Southampton Row

by Anne Perry

  Pitt wondered for an instant if perhaps they should have left a constable at the front door, just in case Cartouche tried to escape that way. But then if he had seen anyone in the street he might not have risked coming in at all, and the whole exercise would have been useless.

  Another alternative was for one of them to wait in the garden now, but then if Cartouche said anything, or Lena did, there needed to be more than one witness to it. He ran across the open lawn and joined Narraway at the scullery door.

  Narraway looked cautiously in through the window. “There’s no one there,” he said, pushing the door. Inside was a small, tidy room with vegetable racks, rubbish bins, a sack of potatoes and several pots and pans, as well as the usual sink and low tub for laundry.

  They went up the step into the kitchen, and still there was no one in sight. Lena must have heard the intruder and gone through to the parlor. On tiptoe, Pitt and Narraway crept along the passage and stopped just short of the doorway. It was ajar. They could hear the voices inside. The first was male, rich and melodious, only slightly sharpened by emotion. His diction was still perfect.

  “I know that there are other papers, Miss Forrest. Don’t try to mislead me.”

  Then Lena’s voice in reply, surprised and a trifle edgy. “The police already took everything that has to do with her appointments. There’s nothing here now but household bills and accounts outstanding, and that’s just the ones that have come in through the last week. The lawyers have all the old ones. It’s part of her estate.”

  Now there was fear in his voice, and anger. “If you imagine you can continue where Miss Lamont was obliged to desist, and that you can blackmail me, Miss Forrest, you are most deeply mistaken. I will not permit it. I will do not another thing by coercion, do you hear me? Not one more word, written or spoken.”

  There was a moment of silence. Narraway was standing in front of Pitt, blocking his view through the crack between the door and the jamb. His eye was about level with the top of the hinge.

  “She was blackmailing you!” Lena said with consuming disgust. “You were so afraid of what she knew about you that you’d rather remove her papers for good or ill than have people know about you.”

  “I no longer care, Miss Forrest!” There was a wild note in him now, as if he would overbalance out of control any moment.

  Pitt stiffened. Was she in possible danger? Had Cartouche murdered Maude Lamont over this blackmail, and if Lena pressed him too far, would he kill again, once he knew where the papers were? And of course she could not tell him because they did not exist.

  “Then why are you here?” Lena asked. “You’ve come for something!”

  “Only her notes that would tell who I am,” he replied. “She’s dead. She can’t say anything further now, and it’s my word against yours.” There was an element of confidence creeping in. “There’s no question which of us they would believe, so don’t be foolish enough to try blackmail of your own. Just give me the papers and I’ll not trouble you again.”

  “You aren’t troubling me now,” she pointed out. “And I never blackmailed anyone in my life.”

  “A sophistry!” he sneered. “You were helping her. I don’t know if there’s a legal difference, but morally there isn’t.”

  There was real anger in her voice; it shook with something close to fury. “I believed her! I worked in this house for five years before I had any idea she was a fraud! I thought she was honest.” She choked on a sob and caught her breath painfully. Her voice sank so low Pitt leaned forward to hear her. “It was only after someone else made her blackmail certain people that I found her out in tricks . . . with the magnesium powder on the wires of the light bulbs . . . and that table. She never used them before . . . that I know of.”

  Another moment’s silence. This time it was he who was urgent, choked with feeling. “Wasn’t it all . . . tricks?” It was a cry of the heart, desperate.

  She must have heard it. She hesitated.

  Pitt could hear Narraway’s breath and felt the tension in him when they stood almost touching each other.

  “There are real powers,” Lena said very softly. “I discovered that myself.”

  Silence again, as if he could not bear to put it to the test.

  “How?” he said at last. “How would you know? You said she used tricks! You discovered it. Don’t lie to me! I saw it in your face. It shattered you!” That was almost an accusation, as if somehow it were her fault. “Why? Why do you care?”

  Her voice was almost unrecognizable, except that it could be no one else. “Because my sister had a baby out of wedlock. He died. Because he was illegitimate they wouldn’t baptize him. . . .” She was gasping for breath, choking on her pain. “So they wouldn’t bury him in hallowed ground. She went to a spirit medium . . . to know what happened to him after . . . after death. That medium was a fake as well. It was more than she could bear. She killed herself.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “The child, at least, was innocent. It would have done no harm to . . .” He tailed off, knowing it was all too late, and a lie anyway. The church’s rules on illegitimacy and suicide were beyond his power to break, but there was pity in his voice, and contempt for those who built rules without compassion. He obviously saw no kind of God in it.

  Narraway turned and stared at Pitt.

  Pitt nodded.

  There was a rustle inside the room.

  Narraway swiveled back.

  “You weren’t here the night she was killed,” the man said. “I saw you go myself.”

  She snorted. “You saw the lantern and the coat!” she retorted. “You think I learned nothing the weeks I worked here after I knew she was a fraud? I watched. I listened. It’s not very hard with ropes.”

  “I heard you replace the lantern outside the front door when you got ’round to the street!” He made it an accusation.

  “A few stones dropped on the ground,” she said with scorn. “I let another lantern down on a string. I went out afterwards . . . to see a friend who has no clock. The police checked. I knew they would.”

  “And you killed her . . . after we’d gone? Leaving us to take the blame!” Now he was angry again, and frightened.

  She heard it. “No one’s been blamed yet.”

  “I will be, when they find those papers!” He sounded shrill, the pity gone.

  “Well, I don’t know where they are!” she retorted. “Why . . . why don’t we ask Miss Lamont?”

  “What?”

  “Ask her!” she repeated. “Don’t you want to know if there’s life after death, or if this is the end? Isn’t that why you came here in the first place? If anyone should be able to come back to tell us, it’s her!”

  “Oh yes?” His tone was razor-edged with sarcasm, and yet he could not keep the thin thread of hope out of it. “And how are we going to do that?”

  “I told you!” Now she was sharp, too. “I have powers.”

  “You mean you learned some of her tricks!” The voice was filled with contempt.

  “Yes, of course I did!” she said witheringly. “I already told you that. But I’ve been looking ever since Nell died. I’m not easily taken in. There was some truth as well, before the blackmailing started. Spirits can be called up, if the circumstances are right. Draw the curtains. I’ll show you.”

  There was silence.

  Narraway turned and looked at Pitt, questioning in his eyes.

  Pitt had no idea what Lena was going to do, or if they should allow it to go ahead.

  Narraway pursed his lips.

  They heard the very slight sound of fabric against fabric, then footsteps. Pitt grasped Narraway by the shoulders and half dragged him backwards, and they were in the drawing room opposite, still with the door open, only just in time to avoid being seen by Lena as she came out of the parlor and disappeared towards the kitchen.

  She was gone for several minutes. There was no sound from Cartouche, in the parlor.

  Lena returned and went into the ro
om again, closing the door.

  Pitt and Narraway resumed their listening position, but could make out only the occasional word.

  “Maude!” That was Lena’s voice.

  Then nothing.

  “Maude! Miss Lamont!” That was Cartouche, unmistakable, even though his voice was higher pitched with urgency.

  Narraway swung around to look at Pitt, his eyes wide.

  “Miss Lamont!” It was Cartouche again, but this time with excitement, almost awe. “You know me! You wrote my name down! Where are the papers?”

  There was a long moan, impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. In fact, it could even have been an animal, so strange and stifled in the throat was it.

  “Where are you? Where are you?” he begged. “What is it like? Can you see? Can you hear? Tell me!”

  There was a loud bang, and a shriek, and an even louder crash as if something made of glass had broken.

  Narraway put his hand on the door just as an explosion shook the whole house, and there was a roaring like a sheet of flame and the smell of burning was thick in the air.

  Pitt threw himself at Narraway and dragged him away from the door handle, Narraway kicking and struggling against him.

  “They’re in there!” he shouted furiously. “The stupid woman has set fire to something. They’ll suffocate! Let go of me, damn it! Pitt! Do you want them to burn?”

  “Gas!” Pitt yelled back at him, just as the whole side of the house erupted, hurling them backwards to land sprawled on the floor a couple of yards from the front door, which now hung crazily on its hinges, gaping open. Pitt scrambled to his feet.

  The parlor door had gone altogether, and the room was full of flame and smoke. A gust from the hall blew across it and it cleared for a moment. Bishop Underhill lay on his back with his head towards the doorway, a look of amazement on his face. Lena Forrest was slumped in the chair at the end of the table, blood on her head and shoulders.

  Then the fire took renewed hold as the flames roared upwards, consuming the curtains and the woodwork.

  Narraway was on his feet now, too, his face ashen under the dust and smoke.

  “We can’t do anything for them,” Pitt said shakily.

  “The whole house could go up any moment.” Narraway coughed and choked. “Come on out! Pitt! Run!” And he yanked him around by the arm and plunged for the front door.

  They went careering out over the step and fell into the street side by side just as the third explosion rent the air and a gout of flame shot out through the windows with glass flying everywhere.

  “Did you know?” Narraway demanded, on his hands and knees. “Did you know it was Lena who killed Maude Lamont?”

  “I did by this morning,” Pitt replied, rolling over to sit. His knees were scraped, his hands scarred and he was scorched and filthy. “When I realized it was her sister who died in Teddington. Nell is short for Penelope.” He bared his teeth savagely. “Voisey missed that one!”

  There were several people in the street now, running, shouting. In a little while the fire engines would be here.

  “Yes,” Narraway agreed, his smoke-grimed face splitting into a white-toothed grin. “He did—didn’t he!”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  There was little to be salvaged from the ruins of the house on Southampton Row, but the fire engines did at least stop the flames from spreading to the house to the south, or across Cosmo Place to the north.

  There was no question that it was the curtains catching fire and the flames spreading to the gas brackets which had caused the first explosion, which had then cracked other gas mains throughout the north part of the house. Gas had leaked out, and as soon as the open flame had reached it, it had made a bomb out of the parlor and its immediate surrounds.

  Pitt and Narraway were fortunate to be no more seriously hurt than a few scratches and bruises, and clothing that would never again be fit to wear. It would be late tonight, or even tomorrow morning, before it would be safe for anyone to go into the ruins to look for what was left of Lena Forrest and Bishop Underhill.

  And unless there was a connection between Maude Lamont and Voisey in the papers they already had, there was no way in which they could prove such a thing now. Certainly there would be nothing in Southampton Row, nor would Lena Forrest be able to speak again.

  “The solution, for what it’s worth,” Narraway said when the firemen had asked them all they wished and were satisfied there was nothing more to add.

  Pitt knew what he meant. There was little satisfaction in it, except that of the mind, and perhaps that Rose Serracold was not guilty. But there was none of the connection to Voisey they had hoped for. It was there, but impossible to prove, which made it more acutely painful. Voisey could look at them and know they knew very clearly what he had done, and why, and that he would succeed.

  “I’m going to Teddington,” Pitt said after a moment or two as they walked along the footpath out of the way of the horses and the fire engines. “Even if there’s nothing I can prove, I want to know that Francis Wray didn’t kill himself.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Narraway said flatly. He gave a thin smile. “Not for your sake! I want to catch Voisey enough to take any chance there is, no matter how slight. But first one of us had better tell Bow Street what’s happened here. We’ve solved their case for them!” He said that with considerable satisfaction. Then he frowned. “Why the devil isn’t Tellman here?”

  Pitt was too tired to bother with a lie. “I sent him to Devon to move my family.” He saw Narraway start. “Voisey knew where they were. He told me so himself.”

  “Did he get there?”

  “Yes.” Pitt said it with infinite satisfaction. “Yes, he did!”

  Narraway grunted. There was no comment worth making. The darkness seemed to be gathering on all sides around Pitt, and facile remarks would be worse than useless. “I’ll tell Wetron about this,” he said instead. “You might tell Cornwallis. He deserves to know.”

  “I will. And someone has to tell the Bishop’s wife. It will be a while before the firemen get to know who he is.”

  “Cornwallis will find someone,” Narraway said quickly. “You haven’t time. And you can’t go looking like that anyway.”

  They reached the end of the pavement at the corner of High Holborn. Narraway hailed the first empty hansom that passed.

  Isadora returned home after having told Cornwallis about the Bishop’s going to Southampton Row. She arrived in the house feeling miserable and horribly ashamed because the step she had taken was irrevocable. She had made her husband’s secret public, and Cornwallis was a policeman; he could not keep such a thing in confidence.

  It was possible the Bishop was actually the person who had killed the unfortunate spirit medium, although the more she thought about it, the less did she actually believe he had done it. But she had not the right to conceal information on the strength of her own beliefs when they were not knowledge. Somebody had killed Maude Lamont, and the other people there that evening seemed equally unlikely.

  She had thought she knew her husband, but she had been completely unaware of his crisis of faith, the terror inside him. It could not have arisen suddenly, even if it had seemed so to him. The underlying weakness must have been there for years, perhaps always?

  How much do we ever know other people, especially if we don’t really care, not deeply, not with compassion and the effort to watch, to listen, to stretch the imagination and to stop placing self to the front? The fact that he did not know her, or particularly want to, was not an excuse.

  She sat thinking all these things, not moving from her chair, not finding anything to comfort herself with or even anything there was purpose in doing until he should return, either with or without the proof he sought.

  What would she say to him then? Would she have to tell him that she had been to Cornwallis? Probably. She would not be able to lie to him, to live in the same house, sit across the meal table and make idiotic conv
ersation about nothing, all the time hiding that secret.

  She was still sitting doing nothing, her mind consumed in thought, when the maid came to say that Captain Cornwallis was in the morning room and said he must see her.

  Her heart lurched, and for a moment she felt so dizzy she could not stand up. So it was Reginald who had killed the medium! He had been arrested. She told the maid that she would come, and then as the girl stood staring at her, she realized she had spoken only in her mind.

  “Thank you,” she said aloud. “I shall see him.” Very slowly she stood up. “Please do not interrupt unless I send for you. I . . . I fear it may be bad news.” She walked past the girl and out of the door, across the hall and into the morning room, closing the door behind her before she faced Cornwallis.

  At last she looked at him. He was very pale, his eyes fixed as if something had shocked him so profoundly he was slow to react in the most physical sense. He took a step towards her, then stopped.

  “I . . . I know of no gentle way to tell you . . .” he began.

  The room swam around her. It was true! She had not even really thought it could be, not even a moment ago.

  She felt his hands on her arms, holding her, almost supporting her weight. It was ridiculous, but her legs were buckling under her. She staggered back and sank into one of the chairs. He was leaning over her, his face tense with overwhelming emotion.

  “Bishop Underhill went to Southampton Row and spoke for some time to the housekeeper, Lena Forrest,” he was saying. “We do not know exactly what was the cause, but there was a fire, and then an explosion which broke the gas lines.”

  She blinked. “Is he . . . hurt?” Why did she not ask what really mattered: Is he guilty?

  “I am afraid there was another, bigger explosion,” he said very quietly. “They were both killed. There is very little left of the house. I’m so sorry.”