Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 05] Page 4

  “All right, you’d better get on with it! Do what you can.” He waved his hand to indicate that Pitt could leave. “Let me know in a day or two. Good night.”

  Pitt stood up. There was nothing else to say, no argument that was worth making.

  “Good night, sir.” He went out of the polished office and closed the door behind him.

  When Pitt arrived home, he was tired and cold. Indecision was no more than a shadow at the back of his mind, disturbing his certainty, spoiling the solidity of his will. It was his job to resolve mysteries, to find offenders and hand them over to the law for trial. But he had seen the damage that the resolution of all secrets could bring; every person should have the right to a certain degree of privacy, a chance to forget or to overcome. Crime must be paid for, but not all sins or mistakes need be made public and explained for everyone to examine and remember. And sometimes victims were punished doubly, once by the offense itself, and then a second and more enduring time when others heard of it, pored over it, and imagined every intimate detail.

  Could that be so with Arthur Waybourne? Was there any point now in exposing his weakness or his tragedy?

  And if answers were dangerous, half answers were worse. The other half was built by the imagination; even the innocent were involved and could never disprove what was not real to begin with. Surely that was a greater wrong than the original crime, because it was not committed in the heat of emotion or by instinct, but deliberately, and without fear or danger to oneself. There was almost an element of voyeurism, a self-righteousness in it that sickened him.

  Were Gillivray and Athelstan right? Was there no chance of finding the person who had murdered Arthur? If it had nothing to do with his private weaknesses, his sins, or sickness, then the investigation would only publicize the pain of a lot of men and women who were probably no more to blame than most people, for one omission or another.

  At first he said nothing about it to Charlotte. In fact, he said very little at all, eating his meal in near silence in the parlor, which was soft in the evening gaslight. He was unaware of his withdrawal until Charlotte put it into words.

  “What is the decision?” she asked, as she laid down her knife and fork and folded her napkin.

  He looked up, surprised.

  “Decision? About what?”

  Her mouth tightened in a tiny smile. “Whatever it is that has been tormenting you all evening. I’ve watched it wavering back and forth across your face ever since you came in.”

  He relaxed with a little sigh.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, I suppose I have been. But it’s an unpleasant case. I’d rather not discuss it with you.”

  She stood, picked up the plates, and stacked them on the sideboard. Gracie worked all day, but she was permitted to leave the dinner dishes until the following morning.

  Pitt went to sit by the fire. He eased into the fat, padded chair with relief.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said briskly, coming to sit opposite him. “I’ve already been involved with all sorts of murders. My stomach is as strong as yours.”

  He did not bother to argue. She had never even imagined most of the things he had seen in the rookery slums: filth and misery beyond the imagination of any sane person.

  “Well?” She came back and sat down, looking at him expectantly.

  He hesitated. He wanted her opinion, but he could not tell her the dilemma without the details. If the disease or the homosexuality was omitted, there would be no problem. Eventually he gave in to his need and told her.

  “Oh,” she said when he finished. She sat without saying anything more for so long that he was afraid he had distressed her too deeply, perhaps confused or disgusted her.

  He leaned forward and took her hand.

  “Charlotte?”

  She looked up. There was pain in her eyes, but it was the pain of pity, not confusion or withdrawal. He felt an overwhelming surge of relief, a desire to hold on to her, feel her in his arms. He wanted even just to touch her hair, to pull out its neat coils and thread his fingers through its softness. But it seemed inappropriate; she was thinking of a dead boy, hardly more than a child, and of the tragic compulsions that had driven someone to use him, and then destroy him.

  “Charlotte?” he said again.

  Her face was screwed up with doubt as she met his eyes.

  “Why should ruffians put him down into the sewers?” she said slowly. “In a place like Bluegate Fields, what would it matter if he were found? Don’t you find bodies there anyway? I mean—wouldn’t ruffians have hit him over the head, or stabbed him? Kidnappers might drown him! But there’s no point in kidnapping someone if you don’t know who he is—because whom do you ask for a ransom?”

  He stared at her. He knew what her answer was going to be long before she framed it in words herself.

  “It had to be someone who knew him, Thomas. For it to have been strangers doesn’t make any sense! They’d have robbed him and left him there in the street, or in an alley. Maybe—” She frowned; she did not believe it herself. “Maybe it has nothing to do with whoever used him—but don’t you think it has? People don’t just suddenly stop having ‘relationships.’ ” She used a delicate word, but they both knew what she meant. “Not where there isn’t love. Whoever it is, he’ll find someone else now this boy is dead—won’t he?”

  He sat back wearily. He had been deceiving himself because it would be easier, would avoid the unpleasantness and the pain.

  “I expect so,” he admitted. “Yes, I suppose he will. I can’t take the chance. You’re right,” he sighed. “Damn.”

  Charlotte could not put the boy’s death out of her mind. She did not speak of it again that evening to Pitt; he was already full of the knowledge of it and wanted to bar it from his thoughts, to have some hours to restore his emotions and revitalize.

  But through the night she woke often. As she lay staring at the ceiling, Pitt silent beside her in the sleep of exhaustion, her mind compelled her to think over and over what sort of tragedy had finally ended in this dreadful manner.

  Of course she did not know the Waybournes—they were hardly within her social circle—but her sister Emily might. Emily had married into the aristocracy and moved in high society now.

  Then she remembered that Emily was away in the country, in Leicestershire, visiting a cousin of George’s. They were to go hunting, or something of the sort. She could picture Emily in immaculate riding habit as she sat perched on her sidesaddle, heart in her throat, wondering whether she could take the fences without falling off and making a fool of herself, yet determined not to admit defeat. There would be an enormous hunt breakfast: two hundred people or more, the master in glorious pink, hounds milling around the horses’ feet, chatter, shouts to order, the smell of frost—not, of course, that Charlotte had ever been to a hunt! But she had heard from those who had.

  And neither could she turn to Great-Aunt Vespasia—she had gone to Paris for the month. She would have been ideal; she had known absolutely everyone that mattered over the last fifty years.

  But then, according to Pitt, Waybourne was only a baronet, a very minor title—it could even have been bought in trade. Her own father was a banker and man of affairs; her mother might know Lady Waybourne. It was at least worth trying. If she could meet the Waybournes socially, when they were not guarding themselves against the vulgarity and intrusion of the police, she might learn something that would be of use to Pitt.

  Naturally, they would be in mourning now, but there were always sisters or cousins, or even close friends—people who would, as a matter of course, know of relationships that would never be discussed with persons of the lower orders, such as professional investigators.

  Accordingly, without mentioning it to Pitt, she took an omnibus just before lunch the following day and called on her mother at her home in Rutland Place.

  “Charlotte, my dear!” Her mother was delighted to see her; it seemed she had completely forgiven her for that miserable affair over
the Frenchman. There was nothing but warmth in Caroline’s face now. “Do stay for luncheon—Grandmama will be down in half an hour, and we shall have lunch. I am expecting Dominic any moment.” She hesitated, searching Charlotte’s eyes for any shadow of the old enchantment when she had been so in love with the husband of her eldest sister, Sarah, when Sarah was still alive. But she found nothing; indeed, Charlotte’s feelings for Dominic had long since faded into simple affection.

  The anxiety disappeared. “It will be an excellent party. How are you, my dear? How are Jemima and Daniel?”

  For some time they discussed family affairs. Charlotte could hardly launch instantly into inquiries her mother would be bound to disapprove of. She had always found Charlotte’s meddling in Pitt’s affairs both alarming and in the poorest possible taste.

  There was a thump on the door. The maid opened it, and Grandmama swept in, wearing dourest black, her hair screwed up in a style that had been fashionable thirty years before, when society, in her opinion, had reached its zenith—it had been on the decline ever since. Her face was sharp with irritation. She eyed Charlotte up and down silently, then whacked the chair nearest to her with her stick to make sure it was precisely where she supposed, and sat down in it heavily.

  “Didn’t know you were coming, child!” she observed. “Have you no manners to inform people? Don’t suppose you have a calling card either, eh? When I was young, a lady did not drop in to a person’s house without due notice, as if she were a piece of unsolicited postage! No one has any manners these days. And I take it you will be getting one of these contraptions with strings and bells, and the good Lord knows what else? Telephones! Talking to people on electric wires, indeed!” She sniffed loudly. “Since dear Prince Albert died, all moral sensibility has declined. It is the Prince of Wales’s fault—the scandals one hears are enough to make one faint! What about Mrs. Langtry? No better than she should be, I’ll be bound!” She squinted at Charlotte, her eyes bright and angry.

  Charlotte ignored the matter of the Prince of Wales and returned to the question of the telephone.

  “No, Grandmama, they are very expensive—and, for me, quite unnecessary.”

  “Quite unnecessary for anyone!” Grandmama snorted. “Lot of nonsense! What’s wrong with a perfectly good letter?” She swiveled a little to glare at Charlotte face to face. “Though you always wrote a shocking hand! Emily was the only one of you who could handle a pen like a lady. Don’t know what you were thinking of, Caroline! I brought up my daughter to know all the arts a lady should, the proper things—embroidery, painting, singing and playing the pianoforte pleasingly—the sort of occupations proper for a lady. None of this meddling in other people’s affairs, politics and such. Never heard such nonsense! That’s men’s business, and not good for the health or the welfare of women. I’ve told you that before, Caroline.”

  Grandmama was Charlotte’s father’s mother, and never tired of telling her daughter-in-law how things should be done to conform with standards as they used to be in her own youth, when things were conducted properly.

  Mercifully they were saved any further pursuance of the subject by Dominic’s arrival. He was as elegant as always but now the grace of his movement, the way his dark hair grew to his quick smile stirred no pain in Charlotte at all. She felt only the pleasure of seeing a friend.

  He greeted them all charmingly, even Grandmama, and as always she dissembled in front of him. She examined him for something to criticize and failed to find anything. She was not sure whether she was pleased or disappointed. It was not desirable that young men, however attractive, should be too satisfied with themselves. It did them no good at all. She looked at him again, more carefully.

  “Is your barber indisposed?” she said at last.

  Dominic’s black eyebrows rose a little.

  “You consider my hair ill-cut, Grandmama?” He still gave her the courtesy title, even though his membership in the family was far more distant since Sarah’s death and his move from the house in Cater Street to his own lodgings.

  “I had not realized it had been cut at all!” she replied, screwing up her face. “At least not recently! Have you considered joining the army?”

  “No, never,” he said, affecting surprise. “Are their barbers good?”

  She snorted with infinite contempt and turned to Caroline.

  “I’m ready for luncheon. How long am I obliged to wait? Are we expecting yet another guest I have not been told of?”

  Caroline opened her mouth to argue, then resigned herself to the futility of it.

  “Immediately, Mother-in-law,” she said, standing up and reaching for the bell. “I will have it served now.”

  Charlotte did not find an opportunity to raise the name of the Waybournes until after soup had been served and eaten, the plates removed, and the fish set on the table.

  “Waybourne?” Grandmama balanced an enormous portion on her fork, her eyes like black prunes. “Waybourne?” The fish overbalanced and fell on her plate into a pile of sauce. She scooped it up again and put it into her mouth, her cheeks bulging.

  “I don’t think so.” Caroline shook her head. “Who was Lady Waybourne before she was married, do you know?”

  Charlotte had to admit that she had no idea.

  Grandmama swallowed with a gulp and coughed violently.

  “That’s the trouble with the world these days!” she snapped when she caught her breath. “Nobody knows who anyone is anymore! Society has gone to the dogs!” She took another huge mouthful of fish and glared at each of them in turn.

  “Why do you ask?” Caroline inquired innocently. “Are you considering whether to pursue an acquaintance?”

  Dominic appeared lost in his own thoughts.

  “Are they people you have met?” Caroline continued.

  Grandmama swallowed. “Hardly!” she said with considerable acid. “If they are people we might be acquainted with, then they would not move in Charlotte’s circle. I told her that when she insisted on running off and marrying that extraordinary creature from the Bow Street runners, or whatever they call them these days! I don’t know what you were thinking of, Caroline, to allow such a thing! If one of my daughters had ever entertained such an idea, I’d have locked her in her bedroom until she came out of it!” She spoke as if it were some kind of fit.

  Dominic covered his face with his napkin to hide his smile, but it still showed in his eyes as he looked up quickly at Charlotte.

  “A lot of things were done in your day that are impractical now,” Caroline said crossly. “Times change, Mama-in-law.”

  Grandmama banged her fork on her empty plate and her eyebrows rose almost to her hair.

  “The bedroom door still has a lock on it, has it not?” she demanded.

  “Vanderley,” Dominic said suddenly.

  Grandmama swung around to face him. “What did you say?”

  “Vanderley,” he repeated. “Benita Waybourne was Vanderley before she married. I remember because I know Esmond Vanderley.”

  Charlotte instantly forgot about Grandmama and her insults, and looked at him with excitement.

  “Do you? Could you possibly find a way to introduce me—discreetly, of course? Please?”

  He looked a bit startled. “If you wish—but whatever for? I don’t think you would like him. He is fashionable, and quite amusing—but I think you would find him very light.”

  “All young men are light-minded these days!” Grandmama said morosely. “No one knows their duty anymore.”

  Charlotte ignored her. She had already thought of her excuse. It was a complete lie, but desperate situations occasionally call for a little invention.

  “It is for a friend,” she said, looking at no one in particular. “A certain young person I know—a romantic affair. I would rather not divulge the details. They are”—she hesitated delicately—“most personal.”

  “Indeed!” Grandmama scowled. “I hope it is nothing sordid.”

  “Not in the least.” Cha
rlotte jerked her head up and faced her, finding suddenly that it gave her great pleasure to lie to the old lady. “She is of good family but slight resources, and she wishes to better herself. I’m sure you would sympathize with that, Grandmama.”

  Grandmama gave her a suspicious look, but did not argue. Instead she glanced across at Caroline.

  “We are all finished! Why don’t you ring the bell and have them dish the next course? I presume we are to have a next course? I don’t want to sit here all afternoon! We may have callers. Do you wish them to find us still at luncheon?”

  Resignedly, Caroline reached out and rang the bell.

  When it was time to leave, Charlotte bade her mother and grandmother goodbye. Dominic escorted her out and offered to take her home in a hansom. He knew her circumstances: that otherwise she would have to walk to an omnibus. She gratefully accepted, both for the comfort and because she wished to pursue the matter of a meeting with Esmond Vanderley, who must be, if Dominic was correct, the dead boy’s uncle.

  Inside the hansom, he looked at her skeptically.

  “It’s unlike you to interfere in other people’s romances, Charlotte. Who is she, that her ‘betterment’ has engaged your assistance?”

  She debated rapidly whether it would be advisable to continue the lie or to tell him the truth. On the whole, the truth was better—at least it was more consistent.

  “It isn’t a romance at all,” she confessed. “It is a crime.”

  “Charlotte!”

  “A very serious one!” she said hastily. “And if I lean something of the circumstances, I may prevent its happening again. Truly, Dominic, it is something Thomas would never learn in the way we could!”

  He looked at her sideways. “We?” he said cautiously.