by Anne Perry
“Yes, of course; in fact, it might be best if you did.”
She stood up and pulled the bell cord. When the maid came, she sent the message for her personal maid to bring her cloak, and make herself ready for the street. The carriage was ordered. She turned back to Pitt.
“Where—where did you find him?”
There was no point in telling her the details. Whether she had loved him or it had been a marriage of arrangement, it was not necessary for her to know about the scene outside the theatre.
“In a hansom cab, ma’am.”
Her face wrinkled up. “In a hansom cab? But—why?”
“I don’t know.” He opened the door for her as he heard voices in the hallway, led her out, and handed her into the carriage. She did not ask again, and they rode in silence to the mortuary, the maid twisting her gloves in her hands, her eyes studiously avoiding even an accidental glimpse of Pitt.
The carriage stopped, and the footman helped Lady Fitzroy-Hammond to alight. The maid and Pitt came unassisted. The mortuary building was up a short path overhung by bare trees that dripped water, startling and icily cold, in incessant, random splatters as the wind caught them.
Pitt pulled the bell, and a young man with a pink face opened the door immediately.
“Inspector Pitt, with Lady Fitzroy-Hammond.” Pitt stood back for her to go in.
“Ah, good day, good day.” The young man ushered them in cheerfully and led them down the hallway into a room full of slabs, all discreetly covered with sheets. “You’ll be after number fourteen.” He glowed with cleanliness and professional pride. There was a basket-sided chair close to the slab, presumably in case the viewing relatives should be overcome, and a pitcher of water and three glasses stood on a table at the end of the room.
The maid took out her handkerchief in preparation.
Pitt stood ready to offer physical support should it be necessary.
“Right.” The young man pushed his spectacles more firmly on his nose and pulled back the sheet to expose the face. The cabby’s clothes were gone and they had combed the sparse hair neatly, but it was still a repellent sight. The skin was blotched and in places beginning to come away, and the smell was cloying sick.
Lady Fitzroy-Hammond barely looked at it before covering her face with her hands and stepping back, knocking the chair. Pitt righted it in a single movement, and the maid guided her into it. No one spoke.
The young man pulled the sheet up again and trotted down the room to fetch a glass of water. He did it as imperturbably as if it were his daily habit—as indeed it probably was. He returned and gave it to the maid, who held it for her mistress.
She took a gulp, then clutched onto it, her fingers white at the knuckles.
“Yes,” she said under her breath. “That is my husband.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Pitt replied soberly. It was not the end of the case, but it was very probably all he would ever know. Grave robbing was of course a crime, but he did not hold any real hope that he would discover who had made this obscene gesture or why.
“Do you feel well enough to leave now?” he asked. “I’m sure you would be more comfortable at home.”
“Yes, thank you.” She stood up, wavered for a moment, then, followed closely by the maid, walked rather unsteadily towards the outer door.
“That all?” the young man inquired, his voice a little lowered but still healthily cheerful. “Can I mark him as identified and release him for burial now?”
“Yes, you may. Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond. No doubt the family will tell you what arrangements they wish,” Pitt answered. “Nothing odd about the body, I suppose?”
“Nothing at all,” the young man responded ebulliently, now that the women were beyond the door and out of earshot. “Except that he died at least three weeks ago and has already been buried once. But I suppose you knew that.” He shook his head and was obliged to resettle his glasses. “Can’t understand why anybody should do that—dig up a dead body, I mean. Not as if they’d dissected him or anything, like medical students used to—or black magicists. Quite untouched!”
“No mark on him?” Pitt did not know why he asked; he had not expected any. It was a pure case of desecration, nothing more. Some lunatic with a bizarre twist to his mind.
“None at all,” the young man agreed. “Elderly gentleman, well cared for, well nourished, a little corpulent, but not unusual at his age. Soft hands, very clean. Never seen a dead lord before, so far as I know, but that’s exactly what I would have expected one to look like.”
“Thank you,” Pitt said slowly. “In that case there is little more for me to do.”
Pitt attended the reinterment as a matter of course. It was just possible that whoever had committed the outrage might be there to see the result of his act on the family. Perhaps that was the motive, some festering hatred still not worked through, even with death.
It was naturally a quiet affair; one does not make much of burying a person a second time. However, there was a considerable group of people who had come to pay their respects, perhaps more out of sympathy for the widow than further regard for the dead. They were all dressed in black and had black ribbons on their carriages. They processed in silence to the grave and stood, heads bowed in the rain. Only one man had the temerity to turn up his collar in concession to comfort. Everyone else ignored the movement in pretense that it had not happened. What was the small displeasure of icy trickles down the neck when one was faced with the monumental solemnity of death?
The man with the collar was slender, an inch or two above average height, and his delicate mouth was edged with deep lines of humor. It was a wry face, with crooked brown eyebrows; certainly there was nothing jovial in it.
The local policeman was standing beside Pitt to remark any stranger for him.
“Who is that?” Pitt whispered.
“Mr. Somerset Carlisle, sir,” the man answered. “Lives in the Park, number two.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a gentleman, sir.”
Pitt did not bother to pursue it. Even gentlemen occasionally had occupations beyond the social round, but it was of no importance.
“That’s Lady Alicia Fitzroy-Hammond,” the constable went on quite unnecessarily. “Very sad. Only married to him a few years, they say.”
Pitt grunted; the man could take it to mean anything he chose. Alicia was pale but quite composed: probably relieved to have the whole thing nearly over. Beside her, also in utter black, was a younger girl, perhaps twenty, her honey-brown hair pulled away from her face and her eyes suitably downcast.
“The Honorable Miss Verity Fitzroy-Hammond,” the constable anticipated him. “Very nice young lady.”
Pitt felt no reply was required. His eye traveled to the man and woman beyond the girl. He was well built, probably had been athletic in youth, and still stood with ease. His brow was broad, his nose long and straight, only a certain flaw in the mouth prevented him from being completely pleasing. Even so, he was a handsome man. The woman beside him had fine, dark eyes and black hair with a marvelous silver streak from the right temple.
“Who are they?” Pitt asked.
“Lord and Lady St. Jermyn,” the constable said, rather more loudly than Pitt would have wished. In the stillness of the graveyard even the steady dripping of the rain was audible.
The burial was over, and they turned one by one to leave. Pitt recognized Sir Desmond and Lady Cantlay from the street outside the theatre and hoped they had had the tact not to mention their part in the matter. Perhaps they would; Sir Desmond had seemed a not inconsiderate person.
The last to leave, accompanied by a rather solid man with a plain, amiable face, was a tall, thin old lady of magnificent bearing and an almost imperial dignity. Even the gravediggers hesitated and touched their hats, waiting until she had passed before beginning their work. Pitt saw her clearly for only a moment, but it was enough. He knew that long nose, the heavy-lidded, brilliant eyes. At eighty she s
till had more left of her beauty than most women ever possess.
“Aunt Vespasia!” He was caught in his surprise and spoke aloud.
“Beg pardon, sir?” the constable started.
“Lady Cumming-Gould, isn’t it?” Pitt swung round to him. “That last lady leaving.”
“Yes, sir! Lives in number eighteen. Just moved ’ere in the autumn. Old Mr. Staines died in the February of 1885; that’d be just short a year ago. Lady Cumming-Gould bought it back end o’ the summer.”
Pitt remembered last summer extremely well. That was when he had first met Charlotte’s sister Emily’s great-aunt Vespasia, during the Paragon Walk outrage. More precisely, she was the aunt of Emily’s husband, Lord George Ashworth. He had not expected to see her again, but he recalled how much he had liked her asperity and alarming candor. In fact, had Charlotte married above herself socially instead of beneath, she might have grown in time to be just such a devastating old lady.
The constable was staring at him, eyes skeptical. “You know ’er, then, do you, sir?”
“Another case.” Pitt did not want to explain. “Have you seen anyone here who doesn’t live in the Park, or know the widow or the family?”
“No, no one ’ere except what you’d expect. Maybe grave robbers don’t come back to the scene o’ the crime? Or maybe they come at night?”
Pitt was not in the mood for sarcasm, especially from a constable on the beat.
“Perhaps I should post you here?” he said acidly. “In case!”
The constable’s face fell, then lightened again as suspicion hit him that Pitt was merely exercising his own wit.
“If you think it would be productive, sir?” he said stiffly.
“Only of a cold in the head,” Pitt replied. “I’m going to pay my respects to Lady Cumming-Gould. You stay here and watch for the rest of the afternoon,” he added with satisfaction. “Just in case someone comes to have a look!”
The constable snorted, then turned it into a rather inefficient sneeze.
Pitt walked away and, lengthening his stride, caught up with Aunt Vespasia. She ignored him. One does not speak to the help at funerals.
“Lady Cumming-Gould,” he said distinctly.
She stopped and turned slowly, preparing to freeze him with a glance. Then something about his height, the way his coat hung, flapping at his sides, struck a note of familiarity. She fished for her lorgnette and held it up to her eyes.
“Good gracious! Thomas, what on earth are you doing here? Oh, of course! I suppose you are looking for whoever dug up poor Gussie. I can’t imagine why anyone should do such a thing. Quite disgusting! Makes a lot of work for everyone, and all so unnecessary.” She looked him up and down. “You don’t appear to be any different, except that you have more clothes on. Can’t you get anything to match? Wherever did you purchase that muffler? It’s appalling. Emily had a son, you know? Yes, of course you know. Going to call him Edward, after her father. Better than calling him George. Always irritating to call a boy after his father; no one ever knows which one you are talking about. How is Charlotte? Tell her to call upon me; I’m bored to tears with the people in the Park, except the American with a face like a mud pie. Homeliest man I ever saw, but quite charming. He hasn’t the faintest idea how to behave, but rich as Croesus.” Her eyes danced with amusement. “They cannot make up their minds what to do about him, whether to be civil because of his money or cut him dead because of his manners. I do hope he stays.”
Pitt found himself smiling, in spite of the rain down his neck and the wet trouser cuffs sticking to his ankles.
“I shall give Charlotte your message,” he said, bowing slightly. “She will be delighted that I have seen you, and you are well.”
“Indeed,” Vespasia snorted. “Tell her to come early, before two, then she won’t run into the social callers with nothing to do but outdress each other.” She put her lorgnette away and swept down the path, ignoring the skirts of her gown catching in the mud.
2
ON SUNDAY ALICIA Fitzroy-Hammond rose as usual, a little after nine, and ate a light breakfast of toast and apricot preserve. Verity had already eaten and was now writing letters in the morning room. The dowager Lady Fitzroy-Hammond, Augustus’s mother, would have her meal taken up to her as always. On some days she got up; far more often she did not. Then she lay in her bed with an embroidered Indian shawl around her shoulders and reread all her old letters, sixty-five years of them, going back to her nineteenth birthday, July 12, exactly five years after the battle of Waterloo. Her brother had been an ensign in Wellington’s army. Her second son had died in the Crimea. And there were old love letters from men long since gone.
Every so often she would send her maid, Nisbett, down to see what was going on in the house. She required a list of all callers, when they came and how long they stayed, if they left cards, and most particularly how they were dressed. Alicia had learned to live with that; the thing she still found intolerable was Nisbett’s constant inquiry into the running of the house, passing her finger over the surfaces to see if they were dusted every day, opening the linen cupboard when she thought no one was looking to count the sheets and tablecloths and see if all the corners were ironed and mended.
This Sunday was one of the old lady’s days to get up. She enjoyed going to church. She sat in the family pew and watched everyone arrive and depart. She pretended to be deaf, although actually her hearing was excellent. It suited her not to speak, except when she wanted something, and occasional failure to know what was said could be not inconvenient.
She was dressed in black also, and she leaned heavily on her stick. She came into the dining room and banged sharply on the floor to attract Alicia’s attention.
“Good morning, mama-in-law,” Alicia said with an effort. “I’m glad you are well enough to be up.”
The old lady walked towards the table, and the ever-present Nisbett pulled out her chair for her. She stared at the sideboard with displeasure.
“Is that all there is for breakfast?” she demanded.
“What would you like?” Alicia had been trained all her life to be polite.
“It’s too late now,” the old lady said stiffly. “I shall have to put up with what there is! Nisbett, fetch me some eggs and some of that ham and kidneys, and pass me the toast. I assume you are going to church this morning, Alicia?”
“Yes, Mama. Do you care to come?”
“I never shirk church, unless I am too ill to stand upon my feet.”
Alicia did not bother to comment. She had never known precisely what ailed the old lady, or if indeed there was anything at all. The doctor came to call regularly and told her she had a weak heart, for which he prescribed digitalis; but Alicia privately thought it was little more than old age and a desire to command both attention and obedience. Augustus had always catered to her, possibly out of lifelong habit and because he hated unpleasantness.
“I presume you are also coming?” the old lady asked with raised eyebrows, then put an enormous forkful of eggs into her mouth.
“Yes, Mama.”
The old lady nodded, her mouth too full to speak.
The carriage was called at half-past ten, and Alicia, Verity, and the old lady were helped into it one by one, and then out again at St. Margaret’s Church, where for over a hundred years the family had had its own pew. No one who was not a Fitzroy-Hammond had ever been known to sit in it.
They were early. The old lady liked to sit at the back and watch everyone else arrive, then go forward to the pew at one minute before eleven. Today was no exception. She had survived the deaths of every member of her own blood, except Verity, with the supreme composure required of an aristocrat. The reburial of Augustus would not be different.
At two minutes before eleven she stood up and led the way forward to the family pew. At the end she stopped short. The unthinkable had happened. There was someone else already there! A man, with collar turned up, leaning forward in an attitude of prayer.
&nbs
p; “Who are you?” the old lady hissed. “Remove yourself, sir! This is a family pew.”
The man did not stir.
The old lady banged her stick sharply on the ground to attract his attention. “Do something, Alicia! Speak to him!”
Alicia squeezed past her and touched the man gently on the shoulder. “Excuse me—” She got no further. The man swayed and fell sideways onto the seat, face up.
Alicia screamed—at the very back of her mind she knew what the old lady would say, and the congregation—but it tore out of her throat beyond her helping. It was Augustus again, his dead face livid and bloodless, gaping up at her from the wooden seat. The gray stone pillars wavered round her, and she heard her own voice go on shrieking like a quite disembodied sound. She wished it would stop, but she seemed to have no control over it. Blackness descended; her arms were pinned to her sides, and something had struck her in the back.
The next thing she knew she was lying propped up in the vestry. The vicar, pasty-faced and sweating, was crouching next to her, holding her hand. The door was open, and the wind rushed in, in an icy river. The old lady was opposite, her black skirts spread round her like a grounded balloon, her face scarlet.
“There, there,” the vicar said helplessly. “You’ve had a most appalling shock, my dear lady. Quite appalling. I don’t know what the world is coming to, when the insane are allowed loose amongst us like this. I shall write to the newspapers, and to my member of Parliament. Something really must be done. It is insupportable.” He coughed and patted her hand again. “And of course we shall all pray.” The position became too uncomfortable for him; he was beginning to get a cramp in his legs. He stood up. “I have sent for the doctor for your poor mama. Dr. McDuff, isn’t it? He will be here any moment. A pity he was not in the congregation!” There was a note of affront in his voice. He knew that the doctor was a Scot and a Presbyterian, and he disapproved vehemently. A physician to such an area as this had no business to be a nonconformist.
Alicia struggled to sit up. Her first thoughts were not for the old lady, but for Verity. She had not seen death before, and Augustus had been her father, even though they had not been close.
