Highgate Rise

by Anne Perry

  Pitt dispatched Murdo to question Shaw’s previous servants again. The butler was recovering slowly and so was able to speak more lucidly. He might recall some details which he had been too shocked and in too much pain to think of before. Also Lindsay’s manservant might be more forthcoming on a second or third attempt. Pitt most especially wanted to know what the man knew of Lindsay’s last two days before the fire. Something, a word or an act, must have precipitated it. All the pieces gathered from one place and another might point to an answer.

  Pitt himself returned to the boardinghouse, where he intended to wait for Shaw as long as might be necessary, and question the man until he learned some answers, however long that took, and however brutal it required him to be.

  The landlady was getting used to people coming to the door and asking for Dr. Shaw, and to several of them requesting to sit in the parlor and wait for him to return. She treated Pitt with sympathy, having forgotten who he was, and regarding him as one of the doctor’s patients, in need of a gentle word and a hot cup of tea.

  He accepted both with a slight twinge of conscience, and warmed himself in front of the fire for twenty minutes until Shaw came in in a whirl of activity, setting his bag down on the chair by the desk, his stick up against the wall, having forgotten to put it in the hall stand, his hat on top of the desk and his coat where the landlady was waiting to take it from him. She picked up the rest of his apparel, scarf, gloves, hat and stick, and took them all out as if it were her custom and her pleasure. It seemed she had already developed a certain fondness for him even in these few days.

  Shaw faced Pitt with some surprise, a guardedness in his eyes, but no dislike.

  “ ’Morning Pitt, what is it now? Have you discovered something?” He stood near the center of the room, hands in his pockets, and yet giving the appearance of being so balanced on his feet that he was ready for some intense action, only waiting to know what it might be. “Well, what is it, man? What have you learned?”

  Pitt wished he had something to tell him, for Shaw’s own sake, and because he felt so inadequate that he still had almost no idea who had started the fires or why, or even beyond question whether it was Shaw who was the intended victim or Clemency. He had begun by being sure it was Shaw; now with Charlotte’s conviction that it was Clemency’s activities to expose slum profiteers which had provoked it, his own certainty was shaken. But there was no point in lying; it was shabby and they both deserved better.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything further.” He saw Shaw’s face tighten and a keenness die from his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he added unhappily. “The forensic evidence tells me nothing except that the fire was started in four separate places in your house and three in Mr. Lindsay’s, with some kind of fuel oil, probably ordinary lamp oil, poured onto the curtains in the downstairs rooms where it would catch quickly, climb upwards taking the whole window embrasure, and then any wooden furniture.”

  Shaw frowned. “How did they get in? We’d have heard breaking glass. And I certainly didn’t leave any downstairs windows open.”

  “It isn’t very difficult to cut glass,” Pitt pointed out. “You can do it silently if you stick a piece of paper over it with a little glue. In the criminal fraternity they call it ‘star glazing.’ Of course they use it to reach in and undo the catch rather than to pour in oil and drop a taper.”

  “You think it was an ordinary thief turned assassin?” Shaw’s brows rose in incredulity. “Why, for heaven’s sake? It doesn’t make any sense!” There was disappointment in his face, primarily in Pitt for having thought of nothing better than this.

  Pitt was stung. Even though Shaw might be the murderer himself, and he hated to acknowledge that thought, he still respected the man and wanted his good opinion in return.

  “I don’t think it was an ordinary thief at all,” he said quickly. “I am simply saying that there is a very ordinary method of cutting glass without making a noise. Unfortunately, in the mass of shattered glass, bricks, rubble and timbers around it was impossible to say whether that was done or not. Everything was trodden on by the firemen or broken by falling masonry. If there was any cut glass rather than broken it was long since destroyed. Not that it would have told us anything, except that he came prepared in skills as well as materials—which is fairly obvious anyway.”

  “So?” Shaw stared at him across the expanse of the worn, homely carpet and the comfortable chairs. “If you know nothing more, what are you here for? You haven’t come simply to tell me that.”

  Pitt kept his temper with an effort and tried to order his thoughts.

  “Something precipitated the fire in Amos Lindsay’s house,” he began levelly, fixing his eyes on Shaw’s, at the same time sitting down in one of the big easy chairs, letting Shaw know that he intended the discussion to be a long and detailed one. “You were staying with him for the few days preceding; whatever happened you may have noticed, something which you could now recall, if you tried.”

  The skepticism vanished out of Shaw’s face and was replaced by thought, which quickly deepened into concentration. He sat down in the opposite chair and crossed his legs, regarding Pitt through narrowed eyes.

  “You think it was Lindsay they meant to kill?” A flicker of emotion crossed his face with peculiar pain, half hope and a release from guilt, half a new darkness of unknown violence and forces not guessed at yet. “Not me?”

  “I don’t know.” Pitt pulled his mouth into a grimace that had been intended as a wry smile but died before humor touched it. “There are several possibilities.” He took the wild risk of being honest. It crossed his mind to wonder what good an attempt at deception would do anyway. Shaw was neither gullible nor innocent enough to be taken in. “Possibly the first fire was meant for Mrs. Shaw, and the second was because either you or Lindsay had discovered who it was—or they feared you had—”

  “I certainly haven’t!” Shaw interrupted. “If I had I’d have told you. For heaven’s sake, man, what do you—Oh!” His whole body sagged in the chair. “Of course—you have to suspect me. You’d be incompetent not to.” He said it as if he could not believe it himself, as if he were repeating a rather bad joke. “But why should I kill poor Amos? He was about the best friend I had.” Suddenly his voice faltered and he looked away to hide the emotion that filled his face. If he was acting, he was superb. But Pitt had known men before who killed someone they loved to save their own lives. He could not afford to spare Shaw the only answer that made sense.

  “Because during the time you stayed with him you said or did something that betrayed yourself to him,” he replied. “And when you knew that he understood, you had to kill him because you could not trust him to keep silent—not forever, when it meant the noose for you.”

  Shaw opened his mouth to protest, then the color drained from his skin as he realized how terribly rational it was. He could not sweep it away as preposterous, and the words fled before he began.

  “Or the other possibilities,” Pitt continued, “are that you said something which led him to learn, or deduce, who it was—without his mentioning it to you. That person became aware that Lindsay knew—perhaps he made further inquiries, or even faced them with it—and to preserve themselves, they killed him.”

  “What? For heaven’s sake.” Shaw sat upright, staring at Pitt. “If I had said anything at all that threw any light on it, he would have said so to me at the time, and then we should have reported it to you.”

  “Would you.” Pitt said it with such heavy doubt that it was not a question. “Even if it concerned one of your patients? Or someone you had thought to be a close friend—or even family?” He did not need to add that Shaw was related in one degree or another to all the Worlinghams.

  Shaw shifted his position in the chair, his strong, neat hands lying on the arms. Neither of them spoke, but remained staring at each other. Past conversations were recalled like living entities between them: Pitt’s struggle to get Shaw to reveal any medical knowledge that might point
to motive; Shaw’s steady and unswerving refusal.

  Finally Shaw spoke slowly, his voice soft and very carefully controlled.

  “Do you think I could have told Amos anything I would not tell you?”

  “I doubt you would tell him anything you considered a confidence,” Pitt answered frankly. “But you could have spoken to him far more than to me, you were a guest in his house, and you were friends.” He saw the pain flash across Shaw’s face again and found it hard to imagine it was not real. But emotions are very complex, and sometimes survival can cut across others that are very deep, the wrenching of which never ceases to hurt. “In ordinary speech, a word dropped in passing in the course of your day, an expression of success over a patient recovered, or relapsed, and then at another time mention of where you had been—any number of things, which added together gave him some insight. Perhaps it was not total, merely something he wanted to pursue—and in doing so forewarned the murderer that he knew.”

  Shaw shivered and a spasm of distaste crossed his features.

  “I think I liked Amos Lindsay as much as any man alive,” he said very quietly. “If I knew who had burned him to death, I should expose them to every punishment the law allows.” He looked away, as if to conceal the tenderness in his face. “He was a good man; wise, patient, honest not only with others but with himself, which is far rarer, generous in his means and his judgments. I never heard him make a hasty or ill-natured assessment of another man. And there wasn’t a shred of hypocrisy in him.”

  He looked back at Pitt, his eyes direct and urgent. “He hated cant, and wasn’t afraid to show it for what it was. Dear God, how I’m going to miss him. He was the only man around here I could talk to for hours on end about any subject under the sun—new ideas in medicine, old ideas in art, political theory, social order and change.” He smiled suddenly, a luminous expression full of joy as fragile as sunlight. “A good wine or cheese, a beautiful woman, the opera, even a good horse—other religions, other people’s customs—and not be afraid to say exactly what I thought.”

  He slid down a little in his chair and put his hands together, fingertips to fingertips. “Couldn’t do that with anyone else here. Clitheridge is such a complete fool he can’t express an opinion on anything.” He let his breath out in a snort. “He’s terrified of offending. Josiah has opinions on everything, mostly old Bishop Worlingham’s. He wanted to take the cloth, you know.” He looked at Pitt quizzically, to see what he made of the idea, whether he understood. “Studied under the old bastard, took everything he said as holy writ, adopted his entire philosophy, like a suit of clothes ready-made. I must say it fitted him to the quarter inch.” He pulled a face. “But he was the only son, and his father had a flourishing business and he demanded poor Josiah take it over when he fell ill. The mother and sisters were dependent; there was nothing else he could do.”

  He sighed, still watching Pitt. “But he never lost the passion for the church. When he dies his ghost will come back to haunt us dressed in miter and robes, or perhaps a Dominican habit. He considers all argument heresy.

  “Pascoe’s a nice enough old fossil, but his ideas are wrapped in the romance of the Middle Ages, or more accurately the age of King Arthur, Lancelot, the Song of Roland, and other beautiful but unlikely epics. Dalgetty’s full of ideas, but such a crusader for liberality of thought I find myself taking the opposing view simply to bring him back to some sort of moderation. Maude has more sense. Have you met her? Excellent woman.” His mouth twitched at the corners as if at last he had found something that truly pleased him, something without shadow. “She used to be an artist’s model, you know—in her youth. Magnificent body, and not coy about it. That was all before she met Dalgetty and became respectable—which I think her soul always was. But she’s never lost her sense of proportion or humor, or turned her nose up at her old friends. She still goes back to Mile End now and again, taking them gifts.”

  Pitt was stunned, not only at the fact, but that Shaw should know, and now be telling him.

  Shaw was watching him, laughing inwardly at the surprise in his face.

  “Does Dalgetty know?” Pitt asked after a moment or two.

  “Oh certainly. And he doesn’t care in the slightest, to his eternal credit. Of course he couldn’t spread it around, for her sake. She very much wants to be the respectable woman she appears. And if Highgate society knew they’d crucify her. Which would be their loss. She’s worth any ten of them. Funnily enough, Josiah, for all his narrow limits, knows that. He admires her as if she were a plaster saint. Some part of his judgment must be good after all.”

  “And how did you find out about her modeling?” Pitt asked, his mind scrambling after explanations, trying to fit this new piece in to make sense of all the rest, and failing. Was it conceivable Dalgetty had tried to kill Shaw to keep this secret? He hardly seemed like a man who cared so desperately for social status—he did enough to jeopardize it quite deliberately with his liberal reviews. And yet that was fashionable in certain literary quarters—not the same thing as posing naked for young men to paint, and all the world to see. Could he love his wife so much he would murder to keep the respectability she enjoyed?

  “By accident.” Shaw was watching him with bright, amused eyes. “I was making a medical call on an artist on hard times, and he tried to pay me with a painting of Maude. I didn’t take it, but I would like to have. Apart from the irony of it, it was damned good—but someone would have seen it. My heaven, she was a handsome woman. Still is, for that matter.”

  “Does Dalgetty know that you know this?” Pitt was curious whether he would believe the answer, either way.

  “I’ve no idea,” Shaw replied with apparent candor. “Maude does—I told her.”

  “And was she distressed?”

  “A trifle embarrassed at first; then she saw the humor of it, and knew that I’d not tell anyone.”

  “You told me,” Pitt pointed out.

  “You are hardly Highgate society.” Shaw was equally blunt, but there was no cruelty in his face. Highgate society was not something he admired, nor did he consider exclusion from it to be any disadvantage. “And I judge you not to be a man who would ruin her reputation for no reason but malice—or a loose tongue.”

  Pitt smiled in spite of himself. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said with undisguised irony. “Now if you would turn your attention to the few days you were staying at Mr. Lindsay’s house, especially the last forty-eight hours before the fire. Can you remember any conversations you had with him about the first fire, about Mrs. Shaw, or about anyone who could possibly be connected with a reason to kill her, or you?”

  Shaw pulled a bleak face and the humor died from his eyes.

  “That covers just about everyone, since I haven’t any idea why anyone should hate me enough to burn me to death. Of course I’ve quarreled with people now and again—who hasn’t? But no sane person bears grudges over a difference of opinion.”

  “I don’t mean a general philosophy, Doctor.” Pitt held him to the point. The answer might lie in his memory. Something had triggered in a murderer’s mind the need to protect himself—or herself—so violenüy that the person had risked exposure by killing again. “Recall which patients you saw those last few days; you must have notes if you can’t remember. What times did you come and go, when did you eat? What did you say to each other at table? Think!”

  Shaw slumped in his chair and his face became lost in an effort of concentration. Pitt did not interrupt or prompt him.

  “I remember Clitheridge came on the Thursday,” Shaw said at last. “Early in the evening, just as we were about to dine. I had been out to see a man with stones. He was in great pain. I knew they would pass in time, but I wished there was more I could do to ease him. I came home very tired—the last thing I wanted was a lot of platitudes from the vicar. I’m afraid I was rude to him. He intends well, but he never gets to the point; he goes ’round and ’round things without saying what he means. I’ve begun to wonder if he
really does mean anything, or if he thinks in the same idiotic homilies he speaks. Perhaps he’s empty, and there’s no one inside?” He sniffed. “Poor Lally.”

  Pitt allowed him to resume in his own time.

  “Amos was civil to him.” Shaw continued after a moment. “I suppose he picked up my errors and omissions rather often, especially in the last few weeks.” Again the deep pain suffused his face, and Pitt felt like an intruder sitting so close to him. Shaw drew a deep breath. “Clitheridge went off as soon as he had satisfied his duty. I don’t remember that we talked about anything in particular. I wasn’t really listening. But I do remember the next day, the day before the fire, that both Pascoe and Dalgetty called, because Amos told me about it over dinner. It was about that damn monograph, of course. Dalgetty wanted him to do another, longer one on the new social order, all wrapped ’round in the essential message that freedom to explore the mind is the most sacred thing of all, and knowledge itself is the holiest thing, and every man’s God-given right.” He leaned forward a little again, his eyes searching Pitt’s face, trying to deduce his reaction. Apparently he saw nothing but interest, and continued more quietly.

  “Of course Pascoe told him he was irresponsible, that he was undermining the fabric of Christianity and feeding dangerous and frightening ideas to people who did not want them and would not know what to do with them. He seemed to have got the idea that Amos was propagating seeds of revolution and anarchy. Which had an element of truth. I think Dalgetty was interested in the Fabian Society and its ideas on public ownership of the means of production, and more or less equal remuneration for all work”—he laughed sharply—“with the exception of unique minds, of course-by which I gather they mean philosophers and artists.”