Death on Blackheath Read online

  Kynaston was clearly at a loss for words.

  “I’m afraid we don’t know for sure that it was Miss Ryder’s hair, ma’am,” Pitt replied for him. “Or her blood.”

  She was slightly taken aback. “I believe the hair found was of a reddish brown, which Kitty’s is. But I imagine that would be true of many people. Are you saying, then, that this might have nothing to do with our house at all? The blood was found on the area steps, wasn’t it? I suppose anyone might have been there.”

  Kynaston’s face pinched momentarily. Then the instant he was aware of Pitt looking at him, he smoothed the expression away. “Of course,” he agreed. “Although we do not get troubled by passing strangers. We have few neighbors.” It was an unnecessary comment; Pitt knew they were mostly surrounded by open country, a few trees, and the large gravel pits that were common between Blackheath village and Greenwich Park.

  “Really, Dudley,” Rosalind Kynaston said patiently, “we might not be in the middle of a busy street, but we are not alone. And this time of the year, the shelter of the areaway must be a great deal pleasanter than the open in the wind.”

  Pitt allowed himself to smile. “No doubt,” he conceded. “But could one of the people have been Kitty Ryder in this case, in your opinion?”

  “I think so.” She gave the slightest shrug, barely a movement of her rather graceful shoulders. “There’s a young man she walks out with now and then. A carpenter or something of the sort.”

  Kynaston looked startled. “Does she? You never mentioned it!”

  She regarded him with an expression that almost concealed her impatience. “Of course I didn’t. Why on earth would I? I hoped it would pass, and I told her so. He is not particularly appealing.”

  Kynaston drew in his breath as if to say something, then let it out again, and waited for Pitt to speak.

  “You don’t care for the young man?” Pitt asked Mrs. Kynaston. “If she ended the acquaintance do you think he might have taken it badly?”

  She considered for several moments before finally replying. “Actually, I do not think so. I believe he has a good deal of affection for her but that he has no real prospects. But also, to be frank, I think Kitty has more sense than to choose the area steps in the middle of a winter night to tell him so.”

  “She would have thought herself safe enough just outside her own scullery door!” Kynaston protested. His expression darkened. “Just how unsuitable was he?”

  “He wasn’t unsuitable, Dudley, he was just not as well as she might have done for herself,” she explained. “Kitty is a very handsome girl. She could have been a parlor maid in the city, if she’d wished to.”

  “She didn’t wish to?” Pitt was curious. He could tell Stoker, though silent, was also listening intently. What would keep a good-looking girl here in Shooters Hill if she could have been in one of the fashionable squares in London? “Has she family locally?” he asked.

  “No,” Rosalind assured him. “She comes from Gloucestershire. I don’t know why she didn’t take her chance in the city. I’m sure she had offers.”

  It might be irrelevant, but Pitt made a mental note to look further into the reason for Kitty’s loyalty, if she did not very soon turn up alive and well.

  “I suppose your advice that she could do better didn’t go down very well with him,” Kynaston observed, looking at his wife. He turned to Pitt. “We appear to have wasted your time. I feel if there is anything at all to deal with here, which there probably isn’t, then it is a police matter. If Kitty doesn’t turn up, or we have any reason to suppose she has been harmed, we’ll report it.” He smiled and inclined his head a little, as if it were a dismissal.

  Pitt hesitated, unwilling to let go of the matter quite so easily. Someone had been hurt on the areaway steps, possibly badly. Had it been a daughter of the house rather than a maid, no one would be dismissing it.

  “Could you describe Miss Ryder for me, sir?” he asked, without moving.

  Kynaston blinked.

  “How tall is she?” Pitt elaborated. “What build? What coloring?”

  It was Rosalind Kynaston who replied. “Taller than I am, at least a couple of inches, and very handsomely built.” She smiled with a dry, private amusement. “She had excellent features, in fact were she a society girl we’d say she was a beauty. She has fair skin and thick auburn hair with a wave in it.”

  “I think you’re being overgenerous, my dear,” Kynaston said with a slight edge to his voice. “She’s a lady’s maid who was being courted by a young man of very dubious background.” He turned to Pitt again. “And as I’m sure you are aware, maids have a half day off at the weekends, but stepping out in this manner is not really acceptable—which, of course, is why she has done it on the sly. If you are still concerned, you might consider the possibility that she has eloped with him.”

  Rosalind was saved from making a reply by the entry into the room of another woman. She was taller, in fact only two or three inches short of Kynaston’s own height, and her hair was silver blond. But it was her face that commanded attention, not by its beauty, which was questionable, but by the power of emotion in it, which was more arresting than mere regularity of feature. Her eyes were of a burning blue.

  “Have you found the housemaid yet?” she asked, looking directly at Kynaston.

  “Lady’s maid,” Rosalind corrected her. “No, we haven’t.”

  “Good morning, Ailsa,” Kynaston said, rather more gently than Pitt thought he would have, in the circumstances. “Unfortunately not. This is Commander Pitt of Special Branch.”

  Ailsa’s delicate eyebrows rose. “Special Branch?” she said incredulously. “Dudley, you haven’t called in Special Branch, have you? For heaven’s sake, my dear, they have better things to do!” She turned to stare at Pitt with new curiosity. “Don’t you?” she challenged him.

  “My sister-in-law, Mrs. Bennett Kynaston,” Kynaston explained. Pitt saw pain shadow Kynaston’s face; it vanished almost immediately, but not without evident effort on Kynaston’s part. Pitt recalled that Bennett Kynaston had died roughly nine years earlier. Interesting that his widow had kept such close touch with the family, and clearly had not married again. She was certainly handsome enough to have had many opportunities.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Kynaston?” he replied to her. She was staring at him, her eyes wide, so he answered her question instead of waiting for her to reply. “A young woman is missing and there is blood, hair, and broken glass on the area steps—enough to indicate the possibility at least of a very nasty fight. The local police called us because they are aware of Mr. Kynaston’s importance to both the navy and the government, and how serious any threat to him might be. If it turns out to be no more than a very unpleasant lovers’ quarrel, then we shall leave it to them to take what action is necessary. At the moment Miss Ryder appears to be missing.”

  Ailsa shook her head. “You need to replace her, Rosalind. Whether she comes back or not, she is clearly no better than she should be, as they say.”

  A look of anger crossed Rosalind’s face, but so quickly Pitt was not absolutely certain he had seen it at all. Had he imagined it? He knew how his own wife, Charlotte, would have felt about such high-handed instruction from anyone else—even her sister Emily, close as they were in affection.

  Before Rosalind could frame a reply, Pitt intervened, speaking to Kynaston. “We shall keep the case open until Kitty Ryder is found, or you have some news of her, whatever it may be,” he said. “In the meantime, she appears not to have taken any of her belongings with her. The housekeeper told me even her nightgowns and hairbrush are still in her room. In light of that, we have to assume she did not plan to leave. If you discover anything of value missing from the house, please inform the local police. I would suggest that you be more than usually diligent in making certain that the doors are locked at night. You might inform your butler of the possibility of robbery …”

  “I will,” Kynaston agreed. “This is all most unpleasant. She c
ame to us with good references. But your advice is well placed, and I shall certainly take it. I am obliged to you.”

  “I don’t believe Kitty would be involved in robbing us,” Rosalind said with some heat, a slight flush on her pale cheeks.

  “Of course you’re reluctant to think so,” Ailsa said gently, moving a step closer to her sister-in-law. “She was your personal maid, and you trusted her. One does! Usually one is right, but anyone can be misled, now and then. I understand she fell in with a very nasty type of young man, and we all know they can take people in—heaven knows, even in the best families, let alone a girl far from her home, working as a maid.”

  The truth of the remark was unarguable, but Pitt saw in Rosalind’s face disbelief and frustration that she could not defend her feelings.

  “Quite.” Kynaston nodded at Ailsa and then turned to his wife. “Perhaps you could use Jane for a while. You like her, and she seems quite capable, until we get someone else to fill the place.”

  “What about Kitty?” Rosalind said sharply. “For heaven’s sake, Dudley, she’s only been gone a few hours! You’re speaking as if she were dead and buried!”

  “Even if she returns, my dear, she is obviously unreliable,” he said more gently. “I think this is the best decision.” He turned to Pitt. “Thank you again for your promptness, and your advice, Commander. We won’t detain you any longer. Good day.”

  “Good day, sir,” Pitt replied. “Ma’am,” he acknowledged both women. Then he and Stoker left, going out through the front door into the deserted street. Rain was beginning to come across the open land of the heath.

  “What do you make of that, sir?” Stoker asked curiously, turning up his coat collar as he walked. His voice was light, but when Pitt glanced at him he saw the doubt in his face. “There was a lot of blood on that step,” Stoker went on. “More than a scratch, I reckon. If someone hit that girl it was pretty hard. She must be daft to go willingly with anyone who’d use her like that.” Now the doubt had turned to anger.

  “Perhaps she cut herself on the glass,” Pitt said thoughtfully. He pulled the brim of his hat down and his scarf tighter as the rain increased. He looked up at the sky. “Good thing you made a sketch of it before this started. In twenty minutes there’ll be nothing to see.”

  “There was blood on the glass,” Stoker said. “And the hair. Torn out by the roots, from the look of it. Kynaston may be important to the navy, but I think he’s covering something up … sir.”

  Pitt smiled. He knew Stoker’s understated and quite delicate insolence. It was not directed at him personally, but more at their political masters, whom he knew Pitt occasionally disliked as much as he did himself. He was still nervous that Pitt might yield to them, and not absolutely certain whether Pitt’s predecessor in command had done so or not. But Victor Narraway was a very different kind of man, at least on the surface. He was a gentleman, beginning as a junior lieutenant in the army, then through university in law, and as devious as an eel. Stoker had never been comfortable with him, but his respect for him was boundless.

  Pitt, on the other hand, was the son of a country gamekeeper, and he had risen through the ranks of the regular Metropolitan Police. He had been promoted sideways into Special Branch, much against his will, when he had offended certain very powerful people and lost his job as superintendent in Bow Street. Pitt might think he was subtle, but to Stoker he was as clear as the rising sun.

  Pitt was aware of all this as he replied, “I know that, Stoker. What I don’t know is if it is something we should be concerned about.”

  “Well, if there’s something messy going on in that house, and a maid gets the bad end of it, we should care,” Stoker said with feeling. “Perfect setup for a spot of blackmail.” He left the rest of his thought implied.

  “You think Dudley Kynaston was having an affair with his wife’s maid, and knocked her around on his own kitchen steps in the middle of a winter night?” Pitt asked with a smile.

  Stoker flushed faintly and stared straight ahead, avoiding Pitt’s eyes. “Put it like that, no, sir. If he’s that crazy he wants putting in the madhouse, for everybody’s sake, including his own.”

  Pitt was going to add that it was probably just what it looked like, but he wasn’t sure what it looked like. The maids had found nothing missing to account for the glass. There was too much blood for a graze, and actually there was no way of telling if the blood was even human, let alone if it was that of the missing maid—who seemingly had gone without even taking her hairbrush. And was it even her hair, or did she just happen to have hair of a similar color?

  “We’ll have the local police keep an eye on it, and let us know if she comes back,” he said to Stoker. “Or if she turns up anywhere else, for that matter.”

  Stoker grunted, not satisfied, but accepting that there was nothing more they could do. They trudged through the rain silently, heads down, feet sloshing on the wet pavement.

  PITT ARRIVED HOME AT Keppel Street comparatively early, although at this time of the year it was already completely dark. The streetlamps gleamed like beacons through the rain, haloed in light for a brief space, darkness swirling between them.

  Pitt went up the steps to his front door and was about to hunt through his always overstuffed pockets for his key when the door opened in front of him, bathing him in the glow of the inside lights and the warmth of the parlor fire where the passage door was open.

  “Evenin’ sir,” Minnie Maude said with a smile. “D’yer like a cup o’ tea before dinner’s ready? My, yer in’t ’alf soaked!” She looked him up and down with sympathy. “I reckon as it’s rainin’ stair rods out there.”

  “Indeed it is,” he agreed, dripping steadily onto the hall floor as the front door closed behind him. He looked at her freckled face and her piled-up red-brown hair, and for a moment he imagined the missing maid from Kynaston’s house and wondered again where she was. Minnie Maude was handsome, too, in her own way, tall and womanly, worldly wise, domestically capable, and naïvely full of trust. He felt a tightness in his chest at the thought of harm befalling her, of her winding up alone somewhere, perhaps hurt, cold to the bone, desperate for shelter. What if those were the circumstances Kitty Ryder faced now?

  “Yer a’right, sir?” Minnie Maude’s anxious voice intruded on his thoughts.

  Pitt eased himself out of his wet coat and took off his sodden boots. He gave her his hat and scarf as well.

  “Yes, thank you. And I will have a cup of tea. And I’ll have something to eat. I can’t remember what lunch was.”

  “Yes, sir. ’Ow about a couple o’ crumpets?” she offered. “Wi’ butter?”

  He looked at her. She was about nineteen, four years older than his daughter, Jemima, who was far too rapidly growing into a woman. Thank God Jemima wouldn’t be a servant living in somebody else’s house with only strangers to turn to.

  “Thank you,” he replied. “Yes … bring them to me in the parlor, please.” He wanted to add something more, but there really wasn’t anything to say that was appropriate.

  After dinner, when Jemima and her younger brother, Daniel, had gone up to bed, he sat beside the fire in his usual chair, opposite Charlotte, who had abandoned her embroidery for the evening and sat with her boots off and her feet up, hidden by her skirts. The light from the gas brackets on the walls was a golden color, muted a little by the glass. It softened the lines of everything it touched: the familiar books on the shelves on either side, the few ornaments, each with its own attached set of memories. The long curtains across the French windows on to the garden were drawn against the cold. He could not imagine anywhere more comfortable.

  “What is it?” Charlotte asked. “You are making your mind up whether to tell me, so it can’t be a secret.”

  In the past, when he was still in the police, he had shared many of his cases with her. In fact, on some of them she had been something of a detective herself. She was acutely observant of human nature, and alarmingly fearless in pursuing what
she felt was justice.

  Of course, now so much more was secret and he could not share with her nearly as much as he used to, although he still would were he able. He was often tempted—only the cost restrained him. A betrayal of trust would damage him in his own eyes, and in hers. The loss of his position would destroy his career, and therefore also his ability to look after his family. He had faced that once when he was dismissed from the police, without the hope of ever being reinstated. He had powerful enemies, among them, unfortunately, the Prince of Wales, who would be only too delighted if Pitt’s entire career were called into question.

  Charlotte was waiting for an answer. No secrets of state were involved. So far it was nothing but a rather unfortunate domestic incident.

  “Evidence of a fight on the areaway steps of a house on Shooters Hill,” he replied. “And a missing lady’s maid. She was courting, so it’s possible she eloped.”

  “I didn’t think there were houses up on Shooters Hill,” she responded, frowning a little. “If I mustn’t know, then don’t tell me, but what you’ve said so far doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense,” he agreed. “Blood and hair on the steps, and broken glass … and a missing maid at a time of day when she should have been there, and always has been in the past.”

  “Why you?” she said curiously. “If there’s a crime involved at all, isn’t it for the local police?” Then her face lit with understanding. “Oh … it’s somebody important!”

  “Yes. And you’re quite right, if it’s anything at all, it belongs to the local police. You said Jemima needs a new dress?”

  She tucked her feet up a little higher. The coals settled in the fire with a shower of sparks.

  “Yes, please … at least one.”

  “At least?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “She’s going to the party at the Grovers’ as well as the other one,” she explained. “It’s quite formal.”