Highgate Rise tp-11 Read online

  Highgate Rise

  ( Thomas Pitt - 11 )

  Anne Perry

  Anne Perry

  Highgate Rise

  1

  Inspector Thomas Pitt stared at the smoking ruins of the house, oblivious of the steady rain drenching him, plastering his hair over his forehead and running between his turned-up coat collar and his knitted muffler in a cold dribble down his back. He could still feel the heat coming from the mounds of blackened bricks. The water dripped from broken arches and sizzled where it hit the embers, rising in thin curls of steam.

  Even from what was left of it he could see that it had been a gracious building, somebody’s home, well constructed and elegant. Now there was little left but the servants’ quarters.

  Beside him Constable James Murdo shifted from one foot to the other. He was from the local Highgate station and he resented his superiors having called in a man from the city, even one with as high a reputation as Pitt’s. They had hardly had a chance to deal with it themselves; there was no call to go sending for help this early-whatever the case proved to be. But his opinion had been ignored, and here was Pitt, scruffy, ill-clad apart from his boots, which were beautiful. His pockets bulged with nameless rubbish, his gloves were odd, and his face was smudged with soot and creased with sadness.

  “Reckon it started almost midnight, sir,” Murdo said, to show that his own force was efficient and had already done all that could be expected. “A Miss Dalton, elderly lady down on St. Alban’s Road, saw it when she woke at about quarter past one. It was already burning fiercely and she raised the alarm, sent her maid to Colonel Anstruther’s next door. He has one of those telephone instruments. And they were insured, so the fire brigade arrived about twenty minutes later, but there wasn’t much they could do. By then all the main house was alight. They got water from the Highgate Ponds”-he waved his arm-“just across the fields there.”

  Pitt nodded, picturing the scene in his mind, the fear, the blistering heat driving the men backwards, the frightened horses, the canvas buckets passed from hand to hand, and the uselessness of it all. Everything would be shrouded in smoke and red with the glare as sheets of flame shot skywards and beams exploded with a roar, sending sparks high into the darkness. The stench of burning was still in the air, making the eyes smart and the back of the throat ache.

  Unconsciously he wiped at a piece of smut on his cheek, and made it worse.

  “And the body?” he asked.

  Suddenly rivalry vanished as Murdo remembered the men stumbling out with the stretcher, white-faced. On it had been grotesque remains, burned so badly it was no longer even whole-and yet hideously, recognizably human. Murdo found his voice shaking as he replied.

  “We believe it was Mrs. Shaw, sir; the wife of the local doctor, who owns the house. He’s also the police surgeon, so we got a general practitioner from Hampstead, but he couldn’t tell us much. But I don’t think anyone could. Dr. Shaw’s at a neighbor’s now, a Mr. Amos Lindsay.” He nodded up the Highgate Rise towards West Hill. “That house.”

  “Was he hurt?” Pitt asked, still looking at the ruins.

  “No sir. He was out on a medical call. Woman giving birth-Dr. Shaw was there best part of the night. Only heard about this when he was on the way home.”

  “Servants?” Pitt turned away at last and looked at Murdo. “Seems as if that part of the house was the least affected.”

  “Yes sir; all the servants escaped, but the butler was very nastily burned and he’s in hospital now; the St. Pancras Infirmary, just south of the cemetery. Cook’s in a state of shock and being looked after by a relative over on the Seven Sisters Road. Housemaid’s weeping all the time and says she should never ’ave left Dorset, and wants to go back. Maid of all work comes in by the day.”

  “But they are all accounted for, and none hurt except the butler?” Pitt persisted.

  “That’s right, sir. Fire was in the main house. The servants’ wing was the last to catch, and the firemen got them all out.” He shivered in spite of the smoldering wood and rubble in front of them and the mild September rain, easing now, and a watery afternoon sun catching the trees across the fields in Bishop’s Wood. The wind was light and southerly, blowing up from the great city of London, where Kensington gardens were brilliant with flowers, nursemaids in starched aprons paraded their charges up and down the walks, bandsmen played stirring tunes. Carriages bowled along the Mall and fashionable ladies waved to each other and displayed the latest hats, and dashing ladies of less than perfect reputation cantered up Rotten Row in immaculate habits and made eyes at the gentlemen.

  The Queen, dressed in black, still mourning the death of Prince Albert twenty-seven years ago, had secluded herself at Windsor.

  And in the alleys of Whitechapel a madman disemboweled women, mutilated their faces and left their bodies grotesque and blood-drenched on the pavements-the popular press would soon call him Jack the Ripper.

  Murdo hunched his shoulders and pulled his helmet a little straighter. “Just Mrs. Shaw that was killed, Inspector. And the fire seems, from what we can tell, to have started in at least four different places at once, and got a hold immediately, like the curtains had lamp oil on them.” The muscles tightened in his young face. “You might spill oil on one curtain by accident, but not in four different rooms, and all of them catch alight at the same time and no one know about it. It has to be deliberate.”

  Pitt said nothing. It was because it was murder that he was standing here in the mangled garden beside this eager and resentful young constable with his fair skin soot-smudged and his eyes wide with shock and the pity of what he had seen.

  “The question is,” Murdo said quietly, “was it poor Mrs. Shaw they meant to kill-or was it the doctor?”

  “There are a great many things we shall have to find out,” Pitt answered grimly. “We’ll begin with the fire chief.”

  “We’ve got his statement in the police station, sir. That’s about half a mile back up the road.” Murdo spoke a little stiffly, reminded of his own colleagues again.

  Pitt followed him and in silence they walked. A few pale leaves fluttered along the pavement and a hansom cab rattled by. The houses were substantial. Respectable people with money lived here in considerable comfort on the west side of the road leading to the center of Highgate, with its public houses, solicitors’ offices, shops, the water works, Pond Square, and the huge, elegant cemetery spreading to the southeast. Beyond the houses were fields on both sides, green and silent.

  In the police station they welcomed Pitt civilly enough, but he knew from their tired faces and the way the juniors avoided his eyes that, like Murdo, they resented the necessity of having to call him in. All the forces in the London area were short staffed and all police leaves had been canceled to draft as many men as possible into the Whitechapel district to deal with the fearful murders which were shocking all London and making headlines across Europe.

  The fire chief’s report was all laid out waiting for him on the superintendent’s desk, cleared for Pitt. He was gray-haired, quietly spoken and so civil that it accentuated rather than hid his resentment. He had a clean uniform on, but his face was pinched with weariness and there were burn blisters on his hands he had not had time to treat.

  Pitt thanked him, making little of it so as not to draw attention to their sudden reversal of roles, and picked up the fire report. It was written in a neat, copperplate hand. The facts were simple, and only an elaboration of what Murdo had already told him. The fire had started simultaneously in four places, the curtains of the study, the library, the dining room and the withdrawing room, and had caught hold very swiftly, as if the fabric had been soaked in fuel oil. Like most others, the house was lit by gas, and as soon as the supply pip
es had been reached they had exploded. The occupants would have had little chance of escape unless they had woken in the earliest stages and left through the servants’ wing.

  As it happened, Mrs. Clemency Shaw had probably been suffocated by smoke before she burned; and Dr. Stephen Shaw had been out on a medical emergency over a mile away. The servants had known nothing until the fire brigade bells had disturbed them and the firemen had set ladders at their windows to help them out.

  It was nearly three o’clock and the rain had stopped when Pitt and Murdo knocked at the door of the neighbor immediately to the right of the burned house. It was opened less than a minute afterwards by the owner himself, a small man with a fine head of silver hair brushed back from his forehead in leonine waves. His expression was very earnest. There was a furrow of anxiety between his brows, and not a vestige of humor in the lines round his gentle, precise mouth.

  “Good afternoon. Good afternoon,” he said hastily. “You are the police. Yes, of course you are.” Murdo’s uniform made the observation unnecessary, although the man looked askance at Pitt. One did not recall the faces of police, as one did not of bus conductors, or drain cleaners, but lack of uniform was unexplained. He stood back and aside to make way for them readily.

  “Come in. You want to know if I saw anything. Naturally. I cannot think how it happened. A most careful woman. Quite dreadful. Gas, I suppose. I have often thought perhaps we should not have abandoned candles. So much more agreeable.” He turned around and led the way through the rather gloomy hall and into a large withdrawing room which over a space of years had been used more and more often as a study.

  Pitt glanced around it with interest. It was highly individual and spoke much of the man. There were four large, very untidy bookshelves, obviously stocked for convenience and not ornament. There was no visual order, only that of frequent use. Paper folios were poked in next to leather-bound volumes, large books next to small. A gilt-framed and very romantic picture of Sir Galahad kneeling in holy vigil hung above the fireplace, and another opposite it of the Lady of Shallott drifting down the river with flowers in her hair. There was a fine model of a crusader on horseback on a round wooden table by the leather armchair, and open letters scattered on the desk. Three newspapers were piled precariously on the arm of the couch and clippings lay on the seats.

  “Quinton Pascoe,” their host said, introducing himself hastily. “But of course you know that. Here.” He dived for the newspaper clippings and removed them to an open desk drawer, where they lay chaotically skewed. “Sit down, gentlemen. This is quite dreadful-quite dreadful. Mrs. Shaw was a very fine woman. A terrible loss. A tragedy.”

  Pitt sat down gingerly on the couch and ignored a crackle of newspaper behind the cushion. Murdo remained on his feet.

  “Inspector Pitt-and Constable Murdo,” he said, introducing them. “What time did you retire last night, Mr. Pascoe?”

  Pascoe’s eyebrows shot up, then he realized the point of the question.

  “Oh-I see. A little before midnight. I am afraid I neither saw nor heard anything until the fire brigade bells disturbed me. Then, of course, there was the noise of the burning. Dreadful!” He shook his head, regarding Pitt apologetically. “I am afraid I sleep rather heavily. I feel a fearful guilt. Oh dear.” He sniffed and blinked, turning his head towards the window and the wild, lush garden beyond, the tawny color of early autumn blooms still visible. “If I had retired a little later, even fifteen minutes, I might have seen the first flicker of flames, and raised the alarm.” He screwed up his face as the vision became sharp in his mind. “I am so very sorry. Not much use being sorry, is there? Not now.”

  “Did you happen to look out at the street within the last half hour or so before you retired?” Pitt pressed him.

  “I did not see the fire, Inspector,” Pascoe said a trifle more sharply. “And for the life of me I cannot see the purpose in your repeatedly asking me. I mourn poor Mrs. Shaw. She was a very fine woman. But there is nothing any of us can do now, except-” He sniffed again and puckered his lips. “Except do what we can for poor Dr. Shaw-I suppose.”

  Murdo fidgeted almost imperceptibly and his eyes flickered to Pitt, and back again.

  It would be common knowledge soon and Pitt could think of no advantage secrecy would give.

  He leaned forward and the newspaper behind the cushion crackled again.

  “The fire was not an accident, Mr. Pascoe. Of course the gas exploding will have made it worse, but it cannot have begun it. It started independently in several places at once. Apparently windows.”

  “Windows? What on earth do you mean? Windows don’t burn, man! Just who are you?”

  “Inspector Thomas Pitt, from the Bow Street station, sir.”

  “Bow Street?” Pascoe’s white eyebrows rose in amazement. “But Bow Street is in London-miles from here. What is wrong with our local station?”

  “Nothing,” Pitt said, keeping his temper with difficulty. It was going to be hard enough to preserve amicable relations without comments like this in Murdo’s hearing. “But the superintendent regards the matter as very grave, and wants to have it cleared up as rapidly as possible. The fire chief tells us that the fire started at the windows, as if the curtains were the first to catch alight, and heavy curtains burn very well, especially if soaked in candle oil or paraffin first.”

  “Oh my God!” Pascoe’s face lost every shred of its color.

  “Are you saying someone set it intentionally-to kill-No!” He shook his head fiercely. “Rubbish! Absolute tommyrot! No one would murder Clemency Shaw. It must have been Dr. Shaw they were after. Where was he anyway? Why wasn’t he at home? I could understand it if-” He stopped speaking and sat staring at the floor miserably.

  “Did you see anyone, Mr. Pascoe?” Pitt repeated, watching his hunched figure. “A person walking, a coach or carriage, a light, anything at all.”

  “I-” He sighed. “I went for a walk in my garden before going upstairs. I had been working on a paper which had given me some trouble.” He cleared his throat sharply, hesitated a moment, then his emotion got the better of him and the words poured out. “In rebuttal of a quite preposterous claim of Dalgetty’s about Richard Coeur de Leon.” His voice caressed the romance of the name. “You don’t know John Dalgetty-why should you? He is an utterly irresponsible person, quite without self-control or a proper sense of the decencies.” His expression crumpled with revulsion at such a thing. “Book reviewers have a duty, you know.” His eyes fixed Pitt’s. “We mold opinion. It matters what we sell to the public, and what we praise or condemn. But Dalgetty would rather allow all the values of chivalry and honor to be mocked or ignored, in the name of liberty, but in truth he means license.” He jerked up and waved his hands expansively, wrists limp, to emphasize the very slackness he described. “He supported that fearful monograph of Amos Lindsay’s on this new political philosophy. Fabians, they call themselves, but what he is writing amounts to anarchy-sheer chaos. Taking property away from the people who rightfully own it is theft, plain and simple, and people won’t stand for it. There’ll be blood in the streets if it gains any number of followers.” His jaw tightened with the effort of controlling his anguish. “We’ll see Englishmen fighting Englishmen on our own soil. But Lindsay wrote as if he thought there were some kind of natural justice in it: taking away people’s private property and sharing it out with everyone, regardless of their diligence or honesty-or even of their ability to value it or preserve it.” He stared at Pitt intensely. “Just think of the destruction. Think of the waste. And the monstrous injustice. Everything we’ve worked for and cherished-” His voice was high from the constriction of his throat by his emotions. “Everything we’ve inherited down the generations, all the beauty, the treasures of the past, and of course that fool Shaw was all for it too.”

  His hands had been clenched, his body tight, now suddenly he remembered that Pitt was a policeman who probably possessed nothing-and then he also remembered why Pitt was here. His sh
oulders slumped again. “I am sorry. I should not so criticize a man bereaved. It is shameful.”

  “You went for a walk …” Pitt prompted.

  “Oh yes. My eyes were tired, and I wished to refresh myself, restore my inner well-being, my sense of proportion in things. I walked in my garden.” He smiled benignly at the memory. “It was a most agreeable evening, a good moon, only shreds of cloud across it and a light wind from the south. Do you know I heard a nightingale sing? Quite splendid. Could reduce one to tears. Lovely. Lovely. I went to bed with a great peace within me.” He blinked. “How dreadful. Not twenty yards away such wickedness, and a woman struggling for her life against impossible odds, and I quite oblivious.”

  Pitt looked at the imagination and the guilt in the man’s face.

  “It is possible, Mr. Pascoe, that even had you been awake all night, you would not have seen or heard anything until it was too late. Fire catches very quickly when it is set with intent; and Mrs. Shaw may have been killed in her sleep by the smoke without ever waking.”

  “Might she?” Pascoe’s eyes opened wide. “Indeed? I do hope so. Poor creature. She was a fine woman, you know. Far too good for Shaw. An insensitive man, without ideals of a higher sort. Not that he isn’t a good medical practitioner, and a gentleman,” he added hastily. “But without the finer perceptions. He thinks it witty and progressive to make mock of people’s values. Oh dear-one should not speak so ill of the bereaved, but truth will out. I profoundly regret that I cannot help you.”

  “May we question your resident servants, Mr. Pascoe?” Pitt asked only as a formality. He had every intention of questioning them whatever Pascoe said.

  “Of course. Of course. But please try not to alarm them. Reasonable cooks are so extremely hard to get, especially in a bachelor household like mine. If they are any good they want to give dinner parties and such things-and I have little occasion, just a few literary colleagues now and then.”