Cardington Crescent tp-8 Read online

  5

  Pitt returned along the hot, dusty street amid the clatter of hooves, the hiss of wheels, and the shouting of a dozen different sorts of vendors of everything from flowers, bootlaces, and matches to the collection of rags and bones. Nine- or ten-year-old boys shouted where they swept a footpath between the horse droppings so gentlemen might pass from one pavement to another without soiling their boots and ladies might keep the hems of their skirts clean.

  Constable Stripe was waiting at the station entrance. “Mr. Pitt, sir, we’ve bin looking all over the place for you! I told ’em as you’d bin to find that magsman.”

  Pitt caught his alarm. “What is it? Have you turned up something in the Bloomsbury case?”

  Stripe’s face was pale. “No, sir. This is much worse, in a manner o’ speaking. I’m that sorry, sir. Truly I am.”

  Pitt was assailed by a sudden, terrible coldness-Charlotte!

  “What?” he shouted, grasping Stripe so fiercely the constable winced in spite of himself. But he did not look away, nor did anger show for even an instant, which frightened Pitt even more-so much so that his throat dried up and he could make no sound.

  “There’s bin a murder at Cardington Crescent, sir,” Stripe said carefully, making no move to shake off Pitt’s viselike fingers. “A Lord Ashworth is dead. And Lady Ves-Ves-Lady Cumming-Gould especially asked if you’d be the one as goes. An’ to tell you as she’d already sent ’er own carriage for Miss Charlotte, sir. An’ I’m awful sorry, Mr. Pitt, sir.”

  Relief flooded through Pitt like a hot tide, almost making him sick; then he felt shame for his selfishness, and lastly an overwhelmingly pity for Emily. He looked at Stripe’s earnest face and found it extraordinarily good.

  He loosened his fingers. “Thank you, Stripe. Very thoughtful of you to tell me yourself. Lord Ashworth is-was my brother-in-law.” It sounded absurd. Lord Ashworth his brother-in-law! Stripe had astounding good manners not to laugh outright. “My wife’s sister married-”

  “Yes, sir,” Stripe agreed hastily. “They did insist as it was you. And there’s an ’ansom waiting.”

  “Then we’d better go.” He followed Stripe along the footpath a dozen yards beyond the station doorway, where a hansom cab was drawn in to the curb, horse standing head down, the reins loose. Stripe opened the door and Pitt climbed in, Stripe following immediately behind after directing the driver where to go.

  It was not a long journey and Pitt had little time to think. His mind was in turmoil, all rationality drowned in grief for Emily and a surprising sense of loss for himself. He had liked George; there was an openness about him, a generosity of thought, a pleasure in life. Who on earth would want to kill George? A chance attack in the street he could have understood, even a quarrel in some gentleman’s club or at a sporting game which had gotten out of hand. But this was in a town house with his own family!

  Why was the cab going so slowly? It was taking forever, and yet when they were there he was not ready.

  “Mr. Pitt, sir?” Stripe prompted.

  “Yes.” He climbed out and stood on the hot pavement in front of the magnificent facade of Cardington Crescent; the Georgian windows perfectly proportioned, three panes across, four down, the ashlar stone, the simple architraves and the handsome door. It looked like everything that was comfortable and centuries secure. It made it worse: there was nothing left inviolable anymore.

  Stripe was standing beside him, waiting for him to move.

  “Yes,” he repeated. He payed the cabbie and walked up to the front door, to Stripe’s acute discomfort. Police went to the tradesmen’s entrance. But that was something Pitt had always refused to do, though Stripe did not know that yet. He had only dealt with the criminal world of the tenements and rookeries, rat-infested labyrinths of the slums like St. Giles, a stone’s throw from Bloomsbury, or the petty bourgeoisie, clerks and shopkeepers, artisans grasping after respectability but boasting only one street entrance all the same.

  Pitt pulled the bell, and a moment later the butler stood in the doorway, grave and calm. Of course. Vespasia would have told him that Pitt never went to the back. He regarded Pitt’s height, his unruly hair, the bulging pockets, and reached his conclusion immediately.

  “Inspector Pitt? Please come in, and if you will wait in the morning room, Mr. March will see you, sir.”

  “Thank you. But I will have Constable Stripe go to the servants’ hall and begin inquiries there, if you don’t mind.”

  The butler hesitated for a moment, but realized the inevitability of it. “I will accompany him,” he said carefully, making sure they both realized that the servants were his responsibility and he intended to discharge it to the full.

  “Of course,” Pitt agreed with a nod.

  “Then if you will come this way.” He turned and led Pitt across the fine, rather ornate hallway and into a heavily furnished room; masculine, hide-covered armchairs by a rosewood desk, Japanese lacquer tables in startling reds and blacks, and an array of Indian weapons, relics of some ancestor’s service to queen and Empire, displayed haphazardly on the walls opposite a Chinese silk screen.

  Here, rather awkwardly, the butler hesitated, confused as to how he should deal with a policeman in the front of the house, and eventually left him without saying anything further. He must retrieve Stripe from the entrance and conduct him to the servants’ hall, making sure he did not frighten any of the younger girls, who were no more than thirteen or fourteen, and that the staff acquitted themselves honorably and in no way spoke out of turn.

  Pitt remained standing. The room was like many he had seen before, typical of its station and period, except that it contained an unusual clash of styles, as if there were at least three distinct personalities whose wills had met in the decisions of taste: at a guess, a robust, opinionated man, a woman of some cultural daring, and a lover of tradition and family heritage.

  The door opened again and Eustace March came in. He was a vigorous, florid man in his mid fifties, at this moment torn by profoundly conflicting emotions and forced into a role he was unused to.

  “Good afternoon, er-”

  “Pitt.”

  “Good afternoon, Pitt. Tragedy in the house. Doctor’s a fool. Shouldn’t have sent for you. Entirely domestic matter. Nephew of mine, sort of cousin by marriage to be precise, great-nephew of my mother-in-law-” He caught Pitt’s eye and his face colored. “But I suppose you know that. Anyway, poor man is dead.” He drew in his breath and continued rapidly. “I regret to say it, but he had got himself into a hopeless situation in his marriage-seems he sank into a fit of depression and took his own life. Very dreadful. Family’s a bit eccentric. But you wouldn’t know the rest of them-”

  “I knew George,” Pitt said coolly. “I always found him eminently sensible. And Lady Cumming-Gould is the sanest woman I ever met.”

  The blood mounted even higher in Eustace’s mottled cheeks. “Possibly!” he snapped. “But then, you and I move in very different circles, Mr. Pitt. What is sane in yours may not be regarded so favorably in mine.”

  Pitt could feel an unprofessional anger rising inside him, which he had sworn not to allow. He was used to rudeness; it ought not to matter. And yet his feelings were raw, because it was George who was dead. All the more important that he behave irreproachably, that he not give Eustace March an excuse to have him removed from the case-or worse, permit his own emotions to so cloud his judgment that he fail to discover the truth and disclose it with as much gentleness as possible. Investigation, any investigation, uncovered so much more than the principle crime; there was a multitude of other, smaller sins, painful secrets, silly and shameful things the knowledge of which maimed what used to be love and crippled trust that might otherwise have endured all sorts of wounds.

  Eustace was staring at him, waiting for a reaction, his face flushed with impatience.

  Pitt sighed. “Can you tell me, sir, what is likely to have caused Lord Ashworth such distress or despair that on waking up this particular m
orning he immediately took his own life? By the way, how did he do it?”

  “Good God, didn’t that idiot Treves tell you?”

  “I haven’t seen him yet, sir.”

  “Ah, no, of course not. Digitalis-that’s a heart medicine my mother has. And he said some rubbish about foxgloves in the garden. I don’t even know if they’re in flower now. And I don’t suppose he does either. The man’s incompetent!”

  “Digitalis comes from the leaves,” Pitt pointed out. “It is frequently prescribed for congestive heart failure and irregularity of heartbeat.”

  “Oh-ah!” Eustace sank suddenly into one of the hide-covered chairs. “For heaven’s sake, man, sit down!” he said irritably. “Dreadful business. Most distressing. I hope for the sake of the ladies you will be as discreet as you can. My mother and Lady Cumming-Gould are both considerably advanced in years, and consequently delicate. And of course, Lady Ashworth is distraught. We were all extremely fond of George.”

  Pitt stared at him, not knowing how to break through the barricade of pretense. He had had to do it many times before-most people were reluctant to admit the presence of murder-but it was different now when the people were so close to him. Somewhere upstairs in this house Emily was sitting numb with grief.

  “What tormented Lord Ashworth so irreparably he took his own life?” he repeated, watching Eustace’s face.

  Eustace sat motionless for a long time, light and shadow passing over his features, a monumental struggle waging itself within his mind.

  Pitt waited. Truth or lie, it might be more revealing if he allowed it to mature, even if it laid bare only some fear in Eustace himself.

  “I’m sorry to have to say this,” Eustace began at last, “but I’m afraid it was Emily’s behavior, and … and the fact that George had fallen very deeply-and I may say, hopelessly-in love with another woman.” He shook his head to signify his deprecation of such folly. “Emily’s behavior has been … unfortunate, to say the least of it. But do not let us speak ill of her in her bereavement,” he added, suddenly realizing his charity ought to extend to her also.

  Pitt could not imagine George killing himself over any love affair. It was simply not in his nature to be so intense about an emotional involvement. Pitt remembered his courtship of Emily; it had been full of romance and delight. No anguish, no quarrels, no giving way to obsessive or fancied jealousies.

  “What happened last night that precipitated such despair?” he pursued, trying to keep the contempt and the disbelief out of his voice.

  Eustace had prepared for this. He gave a rather shaky nod and pursed his lips. “I was afraid you would press me about that. I prefer to say nothing. Let it suffice that she showed her favors most flagrantly, where all the household might be aware of her, to a young gentleman guest staying here on my youngest daughter’s account.”

  Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “If Emily did it in front of everyone else in the house, it can hardly have been very serious.”

  Eustace’s lips tightened and his nostrils flared as he breathed. He kept his patience with difficulty. “It was my mother, and poor George himself, who were witness to it, I grieve to say. You will have to accept my word, Mr.-er, Pitt, that in Society married women do not disappear into the conservatory with gentlemen of doubtful reputation and return some considerable time later with their gowns in disarray and a smirk on their faces.”

  For only an instant Pitt thought that that was precisely what they did do. Then anger for Emily swept away anything so trivial.

  “Mr. March, if gentlemen were to kill themselves every time a wife had a mild flirtation with someone else agreeable, London would be up to its waist in corpses, and the entire aristocracy would have died out centuries ago. In fact, they would never have made it past the Crusades.”

  “I am sure in your station in life, especially in your trade, that you cannot help a certain vulgarity of mind,” Eustace said coldly. “But please restrain yourself from expressing it in my house, particularly in our time of bereavement. There is really nothing for you to do here, beyond satisfying yourself that no one has attacked poor George-which is perfectly obvious to the veriest fool! He took a dose of my mother’s heart medicine in his morning coffee. Possibly he only meant to cause unconsciousness and give us all a fright-bring Emily back to her senses….” He trailed off, aware of Pitt’s monumental disbelief and floundering for a better solution. He seemed to have forgotten that he had said Jack Radley was here for Tassie, contradicting himself by branding him as of ill reputation. Or perhaps it was all right to marry a girl to such a man, simply not to allow him near your wife. The moral contortions of Society were still unclear to Pitt.

  At another time Pitt might almost have been sorry for Eustace. His mental acrobatics were absurd, and yet how often he had seen them before. But this time his patience was worn raw. He stood up. “Thank you, Mr. March. I’ll see the doctor now, and then I’ll go up and see poor George. When I’ve done that, I’ll want to see the rest of the household, if I may.”

  “Not necessary at all!” Eustace said quickly, scrambling to his feet. “Only cause quite pointless distress. Emily is a new widow, man! My mother is elderly and has had a severe shock; my daughter is only nineteen, and most naturally delicate in her sensibilities, as a girl should be. And Lady Cumming-Gould is considerably more advanced in years than she realizes.”

  Pitt hid a bitter smile. He was quite sure Great-aunt Vespasia knew better than Eustace precisely how old she was, and she was certainly braver.

  “Emily is my sister-in-law,” he said quietly. “I should have called upon her whatever the circumstances of George’s death. But first I’ll see the doctor, if you please.”

  Eustace left without speaking again. He resented the position he had been placed in; his house had been invaded and he had lost control of events. It was a unique and frightening occurrence-he was taking orders from a policeman, here in his own morning room! Damn Emily! She had brought all this upon them with her vulgar jealousy.

  Treves came in so soon he must have been waiting close at hand. He looked tired. Pitt had not met him before, but liked him instantly; there was both humor and pity in the weary lines of his face.

  “Inspector Pitt?” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Treves.” He held out his hand.

  Pitt took it briefly. “Could it have been suicide?”

  “Rubbish!” Treves replied dourly. “Men like George Ashworth don’t steal poison and take it in their coffee at seven o’clock on a sunny morning in someone else’s house-and certainly not over a love affair. If he’d ever have done it at all-which I doubt-it would have been in a fit of despair over a gambling debt he couldn’t pay, and he’d have blown his brains out with a gun. Gentlemanly thing to do. And he damn surely wouldn’t poison a nice little spaniel at the same time.”

  “Spaniel? Mr. March said nothing about a spaniel.”

  “He wouldn’t. He’s still trying to convince himself it’s suicide.”

  Pitt sighed. “Then we’d better go up and see the body. The police surgeon will look at it later, but you can probably tell me all I need to know.”

  “Enormous dose of digitalis,” Treves answered, walking towards the door. “Coffee would disguise it. I daresay your constable in the kitchen will have found that out. Poor fellow must have died very quickly. I suppose if you have to kill someone, short of a bullet through the head this would be about the most merciful and the most efficient way of doing it. I daresay you’ll find the old lady’s entire supply is gone.”

  “She had a lot?” Pitt asked, following him across the hall and up the wide, shallow stairs to the landing and into the dressing room. He noted sadly that George apparently had been sleeping in a separate room from Emily. He knew perfectly well it was the custom among many people of affluence for husband and wife each to have their own bedroom, but he would not have cared for it. To wake in the night and know always that Charlotte was there beside him was one of the sweetest roots deep at the core of his life, an
ever waiting retreat from ugliness, a warmth from which to go forth into the coldness of any day, even the most violent, the weariest and the most tragic.

  But there was no time now to contemplate the difference in lives and how much or little it might mean. Treves was standing beside the bed and the sheet-covered body. Wordlessly he pulled the cover back, and Pitt stared down at the waxy, pale face. They were George’s features-the straight nose, broad brow-but the dark eyes were closed, and there was a blueness around the sockets. Everything was the right shape, exactly as he remembered him, and yet it did not seem to be George. Death was very real. Looking at him one could not imagine that the soul was present.

  “No injury,” he said quietly. George was not really there, this was only a shell, but it seemed callous to speak in a normal voice in its presence.

  “None at all,” Treves replied. “There was no struggle. Nothing but a man drinking coffee that had enough digitalis in it to give him a massive heart attack-and an unfortunate little dog getting a treat, and dying as well.”

  “Which means it wasn’t suicide.” Pitt sighed. “George would never have killed the dog. It wasn’t even his. Stripe will get the details from the servants, find out where the coffee was, who could have reached it. I expect George was the only person to take coffee at that hour. Most people take tea. I’ll have to see the family.”

  “Nasty,” Treves said sympathetically. “Domestic murder is one of the tragedies of our human condition. God knows what we do to each other in what is fondly imagined to be the sanctuary of our homes, and is too often a purgatory.” He opened the door onto the landing again. “The old lady is a selfish and autocratic old besom-don’t let her fool you she is in delicate health. There’s nothing the matter with her except old age.”