Highgate Rise

1

INSPECTOR THOMAS PITT STARED at the smoking ruins of the house, oblivious of the steady rain drenching him, plastering his hair over his forehead and running between his turned-up coat collar and his knitted muffler in a cold dribble down his back. He could still feel the heat coming from the mounds of blackened bricks. The water dripped from broken arches and sizzled where it hit the embers, rising in thin curls of steam.

Even from what was left of it he could see that it had been a gracious building, somebody’s home, well constructed and elegant. Now there was little left but the servants’ quarters.

Beside him Constable James Murdo shifted from one foot to the other. He was from the local Highgate station and he resented his superiors having called in a man from the city, even one with as high a reputation as Pitt’s. They had hardly had a chance to deal with it themselves; there was no call to go sending for help this early—whatever the case proved to be. But his opinion had been ignored, and here was Pitt, scruffy, ill-clad apart from his boots, which were beautiful. His pockets bulged with nameless rubbish, his gloves were odd, and his face was smudged with soot and creased with sadness.

“Reckon it started almost midnight, sir,” Murdo said, to show that his own force was efficient and had already done all that could be expected. “A Miss Dalton, elderly lady down on St. Alban’s Road, saw it when she woke at about quarter past one. It was already burning fiercely and she raised the alarm, sent her maid to Colonel Anstruther’s next door. He has one of those telephone instruments. And they were insured, so the fire brigade arrived about twenty minutes later, but there wasn’t much they could do. By then all the main house was alight. They got water from the Highgate Ponds”—he waved his arm—“just across the fields there.”

Pitt nodded, picturing the scene in his mind, the fear, the blistering heat driving the men backwards, the frightened horses, the canvas buckets passed from hand to hand, and the uselessness of it all. Everything would be shrouded in smoke and red with the glare as sheets of flame shot skywards and beams exploded with a roar, sending sparks high into the darkness. The stench of burning was still in the air, making the eyes smart and the back of the throat ache.

Unconsciously he wiped at a piece of smut on his cheek, and made it worse.

“And the body?” he asked.

Suddenly rivalry vanished as Murdo remembered the men stumbling out with the stretcher, white-faced. On it had been grotesque remains, burned so badly it was no longer even whole—and yet hideously, recognizably human. Murdo found his voice shaking as he replied.

“We believe it was Mrs. Shaw, sir; the wife of the local doctor, who owns the house. He’s also the police surgeon, so we got a general practitioner from Hampstead, but he couldn’t tell us much. But I don’t think anyone could. Dr. Shaw’s at a neighbor’s now, a Mr. Amos Lindsay.” He nodded up the Highgate Rise towards West Hill. “That house.”

“Was he hurt?” Pitt asked, still looking at the ruins.

“No sir. He was out on a medical call. Woman giving birth—Dr. Shaw was there best part of the night. Only heard about this when he was on the way home.”

“Servants?” Pitt turned away at last and looked at Murdo. “Seems as if that part of the house was the least affected.”

“Yes sir; all the servants escaped, but the butler was very nastily burned and he’s in hospital now; the St. Pancras Infirmary, just south of the cemetery. Cook’s in a state of shock and being looked after by a relative over on the Seven Sisters Road. Housemaid’s weeping all the time and says she should never ’ave left Dorset, and wants to go back. Maid of all work comes in by the day.”

“But they are all accounted for, and none hurt except the butler?” Pitt persisted.

“That’s right, sir. Fire was in the main house. The servants’ wing was the last to catch, and the firemen got them all out.” He shivered in spite of the smoldering wood and rubble in front of them and the mild September rain, easing now, and a watery afternoon sun catching the trees across the fields in Bishop’s Wood. The wind was light and southerly, blowing up from the great city of London, where Kensington gardens were brilliant with flowers, nursemaids in starched aprons paraded their charges up and down the walks, bandsmen played stirring tunes. Carriages bowled along the Mall and fashionable ladies waved to each other and displayed the latest hats, and dashing ladies of less than perfect reputation cantered up Rotten Row in immaculate habits and made eyes at the gentlemen.

The Queen, dressed in black, still mourning the death of Prince Albert twenty-seven years ago, had secluded herself at Windsor.

And in the alleys of Whitechapel a madman disemboweled women, mutilated their faces and left their bodies grotesque and blood-drenched on the pavements—the popular press would soon call him Jack the Ripper.

Murdo hunched his shoulders and pulled his helmet a little straighter. “Just Mrs. Shaw that was killed, Inspector. And the fire seems, from what we can tell, to have started in at least four different places at once, and got a hold immediately, like the curtains had lamp oil on them.” The muscles tightened in his young face. “You might spill oil on one curtain by accident, but not in four different rooms, and all of them catch alight at the same time and no one know about it. It has to be deliberate.”

Pitt said nothing. It was because it was murder that he was standing here in the mangled garden beside this eager and resentful young constable with his fair skin soot-smudged and his eyes wide with shock and the pity of what he had seen.

“The question is,” Murdo said quietly, “was it poor Mrs. Shaw they meant to kill—or was it the doctor?”

“There are a great many things we shall have to find out,” Pitt answered grimly. “We’ll begin with the fire chief.”

“We’ve got his statement in the police station, sir. That’s about half a mile back up the road.” Murdo spoke a little stiffly, reminded of his own colleagues again.

Pitt followed him and in silence they walked. A few pale leaves fluttered along the pavement and a hansom cab rattled by. The houses were substantial. Respectable people with money lived here in considerable comfort on the west side of the road leading to the center of Highgate, with its public houses, solicitors’ offices, shops, the water works, Pond Square, and the huge, elegant cemetery spreading to the southeast. Beyond the houses were fields on both sides, green and silent.

In the police station they welcomed Pitt civilly enough, but he knew from their tired faces and the way the juniors avoided his eyes that, like Murdo, they resented the necessity of having to call him in. All the forces in the London area were short staffed and all police leaves had been canceled to draft as many men as possible into the Whitechapel district to deal with the fearful murders which were shocking all London and making headlines across Europe.

The fire chief’s report was all laid out waiting for him on the superintendent’s desk, cleared for Pitt. He was gray-haired, quietly spoken and so civil that it accentuated rather than hid his resentment. He had a clean uniform on, but his face was pinched with weariness and there were burn blisters on his hands he had not had time to treat.

Pitt thanked him, making little of it so as not to draw attention to their sudden reversal of roles, and picked up the fire report. It was written in a neat, copperplate hand. The facts were simple, and only an elaboration of what Murdo had already told him. The fire had started simultaneously in four places, the curtains of the study, the library, the dining room and the withdrawing room, and had caught hold very swiftly, as if the fabric had been soaked in fuel oil. Like most others, the house was lit by gas, and as soon as the supply pipes had been reached they had exploded. The occupants would have had little chance of escape unless they had woken in the earliest stages and left through the servants’ wing.

As it happened, Mrs. Clemency Shaw had probably been suffocated by smoke before she burned; and Dr. Stephen Shaw had been out on a medical emergency over a mile away. The servants had known nothing until the fire brigade bells had disturbed them and the firemen had set ladders at their windows to help them out.

It was nearly three o’clock and the rain had stopped when Pitt and Murdo knocked at the door of the neighbor immediately to the right of the burned house. It was opened less than a minute afterwards by the owner himself, a small man with a fine head of silver hair brushed back from his forehead in leonine waves. His expression was very earnest. There was a furrow of anxiety between his brows, and not a vestige of humor in the lines round his gentle, precise mouth.

“Good afternoon. Good afternoon,” he said hastily. “You are the police. Yes, of course you are.” Murdo’s uniform made the observation unnecessary, although the man looked askance at Pitt. One did not recall the faces of police, as one did not of bus conductors, or drain cleaners, but lack of uniform was unexplained. He stood back and aside to make way for them readily.

“Come in. You want to know if I saw anything. Naturally. I cannot think how it happened. A most careful woman. Quite dreadful. Gas, I suppose. I have often thought perhaps we should not have abandoned candles. So much more agreeable.” He turned around and led the way through the rather gloomy hall and into a large withdrawing room which over a space of years had been used more and more often as a study.

Pitt glanced around it with interest. It was highly individual and spoke much of the man. There were four large, very untidy bookshelves, obviously stocked for convenience and not ornament. There was no visual order, only that of frequent use. Paper folios were poked in next to leather-bound volumes, large books next to small. A gilt-framed and very romantic picture of Sir Galahad kneeling in holy vigil hung above the fireplace, and another opposite it of the Lady of Shallott drifting down the river with flowers in her hair. There was a fine model of a crusader on horseback on a round wooden table by the leather armchair, and open letters scattered on the desk. Three newspapers were piled precariously on the arm of the couch and clippings lay on the seats.

“Quinton Pascoe,” their host said, introducing himself hastily. “But of course you know that. Here.” He dived for the newspaper clippings and removed them to an open desk drawer, where they lay chaotically skewed. “Sit down, gentlemen. This is quite dreadful—quite dreadful. Mrs. Shaw was a very fine woman. A terrible loss. A tragedy.”

Pitt sat down gingerly on the couch and ignored a crackle of newspaper behind the cushion. Murdo remained on his feet.

“Inspector Pitt—and Constable Murdo,” he said, introducing them. “What time did you retire last night, Mr. Pascoe?”

Pascoe’s eyebrows shot up, then he realized the point of the question.

“Oh—I see. A little before midnight. I am afraid I neither saw nor heard anything until the fire brigade bells disturbed me. Then, of course, there was the noise of the burning. Dreadful!” He shook his head, regarding Pitt apologetically. “I am afraid I sleep rather heavily. I feel a fearful guilt. Oh dear.” He sniffed and blinked, turning his head towards the window and the wild, lush garden beyond, the tawny color of early autumn blooms still visible. “If I had retired a little later, even fifteen minutes, I might have seen the first flicker of flames, and raised the alarm.” He screwed up his face as the vision became sharp in his mind. “I am so very sorry. Not much use being sorry, is there? Not now.”

“Did you happen to look out at the street within the last half hour or so before you retired?” Pitt pressed him.

“I did not see the fire, Inspector,” Pascoe said a trifle more sharply. “And for the life of me I cannot see the purpose in your repeatedly asking me. I mourn poor Mrs. Shaw. She was a very fine woman. But there is nothing any of us can do now, except—” He sniffed again and puckered his lips. “Except do what we can for poor Dr. Shaw—I suppose.”

Murdo fidgeted almost imperceptibly and his eyes flickered to Pitt, and back again.

It would be common knowledge soon and Pitt could think of no advantage secrecy would give.

He leaned forward and the newspaper behind the cushion crackled again.

“The fire was not an accident, Mr. Pascoe. Of course the gas exploding will have made it worse, but it cannot have begun it. It started independently in several places at once. Apparently windows.”

“Windows? What on earth do you mean? Windows don’t burn, man! Just who are you?”

“Inspector Thomas Pitt, from the Bow Street station, sir.”

“Bow Street?” Pascoe’s white eyebrows rose in amazement. “But Bow Street is in London—miles from here. What is wrong with our local station?”

“Nothing,” Pitt said, keeping his temper with difficulty. It was going to be hard enough to preserve amicable relations without comments like this in Murdo’s hearing. “But the superintendent regards the matter as very grave, and wants to have it cleared up as rapidly as possible. The fire chief tells us that the fire started at the windows, as if the curtains were the first to catch alight, and heavy curtains burn very well, especially if soaked in candle oil or paraffin first.”

“Oh my God!” Pascoe’s face lost every shred of its color.

“Are you saying someone set it intentionally—to kill—No!” He shook his head fiercely. “Rubbish! Absolute tommyrot! No one would murder Clemency Shaw. It must have been Dr. Shaw they were after. Where was he anyway? Why wasn’t he at home? I could understand it if—” He stopped speaking and sat staring at the floor miserably.

“Did you see anyone, Mr. Pascoe?” Pitt repeated, watching his hunched figure. “A person walking, a coach or carriage, a light, anything at all.”

“I—” He sighed. “I went for a walk in my garden before going upstairs. I had been working on a paper which had given me some trouble.” He cleared his throat sharply, hesitated a moment, then his emotion got the better of him and the words poured out. “In rebuttal of a quite preposterous claim of Dalgetty’s about Richard Coeur de Leon.” His voice caressed the romance of the name. “You don’t know John Dalgetty—why should you? He is an utterly irresponsible person, quite without self-control or a proper sense of the decencies.” His expression crumpled with revulsion at such a thing. “Book reviewers have a duty, you know.” His eyes fixed Pitt’s. “We mold opinion. It matters what we sell to the public, and what we praise or condemn. But Dalgetty would rather allow all the values of chivalry and honor to be mocked or ignored, in the name of liberty, but in truth he means license.” He jerked up and waved his hands expansively, wrists limp, to emphasize the very slackness he described. “He supported that fearful monograph of Amos Lindsay’s on this new political philosophy. Fabians, they call themselves, but what he is writing amounts to anarchy—sheer chaos. Taking property away from the people who rightfully own it is theft, plain and simple, and people won’t stand for it. There’ll be blood in the streets if it gains any number of followers.” His jaw tightened with the effort of controlling his anguish. “We’ll see Englishmen fighting Englishmen on our own soil. But Lindsay wrote as if he thought there were some kind of natural justice in it: taking away people’s private property and sharing it out with everyone, regardless of their diligence or honesty—or even of their ability to value it or preserve it.” He stared at Pitt intensely. “Just think of the destruction. Think of the waste. And the monstrous injustice. Everything we’ve worked for and cherished—” His voice was high from the constriction of his throat by his emotions. “Everything we’ve inherited down the generations, all the beauty, the treasures of the past, and of course that fool Shaw was all for it too.”

His hands had been clenched, his body tight, now suddenly he remembered that Pitt was a policeman who probably possessed nothing—and then he also remembered why Pitt was here. His shoulders slumped again. “I am sorry. I should not so criticize a man bereaved. It is shameful.”

“You went for a walk …” Pitt prompted.

“Oh yes. My eyes were tired, and I wished to refresh myself, restore my inner well-being, my sense of proportion in things. I walked in my garden.” He smiled benignly at the memory. “It was a most agreeable evening, a good moon, only shreds of cloud across it and a light wind from the south. Do you know I heard a nightingale sing? Quite splendid. Could reduce one to tears. Lovely. Lovely. I went to bed with a great peace within me.” He blinked. “How dreadful. Not twenty yards away such wickedness, and a woman struggling for her life against impossible odds, and I quite oblivious.”

Pitt looked at the imagination and the guilt in the man’s face.

“It is possible, Mr. Pascoe, that even had you been awake all night, you would not have seen or heard anything until it was too late. Fire catches very quickly when it is set with intent; and Mrs. Shaw may have been killed in her sleep by the smoke without ever waking.”

“Might she?” Pascoe’s eyes opened wide. “Indeed? I do hope so. Poor creature. She was a fine woman, you know. Far too good for Shaw. An insensitive man, without ideals of a higher sort. Not that he isn’t a good medical practitioner, and a gentleman,” he added hastily. “But without the finer perceptions. He thinks it witty and progressive to make mock of people’s values. Oh dear—one should not speak so ill of the bereaved, but truth will out. I profoundly regret that I cannot help you.”

“May we question your resident servants, Mr. Pascoe?” Pitt asked only as a formality. He had every intention of questioning them whatever Pascoe said.

“Of course. Of course. But please try not to alarm them. Reasonable cooks are so extremely hard to get, especially in a bachelor household like mine. If they are any good they want to give dinner parties and such things—and I have little occasion, just a few literary colleagues now and then.”

Pitt rose and Murdo stood to attention. “Thank you.”

But neither the cook nor the manservant had seen anything at all, and the scullery maid and housemaid were twelve and fourteen, respectively, and too horrified to do anything but twist their aprons in their hands and deny even being awake. And considering that their duties required them to be up at five in the morning, Pitt had no difficulty in believing them.

Next they visited the house to the south. On this stretch of Highgate Rise the fields opposite fell away towards a path, which Murdo said was called Bromwich Walk, and led from the parsonage of St. Anne’s Church to the south, parallel with the Rise, and ended in Highgate itself.

“Very accessible, sir,” Murdo finished gloomily. “At that time o’ the night a hundred people with pocketsful o’ matches could have crept down here and no one would have seen them.” He was beginning to think this whole exercise was a waste of time, and it showed in his frank face.

Pitt smiled dryly. “Don’t you think they’d have bumped into each other, Constable?”

Murdo failed to see the point. He had been sarcastic. Could this inspector from Bow Street really be so unintelligent? He looked more carefully at the rather homely face with its long nose, slightly chipped front tooth and untidy hair; then saw the light in the eyes, and the humor and strength in the mouth. He changed his mind.

“In the dark,” Pitt elaborated. “There might have been enough moon for Mr. Pascoe to gaze at, but a cloudy night, and no house lights—curtains drawn and lamps out by midnight.”

“Oh.” Murdo saw the purpose at last. “Whoever it was would have had to carry a lantern, and at that time of night even a match struck would show if anyone happened to be looking.”

“Exactly.” Pitt shrugged. “Not that a light helps us much, unless anyone also saw which way it came from. Let us try Mr. Alfred Lutterworth and his household.”

It was a magnificent establishment, no expense spared, the last one on this stretch of the road, and twice the size of the others. Pitt followed his custom of knocking at the front door. He refused to go to the tradesmen’s entrance as police and such other inferiors and undesirables were expected to. It was opened after a few moments by a very smart parlormaid in a gray stuff dress and crisp, lace-edged cap and apron. Her expression betrayed immediately that she knew Pitt should have been at the scullery door, even if he did not.

“Trade at the back,” she said with a slight lift of her chin.

“I have called to see Mr. Lutterworth, not the butler,” Pitt said tartly. “I imagine he receives his callers at the front?”

“He don’t receive police at all.” She was just as quick.

“He will today.” Pitt stepped in and she was obliged to move back or stand nose-to-chest with him. Murdo was both horrified and struck with admiration. “I am sure he will wish to help discover who murdered Mrs. Shaw last night.” Pitt removed his hat.

The parlormaid went almost as white as her apron and Pitt was lucky she did not faint. Her waist was so tiny her stays must have been tight enough to choke a less determined spirit.

“Oh Lor’!” She recovered herself with an effort. “I thought it were an accident.”

“I am afraid not.” Pitt followed up his rather clumsy beginning as best he could. He should be past allowing his pride to be stung by a maid by now. “Did you happen to look out of your window around midnight and perhaps see a moving light, or hear anything unusual?”

“No I didn’t—” She hesitated. “But Alice, the tweeny, was up, and she told me this morning she saw a ghost outside. But she’s a bit daft, like. I don’t know if she dreamt it.”

“I’ll speak to Alice,” Pitt replied with a smile. “It may be important. Thank you.”

Very slowly she smiled back. “If you’ll wait in the morning room, I’ll tell Mr. Lutterworth as you’re ’ere … sir.”

The room they were shown to was unusually gracious, indicating not merely that the owner had money, but he also had far better taste than perhaps he knew. Pitt had time only to glance at the watercolors on the walls. They were certainly valuable, the sale of any one of them would have fed a family for a decade, but they were also genuinely beautiful, and entirely right in their setting, wooing the eye, not assaulting it.

Alfred Lutterworth was in his late fifties with a fresh complexion, at the moment considerably flushed, and a rim of smooth white hair around a shining head. He was of good height and solidly built, with the assured stance of a self-made man. His face was strong featured. In a gentleman it might have been considered handsome, but there was something both belligerent and uncertain in it that betrayed his sense of not belonging, for all his wealth.

“My maid tells me you’re ’ere about Mrs. Shaw bein’ murdered in that fire,” Lutterworth said with a strong Lancashire accent. “That right? Them girls reads penny dreadfuls in the cupboard under the stairs an’ ’as imaginations like the worst kind o’ novelists.”

“Yes sir, I’m afraid it is true,” Pitt replied. He introduced himself and Murdo, and explained the reason for their questions.

“Bad business,” Lutterworth said grimly. “She was a good woman. Too good for most o’ the likes o’ them ’round ’ere. ’Ceptin’ Maude Dalgetty. She’s another—no side to ’er, none at all. Civil to everyone.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t see a thing. Waited up till I ’eard Flora come ’ome, that were twenty afore midnight. Then I turned the light down and went to sleep sound, until the fire bells woke me. Could ’a marched an army past in the street before that an’ I’d not ’ave ’eard ’em.”

“Flora is Miss Lutterworth?” Pitt asked, although he already knew from the Highgate police’s information.

“That’s right, me daughter. She was out with some friends at a lecture and slide show down at St. Alban’s Road. That’s just south of ’ere, beyond the church.”

Murdo stiffened to attention.

“Did she walk home, sir?” Pitt asked.

“It’s only a few steps.” Lutterworth’s deep-set, rather good eyes regarded Pitt sharply, expecting criticism. “She’s a healthy lass.”

“I would like to ask her if she saw anything.” Pitt kept his voice level. “Women can be very observant.”

“You mean nosey,” Lutterworth agreed ruefully. “Aye. My late wife, God rest ’er, noticed an ’undred things about folk I never did. An’ she was right, nine times out o’ ten.” For a moment his memory was so clear it obliterated the police in his house or the smell of water on burnt brick and wood still acrid in the air, in spite of the closed windows. From the momentary softness in his eyes and the half smile on his lips they bore nothing but sweetness. Then he recalled the present. “Aye—if you want to.” He reached over to the mantel and pulled the knob of the bell set on the wall. It was porcelain, and painted with miniature flowers. An instant later the parlormaid appeared at the door.

“Tell Miss Flora as I want ’er, Polly,” he ordered. “To speak to the police.”

“Yes sir.” And she departed hastily, whisking her skirts around the door as she closed it again.

“Uppity, that lass,” Lutterworth said under his breath. “Got opinions; but she’s ’andsome enough, and that’s what parlormaids ’as to be. And I suppose one can’t blame ’er.”

Flora Lutterworth must have been impelled as much by curiosity as her servants, because she came obediently even though her high chin and refusal to meet her father’s eyes, coupled with a fire in her cheeks equal to his, suggested they had very recently had a heated difference of opinion about something, which was still unresolved.

She was a fine-looking girl, tall and slender with wide eyes and a cloud of dark hair. She avoided traditional beauty by the angularity of her cheekbones and surprisingly crooked front teeth. It was a face of strong character, and Pitt was not in the least surprised she had quarreled with her father. He could imagine a hundred subjects on which she would have fierce opinions at odds with his—everything from which pages of the newspaper she should be permitted to read to the price of a hat, or the time she came home, and with whom.

“Good afternoon, Miss Lutterworth,” he said courteously. “No doubt you are fully aware of the tragedy last night. May I ask you, did you see anyone on your way home from the lecture, either a stranger or someone you know?”

“Someone I know?” The thought obviously startled her.

“If you did, we should like to speak to them in case they saw or heard anything.” It was at least partly the truth. There was no point in making her feel as if she would automatically be accusing someone.

“Ah.” Her face cleared. “I saw Dr. Shaw’s trap go past just as we were leaving the Howards’.”

“How do you know it was his?”

“No one else around here has one like that.” She had no trace of Lancashire in her voice. Apparently her father had paid for elocution lessons so she should sound the lady he wished her, and even in his temper, now that her attention was engaged elsewhere, his eyes rested on her with warmth. “Anyway,” she continued, “I could see his face quite clearly in the carriage lamps.”

“Anyone else?” Pitt asked.

“You mean coming this way? Well, Mr. Lindsay came a few moments after us—I was walking with Mr. Arroway and the Misses Barking. They went on up to the Grove in Highgate itself. Mr. and Mrs. Dalgetty were just ahead of us. I don’t recall anyone else. I’m sorry.”

He pressed her for further descriptions of the evening and the names of everyone attending, but learned nothing that he felt would be of use. The occasion had ended a little too early for the fire setter, and in all probability he, or she, would have waited until such a function was well over before venturing out. They must have supposed themselves to have several hours at least.

He thanked her, asked permission to speak to the tweeny and the rest of the staff, and accordingly he and Murdo were shown to the housekeeper’s sitting room, where he heard the twelve-year-old between maid’s story of seeing a ghost with burning yellow eyes flitting between the bushes in next-door’s garden. She did not know what time it was. The middle of the night. She had heard the clock in the hall strike ever so many times, and there was no one else about at all, all the gas lamps on the landing below were dimmed right down and she daren’t call anyone, terrified as she was. She had crept back to bed and put the covers over her head, and that was all she knew, she swore it.

Pitt thanked her gently—she was only a few years older than his own daughter, Jemima—and told her she had been a great help. She blushed and bobbed a curtsey, losing her balance a little, then retreated in some confusion. It was the first time in her life that an adult had listened to her seriously.

“Do you reckon that was our murderer, Inspector?” Murdo asked as they came out onto the footpath again. “That girl’s ghost?”

“A moving light in Shaw’s garden? Probably. We’ll have to follow up all the people Flora Lutterworth saw as she left the lecture. One of them may have seen somebody.”

“Very observant young lady, very sensible, I thought,” Murdo said, then colored pink. “I mean she recounted it all very clearly. No, er, no melodrama.”

“None at all,” Pitt agreed with the shadow of a smile. “A young woman of spirit, I think. She may well have had more to say if her father were not present. I imagine they do not see eye to eye on everything.”

Murdo opened his mouth to reply, then found himself in confusion as to what he wanted to say, and swallowed hard without saying anything.

Pitt’s smile widened and he increased his rather gangling pace up the pavement towards the house of Amos Lindsay, where the widower Dr. Shaw was taking refuge, being not only bereaved but now also homeless.

The house was far smaller than the Lutterworths’, and as soon as they were inside they could not help being aware it was also of highly eccentric character. The owner was apparently at one time an explorer and anthropologist. Carvings of varied nature and origin decked the walls, crowded together on shelves and tables, and even stood in huddles on the floor. From Pitt’s very restricted knowledge he took them to be either African or central Asian. He saw nothing Egyptian, Oriental or from the Americas, nothing that had the subtle but familiar smoothness of the classicism that was the heritage of western European culture. There was something alien in it, a barbaric rawness at odds with the very conventional Victorian middle-class interior architecture.

They were conducted in by a manservant with an accent Pitt could not place and a skin no darker than many Englishmen’s, but of an unusual smoothness, and hair that might have been drawn on his head with India ink. His manners were impeccable.

Amos Lindsay himself was eminently English in appearance, short, stocky and white-haired, and yet totally unlike Pascoe. Where Pascoe was essentially an idealist harking back to an age of medieval chivalry in Europe, Lindsay was a man of insatiable and indiscriminate curiosity—and irreverence for establishment, as his furnishings showed. But his mind was voyaging outward to the mysteries of savagery and the unknown. His skin was deep furrowed both by the dominant nature of his features and by the severity of tropical sun. His eyes were small and shrewd, those of a realist, not a dreamer. His whole aspect acknowledged humor and the absurdities of life.

Now he was very grave and met Pitt and Murdo in his study, having no use for a morning room.

“Good evening,” he said civilly. “Dr. Shaw is in the withdrawing room. I hope you will not ask him a lot of idiotic questions that anyone else could answer.”

“No sir,” Pitt assured him. “Perhaps towards that end you might answer a few for us before we meet Dr. Shaw?”

“Of course. Although I cannot imagine what you think there is to learn from us. But since you are here, you must suppose, in spite of the unlikelihood of it, that it was in some way criminal.” He looked acutely at Pitt. “I went to bed at nine; I rise early. I neither saw nor heard anything, nor did my domestic staff. I have already asked them because quite naturally they were alarmed and distressed by the noise of the fire. I have no idea what manner of person might do such a thing with intent, nor any sane reason why. But then the mind of man is capable of almost any contortion or delusion whatever.”

“Do you know Dr. and Mrs. Shaw well?”

Lindsay was unsurprised. “I know him well. He is one of the few local men I find it easy to converse with. Open-minded, not pickled in tradition like most around here. A man of considerable intelligence and wit. Not common qualities—and not always appreciated.”

“And Mrs. Shaw?” Pitt continued.

“Not so well. One doesn’t, of course. Can’t discuss with a woman in the same way as with a man. But she was a fine woman; sensible, compassionate, modest without unctuousness, no humbug about her. All the best female qualities.”

“What did she look like?”

“What?” Lindsay was obviously surprised. Then his face creased into a comic mixture of humor and indecision. “Matter of opinion, I suppose. Dark, good features, bit heavy in the—” He colored and his hands waved vaguely in the air. Pitt judged they would have described the curve of hips, had not his sense of propriety stopped him. “Good eyes, intelligent and mild. Sounds like a horse—I apologize. Handsome woman, that’s my judgment. And she walked well. No doubt you’ll talk to the Worlingham sisters, her aunts; Clemency resembles Celeste a trifle, not Angeline.”

“Thank you. Perhaps we should meet Dr. Shaw now?”

“Of course.” And without further speech he led them back into the hall, and then with a brief warning knock he opened the withdrawing room door.

Pitt ignored the remarkable curios on the walls, and his eyes went immediately to the man standing by the hearth, whose face was drained of emotion, but whose body was still tense, waiting for some action or demand upon it. He turned as he heard the door latch, but there was no interest in his eyes, only acknowledgment of duty. His skin had the pallor of shock, pinched at the sides of the lips and bruised around the eye sockets. His features were strong, and even bereavement in such fearful circumstances could not remove the wit and intelligence from him, nor the caustic individualism Pitt had heard others speak of.

“Good evening, Dr. Shaw,” Pitt said formally. “I am Inspector Pitt, from Bow Street, and this is Constable Murdo from the local station. I regret it is necessary that we ask you some distressing questions—”

“Of course.” Shaw cut off his explanations. As Murdo had said, he was a police surgeon and he understood. “Ask what you must. But first, tell me what you know. Are you sure it was arson?”

“Yes sir. There is no possibility that the fire started simultaneously in four different places, all accessible from the outside, and with no normal household reason, such as a spark from the hearth or a candle spilled in a bedroom or on the stairs.”

“Where did they start?” Shaw was curious now and unable to remain standing on the spot. He began to move about, first to one table, then another, automatically straightening things, compulsively making them tidier.

Pitt stood where he was, near the sofa.

“The fire chief says it was in the curtains,” he replied. “In every case.”

Shaw’s face showed skepticism, quick and even now with a vestige of humor and critical perception which must normally be characteristic in him. “How does he know that? There wasn’t much”—he swallowed—“left of my home.”

“Pattern of the burning,” Pitt answered gravely. “What was completely consumed, what was damaged but still partially standing; and where rubble and glass falls shows to some extent where the heat was greatest first.”

Shaw shook himself impatiently. “Yes, of course. Stupid question. I’m sorry.” He passed a strong, well-shaped hand over his brow, pushing straight fair hair out of his way. “What do you want from me?”

“What time were you called out, sir, and by whom?” He was half aware of Murdo by the door, pencil and notebook in hand.

“I didn’t look at the clock,” Shaw answered. “About quarter past eleven. Mrs. Wolcott was in childbirth—her husband went to a neighbor’s with a telephone.”

“Where do they live?”

“Over in Kentish Town.” He had an excellent voice with clear diction and a timbre that was unique and remarkably pleasing. “I took the trap and drove. I was there all night until the child was delivered. I was on the way home about five o’clock when the police met me—and told me what had happened—and that Clemency was dead.”

Pitt had seen many people in the first hours of loss; it had often been his duty to bear the news. It never failed to distress him.

“It’s ironic,” Shaw continued, not looking at anyone. “She had intended to go out with Maude Dalgetty and spend the night with friends in Kensington. It was canceled at the last moment. And Mrs. Wolcott was not due for another week. I should have been at home, and Clemency away.” He did not add the obvious conclusion. It hung in the silent room. Lindsay stood somber and motionless. Murdo glanced at Pitt and his thoughts were naked for a moment in his face. Pitt knew them already.

“Who was aware that Mrs. Shaw had changed her mind, sir?” he asked.

Shaw met his eyes. “No one but Maude Dalgetty and myself,” he replied. “And I assume John Dalgetty. I don’t know who else they told. But they didn’t know about Mrs. Wolcott. No one did.”

Lindsay was standing beside him. He put his hand on Shaw’s shoulder in a steadying gesture of friendship. “You have a distinctive trap, Stephen. Whoever it was may have seen you leave and supposed the house empty.”

“Then why burn it?” Shaw said grimly.

Lindsay tightened his grip. “God knows! Why do pyromaniacs do anything? Hatred of those who have more than they? A sense of power—to watch the flames? I don’t know.”

Pitt would not bother to ask whether the home was insured, or for how much; it would be easier and more accurate to inquire through the insurance companies—and less offensive.

There was a knock on the door and the manservant reappeared.

“Yes?” Lindsay said irritably.

“The vicar and his wife have called to convey their condolences to Dr. Shaw, sir, and to offer comfort. Shall I ask them to wait?”

Lindsay turned to Pitt, not for his permission, of course, but to see if he had finished any painful questioning and might now retreat.

Pitt hesitated for a moment, uncertain whether there was anything further he could learn from Shaw now, or if in common humanity he should allow whatever religious comfort there might be and defer his own questions. Perhaps he would actually learn more of Shaw by watching him with those who knew him and had known his wife.

“Inspector?” Lindsay pressed him.

“Of course,” Pitt conceded, although from the expression of defiance and something close to alarm in Shaw’s face, he doubted the vicar’s religious comfort was what he presently desired.

Lindsay nodded and the manservant withdrew, a moment later ushering in a mild, very earnest man in clerical garb. He looked as if he had been athletic in his youth, but now in his forties had become a little lax. There was too much diffidence in him for good looks, but there was nothing of malice or arrogance in his regular features and rather indecisive mouth. His surface attempt at calm masked a deep nervousness, and the occasion was obviously far from being his element.

He was accompanied by a woman with a plain, intelligent face, a little too heavy of eyebrow and strong of nose to be appealing to most people, but a good-natured mouth. In contrast to her husband she projected an intense energy, and it was all directed towards Shaw. She barely saw Lindsay or Pitt, and made no accommodation to them in her manner. Murdo was invisible.

“Ah … hem—” The vicar was plainly confused to see the police still there. He had prepared what he was going to say, and now it did not fit the circumstances and he had nothing else in reserve. “Ah … Reverend Hector Clitheridge.” He introduced himself awkwardly. “My wife, Eulalia.” He indicated the woman beside him, waving his hand, thick wristed and with white cuffs a size too large.

Then he turned to Shaw and his expression altered. He was apparently laboring under some difficulty. He wavered between natural distaste and alarm, and hard-won resolution.

“My dear Shaw, how can I say how sorry I am for this tragedy.” He took half a step forward. “Quite appalling. In the midst of life we are in death. How fragile is human existence in this vale of tears. Suddenly we are struck down. How may we comfort you?”

“Not with platitudes, dammit!” Shaw said tartly.

“Yes, well—I’m sure …” Clitheridge floundered, his face pink.

“People only say some things so often because they are true, Dr. Shaw,” Mrs. Clitheridge said with an eager smile, her eyes on Shaw’s face. “How else can we express our feelings for you, and our desire to offer consolation.”

“Yes quite—quite,” Clitheridge added unnecessarily. “I will take care of any—any, er … arrangements you care to—er … Of course it is soon—er …” He tailed off, looking at the floor.

“Thank you,” Shaw cut across. “I’ll let you know.”

“Of course. Of course.” Clitheridge was patently relieved.

“In the meantime, dear doctor …” Mrs. Clitheridge took a step forward, her eyes bright, her back very straight under her dark bombazine, as if she were approaching something exciting and a little dangerous. “In the meantime, we offer you our condolences, and please feel you may call upon us for anything at all, any task that you would prefer not to perform yourself. My time is yours.”

Shaw looked across at her and the ghost of a smile touched his face. “Thank you, Eulalia. I am sure you mean it kindly.”

The blush deepened in her face, but she said no more. The use of her Christian name was a familiarity, particularly in front of such social inferiors as the police. Pitt thought from the lift of Shaw’s brows that even now he had done it deliberately, an automatic instinct to sweep away pretense.

For a moment Pitt saw them all in a different light, six people in a room, all concerned with the violent death of a woman very close to them, trying to find comfort for themselves and each other, and they observed all the social niceties, masked all the simplicity of real emotion with talk of letters and rituals. And the old habits and reactions were there too: Clitheridge’s reliance on quoting predictable Scriptures, Eulalia’s stepping in for him. Something in her was wakened to a sharper life by Shaw’s personality, and it both pleased and disturbed her. Duty won. Perhaps duty always won.

From Shaw’s tight body and restless movements none of it reached more than a surface, intellectual humor in him. The ache underneath he would bear utterly alone—unless Lindsay had some frank expression that could bridge the gulf.

Pitt stepped back out of the center of the floor and stood next to the patterned curtains, watching. He glanced at Murdo to make sure he did the same.

“Are you going to remain here with Mr. Lindsay?” Eulalia inquired solicitously of Shaw. “I assure you, you would be most welcome at the parsonage, if you wish. And you could remain as long as suited you—until … er, of course you will purchase another house—”

“Not yet, my dear, not yet,” Clitheridge said in a loud whisper. “First we must, er, organize—deal with the—er, spiritual—”

“Nonsense!” she hissed back at him. “The poor man has to sleep somewhere. One cannot deal with emotions until one has accommodated the creature.”

“It is the other way ’round, Lally!” He was getting cross. “Please allow me—”

“Thank you.” Shaw interrupted, swinging around from the small table where he had been fingering an ornament. “I shall remain with Amos. But I am sensible of your kindness—and you are perfectly correct, Eulalia, as always. One can grieve far more adequately in some physical comfort. There is no advantage whatsoever in having to worry about where to sleep or what to eat.”

Clitheridge bridled, but offered no demur; the opposition was far too much for him.

He was saved from further argument by the manservant’s reappearance to announce yet more callers.

“Mr. and Mrs. Hatch, sir.” There was no question as to whether they should be received. Pitt was curious.

“Of course.” Lindsay nodded.

The couple who were admitted a moment later were soberly, even starkly dressed, she in total black, he in a winged collar, black tie and high-buttoned suit of indeterminate dark shade. His face was composed in extreme gravity, tight-lipped, pale, and his eyes brilliant with contained emotion. It was a countenance that caught Pitt’s attention with its intensity as passionate as Shaw’s, and yet by every innate inclination different—guarded and inward of thought where Shaw was rash and quickly expressive; abstemious and melancholy where Shaw was full of vitality and a wild humor; and yet the possibilities of depth were the same, the power of emotion.

But it was Mrs. Hatch who came forward first, ignoring everyone else and going straight to Shaw, which seemed to be what he expected. He put both arms around her and held her.

“My dear Prudence.”

“Oh, Stephen, this is quite dreadful.” She accepted his embrace without hesitation. “How can it have happened? I was sure Clemency was in London with the Bosinneys. At least thank God you were not there!”

Shaw said nothing. For once he had no answer.

There was an uncomfortable silence as if others who felt the emotions less deeply were embarrassed by their exclusion and would rather not have witnessed them.

“Mrs. Shaw’s sister,” Murdo whispered, leaning closer to Pitt. “Both ladies are daughters of the late Theophilus Worlingham.”

Pitt had never heard of Theophilus Worlingham, but apparently he was a person of some repute from the awe in Murdo’s voice.

Josiah Hatch cleared his throat to draw the episode to a conclusion. Proprieties must be observed, and he had become aware of the shadowy figures of Pitt and Murdo in the unlit corner of the room, not part of the event, and yet intrusively present.

“We must comfort ourselves with faith,” he continued. He looked sideways at Clitheridge. “I am sure the vicar has already spoken words of strength to you.” It sounded almost like a charge, as if he were not sure at all. “This is a time when we call upon our inner resources and remember that God is with us, even in the valley of the shadow, and His will shall be done.”

It was a statement at once banal and unarguable, and yet he was painfully sincere.

As if catching some honesty in the man, Shaw pushed Prudence away gently and answered him.

“Thank you, Josiah. It is a relief to me to know you will be there to sustain Prudence.”

“Of course,” Hatch agreed. “It is a man’s godly duty to support women through their times of grief and affliction. They are naturally weaker, and more sensitive to such things. It is their gentleness and the purity of their minds which make them so perfectly suited to motherhood and the nurturing of tender youth, so we must thank God for it. I remember dear Bishop Worlingham saying so much to that effect when I was a young man.”

He did not look at any of them, but to some distance of his own memory. “I shall never cease to be grateful for the time in my youth I spent with him.” A spasm of pain crossed his face. “My own father’s refusal to allow me to enter the church was almost offset by that great man’s tutelage of me in the ways of the spirit and the path of true Christianity.”

He looked at his wife. “Your grandfather, my dear, was as close to a saint as we are like to see in this poor world. He is very sadly missed—sadly indeed. He would have known precisely how to deal with a loss like this, what to say to each of us to explain divine wisdom so we should all be at peace with it.”

“Indeed—indeed,” Clitheridge said inadequately.

Hatch looked at Lindsay. “Before your time, sir, which is your misfortune. Bishop Augustus Worlingham was quite remarkable, a great Christian gentleman and benefactor to uncounted men and women, both materially and spiritually. His influence was incalculable.” He leaned forward a fraction, his face creased with earnestness. “No one can say how many are now following a righteous path because of his life here on this earth. I know of dozens myself.” He stared at Lindsay. “The Misses Wycombe, all three of them, went to nurse the sick entirely on his inspiration, and Mr. Bartford took the cloth and set up a mission in Africa. No one can measure the domestic happiness resulting from his counsel on the proper place and duties of women in the home. A far wider area than merely Highgate has been blessed by his life …”

Lindsay looked nonplussed, but did not interrupt. Perhaps he could think of nothing adequate to say.

Shaw clenched his teeth and looked at the ceiling.

Mrs. Hatch bit her lip and glanced nervously at Shaw.

Hatch plunged on, a new eagerness in his voice, his eyes bright. “No doubt you have heard of the window we are dedicating to him in St. Anne’s Church? It is planned already and we need only a little more money. It is a representation of the bishop himself, as the prophet Jeremiah, teaching the people from the Old Testament; with angels at his shoulders.”

Shaw’s jaw clenched, and he refrained from saying anything with apparent difficulty.

“Yes—yes, I heard,” Lindsay said hastily. He was patently embarrassed. He glanced at Shaw, now moving as if he could barely contain the pent-up energy inside him. “I am sure it will be a beautiful window, and much admired.”

“That is hardly the point,” Hatch said sharply, his mouth puckering with anger. “Beauty is not at issue, my dear sir. It is the upliftment of souls. It is the saving of lives from sin and ignorance, it is to remind the faithful what journey it is we make, and to what end.” He shook his head a little as if to rid himself of the immediacy of the very solid materiality around him. “Bishop Worlingham was a righteous man, with a great understanding of the order of things, our place in God’s purpose. We permit his influence to be lost at our peril. This window will be a monument to him, towards which people will raise their eyes every Sunday, and through which God’s holy light will pour in upon them.”

“For heaven’s sake, man, the light would come through whatever window you put in the wall,” Shaw snapped at last. “In fact you’d get most of it if you stood outside in the graveyard in the fresh air.”

“I was speaking figuratively,” Hatch replied with suppressed fury in his eyes. “Must you see everything in such earthbound terms? At least in this terrible time of bereavement, lift your soul to eternal things.” He blinked fiercely, his lips white and his voice trembling. “God knows, this is dreadful enough.”

The momentary quarrel vanished and grief replaced anger. Shaw stood motionless, the first time he had been totally still since Pitt had arrived.

“Yes—I—” He could not bring himself to apologize. “Yes, of course. The police are here. It was arson.”

“What?” Hatch was aghast. The blood fled from his face and he swayed a little on his feet. Lindsay moved towards him in case he should fall. Prudence swung back and held out her arms, then the meaning of what Shaw had said struck her and she also stood appalled.

“Arson! You mean someone set fire to the house intentionally?”

“That is right.”

“So it was”—she swallowed, composing herself with difficulty—“murder.”

“Yes.” Shaw put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, my dear. But that is what the police are here for.”

For the first time both she and Hatch turned their attention to Pitt with a mixture of alarm and distaste. Hatch squared his shoulders and addressed Pitt with difficulty, ignoring Murdo.

“Sir, there is nothing whatsoever that we can tell you. If indeed it was deliberate, then look to some vagabond. In the meantime, leave us to bear our grief in private, in the name of humanity.”

It was late and Pitt was tired, hungry and weary of pain, the stench of stale smoke, and the itch of ash inside his clothes. He had no more questions to ask. He had seen the forensic evidence and learned what little there was to be concluded from it. It was no vagabond responsible; it was carefully laid with intent to destroy, probably to kill—but by whom? Either way the answer would lie in the hearts of the people who knew Stephen and Clemency Shaw, perhaps someone he had already seen, or heard mentioned.

“Yes sir,” he agreed with a sense of relief. “Thank you for your attention.” He said this last to Shaw and Lindsay. “When I learn anything I shall inform you.”

“What?” Shaw screwed up his face. “Oh—yes, of course. Goodnight—er—Inspector.”

Pitt and Murdo withdrew and a few minutes later were walking up the quiet street by the light of Murdo’s lantern, back towards Highgate Police Station, and for Pitt a long hansom ride home.

“Do you reckon it was Mrs. Shaw or the doctor they were after?” Murdo asked after they had gone a couple of hundred yards and the night wind was blowing with a touch of frost in their faces.

“Either,” Pitt replied. “But if it was Mrs. Shaw, then it seems so far only Mr. and Mrs. Dalgetty, and the good doctor himself, knew she was at home.”

“Lot of people might want to kill a doctor, I suppose,” Murdo said thoughtfully. “I imagine doctors get to know a lot of folks’ secrets, one way or another.”

“Indeed,” Pitt agreed, shivering and quickening his pace a little. “And if that is so, the doctor may know who it is—and they may try again.”