Charlotte could hardly wait until Pitt returned. She made the easiest of meals, placed it in the oven to cook itself, and then flitted from one job to another, accomplishing nothing. It was quarter past six when at last she heard the front door open, and she instantly dropped the linen cloth in her hand and ran from the kitchen to meet him. Usually she forced herself to let him come to the warmth of the big cooking range, take off his coat, and sit down before speaking to him of the day, but this time she shouted as soon as his foot was in the passage.
"Thomas! Thomas, I saw Alston Spencer-Brown today, and I discovered something!" She ran down the corridor and grasped at both his hands. "I think I know something about Mina- perhaps why she was killed!"
He was wet and tired, and not in the best of moods. His superiors were still clinging to the belief that it must have been suicide while the balance of her mind was upset by some private distress. It could all be so much more decently disposed of, and without turning over a lot of people's lives to investigate affairs that were far preferably left alone. Uncovering causes for enmity was always an ugly and unpopular occupation, and seldom prof shy;ited the career of whoever undertook it-at least not if he was of a rank sufficiently advanced that there was no validity in the shield that he was merely following orders.
Pitt's superior, Dudley Athelstan, was a younger son who had married well and had an ambition that fed on its own success. He had spent the latter part of the day trying to persuade Pitt that there was no case to investigate. There were any number of ways an unbalanced woman might come by sufficient poison to take her own life if that was what she had determined to do. When Pitt had left him, Athelstan had been in growing ill-humor because he could not convince even himself, let alone Pitt and Sergeant Harris, that the matter had been answered beyond reasonable doubt, for no chemist or apothecary could be found who had sold such a substance, and certainly no doctor had prescribed it, no matter how diligently they had searched.
Now Pitt started to undo his coat. It was dripping in the hallway, and the day before he had received a very wounded and sober criticism from Gracie about the amount of labor it took to get the floor to its degree of polish, without inconsiderate people spilling water all over it.
"Why did you go and see Alston Spencer-Brown?" he in shy;quired a little sourly. "He's surely nothing to do with you, or your mother?"
Charlotte could feel the irritation in him as if he had brought the cold in from the street, but she was too excited to take heed.
"The murder is to do with Mama," she said briskly, taking the coat and putting it on a hook to drip further, instead of carrying it through to the kitchen to dry. "We have to get the locket back. Anyway, Emily wanted to visit Mama, and I went with her!" If the flame of the gas lamp in the hallway had been brighter, he might have seen her blush at the half-truth. She turned and walked smartly back to the kitchen and the fire. "Mama went to call upon him to express her sympathy," she explained. "Anyway, that's not important!" She swung around and faced him. "I know at least one good reason why Mina Spencer-Brown might have been killed-maybe two!" She waited, glowing with excitement.
"I can think of a dozen," he said soberly. "But no proof for any of them. It never lacked possibilities, but they are not enough. Superintendent Athelstan wants the case closed. Suicide leaves them decently alone with their grief.''
"Not possibilities," she burst out with impatience. "I mean real reasons! Do you remember I told you Mama said she felt as if she were being followed, watched all the time?"
"No," he said honestly.
"I told you! Mama was aware of someone-most of the time! And Ambrosine Charrington said the same thing. Well, I believe it was Mina! She spied on people-she was what is called a Peeping Tom. Alston said so, in a roundabout sort of way- although of course he didn't realize what he was meaning. Don't you see, Thomas? If she followed someone with a secret, a real secret, she may have learned something that was worth killing over. And I know from Alston of at least two possibilities!"
He sat down and took off his wet boots. "What?"
"Don't you believe me?" She had expected him to receive the news eagerly, and now he looked as if he were listening only to humor her.
He was too tired to be polite.
"I think your mother's affaire is probably not as serious as you imagine. Plenty of people have a little flirtation, especially Society women who have little else to do. You should know that by now. I expect it's all dropped handkerchiefs and bunches of flowers-about as real as a piece of embroidery. And I daresay if anyone was watching her, it was only out of boredom. You are making too much of it, Charlotte. If she were not your mother, you would take no notice."
She restrained herself with great difficulty. For a moment she considered losing her temper, telling him that the outward show might be trivial but the feeling underneath was as real and as potentially violent as anything conducted in the back streets, or in less naturally restricted levels of Society. Then she realized how tired he was, how discouraged by Athelstan's desire to hide or ignore what did not suit his ambition. Anger would communi shy;cate nothing.
"Would you like a cup of tea?" she said instead, looking at his wet feet and the white skin of his hands where the cold had numbed the circulation. Without waiting for an answer, she topped up the kettle and moved it from the back of the stove onto the front.
After a few moments' silence while he put on dry socks, he looked up.
"What are these two possibilities?"
She heated the teapot and measured out the tea.
"Theodora von Schenck has an income, lately acquired, which nobody can account for. Her husband left her nothing, nor did anyone else, apparently. When she came to Rutland Place, she had nothing but the house. Now she has coats with sable collars, and Mina perhaps put forward some very interesting speculations as to where they might have come from."
"Like what?" he inquired.
She jiggled the teapot impatiently while the kettle blew faint halfhearted whiffs of steam, hot but not yet boiling.,
"A brothel," Charlotte answered. "Or a lover. Or blackmail? There are all sorts of things worth killing to hide, where money is concerned. Maybe Theodora was blackmailing people with Mina's information and they had a fight over the money."
He smiled sourly. "Indeed. Your Mina seems to have had a most uncharitable turn of imagination, and a tongue to go with it. Are you sure that is what she said, and not what you are thinking for her?"
"Alston remarked several times on how perceptive she was of other people's characters, especially the less pleasant aspects of them. But he also said that she never spoke of them to anyone but him." She reached for the kettle at last. "However, that is the less likely possibility of the two, I think. The other possibil shy;ity I remember Mina mentioning myself, and with a kind of relish, as if she knew something." She poured the water onto the tea and put on the lid, then brought the pot to the table and set it on the polished pewter stand. She let it brew while she went on: "It has to do with the death of Ottilie Charrington, which was sudden and unexplained. One week she was in perfect health, and the next the family returned from a holiday in the country and said she was dead. Just like that! No one ever said from what cause, no one was invited to any funeral, and she was never mentioned again. Mina apparently hinted that there was something very shameful about it-perhaps a badly done abortion?" She shivered and thought of Jemima asleep upstairs in her pink cot. "Or she was murdered by a lover, or in some unbearable place, like a brothel. Or possibly even she did some shy;thing so terrible that her own family murdered her to keep it silent!"
Pitt looked at her gravely, without speaking.
She poured the tea and passed him his cup.
"I know it sounds violent, and unlikely," she went on. "But then I suppose murder always is unlikely-until it actually happens. And.Mina was murdered, wasn't she? You know now that she didn't kill herself."
"No." He sipped the tea and burned his mouth; his hands were too numb for him to have realized its heat. "No, I think someone else put poison into the cordial wine we found in her stomach in the autopsy. We found the dregs in the empty bottle in her bedroom, and a glass. It was just chance she took it when she did; it could have been anytime she felt like it. It could have been anyone who put it there, anytime."
"Not if they wanted to silence her," Charlotte pointed out. "If you are afraid of someone, you want them dead before they speak, which means as soon as possible. Thomas, I really do believe she was a Peeping Tom. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. She peeped once too often and saw some shy;thing that cost her her life." She stared down into her tea, watching the vapor curl off it and rise gently. "I wonder if people who get murdered are usually unpleasant, if they have some flaw in them that invites murder? I mean people that aren't killed for money, of course. Like Shakespearean tragic heroes- one fatal deformity of soul that mars all the rest that might have been good." She stirred her tea, although there was no sugar in it. The steam curled thicker. "Curiosity killed the cat. If Mina had not wanted to know so much about everybody. . I wonder if she knew about Monsieur Alaric, and Mama's locket?" Oddly enough, she was not afraid. Caroline was foolish, but there was neither the viciousness nor the fear in her to make her kill. And Paul Alaric had no reason to.
He looked up sharply, and too late she realized she had not mentioned Alaric's name before. Of course Pitt could not have forgotten him from Paragon Walk. At one time they had sus shy;pected him of murder … or worse!
"Alaric?" he said slowly, searching her face.
She felt herself flush, and was furious. It was Caroline who was behaving foolishly; she, Charlotte, had done nothing indiscreet.
"Monsieur Alaric is the man whose picture Mama has in the locjket," she said defensively, looking straight back at him. And then because his eyes were too clear, too wise, she turned away and stirred her sugarless tea vigorously once again. She tried to sound casual. "Did I not mention that?"
"No." She knew he was still watching her, "No-you didn't."
"Oh." She kept her eyes on the swirling tea. "Well, he is."
There were several moments of silence.
"Indeed?" he said at last. "Well, I'm afraid we didn't find the locket-or any of the other stolen things, for that matter. And if Mina was a Peeping Tom, stealing for the sake of a sick need to know about other people, to possess something of them-" He saw her shudder, and he gave a sigh. "Isn't that what you are saying? That she was abnormal, perverted?"
"I suppose so."
He tried his tea again. "And of course there is the other possibility," he added. "Maybe she knew who the thief was."
"How tragic, and ridiculous!" she said with sudden anger. ' 'Someone dying over a few silly things like a locket and a buttonhook!"
"Lots of people have died for less." The rookeries came to his mind with their teeming misery and need. "Some for a shilling, some by accident for something they didn't have, or in mistake for somebody else.''
She sipped her tea. "Are you going to investigate it?" she said at last.
"There's no choice. I'll see what I can find out about Ottilie Charrington. Poor soul! I hate digging through other people's wretched tragedies. It must be bad enough to lose a daughter, without the police unburying every indiscretion, putting every love or hate under a magnifying glass. No one wants to be seen so clearly!"
But the following morning the necessity was just as plain. If Charlotte was right and Mina had been inquiring, peeping at other people, then it was more than probable that some knowl shy;edge gained that way had been the cause of her death. He had heard before of people, outwardly normal people, often respectable, who were diseased with a compulsion to watch others, to pry into intimate things, to follow, to lift curtains aside, even to open letters and listen at doors. This compulsion always led to dislike and fear, often to imprisonment. It was inevitable that one day it would bring about murder also.
He could hardly start by going directly to the Charringtons. There was no excuse for him to question them about their daughter's death so long after the event unless he were to tell them of his suspicions, and that was obviously impossible at this point. It might be slander, at best. And on so tenuous a thread they would have no obligation to answer him even so.
Instead he went back to Mulgrew. The doctor had attended most of the families of Rutland Place, and if he had not known Ottilie himself, he would almost certainly be able to tell Pitt who had.
"Filthy day!" Mulgrew greeted him cheerfully. "Owe you a couple of handkerchiefs. Obliged to you. Act of a gentleman. How are you? Come in and dry yourself." He waved his arms to conduct Pitt along the hallway. "Street's like a river, or perhaps I should say a gutter! What's wrong now? Not sick, are you? Can't cure a cold, you know. Or backache. No one can! At least if someone can, I've not met him!" He led the way back to an overcrowded room full of photographs and mementos, bookcases on every wall, cascades of papers and folios sliding off tables and stools. A large Labrador lay asleep in front of the fire.
"No, I'm not sick." Pitt followed him with a feeling of relief, even elation. Suddenly the ugly things became more bearable, the darkness he must probe less full of shapeless fear, but rather known things, things that could be endured.
"Sit down." Mulgrew waved an arm widely. "Oh, tip the cat off. She always gets on there the moment my back is turned. Pity she has so much white in her-damn white hairs stick to my pants. Don't mind, do you?"
Pitt eased the little animal off the chair and sat down smiling.
"Not at all. Thank you."
Mulgrew sat opposite him.
"Well, if you're not sick, what is it? Not Mina Spencer-Brown again? Thought we proved she died of belladonna?"
The little cat curled itself around Pitt's legs, purring gently, then hopped up onto his knees and wound itself into a knot, face hidden, and fell asleep instantly.
Pitt touched it with pleasure. Charlotte had wanted a cat. He must get her one, one like this.
"Are you physician to the Charringtons as well?" he asked.
Mulgrew's eyes opened wide in surprise.
"Throw her off if you want," he said, pointing to the cat. "Yes, I am. Why? Nothing wrong with any of them, is there?"
"Not so far as I know. Except that their daughter died. Did you know her?"
"Ottilie? Yes, lovely girl." His face retreated quite suddenly into lines of heavy sorrow. "One of the saddest things I know, her death. Miss her. Lovely girl."
Pitt was aware of a genuine grief, not the professional sadness of a doctor who loses a patient, but a sense of personal bereavement, of some happiness that no longer existed. He was embarrassed to have to continue. He had not expected emotion; he had been prepared only for thought, academic investigation. The mystery of murder was ephemeral, even paltry; it was the emotions, the fire of pain, and the long wastelands afterward that were real.
His hands found the cat's warm little body again, and he stroked it softly, comforting himself as much as pleasing the animal.
"What caused her death?" he asked.
Mulgrew looked up. "I don't know. She didn't die here. Somewhere in the country-Hertfordshire."
"But you were the family physician. Didn't they tell you what it was?"
"No. They said very little. Didn't seem to want to talk about it. Natural, I suppose. Shock. Grief takes people differently."
"It was very sudden, I understand?"
Mulgrew was looking into the fire, his eyes away from Pitt's, seeing something he could not share.
"Yes. No warning at all."
"And they didn't tell you what it was?"
"No."
"Didn't you ask?"
"I suppose I must have. All I can really remember was the shock, and how nobody spoke of it, almost as if by not putting it into words they could undo it, stop it from being real. I didn't press them. How could I?"
"But as far as you know she was perfectly well at the time she left Rutland Place?" Pitt inquired.
Mulgrew looked at him at last.
"One of the healthiest I know. Why? Obviously it matters to you or you wouldn't be here asking so many questions. Do you imagine it has something to do with Mrs. Spencer-Brown?"
"I don't know. It's one of several possibilities."
"What kind of possibility?" Mulgrew's face creased in pain. "Ottilie was eccentric, even in bad taste to many, but there was nothing evil in her. She was one of the most truly generous people I ever knew. I mean generous with her time-she was never too busy to listen if she thought someone needed to talk. And generous with her praise-she didn't grudge appreciation, or envy other people's successes."
So Mulgrew had loved her, in whatever manner. Pitt did not need to know more: the warmth in Mulgrew's voice told of the loss still hurting him, twisting an emptiness inside.
It made Pitt's own thoughts, prompted by Charlotte, the more painful. It was sharp enough for him to lie. He needed to think about it a little, come to it by degrees. He did not look at Mulgrew when he spoke.
"From evidence I've just heard"-he measured his words slowly-"it seems possible that Mina Spencer-Brown was inordi shy;nately curious about other people's affairs, that she listened, and peeped. Does that seem likely to you?"
Mulgrew's eyes widened and he stared at Pitt, but he did not answer for several minutes. The fire crackled, and on Pitt's knees the cat woke and started kneading him gently with her claws. Absentmindedly he eased her up to rest on his jacket, where she could not reach her claws through to his flesh.
"Yes," Mulgrew said at last. "Never occurred to me before, but she was a watcher, never missed a thing. Sometimes people do that. Knowledge gives them an illusion of power, I suppose. It becomes compulsive. Mina could have been one of them. Intelligent woman, but an empty life-one stupid, prattling party after another. Poor creature." He leaned forward and put another piece of coal on the fire. "All day, every day, and not really necessary anywhere. What a bloody stupid thing to die for- some piece of information acquired through idiotic curiosity, no use to you at all." He turned his face away from the firelight. "And you think it had something to do with Ottilie Charrington?"
"I don't know. Apparently, Mina thought her death was a mystery, hinting that there was a great deal more to it than had been told and that she knew what it was."
"Stupid, sad, cruel woman," Mulgrew said quietly. "What on earth did she imagine it was?"
"I don't know. The possibilities are legion." He did not Want to spell them out and hurt this man still more, but he had to mention at least one, if only to discount it. "A badly done abortion, for example?"
Mulgrew did not move.
"I believe not," he said very levelly. "I cannot swear to it, but I believe not. Do you have to pursue it?"
"At least enough to satisfy myself it is wrong."
"Then ask her brother Inigo Charrington. They were always close. Don't ask Lovell. He's a pompous idiot-can't see further than the quality of print on a calling card! Ottilie drove him frantic. She used to sing songs from the music halls-God only knows where she learned them! Sang one on a Sunday once- drinking song, it was, something about beer-not even a decent claret! Ambrosine called me in. She thought Lovell was going to take a seizure. Purple to the hair, he was, poor fool."
At any other time Pitt would have laughed. But the knowledge that Ottilie was dead, perhaps murdered, robbed the anecdote of any humor.
"Pity," he said quietly. "We get so many of our priorities wrong and never know it until afterwards, when it doesn't matter anymore. Thank you. I'll speak to Inigo." He stood up and put the little cat on the warm spot where he had been sitting. She stretched and curled up again, totally content.
Mulgrew shot to his feet. "But that can't be all! If Mina, wretched woman, was a Peeping Tom, she must have seen other things-God knows what! Affaires, at least! There's more than one butler around here should lose his job, that I know of-and more than one parlormaid, if her mistress knew of it!"
Pitt pulled a face. "I daresay. I'll have to look at them all. By the way, did you know there is a sneak thief in Rutland Place?"
"Oh God, that too! No, I didn't know, but it doesn't surprise me. It happens every now and then."
"Not a servant. One of the residents."
"Oh, my God!" Mulgrew's face fell. "Are you sure?"
"Beyond reasonable doubt."
"What a wretched business. I suppose it couldn't have been Mina herself?"
"Yes, it could. Or it could have been her murderer."
"I thought my job was foul at times. I'd a damned sight rather have it than yours."
"I think I would too, at the moment," Pitt said. "Unfortunately we can't chop and change. I couldn't do yours, even if you were willing to trade. Thanks for your help."
"Come back if I can do anything." Mulgrew put out his hand, and Pitt clasped it hard. A few minutes later he was outside again in the rain.
It took him two and a half hours to find Inigo Charrington, by which time it was past noon and Inigo was at the dining table in his club. Pitt was obliged to wait in the smoking room, under the disapproving eye of a dyspeptic steward who kept clearing his throat with irritating persistence, till Pitt found he was counting the seconds each time, waiting for him to do it again.
Finally, Inigo came in and was informed in hushed tones of Pitt's presence. He came over to him, his face a mixture of amusement at the steward's dilemma-and his own as other eyes were raised to stare at him-and apprehension about what Pitt might want. '.
"Inspector Pitt?" He dropped rather sharply into the chair opposite. "From the police?"
"Yes, sir." Pitt regarded him with interest. He was slender, not more than thirty at the most, with an odd, quick-silver face and auburn hair.
"Something else happened?" Inigo said anxiously.
"No, sir." Pitt regretted having alarmed him. Somehow he could not picture him having murdered his sister, or Mina either, to keep a scandal quiet. There was too much sheer humor in his face. "No, nothing at all, that I am aware of. But we have still not found any satisfactory answer as to how Mrs. Spencer-Brown met her death. There seems no explanation, so far, that makes either accident or suicide possible."
"Oh." Indigo sat back a little. "I suppose that means it could only have been murder. Poor soul."
"Indeed. And I daresay a great deal more pain will be caused before the business is finished."
Inigo looked at him gravely. "I imagine so. What do you want me for? I don't think I know anything. I certainly didn't know Mina very well." His mouth turned down in a sour smile. "I didn't have any reason to kill her. Although I suppose you can hardly take my word for that! I wouldn't be likely to tell you so if I had!"
Pitt found himself smiling back. "Hardly. What I was hoping for was information." He could not afford to be direct. Inigo was far too quick; he would anticipate suspicion and cover any trace of real worth.
"About Mina? You'd do much better asking some of the women-even my mother. She's rather absentminded at times, and she gets her gossip a little twisted, but underneath it all she's a pretty shrewd judge of character. She may get her facts wrong, but her feelings are invariably right."
"I shall ask her," Pitt said. "But she might speak considera shy;bly more freely to me if I had approached you first. Normally ladies such as Mrs. Charrington do not confide their opinions of their neighbors to the police."
Inigo's face softened into mercurial laughter, gone in an instant.
"Very tactfully put, Inspector. I imagine they don't. Although Mama has a taste for the bizarre. I'll mention it to her this evening. She might surprise you and tell you all sorts of things. Although quite honestly, she isn't really a gossip. Not enough malice in her. She used to like to shock people occasionally when she was younger. Got bored with everyone repeating the same rubbish evening after evening at the same parties-just different dresses and different houses, but all the same con shy;versations. Bit like Tillie."
"Tillie?" Pitt was lost.
"My sister-Ottilie. Better not repeat that. My father used to go into an apoplexy when I called her Tillie when we were children."
"And she liked to shock people?" Pitt quickly asked.
"Loved it. Never heard anyone laugh like Tillie. It was beautiful, rich, the sort of laughter that you have to join in with even if you have no idea what was funny."
"She sounds like a delightful person. I'm sorry I shall not meet her." He found it was far more than a sympathetic platitude; he meant what he said. Ottilie was something good that he had missed.
Inigo's eyes widened for a moment as if he did not understand; then he let out a little sigh.
"Oh. Yes. You would have liked her. Everything seems rather colder now she's gone, not the same color in things. But that isn't what you're here for. What do you want to know?"
"I understand she died very suddenly?"
"Yes. Why?" -
"It must have been a great shock. I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
"Those fevers can be very sudden-no warning," he tried experimentally.
"What? Oh yes, very. But this must be wasting your time. What about Mina Spencer-Brown? She certainly didn't die of a fever. And Tillie wasn't given belladonna for treatment, I can assure you. Anyway, we were in the country at the time, not here."
"You have a country house?'.'
"Abbots Langley, in Hertfordshire." He smiled. "But you won't find any belladonna there. We all have excellent digestions- need to, some of the cooks we've had! If Papa chooses them, we have all soups and sauces, and if Mama does, then pies and pastries."
Pitt felt intrusive. How could anyone like being a Peeping Tom?
"I wasn't thinking of belladonna," he said honestly. "I am looking for reasons. Somewhere Mrs. Spencer-Brown must have given somebody cause to want her dead. Finding the belladonna is less important."
"Is it?" Inigo's eyebrows rose. "Don't you want to know who, more than why?"
"Of course I do. But anyone could make belladonna out of deadly nightshade. There's plenty of it about in these old gardens. It could have been picked anywhere. It's not like strychnine or cyanide that most people would have to buy."
Inigo winced. "What a terrible thought-going out to get something to kill people." He paused for a moment. "But I honestly haven't any idea why someone should kill Mina. I didn't especially like her. I always thought she was too"-he searched for the word he wanted-"too deliberate, too clever. All head and no heart. She was thinking all the time, never missed anything. I prefer people who are either stupider or less permanently interested. Then if I do something idiotic it can be decently forgotten." He smiled a little crookedly. "But you hardly go out and distill poison for someone because you don't like them very much. I couldn't even say I disliked her-just that I was not entirely comfortable when she was there, which wasn't very of ten."
It all fitted so easily with what Charlotte had said, slid into the pattern and coalesced: a watcher, a listener, adding everything together in her mind, working out answers, understanding things that were intimate.
But how, and for whom, had "not entirely comfortable" changed into "intolerable"?
He wanted to think of a useful question, something to make Inigo believe he was asking about Mina, not Ottilie.
"I never saw her alive. Was she attractive-to men?"
Inigo's face creased with spontaneous laughter.
"Not very subtle, Inspector. No, she wasn't-not to me. I like something a little less schooled, and with more humor. If you ask around the Place, no doubt you will be told my taste runs to the warmhearted, slightly eccentric, for entertainment. And if I were to marry-I really don't know who the woman would be. Someone I really liked-certainly not Mina!"
"You mistake me," Pitt said with a dry smile. "I was think shy;ing of a possible lover, even a rejected one. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but I've found men take it no less kindly, especially vain and successful men. There are many people who believe that loving someone puts the person into some sort of debt to you and gives you certain rights. More than one man has killed a woman because he thought she wasted herself on someone unworthy of her-someone other than himself, that is. I've known men with the notion that they somehow owned a woman's virtue, and if she stained it she had offended not against herself or against God-but against him!"
Inigo stared into the polished surface of the table and smiled very slowly over something he was not prepared to share with Pitt, something at the same time funny and bitter.
"Oh, indeed," he said sincerely. "I believe in feudal times if a woman lost her virginity she had to pay a fine to the lord of the manor, because she was then worth much less to him come the time someone wished to marry her and naturally had to pay the lord for the privilege. We haven't changed so much! We're far too genteel to pay in money, of course, but we still pay!"
Pitt would like to have known what he meant, but to ask would have been vulgar, and he probably would not have been answered.
"Could she have had a lover?" He went back to the original question. "Or an admirer?"
Inigo thought for a few moments before replying.
"Mina? I've never considered it, but I suppose she could have. The oddest people do."
"Why do you say that? She looked as if she had been at least attractive, if not even beautiful."
Inigo seemed surprised himself, "Just her personality. She didn't seem to have any fire, any-gentleness. But then you said an admirer, didn't you? She was very delicate; she had a feminin shy;ity about her that would have been just what appealed to some-a sort of austere purity. And she always dressed to suit it." He smiled apologetically. "But it is pointless asking me who, be shy;cause I have no idea."
"Thank you." Pitt stood up. "I can't think of anything else to ask you. It was most courteous of you to see me, especially here."
"Hardly." Inigo stood up as well. "Your presenting yourself didn't give me a great deal of choice. I had either to see you or to*look like a pompous ass-or, worse than that, as if I had something to hide."
It had been intentional, and Pitt would not insult him by denying it.
He did not go to see Ambrosine Charrington the following day, but instead packed a gladstone bag with clean shirt and socks and took the train from Huston Station to Abbots Langley to see what he could discover about Ottilie Charrington's death.
He spent two days, and the more he learned the more confused he became. He had no trouble in locating the house, for the Charringtons were well known and respected.
He ate a comfortable lunch at the inn, then walked to the local parish churchyard, but there were no Charringtons buried there- neither Ottilie nor anyone else.
"Oh, they've only been here for twenty years, going on," the sexton told him reasonably. "They're newcomers. You won't find any of 'em here. Buried in London somewhere, like as not.''
"But the daughter?" Pitt asked. "She died here little over a year ago!"
"Maybe so, but she ain't buried here," the sexton assured him. "Look for yourself! And I've been to every funeral here in the last twenty-five years. No Charringtons-not a one."
A sudden thought occurred to Pitt.
"How about Catholic or Nonconformist?" he asked. "What other churches are there close by?''
"I know every funeral as goes on in this neighborhood," the sexton said vehemently. "It's my job. And the Charringtons weren't any of them outlandish things. They was gentry-Church of England, like everybody else who knows what's good for them. Church here every Sunday they're in the village. If she'd been buried anywhere around here, it would be in this churchyard. Reckon as you must be mistaken and she died up in London somewhere. Leastways, if she died here, they took her back to London to bury her. Family vault, likely. Lie alongside your own, that's what I always say. Eternity's a mighty time."
"Don't you believe in the Resurrection?" Pitt said curiously.
The sexton's face puckered with disgust At any man who would be so crass as to introduce abstract matters of doctrine into the practicalities of life and death.
"Now what kind of a question is that?" he demanded. "You know when that's going to be, do you? Grave's a long time, a very long time. Should be done proper. You'll be a lot longer in it than any grand house here!"
That was a point beyond argument. Pitt thanked him and set out to find the local doctor.
The doctor knew the Charringtons, but he had not attended Ottilie in her last illness, nor had he written any death certificate.
The following midday, by which time Pitt had seen servants, neighbors, and the postmistress, he caught the train back to London convinced that Ottilie Charrington had been in Abbots Langley on the week of her death but that she had not died there. The booking clerk at the station recalled seeing her on one or two occasions, but he could not swear when; and although she had bought a ticket to London, he did not know if she had returned. '
It seemed an inescapable conclusion that she had died not in Abbots Langley but somewhere unknown, and of some cause unknown.
Now Pitt could not avoid seeing Ambrosine and Lovell Charrington any longer. Even Superintendent Athelstan, much as it pained him, could think of no argument to avoid it, and an appointment was duly made-politely, as if it were a courtesy. Howeverjt was not as Pitt had intended: He would rather have been casual, and preferably have seen Lovell and then Ambrosine separately. But when he had reported on his visit to Abbots Langley, Athelstan had taken the matter into his own hands.
Lovell received Pitt in the withdrawing room. Ambrosine was not present.
"Yes, Inspector?" he said coolly. "I cannot think what else I can tell you about the unfortunate business. I have already done my duty and informed you fully of everything I knew. Poor Mrs. Spencer-Brown was most unstable, sad as it makes me to have to say so. I do ijot interest myself in other people's private lives. Therefore I have no idea what particular crisis may have precipi shy;tated the tragedy."
"No, sir," Pitt said. They were both still standing, Lovell stiff and unprepared to offer any sop to comfort. "No, sir, but it now seems beyond doubt that Mrs. Spencer-Brown did not take her own life. She was murdered."
"Indeed?" Lovell's face was white, and he suddenly reached for the chair behind him. "I suppose you are quite sure? You have not been too hasty, leaped to conclusions? Why should anyone murder her? That is ridiculous! She was a respectable woman!"
Pitt sat down too. "I have no reason to doubt that, sir." He decided to lie, at least by implication; there was no other way he could think of to approach the subject. "Sometimes even the most innocent people are killed."
"Someone insane?" Lovell grasped at the easiest explanation. Insanity was like disease-indiscriminate. Had not Prince Albert himself died of typhus? "Of course. That must be the answer. I am afraid I have seen no strangers about the area, and all our servants are chosen most carefully. We always follow up references."
"Very wise," Pitt heard himself agree, hypocrisy dry in his mouth. "I believe you very tragically lost your own daughter, sir?"
Lovell's face closed over in tight defense, almost hostility.
"Indeed. It is a subject I prefer not to discuss, and it has no relation whatever to the death of Mrs. Spencer-Brown."
"Then you know more of Mrs. Spencer-Brown's death than I do, sir," Pitt replied levelly. "Because as yet I have no knowl shy;edge as to what caused it, or who, let alone why."
Lovell's skin was white, drawn in painful lines around his mouth and jaw. Cords of muscle stood out in his neck, making his high collar sit oddly.
"My daughter was not murdered, sir, if that is what you imagine. There is no question of it. Therefore it can have no connection. Do not let your professional ambition give you to see murder where there is nothing but simple tragedy."
"What did cause her death, sir?" Pitt kept his voice low, aware of the pain he must be inflicting; consciousness of it was stronger than the gulf of feeling and belief between the two men.
"An illness," Lovell replied. "Quite sudden. But it was not poison. If that has occurred to you as a connection, then you are quite mistaken. You would do better to employ your time investi shy;gating Mrs. Spencer-Brown rather than going over other people's family losses. And I refuse to permit you to trouble my wife with these idiotic questions. She has suffered enough. You can have no idea what you are doing!"
"I have a daughter, sir." Pitt was reminding himself as much as this stiff little man in front of him. What if Jemima had died suddenly, without warning to the emotions-full of life one day, and nothing but a vivid, beautiful, and agonizing memory the next? Would he now find it intolerable to discuss it as Lovell did?
He could not guess. If was tragedy beyond the ability of the mind to conjure.
And yet Mina had been someone's daughter too.
"Where did she die, sir?"
Lovell stared at him. "At our house in Hertfordshire. What possible concern is it of yours?"
"And where is she buried, sir?"
Lovell's face flushed scarlet. "I refuse to answer any more questions! This is monstrous impertinence, and grossly offensive! You are paid to discover the cause of Mina Spencer-Brown's death, not to exercise your infernal curiosity about my family and its bereavements. If you have anything to ask me about the matter, then do so! I shall do my best to answer you, according to my duty. Otherwise I request that you leave my house immediately, and do not return unless you have legitimate busi shy;ness here! Do you understand me, sir?"
"Yes, Mr. Charrington," Pitt said very softly. "I under shy;stand you perfectly. Was your daughter friendly with Mrs. Spencer-Brown?"
"Not particularly. I think they were no more than civil to one another. There was a considerable difference in their ages."
A completely random thought occurred to Pitt.
"Was your daughter well acquainted with Mr. Lagarde?"
"They had known each other for some time," Lovell replied stiffly. "But there was no"-he hesitated while he chose his word-"no fondness between them. Most unfortunate. It would have been an excellent match. My wife and I tried to encourage her, but Ottilie had no-" He stopped, his face hardening again. "That is hardly pertinent to your inquiry, Inspector. Indeed, it is not pertinent to anything at all now. Forgive me, but I think you are wasting both your time and mine. There is nothing I can tell you. I bid you good day."
Pitt considered whether to argue, to insist, but he did not believe that Lovell would tell him anything more.
He stood up. "Thank you for your assistance. I hope it will not be necessary to trouble you again. Good day, sir."
"I hope not indeed." Lovell rose. "The footman will show you out."
Rutland Place was pale with watery sun. In one or two gar shy;dens green daffodil leaves stood like bayonets, yellow banners of bloom held above them. He wished people would not plant them in ranks, like an army.
Whether Mina Spencer-Brown had been right about the ugli shy;ness of its nature or not, there was certainly a mystery about Ottilie Charrington's death. She had neither died nor been buried where her family claimed.
Why should they lie? What really had killed her, and where?
The answer could only be that there was something so painful, or so appalling, that they dared not tell the truth.