be at the House of Commons, it was just possible he might return, and this was a conversation it would be a great deal better he did not overhear, even in part.

  Similarly, Charlotte had left instructions with Gracie that she did not know what time she would return, so Gracie should give the children their evening meal and see them to bed, and if the master came home, she was to inform him that the mistress was visiting with Emily and might even stay the night. It was not a time when she would normally have been absent, but there was no help for it Of course the difference was that Charlotte would tell Gracie the reasons, whereas Emily would very much rather not have her servants know anything about it. They were all very impressed with Jack’s victory, and their loyalties were acutely divided.

  “We must find proof, if there is any,” Charlotte replied.

  “There’s bound to be, isn’t there?”

  “Only if one of them did it. If they are innocent there won’t be.”

  Emily waved her hand. “Let’s not even think of that. How do you suppose it happened? I mean, how could she have done it, if it were her?”

  Charlotte thought for several moments.

  “Well it’s not very difficult to hit someone on the head, if they trust you and are not expecting anything of the sort. Obviously you are very pleasant to them …”

  “You’d have to lure them to where you wanted.” Emily took up the thread. “A grown man, even a thinnish one, would be terribly difficult to move once he was insensible. How on earth did she get him to the bandstand in the park?”

  “One thing at a time,” Charlotte reproved. “So far we haven’t eve
n hit him on the head.”

  “Well get on with it! What are you waiting for?”

  “To get him to the right place, of course. It takes some planning. It must be the right time, too. We don’t want him lying around for hours!”

  “Why not?” Emily asked immediately. “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it does! There are servants. How can you explain your—”

  “All right,” Emily interrupted. “Yes. I see. Then it has to be after the servants have retired, or in a place where they will not go. What about the garden somewhere? After dark you can be certain the gardener will not be working. A greenhouse or potting shed?”

  “Excellent,” Charlotte agreed. “How does one persuade him to go to the greenhouse after dark?”

  “To show him something….”

  “What about if one had heard a sound?”

  “Send the footman,” Emily answered.

  “Oh yes, of course. I don’t have a footman.”

  “You don’t have a greenhouse either.”

  Charlotte sighed with a brief second of regret. If they had been able to keep the new house, she might have had one. She might even have had a male servant in time. But that was all unimportant now.

  “Then one lures him into the greenhouse,” she reasoned, “by saying that there is something special to see. A flower which blooms at night and has a remarkable perfume.”

  “Is one on blossoming terms with a husband one is about to murder?” Emily grimaced.

  “Then something else. I don’t know … something amiss that the gardener has done? Something extravagant you need to speak to the man about, or his permission to dismiss him and employ someone else?”

  “All right. You get him to the greenhouse, have him bend over to look at whatever it is, and hit him on the head as hard as you can with whatever comes to hand. At least in the greenhouse there will be plenty of tools one could use. Then what?”

  “Leave him,” Charlotte thought aloud. “Until the middle of the night, when you can return, to take off his head….”

  “Suitably dressed,” Emily interposed.

  “Dressed?”

  “In something that will not show the blood!”

  “Oh.” Charlotte wrinkled her nose with distaste, but she realized it was an extremely practical remark. “Yes, of course. It would have to be either something she could dispose of entirely, or else something that was waterproof and from which it would wash off.”

  “Like—what? What can you wash blood off without leaving a stain?”

  “Oilskins?” Emily asked dubiously. “But why would she have oilskins? It’s not the sort of thing one keeps. I don’t have anything remotely like that.”

  “Gardener’s?” Charlotte thought aloud. “And then she could pass as a gardener going across the park.” Her voice rose in excitement as memory returned. “And there was a gardener seen in the park, wheeling a barrow! Emily! Maybe that was the murderer—wheeling Aidan Arledge’s body from his house to the bandstand?”

  “Then was it Dulcie, or Landon Hurlwood?” Emily asked.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Charlotte replied urgently. “If it was Hurlwood, he can’t have done it without her knowledge. She’s guilty either way. Arledge must have been killed in his own greenhouse and taken to the park in his own wheelbarrow!”

  “Then we must prove it.” Emily stood up. “Knowing it is no use if we don’t prove it.”

  “We don’t know it. It’s only a guess,” Charlotte argued, rising to her feet also. “We have to prove it to ourselves first of all. We’ll have to see it—find the place. There must be some stain of blood still there, if we know where to look.”

  “Well she’s hardly going to give us a tour of her greenhouse, if she’s cut her husband’s head off there, is she!” Emily responded.

  “No, of course not.” Charlotte took a deep breath and plunged on. “We’ll have to go at night, when she won’t know.”

  “Break in?” Emily was incredulous, her voice rising to a squeak. Then as quickly the horror vanished from her face and a look of daring and enthusiasm replaced it. “Just the two of us? We’ll have to go tonight. There’s no time to lose.”

  Charlotte gulped. “Yes, tonight. We’ll—we’ll go from here, as soon as … well, about midnight, I suppose?” She looked at Emily questioningly.

  “Midnight is far too early,” Emily said. “She could still be up at that hour. I often am.”

  “You are not in mourning. She’ll hardly be out dining or dancing.”

  “We should still leave it until one o’clock at the earliest.”

  “Oh—well I dare not return home. Thomas would …”

  “Of course not,” Emily agreed. “We’ll have to leave from here. That’s obvious. I could hardly explain it to Jack either. He’d take a fit! We’ll have to leave here and wait somewhere else until one o’clock.”

  “Where? How should we dress? It must be practical. We shan’t need to break in literally. All we need should be in the greenhouse or the gardener’s shed. But we must have a lamp of some sort. I wish I had a policeman’s bull’s-eye lamp.”

  “No time,” Emily dismissed it with regret. “I’ll take a carriage lamp, that should do.”

  “How are we getting there? We can hardly expect your coachman to take us.”

  “We’ll have to have him take us somewhere close by. That’s simple. I know someone just ’round the corner. I’ll say I’m calling there.”

  “At one o’clock in the morning, and dressed fit to burgle,” Charlotte said with an involuntary giggle.

  “Oh—yes.” Emily bit her lip. “Well perhaps not. I’ll say she was taken ill. I’ll dress to burgle underneath, and put a good shawl on the top. You will have to do the same.” And before Charlotte could protest, she added, “I’ll find you something. We’ll borrow from one of my maids. They wear plain stuff, dark colors. That will do excellently. Come. We have a great deal to see about.” She shot Charlotte a look of fear and trembling excitement.

  With her heart in her mouth, Charlotte followed her.

  At five minutes past one o’clock Charlotte and Emily, dressed in dark stuff gowns and with shawls tied over their heads (Emily most particularly to hide the pale gleam of her hair), crept along the pavement towards the garden entrance of Dulcie Arledge’s house. The carriage lamp was not lit; the streetlights were sufficient, and anyway, they wished intensely not to be noticed.

  “Next one,” Charlotte whispered. “I’ve got a knife and a skewer in case it is locked.”

  “A skewer?” Emily questioned.

  “A kitchen skewer. You know—to test if things are cooked.”

  “No, I don’t know. I don’t cook. Can you use it?”

  “Of course I can. All you have to do is poke it in.”

  “And the door opens?” Emily said with surprise.

  “No of course not, fool! You know if the meat or the cake is cooked.”

  Emily giggled, and immediately in front of her Charlotte gave a little hiccough of excitement, and giggled as well.

  When they reached the gate it was indeed padlocked, and Emily was obliged to light the lamp and hold it, with her back to Charlotte and her eyes fearfully watching the road, while Charlotte twiddled the skewer around carefully and at last managed to move the very simple latch. Emily doused the lamp instantly, and they undid the lock, took it off its chain and opened the door.

  They slipped inside with a gasp of relief and pushed the gate closed again, being careful to take the chain and padlock with them, in case its open state should be noticed and cause suspicion.

  Charlotte looked around her. It was extremely dark. The wall was high enough to block off almost all the light from the streetlamps beyond, and the sky was too overcast to allow much of the pale, three-quarter moon to shed more than a faint luminescence.

  “I can’t see,” Emily whispered. “We aren’t even going to find the greenhouse in this, never mind a bloodstain.”

  “We can find the
greenhouse,” Charlotte replied. “We’ll light the lamp again when we are inside it.”

  “Do you really think anyone in the house would be awake at this hour?”

  “No, but it isn’t worth the risk. We would be turned out before we could find anything, and how on earth would we explain ourselves?”

  The argument silenced Emily. The thought of being found was too hideous even to contemplate. They had no imaginable excuse whatever.

  Charlotte leading the way, they crept forward along a narrow cobbled path, slimy with moss and dew, Emily clinging onto Charlotte’s skirt to make sure they did not lose each other in the dark. To do that, and then come face to face, would be enough to break their nerve entirely. One shriek, however involuntary, would waken the neighborhood.

  The huge mass of the house rose to their left, black against the pale clouds, and ahead of them was a broken roofline and the serrated edge of the spine of a lower roof, an elegant finial pointing a sharp finger upwards at the end.

  “Greenhouse?” Emily asked softly.

  “Conservatory,” Charlotte replied.

  “How do you know?”

  “Finial,” Charlotte whispered back. “Don’t have a finial on a greenhouse. It must be beyond, ’round the corner.”

  “Are you even sure they’ve got one?”

  “They must have. Every house this size has a greenhouse or a potting shed. Greenhouse would be better.”

  “Why?”

  “Easier to lure him to. How would you lure your husband to the potting shed in the middle of the night?”

  Emily giggled nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous. Conservatory, maybe. A romantic tryst? Put on your best peignoir and languish among the lilies?”

  “Hardly. If you’ve been married twenty years—and he preferred men anyway. Damnation!” This last was added as Charlotte tripped and stubbed her foot against a large, decorative stone.

  “What is it?” Emily demanded.

  “A stone. It’s all right.” And gingerly she resumed her very slow forward pace.

  It was five minutes before either of them spoke again. By this time they were around the back of the conservatory and creeping across an open terrace towards a further dense shadow ahead.