Southampton Row

by Anne Perry

  She was silent for so long he was not sure if she was concentrating on something or if she simply did not intend to answer.

  Tellman was sitting in the chair where Maude sat. Lena’s eyes were steady on him.

  “Did you ever move the table?” Pitt asked suddenly.

  “No. It’s fixed to the floor,” Tellman replied. “I tried to move it before.”

  Pitt stood up. “What about the chair?” As he said it he walked over and Tellman rose and picked it up. He saw with surprise that there were four slight indentations on the floorboards where the feet had rested. Surely even the most continual use could not have made them. He moved to one of the other chairs and lifted it. There were no marks. He looked up quickly at Lena Forrest and caught the knowledge in her face.

  “Where’s the lever?” he said grimly. “Your position is a very precarious one, Miss Forrest. Don’t jeopardize your future by lying to the police.” He hated making the threat, but he had no time to waste in trying to dismantle the woodwork to find the mechanism, and he needed to know how far she was involved. It might be crucial later.

  She stood up, white-faced, and came around to the opposite side of the chair. She leaned over and touched the center of one of the carved flowers on the table edge.

  “Press it,” he ordered.

  She did, and nothing happened.

  “Do it again!” he ordered.

  She stood perfectly still.

  Very gradually the chair began to rise, and glancing down Pitt saw that the floorboards immediately under it rose also, just those actually supporting the four feet. The rest remained where they were. There was no sound whatever. The machinery was so perfectly oiled it happened easily. When the chair was about eight inches above the rest of the floor it stopped.

  Pitt stared at Lena Forrest. “So you knew that at least this much was trickery.”

  “I only just found out,” she said with a quiver in her voice.

  “When?”

  “After she was dead. I started to look. I didn’t tell you because it seemed . . .” She looked down, then quickly up again. “Well, she’s gone. I suppose she can’t be hurt. She doesn’t know anything now.”

  “I think you’d better tell us what else you learned, Miss Forrest.”

  “I don’t know anything else, just the chair. I . . . I heard of the things she did from someone who came by . . . with flowers, to say how sorry they were. So I looked. I never sat in on a séance. I was never there!”

  Pitt could not draw anything more from her. Minute examination of the chair and the table, and a journey to the cellar, exposed a very fine mechanism, kept in perfect repair, also several bulbs for electric light, with which the house was fitted, and which worked from a generator also in the cellar.

  “Why so many bulbs?” Pitt said thoughtfully. “Electric isn’t even in most of the house, only the parlor and the dining room. All the rest is gas, and coal for heat.”

  “No idea,” Tellman confessed. “Looks like she used the electricity for the tricks more than anything else. In fact, come to think of it, there are only three electric lights altogether. Maybe she meant to get more?”

  “And got the bulbs first?” Pitt raised his eyebrows.

  Tellman shrugged his square, thin shoulders. “What we need to find out is what she knew about those three people that made one of them kill her. They all had secrets of one sort, and she was blackmailing them. I’d lay odds on that!”

  “Well, Kingsley came because of his son’s death,” Pitt replied. “Mrs. Serracold wanted to contact her mother, so presumably hers is a family matter lying in the past. We have to be certain who Cartouche is, and why he came.”

  “And why he wouldn’t even tell her his name!” Tellman said angrily. “For my money, that means he’s someone we’d recognize. And his secret is so bad he won’t risk that.” He grunted. “What if she recognized him? And that was why he had to kill her?”

  Pitt thought about it for a few moments. “But according to both Mrs. Serracold and General Kingsley, he didn’t want to speak to anyone in particular . . .”

  “Not yet! Perhaps he would have, once he’d really believed she could do it!” Tellman said with rising certainty. “Or perhaps when he was convinced she was genuine, he would have asked for someone. What if he was still testing her? From both witnesses, it sounds as if that was what he was trying to do.”

  Tellman was right. Pitt acknowledged it, but he had no answer. The suggestion that it had been Francis Wray was not one that he believed, not if it included the possibility that it was he who had deliberately knelt on Maude Lamont’s chest and forced the egg white and cheesecloth down her throat, then held her until she choked to death, gasping and gagging as it filled her lungs, fighting for life.

  Tellman was watching him. “We’ve got to find him,” he said grimly. “Mr. Wetron insists it’s this man in Teddington. He says the evidence will be there, if we look for it. He half suggested I send a squad of men over there and—”

  “No!” Pitt cut across him sharply. “If anyone goes, I will.”

  “Then you’d better go today,” Tellman warned. “Otherwise Wetron may—”

  “Special Branch is in charge of this case.” Again Pitt interrupted him.

  Tellman stiffened, his resentment still clear in his eyes and the hard set of his face. His jaw was tight and there was a tiny muscle ticking in his temple. “Don’t have a lot to show for it, though, do we?”

  Pitt felt himself flush. The criticism was fair, but it still hurt, and the fact that in Special Branch he was out of his depth, and aware of it, and someone else had his position in Bow Street, made it worse. He did not dare to think of failure, but it was always at the back of his mind, waiting for an unguarded moment. When he was at home in the empty house, weary and without any clear idea where to look next, it was a black hole at his feet and falling into it was a possibility all too real.

  “I’ll go,” he said curtly. “You’d better do more to find out how she got her blackmail material. Was it all watching and listening, or did she do some active research? It may help to know.”

  Tellman appeared undecided, one emotion conflicting with another in his face. It looked like anger and guilt, perhaps regret for having said aloud what was in his mind. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he muttered, and turned to leave.

  Sitting in the train to Teddington, Pitt turned over in his mind all the possible lines of enquiry about Francis Wray. Always at the forefront was the leaflet he had seen on the table advertising Maude Lamont, and the fury in Wray’s face at mention of spirit mediums. He denied to himself that the old man was so emotionally disturbed by the death of his wife he had lost mental balance, and perhaps he had, in the first depth of his grief, abandoned a lifetime’s faith and gone to a medium. He certainly would not be unique in that, not even unusual. And with the vehemence of his conviction that it was sin, he would then have equated the medium with the offense, and have tried to rid himself of his self-loathing by destroying her! And the more that thought intruded into Pitt’s mind, the more fiercely he tried to deny it.

  When he reached Teddington he got off the train, but this time he avoided Udney Road and went to High Street. He loathed asking the villagers about Francis Wray, but there was no choice left to him. If he did not, then Wetron would send others who would be even clumsier, and cause more pain.

  He had to use an invention. He could hardly say outright, “Do you think Mr. Wray has lost the hold of his sanity?” He framed instead questions as to things having been lost, lapses of memory, other people’s concern that Wray was unwell. It was not as difficult as he had expected simply to find the words, but forcing himself to pry into the way the old man’s grief had affected him was one of the most offensive things he had ever done, not to the people he spoke to, but to himself.

  The answers all carried the same elements. Francis Wray was deeply liked and admired, perhaps loved would not have been too strong a word. But those who answered Pitt were a
lso anxious for Wray, aware that his loss had left him more vulnerable than they were sure he could deal with. Friends had been uncertain whether to call in to see him or not. Was it intrusive, disturbing a private emotion, or was it a much-needed respite from the utter loneliness of the house with no one to speak to but young Mary Ann, who was devoted to his welfare but hardly a companion to him.

  Pitt did manage to draw something from one of these friends, another man roughly Wray’s age, and also a widower. Pitt found him in his garden tying up the most magnificent pink hollyhocks, well above the height of his own head.

  “It’s only a matter of concern,” Pitt explained himself. “There is no complaint.”

  “No, of course,” Mr. Duncan answered, pulling off a length of string from the ball and cutting it awkwardly with his secateurs. “I am afraid when we get old and lonely we tend to make nuisances of ourselves without realizing it.” He smiled a little ruefully. “I daresay I did so myself the first year or two after my wife died. Sometimes we can’t bear to speak to people, and others we can’t leave them alone. I’m glad you see no need to do more than ascertain that there was no offense intended.” He cut off another length of string, and looked apologetically at Pitt. “Young ladies can misunderstand the desire for their company, no doubt with cause, now and again.”

  Reluctantly, Pitt introduced the subject of séances.

  “Oh dear, how unfortunate!” Mr. Duncan’s face filled with alarm. “I am afraid he feels very strongly against that kind of thing. He was here when we had a local tragedy, quite a number of years ago now.” He chewed his lip, ignoring the hollyhocks. “A young woman had a child—out of wedlock, you know. Penelope, her name was. The child died almost immediately, poor little thing. Penelope was distraught with grief and went to a spirit medium who promised to put her in touch with her dead child.” He sighed. “Of course, the woman was a complete fraud, and when she discovered it, poor Penelope went quite wild with grief. It seems she thought she had spoken with the child, and that it had gone on to a far better place. She was comforted.” The muscles in his face tightened. “And then the deception drove her right out of her senses. I am afraid she took her own life. It was very dreadful, and poor Francis saw it all and was helpless to prevent any of it.

  “He argued to have the child buried properly, but of course he lost, since it was illegitimate and unbaptized. He was very put out with the local minister over that. The feeling lasted for quite a while. Francis would have baptized the child regardless, and taken the consequences. But of course he didn’t have the power.”

  Pitt tried to think of something to say that expressed the emotions boiling up inside him, and found nothing that touched the anger or the futility he felt.

  “And of course he comforted her the best he could,” Duncan continued. “He knew the wretched medium was a fraud, but Penelope wouldn’t listen. She was desperate to have any belief at all that her child still existed somewhere, poor creature. She wasn’t very old herself. Of course, Francis has had something of a passion against all kinds of spiritualist activity ever since then. From time to time he has launched something of a crusade.”

  “Yes,” Pitt said, pity twisting inside him with a hard, empty pain. “I can understand his feelings. There can be little more bitterly cruel, even if possibly it is not meant so.”

  “Yes.” Duncan nodded. “Yes, indeed. One cannot blame his anger. I think I felt much the same myself at the time.”

  Pitt thanked him and excused himself. There was nothing more to learn from other people. It was time he faced Wray again and pressed him further to account more precisely for his whereabouts on the evenings Cartouche was recorded in Maude Lamont’s diary as having been at Southampton Row.

  At Udney Road, Mary Ann welcomed him in without question, and Wray himself met him in the study doorway with a smile. He did not even ask Pitt if he would stay for tea, but sent Mary Ann straightaway to prepare it, with sandwiches and fruit scones with greengage jam. “It was an excellent crop last year,” he said enthusiastically, leading the way back into the study and offering Pitt a chair. He blinked and his voice dropped and became suddenly very gentle. “My wife was extremely good at making jam. Greengage was one of her favorites.”

  Pitt felt wretched. He was sure guilt must be written in his face at the thought of probing the grief of this man who so obviously liked and trusted him, and had not the remotest suspicion that Pitt was here not in friendship but in pursuit of his job.

  “Perhaps I should not take it?” he said unhappily. “Would you not rather keep it for . . .” He was not sure what he wanted to say.

  “No, no,” Wray assured him. “Not at all. I am afraid the raspberry is all gone. I rather indulged myself. I should be delighted to share this with you. She really was very good.” Sudden concern filled his eyes. “Unless, of course, you do not care for it?”

  “Oh, I do! I like it very much!”

  “Good. Then we shall have it.” Wray smiled. “Now, tell me why you are here, and how you are, Mr. Pitt. Have you found this unfortunate man who was consulting the medium who died?”

  Pitt was not ready to pursue it yet. He had thought his plan was clear, and now it was not. “No . . . no, I haven’t,” he replied. “And it is important that I do. He may have knowledge which would make it much plainer why she was killed, and by whom.”

  “Oh dear.” Wray shook his head. “How very sad. Evil always comes of such things, you know. We should not meddle with them. To do so, even in the imagination of innocence, is to awaken the devil to our weaknesses. And never doubt it, Mr. Pitt, it is an invitation he will not pass by.”

  Pitt was embarrassed. It was an area of thought he had never considered, perhaps because his faith was more of morality than the metaphysics of God or Satan, and certainly he had never considered belief in calling upon spirits. Yet Wray was in deadly earnest; no one looking at the passion in his face could mistake it.

  Pitt compromised. “It seems likely that she was in the practice of a very human evil, Mr. Wray, namely that of blackmail.”

  Wray shook his head. “A kind of moral murder, I think,” he said very quietly. “Poor woman. She has forfeited a great deal of herself, I fear.”

  He was prevented from saying any more on the subject by a knock on the door, and a moment later Mary Ann appeared with their tea. The tray was so laden with plates that it looked precariously heavy, and Pitt shot to his feet to take it from her in case in her efforts to hold both it and the door, she should drop it.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said uncomfortably, flushing a little. “But you shouldn’t!”

  “It is no trouble,” Pitt assured her. “It looks excellent, and very generous. I had not realized I was hungry, but now I definitely am.”

  She bobbed a little curtsy of satisfaction and almost ran out, leaving Wray to pour, smiling at Pitt as he did so. “A nice child,” he said with a nod. “She does everything she can to care for me.”

  There was no answer to make that would not have been trite. The contents of the tray were stronger evidence of her care than any words could have been.

  They ate in silent appreciation for several minutes. The tea was hot and fragrant, the sandwiches delicious, and the fresh scones crumbled at the touch, rich with butter and the sharp, sweet jam.

  Pitt bit into it, and looked up. Wray was watching him intently, waiting to see if he truly liked the greengage jam, and he could not bear to ask.

  Pitt did not know whether to praise it highly, if that would sound artificial, in the end a condescension worse than silence. Pity could be the ultimate offense. And yet if he were lukewarm that would be wrong, too, insensitive and of little use.

  “I hate to eat the last of it,” he said with his mouth full. “You won’t get the like of it again. There is a richness and a delicacy to it. It must be exactly the right amount of sugar because there is no cloying sweetness to mar the taste of the fruit.” He took a deep breath and thought of Charlotte, and Voisey, and everythi
ng he could lose and how it would destroy all that was good and precious in his world. “My wife makes the best marmalade I’ve ever tasted,” he said, and was horrified to hear his voice husky.

  “Does she?” Wray struggled to keep control, to speak with something like normality. They were two men who were barely acquaintances, sharing afternoon tea, and thoughts of preserves, and the women they loved more profoundly than any words about anything at all could say.

  The tears brimmed in Wray’s eyes and slid down his cheeks.

  Pitt swallowed the last mouthful of scone and jam.

  Wray bent his head and his shoulders trembled, and then began to shake. He struggled for a moment or two.

  Pitt stood up quietly and went around the table, and sat sideways on the arm of the old man’s chair. Tentatively at first, then with more assurance, he put his hand on Wray’s shoulder, feeling it startlingly frail, then around him, and as he relaxed his weight, allowed him to weep. Perhaps it was the first time Wray had permitted himself to do so since his wife’s death.

  Pitt had no idea how long they sat like that, until at last Wray ceased to move, to shake, and finally straightened himself up.

  He must be allowed dignity. Without looking at him, Pitt rose to his feet and walked out of the French doors into the garden and the sun. He would give him ten minutes at least to compose himself, wash his face, and then they could both pretend nothing had happened.

  He was standing facing the road when he saw the carriage coming. It was a very handsome vehicle with excellent horses and a coachman in livery. To his great surprise it stopped at the gate and a woman alighted carrying a basket covered with a cloth. She was of very striking appearance, dark-haired, with a face not immediately beautiful, but of powerful intelligence and character. She walked with unusual grace, and appeared to notice him only as her hand was on the latch. Perhaps at first she had assumed he was a gardener, until she looked more clearly and saw his clothes.

  “Good afternoon,” she said calmly. “Is Mr. Wray at home?”