by Anne Perry
The constable returned, graver this time, and he did not mention Ballarat at all.
“So it was the maid, Dulcie, as first told you about this woman in pink, Mr. Pitt?” He frowned, looking at his notebook and then up again. “’Ow did you find ’er in Seven Dials?”
“With a lot of work,” Pitt replied flatly. “I walked the streets asking costers, flower girls, sandwich sellers, theater doormen, prostitutes.”
The constable shook his head slowly. “Must ’a taken a fair while, sir. Weren’t there no better way, nobody as knew nuffink?”
“Nobody who would speak, except Miss Adeline Danver, and she only saw the woman for a moment on the landing in the gaslight.”
“That’d be Mr. Julian Danver’s aunt?”
“Yes. But naturally Miss Danver didn’t know where to find her.”
The constable screwed up his face. “I could check that with ’er, Mr. Pitt.”
“Well, if you do, for God’s sake be careful! The last person to speak to the police about seeing Cerise fell out of a window to her death immediately after.”
The constable sat silently for several moments, then slowly began chewing his pencil. “Who do you reckon she was, this woman you calls Cerise, Mr. Pitt?”
Pitt leaned a little more heavily on his wooden chair.
“I don’t know. But she was beautiful; everyone who saw her said she had style, glamor, a face that one remembered. Felix Asherson admitted there was information missing from his department of the Foreign Office, which is also where Robert York worked.”
The constable took the end of his pencil out of his mouth. There were teeth marks where he had bitten into it.
“Mr. Ballarat didn’t believe that, Mr. Pitt. ’E made some inquiries, very discreet like, in several places, and there’s been no use made of anything that could ’a come from there. And ’e asked them as would know.”
“They don’t have to use it straightaway!” But Pitt felt he was fighting on sinking ground. Ballarat did not want to believe there was treason; he was afraid of facing his superiors and telling them something they would be so loath to believe, something that was frightening and innately a criticism of not only their competence but their honor. He was frightened of their anger, of having to muster arguments to persuade them of such a thing, showing them that the blame would be laid at their door. He wanted to be approved of; he had social ambitions that were far deeper than his professional or financial dreams. He liked good living; he liked petty authority, but he had not the courage for real power: the hazards, the envy, and the unpleasantness that it carried were prices he had no stomach to pay. He had been entrusted to prove there was no treason, or if there had been, that it had been safely covered up, and to discover it now would signal the utmost failure.
The constable was staring at him, chewing his pencil again viciously.
“I dunno much about that, sir. But it all seems a bit unlikely to the. I ’spect what men likes in a lady is as different as what they likes fer their dinner, but she didn’t seem anythink but ordinary ter me: dark ’air, darkish sort o’ skin, bit sallow like—prefer a bit o’ color meself. Not a bad face, but nothin’ special, an’ not much shape to ’er. Not what you’d call ’andsome at all.”
“She had grace,” Pitt said, trying to find words to explain the subtlety Cerise had had in life to this simple, straightforward man. “Spirit. Probably wit.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Pitt, but she looked more like a maid who’d lorst ’er character and taken to the streets to me.”
“She was a courtesan.” He looked at the constable’s earnest, confused face. “A very high-class prostitute, one who selected her own customers—just a few—for a very high price.”
The constable shrugged. “If you say so, Mr. Pitt. But I’ll tell yer this: she’d scrubbed a few floors in ’er time. A look at ’er ’ands and ’er knees’d tell yer that. I seen too many women with them callouses not ter know. They didn’t come from prayin’, that’s for certain.”
Pitt stared at him. “You must be wrong!”
“No, Mr. Pitt. I looked at ’er proper, very careful, poor soul. It’s the job, an’ I knows ’ow ter do it. See, we ’ad no name for ’er”—a flash of pity crossed his face—“we still ’aven’t, come ter that.”
A staggering and dreadful new thought was beginning to take shape in Pitt’s mind: what if it were not the real Cerise he had found, but someone else, a helpless victim left there to fool him? Suppose the whole thing had been contrived to get rid of him, to land him precisely where he was now, in the Steel, helpless, entombed alive. Someone had murdered that wretched woman in order to cripple Pitt. Someone had been watching him, planning for him to arrive and be caught exactly where he was—while the real Cerise was still alive! Did Ballarat know that? Was he deliberately protecting her by turning away from the case, pretending he believed the obvious, and that Pitt was guilty?
Then how high did it go, this corruption, this treason?
No, he could not believe Ballarat had done it knowingly. He was too smug, too small in imagination. He had not the courage to play such a high game. He was complacent, insensitive, lacking imagination, a moral coward, a social climber, but he was English to the bone. In his own stubborn way he would have died before committing treason. If there were no England, what would be left for him to enjoy? What else was there to aspire to? No, Ballarat was being used.
But by whom?
“Are you all right, Mr. Pitt?” the constable said anxiously. “You look awful—taken back.”
“You’re sure about the calluses?” Pitt said slowly, trying to keep the despair out of his voice. “What about her face? Was it beautiful? At least, could you imagine she might have had grace, a kind of loveliness?”
The constable shook his head slowly. “ ’Ard ter say, Mr. Pitt.”
“The bones!” Pitt leaned forward impatiently. “I know about the swelling, the discoloration. But her bones. I can’t remember.” He waited, eyes fixed on the constable’s face.
“I’m sure about the calluses,” he said carefully. “And as well as I can reckon, sir, she were more or less ordinary, quite good, not plain, as yer might say, but nothin’ special neither. Why, Mr. Pitt? What is it you’re thinking?”
“That it wasn’t Cerise, Constable, it was some poor creature dressed in her clothes and murdered to implicate me. Cerise is still alive.”
“Gor’ blimey!” The constable breathed out slowly. There was only the faintest skepticism in his voice, a mere shadow of doubt in his plain, round face. “What do yer want me ter do, Mr. Pitt?”
“I don’t know, Constable, God help us. At the moment I have no idea.”
12
CHARLOTTE’S THOUGHTS WERE running parallel to Pitt’s, although at this point, of course, she did not know it. She began by assuming that Pitt was telling the absolute truth. He had looked for Cerise quite openly, and after dogged police work had been approached by someone who had led him to the house in Seven Dials, where he had arrived at precisely the right time to find her with her neck broken, and thus be caught in the appearance of having killed her himself.
Was that a coincidence, or had the killer organized her death to fall just that way, in one act silencing Cerise and disposing of Pitt? A stroke of superb fortune, or genius?
What had Cerise known that was worth the extraordinary risk of killing Dulcie to keep Pitt from her? Surely that had been a far more impulsive and dangerous murder. It must be something damning: the truth about Robert York’s death, or the identity of the spy—which were probably the same thing.
It still seemed most likely that Robert York had been Cerise’s lover, and she had tricked or seduced him into giving her secrets, which she had taken back to her master. Then she and Robert had quarreled, and he had threatened to tell the truth. Either Cerise or her master had murdered Robert to protect themselves.
Then why had Cerise been killed? Had she regretted Robert’s death? Perhaps she had not bargain
ed for murder. Or had she cared for him in her own way? By all accounts he was handsome, elegant, and witty, and apparently had a reserved character that might make him unusually attractive to women. Or had Cerise simply lost her nerve and become a risk to her master, a liability? Had this master figure in the background learned that Pitt knew of Cerise through Dulcie, and attempted to get rid of all those close to him?
Her heart sank with a misery that was becoming familiar. The murderer could be anybody! There was no clue whatsoever as to who had broken the library window and murdered Robert York. Anyone could have gone to the house in Seven Dials if they knew Cerise was there.
But only members of the three families in Hanover Close could have pushed Dulcie out of the window! Charlotte had met them all, had sat and talked with them politely, and one of them was continuing the slow, deliberate, judicial murder of Pitt.
She got up abruptly from her seat by the kitchen stove. It was dark now. Gracie had long ago gone upstairs to bed. There was nothing more she could do tonight; she had twisted her mind round every fact or supposition she knew and the realization was undeniable: she would not solve it by thinking.
They would not let her see Pitt again for another four days. It was useless to ask Ballarat to help, but she might find the person who was actually working on the case, the constable who had questioned the brothel owner, who had seen Cerise’s body. And she must go back to Hanover Close, because that was where the answer was, if only she could find the first thread that would begin the unraveling.
Even though she was weary with anxiety and exhausted from doing all the heavy housework herself, still she slept badly and was awake long before the cold dawn. By seven she was in the kitchen, riddling out the fire herself and building it up. When Gracie came down at quarter past she found it done and the kettle boiling. She opened her mouth to object, then saw Charlotte’s pale face and thought better of it.
By late morning Charlotte was walking briskly in the icy sunlight under the bare trees on the edge of Green Park looking for Constable Maybery. The duty officer at Bow Street had informed her, unhappily, that Maybery was investigating the death of the woman in pink. He had been loath to tell her, but he was even more unwilling to face the prospect of dealing with a hysterical woman in the police station. He hated scenes, and from the look of her flushed face and brilliant eyes, this one might very soon fall into that category.
Charlotte saw the blue figure in his tall hat and cape just as he emerged from Half Moon Street into Piccadilly. She dashed across the road, heedless of oncoming carriages, infuriating the drivers, and caught up with him in a most unseemly run.
“Constable!”
He stopped. “Yes, ma’am? You all right, ma’am?”
“Yes. Are you Constable Maybery?”
He looked puzzled, his round face wrinkled in apprehension.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Pitt, Mrs. Thomas Pitt.”
“Oh.” Conflicting emotions crossed his face: embarrassment followed by sympathy, then an eagerness to speak. “I went an’ saw Mr. Pitt yesterday, ma’am. ’E didn’t look too badly, considerin’.” His eyes flickered doubtfully for a moment. There was no guilt in his expression, however.
Charlotte’s courage returned. It was just possible he did not believe Pitt was guilty. Perhaps that relief in his face was a sign that they were on the same side.
“Constable—you are investigating the death of the woman in pink? What do you know about her? What was her name? Where was she before she came to Seven Dials?”
He shook his head very slightly, but his eyes remained perfectly steady. “We don’t know nothin’ at all about ’er, ma’am. She got to the ’ouse in Seven Dials only three days before she was killed, an’ she gave the name o’ Mary Smith, an’ nobody ever ’eard of ’er before. She said nothin’, and they didn’t ask. O’ course, in that kind o’ business people don’t. But one thing, ma’am, Mr. Pitt seemed very certain as she was—’e said a ‘courtesan,’ very expensive an’ pickin’ ‘er own custom. But I saw the body, beggin’ yer pardon for discussin’ it, ma’am, but the body as I saw in Seven Dials ’ad calluses on ’er ’ands, an’ on ’er knees. Not ’eavy, like, but I seen ’em enough to know ’em. She weren’t livin’ like no expensive kept woman. I reckon as ’e must be wrong about that.”
“But she was!” Charlotte was nonplussed. Whatever she had expected, it was not this! “She was a great beauty! Oh, not traditional, certainly, we knew that. But she was extraordinary; people noticed her. She was very graceful, she had style, panache. She could never have scrubbed floors!”
He stood firm. “You’re wrong, ma’am. She may ’ave ’ad character; since I never saw ’er alive I couldn’t tell. But she were quite ordinary to look at. ’Er skin weren’t particular. Bit sallow. She ’ad good ’air, if yer like it black, an’ she was definitely on the thin side. In fact, I’d say skinny. No ma’am beggin’ yer pardon again, but I seen ’er, and she were ordinary.”
Charlotte stood still on the pavement. A carriage went by at a spanking pace, its brief wind tilting her hat. Then the woman was not Cerise—she must be someone else. Someone else had been killed to put Pitt, and all of them, off her trail. Perhaps it was only a fortunate accident that Pitt had found her at just that moment and had been arrested for her murder—or was that, too, part of the plan? She must be even more important than they had thought.
Then a startling idea came into Charlotte’s mind. It was horrifying, perhaps mad, certainly dangerous—but there seemed to be nothing else left.
“Thank you, Constable Maybery,” she said aloud. “Thank you very much. Please give my love to Thomas, if— if you’re allowed to. And please, don’t mention this conversation. It will only worry him.”
“All right, ma’am, if that’s what you want.”
“Yes, most definitely, please. Thank you.” And she turned round and hurried away towards the nearest omnibus stop. The new idea spun crazily in her mind. There must be something better, something saner and more intelligent—but what? There was no time to wait. There was no one left to question, no physical evidence to produce like a rabbit out of a hat, to force a confession. The only thing was to startle someone violently, forcing a betrayal—and she could think of no other way than the wild idea forming in her mind now.
She did not go home but to Jack Radley’s rooms in St. James’s. She had never been there before, but knew the address from writing to him. Normally he spent as little time there as possible, preferring to be someone’s guest in one of the fine town houses. It was both more pleasant and easier on his frugal finances. But he had promised he would be available as long as this crisis lasted, and she did not hesitate to call upon him.
The building was a good second best, and not an address one would be embarrassed to mention. She asked the porter in the hall and was told courteously, with only the slightest frown, that Mr. Radley’s rooms were on the third floor, and the stairs were to her left.
Her legs were tired when she got there, and there was no view to reward her effort, since his rooms were at the back. She knocked sharply on the door. If he was not there she would have to leave a note. She shifted from one foot to the other impatiently in the few minutes till the door opened—in fact she had been on the point of rattling the handle.
“Charlotte!” Jack looked startled, caught out; then self-concern vanished and he welcomed her in. “What is it? Has something happened?”
She had little time to look round. A few weeks ago she would have been consumed with curiosity—a person’s home said much about them—but now she had neither the time nor the need. Doubts of Jack had died without her noticing. She observed only that the rooms were elegantly furnished but small, and she had economized enough herself to recognize it in others.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I have just met the constable who is investigating Cerise’s death.”
His face darkened. “What do you mean, ‘just met’?”
&n
bsp; “I found him.” She brushed the means and the circumstances aside. “Coming out of Half Moon Street. But the important thing is, he described the body. Jack, I’m sure it isn’t her. It was made to look like her, but it was just some poor woman in a pink dress—”
“Just a minute! Why?”
“Because of her hands, but even more her knees.”
His face was incredulous; he looked almost as if he might burst out laughing.
“Calluses,” she exclaimed peremptorily. “From scrubbing floors. But Jack, what it means is that the real Cerise is still alive! And I have an idea. I know it is extreme, even idiotic—but I’ve racked my brains and I can’t think of anything else at all. I need your help. We must go again to the Yorks’, and the Danvers must be there, too, and as soon as possible. Time is getting terribly short.”
Every vestige of humor left Jack’s face. No trial date had been set yet, but it would not be long and he had never pretended to her that it might. Now he listened with total gravity. “What else?” he asked.
“I must know at least two days in advance, so I can make arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
She hesitated, uncertain whether to tell him. He was likely to disapprove.
“Don’t be stupid!” he said abruptly. “How can I help you if I don’t know what you’re doing? You aren’t the only one with brains, nor the only one who cares.”
She felt for an instant as if he had slapped her. She was about to retort, when the truth of it overwhelmed her. It was surprisingly painless, in fact. All at once she felt less alone than she had since Pitt’s arrest.
“The Danvers come to dinner regularly—next time I’m going to dress up as Cerise and make an assignation with each of the men it might have been,” she said frankly. “Only Piers York, the Danvers, and Felix Asherson were there the night Dulcie was killed. I’ll start with the Danvers, because Aunt Adeline saw Cerise at their house.”
