Death in the Devil's Acre Read online

  “If you want to find out who murdered Max and then castrated him, look among the husbands or lovers of some of the highborn women he’s brought in here! Believe me, if I simply wanted a business rival removed, I should stick a knife into him, by all means, and then throw him into the river—or put him in one of the rat holes deep inside the Acre. I wouldn’t cut him about and then leave him where he’d be found by you lot! No, Inspector”—again he hesitated fractionally, making the title an insult—“look at some man he cuckolded, or whose wife or daughter he’s seduced into whoredom.”

  Pitt led him further. “And how would he seduce a wellborn woman into whoredom?” he asked with a trace of doubt. “For that matter, where would he even meet one?”

  “He used to be a footman somewhere. He probably knew other ‘menservants.’” Ambrose used the word to convey all his hatred and contempt for Max and his class in general. “Probably blackmail. That’s where your murderer is, believe me!”

  “Perhaps,” Pitt conceded with an affectation of far more reluctance than he felt. Much as he disliked Ambrose, what he said made excellent sense. “Then what about Dr. Hubert Pinchin?”

  Ambrose threw up his hands theatrically. “God knows! Perhaps he was the one who did the blackmailing. Maybe he used his medical practice to find these women, or to discover their secrets. Maybe they were partners. How should I know? Do you want me to do your entire job for you?”

  Pitt smiled and saw a trace of irritation on Ambrose’s face; he had meant to offend, not amuse.

  “I’m always glad of a little expert help,” Pitt replied softly. “I’ve worked on a few murders, one sort and another. Arson, burglary—know a lot about fine art—but keeping a whorehouse is outside my experience.”

  Ambrose drew a sharp breath to retort, but he did not find the words before Pitt had turned and left the elegant room of pale décor and Ambrose himself standing in his silk robe in the middle of it.

  Pitt went out into the rainy, gray-walled street. He felt a glow of satisfaction for at least having been thoroughly rude.

  And there was also a strong possibility that Ambrose was right.

  4

  LADY AUGUSTA BALANTYNE was not looking forward to the morning. She had decided that she could no longer put off visiting her daughter Christina to discuss her behavior in the frankest terms. Christina and Alan Ross would be at the family dinner party this evening, but what Augusta had to say required uninterrupted privacy. As in the past when dealing with Christina’s indiscretions, Augusta intended to keep the entire matter from General Balantyne’s knowledge. He might be an excellent military tactician when he had cannon and horses to dispose, but when the battle concerned emotions and the possibility of scandal, he was a babe in arms.

  Over breakfast she maintained a civilized conversation about the usual trivialities. General Balantyne, of course, did not mention the murders in the Devil’s Acre that filled the newspapers, in case he should distress her—not realizing that she had read them for herself. And she was perfectly happy to leave him in his ignorance, if it pleased him.

  At ten o’clock Lady Augusta called the carriage and gave the coachman instructions to take her to her daughter’s house. She was received with some surprise.

  “Good morning, Mama!”

  “Good morning, Christina.” She walked in, for once not bothering to notice if the flowers were fresh or if there were new ornaments—not even if Christina’s gown was the very latest. She had already made her comments on extravagance; from now on it was Alan Ross’s affair. Today something infinitely more serious filled her mind.

  Christina still looked surprised. “I have only just finished breakfast. Would you care for a dish of tea, Mama?”

  “No, thank you. I do not wish to be interrupted by servants coming and going, or the inconvenience of fiddling about with cups.”

  Christina opened her mouth to say something, then decided against it. She sat down on the sofa and picked up a piece of embroidery. “I hope you have not been obliged to cancel this evening’s dinner?”

  “I have footmen to send on errands like that,” Augusta said dryly. “I wish to talk to you privately, and the opportunity will not present itself tonight.” She looked at her daughter’s charming profile, her soft chin and wide, tilted eyes. How could anyone have such a passionate will and at the same time so little sense of survival? Augusta had tried all her life to impart to her her own understanding of the possible and the impossible, and she had failed. This was going to be unpleasant, but it was unavoidable.

  “Will you please put that down—I wish for your attention! A situation has arisen which means that I can no longer allow you to continue with your present behavior.”

  Christina’s blue eyes widened in surprise at the questioning of her conduct. She was a married woman and accountable to her husband, but certainly not to her mother!

  “My behavior, Mama?”

  “Don’t treat me as if I were foolish, Christina. I am perfectly aware that you have been amusing yourself in some most unsavory places. I can understand boredom—”

  “Can you?” Christina said scathingly. “Have you really the faintest idea what it is like to be so bored you feel as if your whole life is sliding away and you might as well be asleep for all you do with it?”

  “Of course I have. Do you imagine you are the only woman to find her husband tedious and her usual acquaintances infinitely predictable, till she could recite every word of their conversation before they begin?”

  “But, Papa—” A shadow darkened Christina’s face. Was it pain or merely irritation? “At least he must have been exciting when he was young, when he was in the army, fighting?”

  “My dear girl, how many times do you think I wish to hear the exact detail of the disposition of the guns at Balaclava—or anywhere else? He considered it disloyal to talk about other officers’ faults or ambitions, and vulgar to discuss their love affairs in front of women. Good God! There were times when he bored me till if I had not been a lady I would have screamed at him and slapped his face out of sheer desire to jolt him out of his damned satisfaction! But it would have served no purpose at all. He would not have understood. He would merely have thought I was having hysterics, and ordered me rest and a soothing tisane. So I learned to adjust my expression to look interested and to occupy my mind with something else. A little self-discipline would improve you a great deal, and would provide a rather better understanding of what is really important to you to keep. Alan spoils you—”

  “Spoils me? He provides everything I need and then treats me like a social entity, someone to be polite to!” Christina’s face flushed with temper. “He is so pious he is insufferable! He should have married a nun! Sometimes I wonder if he has any passion in him at all—real passion!”

  Augusta felt a stab of pity and dismissed it. This was not the time. “Do not confuse passion with mere excitement,” she said coolly. “Excitement is like playing cards for matchsticks—win, lose, or draw, you have nothing left at the end but a pile of splinters.”

  Christina’s face set, her chin hard. “Don’t patronize me! I shall do as I choose.”

  Augusta changed her approach. “Do you read the newspapers?”

  “What of it? If Alan doesn’t mind, it is none of your concern.”

  “Then you cannot be unaware that there have been two particularly unpleasant murders in the Devil’s Acre,” Augusta continued.

  The color faded from Christina’s cheeks. Max Burton had been footman in the house before she had married Alan Ross. It hurt Augusta to have to recall anything of that painful affair, but Christina’s present foolishness, and now her stubbornness in denying it, left her no alternative. “One of the victims used to be employed as a servant in our house.”

  “I know,” Christina said quietly. She took a shaky breath. “It is extremely unpleasant.”

  “The police are investigating both crimes.”

  “Naturally. Although I cannot see what good it will do. Ev
ery so often, people like that are bound to get murdered. I don’t suppose there is the slightest chance they will ever discover who did it, and why hardly matters. I really cannot believe they care—they have to go through the motions because it is expected of them.”

  “Doubtless. But that is not the point. It is Inspector Pitt who will try—do you remember Pitt?”

  Christina winced.

  “There are houses in that quarter,” Augusta continued, “where wealthy women occasionally find themselves some diversion. I dare say it offers them a certain thrill to enter into a world of filth and danger. Perhaps their own looks the sweeter after it?”

  Christina’s eyes were hard and angry, her skin tight across the cheekbones. “I have no idea!”

  Augusta sighed. “Don’t pretend to be stupid, Christina. And, above all, do not pretend that I am! Alan may prefer to affect ignorance of a great deal that you do—indeed, he appears to be remarkably patient. But he cannot ignore scandal—no one can. The Devil’s Acre will come under very close scrutiny. These crimes have shocked people—and, since Pinchin was relatively respectable, frightened them as well. If you cannot control your taste for slumming, you must do it elsewhere. Although you would be very wise not to do it at all. London is much smaller than you think—you cannot be anonymous for long. Your lady friends will not frequent these gambling houses or music halls, but their husbands might well. What is a dangerous adventure for you is merely a lark for them—”

  “Hypocrites!” Christina spat out.

  “My dear girl, stop behaving like a child. You are too old for it. Naïveté excusable at twenty is boring at twenty-five, and at thirty it becomes ridiculous. You stand in danger of losing your reputation. Take a great deal of thought as to what that means!”

  “On the contrary, I am very popular and considered most entertaining!”

  “So are buffoons and whores! Do you wish to be one of them?”

  Christina’s face was very white. “I’m sorry you imagine I go to cheap music halls, Mama. I have never entered one in my life, so I cannot say what they offer. But if I wished to gamble, there are plenty of perfectly respectable houses where I could do so. And I do not need to find myself a lover—I have more offers than I can entertain!”

  Augusta was unimpressed. She had seen Christina’s wounded dignity before. “Do you indeed? Are you telling me you have not been to the Devil’s Acre?”

  “I had no intention of discussing it with you at all!”

  The matter was too urgent for Augusta to lose her temper. She did not wish to tell Christina that she had learned through an old servant’s loyalty of her trips to the slums under the shadows of Westminster. It would jeopardize the servant’s post—but, more practical than that, it would remove her own source of information, and with Christina so rash there was only Augusta to protect her.

  “No doubt,” she said tartly. “Which is why it is just as well I am aware of it for myself. You were seen. You must stop immediately.”

  Christina was frightened now. Augusta had known her too long to be deceived by the arrogant stance, the squared shoulders under the thick satin. Good heavens—she was still so much of a child, as feckless as a summer day. So little thought of consequences. She saw what she wanted and reached for it. Where on earth had she come by such abandon? It was certainly not her father! He had never done anything emotionally prodigal in his life—would to God he had! And Augusta had always had enough strength of will at least to be discreet. She knew the line between pleasure and duty and would walk it with an acrobat’s balance. Why was Christina such a fool?

  “Really—you try my patience!” she said furiously. “Sometimes you don’t seem to have retained the wits you were born with!”

  “If you’ve never had an affair worth a damn, then I’m sorry for you!” Christina was shouting now, pouring all her frustration, her hunger, and her pride into a burning contempt for what she considered a lesser woman. “I went to the Acre to a house owned by a friend of mine. And yes, I did go there to meet a lover. But you won’t tell Alan that because you want to ruin my marriage even less than I do! Alan Ross was your choice for me—”

  “He was the best offer you had, my girl, and you were as happy to take it as I—at the time,” Augusta reminded her. “Who is this lover?”

  “At least be glad I am conducting it in a very private room, and not at someone else’s house party, creeping in and out of bedrooms,” Christina snapped. “Who he is is none of your business. But he is a gentleman—if that is your concern.”

  “Then your taste is improving!” Augusta said cruelly, and rose to her feet. “But from now on you will restrict it to your own home. Remember, Christina, Society does not forgive women, and it does not forget. A great deal of flirtation may be overlooked—even affairs if they are conducted discreetly enough. But slumming in the Devil’s Acre halls will not. It is a betrayal of one’s own class.” She moved to the door and opened it. There was no servant in the hall. “Be careful, my dear. You cannot afford another mistake.”

  “I have not made one!” Christina replied through her teeth. “I thank you for your concern, but it was unnecessary.”

  Augusta had chosen to make dinner a very formal affair. The servants were in full livery and all the best crystal was out. There were three Georgian silver candelabra and arrangements of flowers on the table that must have come from a dozen glasshouses. General Balantyne chose not even to imagine what they had cost.

  Augusta herself wore black and white, favorites of hers, complementing her dark hair with its streaks of silver and her still perfect white shoulders. General Balantyne was obliged to acknowledge with a little jolt of surprise that she looked magnificent. He could still see in her the beauty and dignity that had delighted him as a young man. Of course it had been a very suitable marriage. He was of excellent family, with a long and spotless reputation. But all its titles were military ones, and there was not a great deal of money. Augusta’s father, however, had been an earl; her title was her own for life, regardless of whom she married—unless, of course, she gained a better one! And there was not a little wealth in her dowry, and, later, in her inheritance.

  All the same, her person and her qualities had enabled him to ask for her hand with considerable enthusiasm, and she had seemed happy to accept. The surprise was that her father had also been agreeable.

  That brought the general’s mind to his own daughter Christina, and to her marriage to Alan Ross. Of course that had been different. Christina was nothing like her mother, though as far as he could judge, she was even less like him. She had not Augusta’s regal beauty, but she was dazzlingly pretty. And she had always had charm, allied with a considerable wit—a wit too often exercised at the expense of someone else, for his pleasure. But that was what made Society laugh. A harmless wit was for them a contradiction in terms.

  He was not sure whether she had ever really loved Alan Ross or, indeed, if she was ready yet to love anyone. But she had certainly been determined to marry him, and that was something Augusta had refused to discuss. It all belonged to the shock and the weeks of fear and distress during the murders here in Callander Square three years ago.

  The suspicion still filled him with unhappiness. He liked Alan Ross; he was an unusually quiet man. One moment the fine aquiline nose made him look strong, even arrogant. Then that peculiarly vulnerable mouth shattered the impression, leaving one with a sense only of the passions that might lie unreachable beneath. Balantyne had never quite known what Ross felt about Christina.

  On the other hand, he had come to know his son a great deal better. Brandy had Augusta’s dark good looks, but he was gentler. He had a well of laughter within him—one might even go so far as to say an appreciation of the absurd—and Balantyne envied it. There was random joy in such a quality he would dearly have loved to possess.

  And Brandy had certainly shown a courage no one had expected when he had insisted on marrying Reggie Southeron’s governess, Jemima! She was a charming gir
l, well mannered, and apparently more than adequately educated, though she was barely more than a superior servant till the marriage.

  But they were obviously happy, and they had named their daughter after Balantyne’s mother—a gesture he found remarkably pleasing. Yes, Brandy had made a good choice.

  The dinner was served in seven courses, and naturally took a great deal of time. Augusta presided at the far end of the table, although Balantyne himself was nominally at the head. On the side nearest the windows, with their moss-green velvet curtains drawn to exclude the night and its driving sleet, Alan Ross sat with the candlelight gleaming on his fair hair. As usual, he spoke little. Jemima sat next to him. She was wearing pale green and white, the design of the fabric suggesting it would be like flowers to touch. She reminded Balantyne far more of spring or the gentle days of early summer than this icy January. Jemima always did; she made him think of daisies, and saplings bending in the wind. She was talking to Augusta, and on the far side Brandy was watching her, smiling.

  Beside him Christina sat, immaculately dressed in a deep shade of gold, her dark hair gleaming. Balantyne could see why men found her beautiful, although her nose was a little small, her eyebrows winged instead of arched, and her lips too rounded for classical taste. But there was something individual about her, an impression of daring. She had a touch of Brandy’s humor, but without his tolerance or his sense of the absurd.

  The course was cleared away and the next one served.

  “Do you remember that fellow Pitt?” Brandy asked, looking up from his plate. They were eating a whitefish curled and baked, covered with sauce and flaked almonds. Balantyne did not like it.

  “No,” Augusta said coldly. “The only Pitt I know of was the First Minister of England who introduced income tax during the Napoleonic Wars.”

  Alan Ross hid a smile and Jemima bent her head. But the arch of her neck suggested to Balantyne that she was smiling also.

  “The policeman who always looked as if he’d just come in out of a gale,” Brandy went on, oblivious of the chill. “Three years ago.” Even he avoided mentioning the events of death so close to them then.