Southampton Row

CHAPTER

THREE

Pitt went out and bought five other newspapers and took them home to see if Major General Kingsley had written to any more of them in similar vein. Almost the same letter was in three of them; there was only a variation of phrase here and there.

Pitt folded the papers closed and sat still for several minutes wondering what weight to attach to it. Who was Kingsley? Was he a man whose opinion would influence others? More importantly than that, was his writing coincidence or the beginning of a campaign?

He had reached no conclusion as to whether there was a necessity for learning more about Kingsley, when the doorbell rang. He glanced up at the kitchen clock and realized it was after nine. Mrs. Brody must have forgotten her keys. He stood up, resentful of the intrusion although he was grateful enough for her work, and went to answer the increasingly insistent jangle of the bell.

But it was not Mrs. Brody on the step, it was a young man in a brown suit, his hair slicked back and his face eager.

“Good morning, sir,” he said crisply, standing to attention. “Sergeant Grenville, sir . . .”

“If Narraway wants to tell me about the letter in the Times, I’ve read it,” Pitt said rather sharply. “And in the Spectator, the Mail and the Illustrated London News.”

“No, sir,” the man replied with a frown. “It’s about the murder.”

“What?” Pitt thought at first that he had misheard.

“The murder, sir,” the man repeated. “In Southampton Row.”

Pitt felt a stab of regret so sharp it was almost a physical pain, then a surge of hatred for Voisey and all the Inner Circle for driving him from Bow Street, where he had dealt with crimes he understood, however terrible, and for which he had the skill and the experience in almost all cases to find some resolution. It was his profession, and he was good at it. In Special Branch he was floundering, knowing what was coming and powerless to prevent it.

“You’ve made a mistake,” he said flatly. “I don’t deal with murders anymore. Go back and tell your commander that I can’t help. Report to Superintendent Wetron at Bow Street.”

The sergeant did not move. “Sorry sir, I didn’t say it properly. It’s Mr. Narraway as wants you to take over. They won’t like it at Bow Street, but they just got to put up with it. Mr. Tellman’s in charge in Southampton Row. Just made up recent, like. But I expect you know that, seeing as you was used to working with ’im all the time. Begging your pardon, sir, but it would be a good thing if you went there right away, seein’ as they discovered the body about seven, an’ it’s coming up ’alf past nine now. We just got to ’ear of it, and Mr. Narraway sent me right over.”

“Why?” It made no sense. “I’ve already got a case.”

“’E said this is part of it, sir.” Grenville glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve got a cab waiting. If you’d just like to lock the door, sir, we’ll be on our way.” The manner in which he said it, his whole bearing, made it apparent he was not a sergeant suggesting something to a senior officer; he was a man who was very sure of his position passing on the order of a superior whose word could not be disobeyed. It was as if Narraway himself had spoken.

Slightly irked and unwilling to intrude on Tellman’s first murder case as commander, Pitt did as he was bidden and followed Grenville to the hansom. They rode the short distance along Keppel Street, around Russell Square and a couple of hundred yards down Southampton Row.

“Who is the victim?” he asked as soon as they were moving.

“Maude Lamont,” Grenville replied. “She’s supposed to be a spirit medium, sir. One of them what says she gets in touch with the dead.” His tone and the expressionless look on his face conveyed his opinion of such things, and the fact that he felt it inappropriate to put it into words.

“And why does Mr. Narraway think it has anything to do with my case?” Pitt asked.

Grenville stared straight ahead.

“Don’t know that, sir. Mr. Narraway never tells nobody things as they don’t need to know.”

“Right, Sergeant Grenville, what can you tell me, other than that I am late, I am going to walk in on my erstwhile sergeant and take away his first case, and I have no idea what it’s about?”

“I don’t know either, sir,” Grenville said, glancing sideways at Pitt and then forward again. “Except that Miss Lamont was a spiritualist, like I said, and ’er maid found ’er dead this morning, choked, it seems. Except the doctor says it wasn’t an accident, so it looks like one of ’er clients from last night must ’ave done it. I suppose ’e needs you to find out which one, and maybe why.”

“And you have no idea what that has to do with my present case?”

“I don’t even know what your case is, sir.”

Pitt said nothing, and a moment later they pulled up just beyond Cosmo Place. Pitt climbed out, closely followed by Grenville, who led the way to the front door of a very pleasant house which was obviously that of someone in most comfortable circumstances. A short flight of steps led to a carved front door, and there was deep white gravel along the frontage to either side.

A constable answered the bell and was about to turn them away until he looked beyond Grenville to Pitt. “You’re back at Bow Street, sir?” he said with surprise, and what seemed to be pleasure.

Before Pitt could reply, Grenville stepped in. “Not for the moment, but Mr. Pitt is taking over this case. Orders from the ’ome Office,” he said in a tone which cut off further discussion of the subject. “Where’s Inspector Tellman?”

The constable looked puzzled and interested, but he knew how to read a hint. “In the parlor, sir, with the body. If you’ll come wi’ me.” And without waiting for an answer he led them inside across a very comfortable hallway decorated in mock Chinese style, with lacquer side tables and a bamboo-and-silk screen, and into the parlor. This too was of Oriental style, with a red lacquer cabinet by the wall, a dark wooden table with carved abstract designs on it, a series of lines and rectangles. In the center of the room was a larger table, oval, and around it were seven chairs. Double French doors with elaborate curtains looked out into a walled garden filled with flowering shrubbery. A path curved away around the corner, presumably to the front of the house or to a side gate or a door to Cosmo Place.

Pitt’s attention was drawn inevitably to the motionless body of a woman half reclined in one of the two upholstered chairs on either side of the fireplace. She seemed in her middle to late thirties, tall and with a fine, delicately curved figure. Her face had probably been handsome in life, with good bones, and framed by thick, dark hair. But at the moment it was disfigured by a terrible, gasping contortion. Her eyes were wide and staring, her complexion mottled and a strange white substance had bubbled out of her mouth and down over her chin.

Tellman, dour as always, his hair slicked back from his brow, was standing in the middle of the room. To his left was another man, older, thicker-set, with a strong, intelligent face. From the leather bag at his feet Pitt took him to be the police surgeon.

“Sorry, sir.” Grenville produced his card and held it out to Tellman. “This is a Special Branch case. Mr. Pitt will be taking over. But to keep it discreet, like, it would be better if you were to remain ’ere to work with ’im.” It was said as a statement, not a question.

Tellman stared at Pitt. He tried hard to mask his feelings, and the fact that he was taken by surprise, but his chagrin was clear in the rigidity of his body, his hands held tightly at his sides, the hesitation before he was able to master himself sufficiently to think what to say. There was no enmity in his eyes—at least Pitt thought not—but there was anger and disappointment. He had worked hard for his promotion, several years of that work in Pitt’s shadow. And now, faced with the very first murder of which he was in charge, with no explanation, Pitt was brought back and given command of it.

Pitt turned to Grenville. “If there’s nothing else, Sergeant, you can leave us to get on with it. Inspector Tellman will have all the facts we know so far.” Except why Narraway considered this anything whatever to do with Voisey. Pitt could not imagine anything less likely to interest Charles Voisey than spiritual séances. Surely his sister, Mrs. Cavendish, could not have been so credulous as to have attended such a gathering at so sensitive a time? And if she had, and had been compromised by her presence here, was that a good thing or bad?

He felt cold at the thought that Narraway expected him to use it to their advantage. The idea of becoming part of the crime, of using it to coerce, was repellent.

He introduced himself to the doctor, whose name was Snow, then turned to Tellman.

“What do you know so far?” he asked politely and as noncommittally as he could. He must not allow his own anger to reflect in his attitude now. None of this was Tellman’s fault, and to antagonize him further would make it more difficult to succeed in the end.

“The maid, Lena Forrest, found her this morning. She’s the only servant living in,” Tellman replied, glancing around the room to indicate his surprise that in a house of this obvious material comfort there was no resident cook or manservant. “Made her mistress’s morning tea and took it up to her room,” he continued. “When she found no one there, and the bed not slept in, she was alarmed. She came down here to the last place she had seen her—”

“When was that?” Pitt interrupted.

“Before the start of last night’s . . . doings.” Tellman avoided the word séance, and his opinion of it all was evident in his very slightly curled lip. Otherwise his lantern-jawed face was carefully devoid of expression.

Pitt was surprised. “She didn’t see her afterwards?”

“She says not. I pressed her about that. No last cup of tea, no going up, drawing a bath for her or helping her undress? But she says not.” His voice allowed no argument. “It seems Miss Lamont liked to stay up as long as she wanted with certain . . . clients . . . and they all preferred the privacy of no servants around, no one to bump into accidentally or interrupt when . . .” He tailed off, his lips pursed.

“So she came in here, and found her?” Pitt inclined his head towards the figure in the chair.

“That’s right. About ten minutes after seven,” Tellman responded.

Pitt was surprised. “Early for a lady to get up, isn’t it? Especially one who didn’t begin work until the evening and frequently stayed late with clients.”

“I asked her that, too.” Tellman glared. “She said Miss Lamont always got up early and took a nap in the afternoons.” His expression suggested the pointlessness of trying to make sense of any of the habits of someone who thought she spoke to ghosts.

“Did she touch anything?”

“She says not, and I can’t see any evidence that she did. She said that she could see straight away that Miss Lamont was dead. She wasn’t breathing, she had this bluish look, and when the maid put a finger on her neck, it was quite cold.”

Pitt turned enquiringly towards the doctor.

Snow pursed his lips. “Died sometime yesterday evening,” he said, staring at Pitt with sharp, questioning eyes.

Pitt looked towards the body again, then took a step closer and peered at the face and the strange sticky mess spilling out of her mouth and down over the side of her chin. At first he had thought it vomit from some ingested poison; on closer examination there was a texture to it, a thickness that looked almost like a very fine gauze.

He straightened up and turned to the doctor. “Poison?” he said, his imagination racing. “What is it? Can you tell? Her face looks as if she’s been strangled, or suffocated.”

“Asphyxia.” Snow inclined his head in a very slight nod. “I can’t be sure until I get to my laboratory, but I think that’s white of egg—”

“What?” Pitt was incredulous. “Why would she swallow white of egg? And what is the—the . . .”

“Some sort of muslin or cheesecloth.” Snow’s mouth twisted wryly as if he were on the brink of some deeper knowledge of human nature, and afraid of what he would find. “She choked on it. Inhaled it into her lungs. But it wasn’t an accident.” He moved past Pitt and pulled open the lace front of the bodice to the dead woman’s gown. It came away in his hand where it had obviously been torn before in the need to examine her, and closed over again for decency’s sake. On the flesh between the swell of her breasts was the beginning of a wide bruise, only just darkening when death had cut off the flow of blood.

Pitt met Snow’s eyes. “Force to make her swallow it?”

Snow nodded. “I’d say a knee,” he agreed. “Someone put that stuff down her throat and held her nose. You can see the very slight scratch of a fingernail on her cheek. They pinned her down with considerable weight until she couldn’t help breathing in, and choking.”

“Are you certain?” Pitt tried to rid his mind of the picture, the sense of the thick liquid gagging in her throat, the woman fighting for air.

“As certain as we can be,” Snow answered. “Unless on autopsy I find something completely different. But she died of asphyxia. Can tell that from her expression, and from the tiny blood clots in her eyes.” He did not show them and Pitt was glad. He had seen it before and was content to accept Snow’s word. Instead he picked up one of the cold hands and turned it slightly, looking at the wrist. He found the slight bruises as he had expected. Someone had held her, perhaps only briefly, but with force.

“I see,” he said softly. “You’d better tell me if it is egg white, but I’ll assume it is. Why would anyone choose such a bizarre, unnecessary way of killing someone?”

“That’s your job,” Snow said dryly. “I can tell you what happened to her, but not why, or who did it.”

Pitt turned to Tellman. “You said the maid found her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Not much, only that she did not see or hear anything after she left Miss Lamont when her clients were due. But then she says she took care not to. One of the reasons they liked Miss Lamont was the privacy she offered them . . . as well as her . . . whatever you call it?” He frowned, searching Pitt’s face. “What is it?” He had steadfastly refused to call him “sir” right from the first difficult days when Pitt himself was newly promoted. Tellman had resented him because he considered him, as a gamekeeper’s son, not to be suitable for command of a station. That was for gentlemen, or returned military or naval men, such as Cornwallis. “What do you call it—a skill, an act, a trick?”

“Probably all three,” Pitt replied. Then he went on thinking aloud. “I suppose if it’s for entertainment it’s harmless enough. But how do you know if someone takes it seriously, whether you mean them to or not?”

“You don’t!” Tellman snorted. “I like my conjuring to be strictly a deck of cards or rabbits out of a hat. That way nobody gets taken in.”

“Do you know who yesterday evening’s clients were, and if they came one at a time or all together?”

“The maid doesn’t know,” Tellman answered. “Or at least that’s what she says, and I’ve no reason to disbelieve her.”

“Where is she? Is she in a fit state to answer questions?”

“Oh yes,” Tellman said with assurance. “A little shaken, of course, but seems like a sensible woman. I don’t suppose she’s realized yet what it will mean for her. But once we’ve searched the house completely, and maybe locked off this room, there’s no reason why she can’t stay here for a while, is there? Till she finds another position, anyway.”

“No,” Pitt agreed. “Better she does. We’ll know where to find her if we have more to ask. I’ll go and see her in the kitchen. Can’t expect her to come in here.” He glanced at the corpse as he crossed the room to the door. Tellman did not follow him. He would have his own men to send on errands, searches, perhaps questions of people in the neighborhood, although it was reasonable to suppose that the crime would have taken place after dark and the chances that anyone had observed anything of use were slight.

Pitt followed the passage towards the back of the house, past several other doors, to the one at the end which was open, with a pattern of sunlight on a scrubbed wooden floor. He stopped in the entrance. It was a well-kept kitchen, clean and warm. There was a kettle steaming very slightly on the black cooking stove. A tall woman, a little thin, stood at the sink with her sleeves rolled up above her elbows and her hands in soapy water. She was motionless, as if she had forgotten what she was there for.

“Miss Forrest?” Pitt asked.

She turned slowly. She seemed in her late forties; her brown hair, graying at the temples, was pinned back off her brow. Her face was unusual, with beautiful bones around her eyes and cheeks, her nose straight but not quite prominent enough, her mouth wide and well-shaped. She was not beautiful; in fact, in a way she was almost ugly.

“Yes. Are you another policeman?” She spoke with a very slight lisp, although it was not quite an impediment. Slowly she lifted her hands out of the water.

“Yes, I am,” Pitt replied. “I’m sorry to ask you more questions when you must be distressed, but we cannot afford to wait for a better time.” He felt a trifle foolish as he said it. She looked completely in control of herself, but he knew that shock affected people in different ways. Sometimes when it was very profound, there were no outward signs at all. “My name is Pitt. Would you sit down please, Miss Forrest.”

Slowly she obeyed, automatically drying her hands on a towel left over a brass rail in front of the stove. She sat down on one of the hard-backed chairs near the table, and he sat on one of the others.

“What is it you want to know?” she asked, staring not at him but at some space over his right shoulder. The kitchen was orderly: there was clean, plain china stacked on the dresser, and a pile of ironed linen on one of the broad sills, no doubt waiting to be put away. More hung from the airing rail winched up near the ceiling. The coke scuttle was full on the floor by the back door. The stove was polished black. Light winked softly over the sides of the copper pans hanging from the cross beam, and there was a faint aroma of spices. The only thing missing was any sight or smell of food. It was a house no longer with any purpose.

“Was Miss Lamont expecting her clients separately or together?” he asked.

“They came one at a time,” she replied. “And left that way, for all I know. But they would all be together for the séance.” Her voice was expressionless, as if she were trying to mask her feelings. Was that to protect herself, or her mistress, perhaps from ridicule?

“Did you see them?”

“No.”

“So they could have come together?”

“Miss Lamont had me lift the crossbar on the side door to Cosmo Place, which she did for some people,” she replied. “So I took it that one of the discreet ones came last night.”

“People who don’t want anyone else to recognize them, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Are there many like that?”

“Four or five.”

“So you made arrangements for them to come in from Cosmo Place, instead of the front door on Southampton Row? Tell me exactly how that worked.”

She looked up at him, meeting his eyes. “There’s a door in the wall that leads into the Place. It has a lock on it, a big iron one, and they lock it behind them when they leave.”

“What is the bar you spoke of?”

“That falls across on the inside. It means even with a key you can’t get in. We keep it barred except when there is a special client coming.”

“And she sees such clients alone?”

“No, usually with one or two others.”

“Are there many like that?”

“I don’t think so. Mostly she went to clients’ houses, or parties. She only had special ones here once a week or so.”

Pitt tried to picture it in his mind: a handful of nervous, excited people sitting in the half-light around a table, all filled with their own terrors and dreams, hoping to hear the voice of someone they had loved, transfigured by death, telling them . . . what? That they still existed? That they were happy? Some secrets of passion or money taken with them to the grave? Or perhaps some forgiveness needed for a wrong now beyond recall?

“So these people were special last night?” he said aloud.

“They must have been,” she replied with a very slight movement of her shoulders.

“But you saw none of them?”

“No. As I said, they keep it very private. Anyway, yesterday was my evening off. I left the house just after they came.”

“Where did you go?” he asked.

“To see a friend, a Mrs. Lightfoot, down in Newington, over the river.”

“Her address?”

“Number 4 Lion Street, off the New Kent Road,” she replied without hesitation.

“Thank you.” He returned to the issue of the visitors. Someone would check her story, just as a matter of routine. “But Miss Lamont’s visitors must have seen each other, so they were acquainted at least.”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “The room was always dimly lit; I know how that works from setting up before they come. And putting the chairs right. They sat around the table. It’s perfectly easy to stay in the shadows if you want to. I always set the candles at one end only, red candles, and leave the gas off. Unless you knew someone already, you wouldn’t see who they were.”

“And there was one of these discreet people last night?”

“I think so, otherwise she wouldn’t have asked me to lift the bar on the gate.”

“Was it back on this morning?”

Her eyes widened a little, grasping his meaning immediately. “I don’t know. I never looked.”

“I’ll do it. But first tell me more about yesterday evening. Anything you can remember. For example, was Miss Lamont nervous, anxious about anything? Do you know if she has ever received threats or had to deal with a client who was angry or unhappy about the séances?”

“If she did, she didn’t tell me,” Lena replied. “But then she never talked about these things. She must’ve known hundreds of secrets about people.” For a moment her expression changed. A profound emotion filled her and she struggled to hide it. It could have been fear or loss, or the horror of sudden and violent death. Or something else he could not even guess at. Did she believe in spirits, perhaps vengeful or disturbed ones?

“She treated it confidential,” she said aloud, and her face was blank again, merely concerned to answer his questions.

He wondered how much she knew of her mistress’s trade. She was resident in the house. Had she no curiosity at all?

“Do you clean the parlor where the séances are held?” he asked.

Her hand jerked a tiny fraction; it was not much more than the stiffening of muscles. “Yes. The daily woman does the rest, but Miss Lamont always had me do that.”

“The thought of apparitions of the supernatural doesn’t frighten you?”

A flash of contempt burned in her eyes, then vanished. When she answered her voice was soft again. “Leave such things alone, and they’ll leave you.”

“Did you believe in Miss Lamont’s . . . gift?”

She hesitated, her face unreadable. Was it a habit of loyalty fighting with the truth?

“What can you tell me about it?” Suddenly that was urgent. The manner of Maude Lamont’s death surely sprang from her art, real or sham. It was no chance killing by a burglar surprised in the act, or even the greed of a relative. It was acutely personal, driven by a passion of rage or envy, a will to destroy not only the woman but something of the skills she professed as well.

“I . . . I don’t really know,” Lena said awkwardly. “I’m a servant here. I wasn’t part of her life. I knew there were people who really believed. There were more than the ones she had here. She once said that here was where she did her best work. The things at other people’s houses was more like entertainment.”

“So the people who came here last night were seeking some real contact with the dead, for some urgent, personal reason.” It was more a statement than a question.

“I don’t know, but that’s the way she said it was.” She was tense, her body straight-backed, away from the chair, her hands clenched on the table in front of her.

“Have you ever attended a séance, Miss Forrest?”

“No!” The answer was instant and vehement. There was harsh emotion in her. Then she looked down, away from him. Her voice dropped even lower. “Let the dead rest in peace.”

With sudden, overwhelming pity he saw the tears fill her eyes and slide down her cheeks. She made no apology nor did her face move. It was as if for a few moments she were oblivious of him, locked in her own loss. Surely it was for someone dear to her, not for Maude Lamont, lying stiff and grotesque in the next room? He wanted someone who could comfort her, reach across the grief of unfamiliarity and touch her.

“Have you family, Miss Forrest? Someone we could notify for you?”

She shook her head. “I had only one sister, and Nell’s long dead, God rest her,” she answered, taking a deep breath and straightening up. She made an intense effort to control herself, and succeeded. “You’ll be wanting to know who they were that came last night. I can’t tell you ’cos I don’t know, but she kept a book with all that sort of thing in it. It’s in her desk, and no doubt it’ll be locked, but she wears the key on a chain around her neck. Or if you don’t want to get that, a knife’ll break it, but that’d be a shame; it’s a handsome piece, all inlaid and the like.”

“I’ll get the key.” He stood up. “I’ll need to talk to you again, Miss Forrest, but for the meanwhile, tell me where the desk is, and then perhaps make a cup of tea, for yourself at least. Maybe Inspector Tellman and his men would appreciate it, too.”

“Yes sir.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”

“The desk?” he reminded her.

“Oh! Yes. It’s in the small study, second door on the left.” She gestured with her hand to indicate where it was.

He thanked her, then went back to the parlor, where the body was, and Tellman standing staring out of the window. The police surgeon had left, but there was a constable standing in the small garden, banked around by camellia and a long-legged yellow rose in full bloom.

“Was the garden door barred on the inside?” Pitt asked.

Tellman nodded. “And you can’t get from the French doors to the street. It had to be one of them already in here,” he said miserably. “Must have left through the front door, which closes itself. And the maid said she had no idea, when I first asked her.”

“No, but she said Maude Lamont kept an engagement diary, and it’s in the desk in the small study, and the key is around her neck.” Pitt nodded towards the dead woman. “That might tell us quite a bit, even why they came here. Presumably she knew.”

Tellman frowned. “Poor devils,” he said savagely. “What kind of need draws someone to come to a woman like this and look for the kind of answers you should get from your church, or common sense? I mean . . . what do they ask?” He frowned, making his long face look forbidding. “‘Where are you?’ ‘What is it like there?’ She could tell them anything . . . and how would they know? It’s wicked to take money to play on people’s grief.” He turned away. “And it’s daft of them to give it.”

It took Pitt a moment to adjust from one subject to the other, but he realized that Tellman was struggling with an inner anger and confusion, and had been trying to evade the conclusion that one of those he pitied, against his will, had to have killed the woman sitting silently in the chair only a few feet away, having put a knee in her chest as she struggled to breathe, choking on the strange substance clogging her throat. He was trying to imagine the fury that had driven the murderer to it. He was a single man, unused to women in other than a formal, police setting. He was waiting for Pitt to touch the body, reach for the key where he would be clumsy and embarrassed to look.

Pitt walked over and gently lifted up the lace front of the gown, and felt under the sides of the plunging fabric of the bodice. He found the fine gold chain and pulled it until he had the key in his fingers. He lifted the chain over her head carefully, trying not to disarrange her hair, which was absurd! What could it matter now? But only a few hours ago she had been alive, lit by intelligence and emotion. Then it would have been unthinkable to have touched her throat and her bosom in such a way.

He moved her hand out of his way, not that crushing it mattered. It was an automatic gesture. It was then that he noticed the long hair caught around the button on her sleeve, quite unlike the rich color of her own. She was dark, and this shone pale for a moment like a thread of spun glass. Then as he moved it became invisible again.

“What has this got to do with Special Branch?” Tellman demanded suddenly, his frustration hard in his voice.

“I have no idea,” Pitt replied, straightening up and moving the dead woman’s head back to the exact position it had been before.

Tellman stared at him. “Are you going to let me see it?” he challenged.

That was a decision he had not considered. Now he replied without thinking, stung by the absurdity of it. “Of course I am! I want a great deal more out of it than just the names of the people who were here last night. Short of a miracle, we’ll need to learn all we can about this woman. Speak to the rest of her clients. Learn all you can. What sort of people came to her, and why? What do they pay her? Does it account for this house?” Automatically, he glanced around at the room with its elaborate wallpaper and intricately carved Oriental furniture. He knew enough to estimate the cost of at least some of it.

Tellman frowned. “How does she know what to tell those people?” he said, biting his lip. “What is it? A mixture of finding out first, then building on good guesses?”

“Probably. She might pick her clients very carefully, only those she already knows something about, or is certain she can research with success.”

“I’ve looked all ’round the room.” Tellman stared at the walls, the gas brackets, the tall lacquer cabinet. “I can’t see how she did any tricks. What was she supposed to do? Make ghosts appear? Voices? People floating in the air? What? What made anyone believe it was spirits, not just someone telling them whatever they wanted to hear?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. “Ask her other clients, but tread softly, Tellman. Don’t mock another person’s faith, however ridiculous you think it is. Most of us need more than the moment; we have dreams that won’t come true here, and we need eternity.” Without adding anything or waiting for any answer, he went out, leaving Tellman to go on searching the room for something without knowing what it was.

Pitt went to the small study and opened the door. The desk was immediately inside, a beautiful thing, as Lena Forrest had said, golden brown wood inlaid in exquisite marquetry of darker and lighter shades.

He slipped the key into the lock and turned it. It opened easily to form a flat writing surface inlaid with leather. There were two drawers and half a dozen or so pigeonholes. In one of the drawers he found an engagement book and opened it at the page for the previous day’s date. He saw two names, both of which he recognized immediately, and with a coldness in the bottom of his stomach: Roland Kingsley and Rose Serracold. Now he understood precisely why Narraway had sent him.

He stood still, absorbing the information and all it could mean. Could it be Rose Serracold’s long pale hair on the dead woman’s cuff? He had no idea, and he had never seen her, but he would have to find out. Should he show the hair to Tellman or wait to see if he found it for himself, or if the surgeon found it when he removed the clothes for the autopsy? It might mean anything—or nothing.

It was several seconds before he realized that the third line contained not a name at all but a sort of design, like the small drawings the ancient Egyptians had used to signify a word, a name. He had heard them called cartouches. This one was a circle, with a semicircle inside it arched over the top of a figure like a small F, but backwards. It was very simple, and to him at least had no meaning whatsoever.

Why would someone be so secretive that even Maude Lamont herself did this odd drawing rather than write his or her name? There was nothing illegal in consulting a spirit medium. It was not even scandalous, or for that matter a subject of ridicule, except for those who had portrayed themselves as otherwise and were thus branded as hypocrites. People of every walk of life had indulged in it, some as serious investigations, others purely as entertainment. And there were always the lonely, the insecure, the grieving who needed the assurance that those they had loved still existed somewhere and cared about them even beyond the grave. Perhaps Christianity, at least as the church preached it now, no longer did that for them.

He riffled through the pages to see if there were any more cartouches, but he saw none, only the same one half a dozen times previously over the months of May and June. The person appeared to have come every ten days or so, irregularly.

Looking again, Pitt saw also that Roland Kingsley had been seven times before, and Rose Serracold ten times. Only three times had they all come to the same session. He looked at the other names and saw many of them repeated over the months, others were there once or twice, or perhaps for three or four weeks in a row, and then not again. Were they satisfied or disillusioned? Tellman would have to find them and ask, learn what it was that Maude Lamont gave them, what it had to do with the strange substance found in her mouth and throat.

Why had a sophisticated woman like Rose Serracold come here to seek for voices, apparitions—answers to what? Surely there was some connection between her presence and that of Roland Kingsley?

He felt rather than saw Tellman just beyond the doorway. He turned towards him.

The question was in Tellman’s face.

Pitt passed him the book and saw him look down at it, then up again. “What does it mean?” Tellman asked, pointing to the cartouche.

“I’ve no idea,” Pitt admitted. “Someone so desperate to remain unidentified that Maude Lamont would not write their name even in her own diary.”

“Perhaps she didn’t know it?” Tellman said. He took a deep breath. “Maybe that’s why she was killed? She found out.”

“And tried to blackmail him? Over what?”

“Whatever made him keep coming here a secret,” Tellman replied. “Maybe he wasn’t a client? Perhaps he was a lover? That could be worth killing over.” His mouth twisted. “Maybe that’s your Special Branch interest. He’s some politician who can’t afford to be found in an affair at election time.” His eyes were challenging, angry to be included in the case against his will and yet told nothing, used but not informed.

Pitt had been waiting for the hurt to show. He felt the stab of it, yet it was almost a relief to have it open between them at last.

“Possibly, but I doubt it,” he said bluntly. “At least not that I know. I haven’t any idea why Special Branch is involved, but as far as I am aware, Mrs. Serracold is my only interest. And if she turns out to have killed Maude Lamont then I shall have to pursue her as I would anyone else.”

Tellman relaxed a trifle, but he did his best to hide the fact from Pitt. He straightened his shoulders a little. “What are we trying to protect Mrs. Serracold from?” If he was aware of having used the plural to include himself he gave no sign of it.

“Political betrayal,” Pitt replied. “Her husband is standing for Parliament. His opponent may use corrupt or illegal means to discredit him.”

“You mean through his wife?” Tellman looked startled. “Is that what this is . . . a political ambush?”

“Probably not. I expect it has nothing to do with her, except chance.”

Tellman did not believe him, and it showed in his face. Actually, Pitt did not really believe it himself. He had tasted Voisey’s power too fully to credit any stroke in his favor to luck.

“What is she like, this Mrs. Serracold?” Tellman asked, a slight furrow between his brows.

“I’ve no idea,” Pitt admitted. “I am only just beginning to learn something about her husband, and more importantly, his opponent. Serracold is very well off, second son of an old family. He studied art and history at Cambridge, traveled considerably. He has great interest in reform and is a member of the Liberal Party, standing for the seat in South Lambeth.”

Tellman’s face mirrored all his emotions, although he would have been furious to know it. “He’s privileged, rich, never worked a day in his life, and now thinks he’d like to get into government and tell the rest of us what to do and how to do it. Or more likely, what not to do,” he retaliated.

Pitt did not bother to argue. From Tellman’s point of view that was probably close enough to the truth. “More or less.”

Tellman breathed out slowly; not having got the argument he had hoped for, he felt no sense of triumph. “What kind of a person comes to see a woman who says she speaks to ghosts?” he demanded. “Don’t they know it’s all rubbish?”

“People looking for something,” Pitt replied. “Vulnerable, lonely, left behind in the past because the future is unbearable for them without whomever they loved. I don’t know . . . people who can be used and exploited by those who think they have power, or know how to create a good illusion . . . or both.”

Tellman’s face was a mask of disgust, pity struggling inside him. “It ought to be illegal!” he said between stiff lips. “It’s like a mixture of prostitution and the tricks of a fairground shark, but at least they don’t use your griefs to get rich on!”

“We can’t stop people believing whatever they want to, or need to,” Pitt replied. “Or exploring whatever truth they like.”

“Truth?” Tellman said derisively. “Why can’t they just go to the chapel on Sundays?” But it was a question to which he did not expect an answer. He knew there was none; he had none himself. He chose not to ask questions where answers lay in the very private realms of belief. “Well, we’ve got to find out who did it!” he said sharply. “I suppose she’s got a right not to be murdered, just like anyone else, even if maybe she looked into things she’d no business to. I wouldn’t want my dead disturbed!” He looked away from Pitt.

“How do they do the tricks?” Tellman asked. “I searched that room from floor to ceiling and I didn’t find anything, no levers or pedals or wires, anything. And the maid swears she had nothing to do with it . . . but then I suppose she would!” Tellman paused. “How do you make people think you are rising up into the air, for heaven’s sake? Or stretching out and getting longer and longer?”

Pitt chewed his lip. “More important to us, how do you know what they want to hear, so you can tell it to them?”

Tellman stared at him, wonder in his face, then slowly comprehension. “You find out about them,” he breathed. “The maid told us that this morning. Said she was very choosy about her clients. You only accept those you can learn about. You pick someone you know, then you listen, you ask questions, you add up what you hear, maybe you have someone go through their pockets or their bags.” He warmed to the subject and his eyes glittered with anger. “Maybe you have someone talk to their servants. Maybe you burgle their houses and read letters, papers, look at their clothes! Ask around the tradespeople, see what they spend, who they owe.”

Pitt sighed. “And when you have enough about one or two, perhaps try a little carefully chosen blackmail,” he added. “We might have a very ugly case here, Tellman, very ugly indeed.”

A flicker of pity softened Tellman’s mouth and deliberately he pulled his lips tight to hide it. “Which of those three people did she push too far?” he said quietly. “And over what? I hope it isn’t your Mrs. Serracold. . . .” He lifted his chin a trifle, as if his collar were too tight. “But if it is, I’m not looking the other way to please Special Branch!”

“It wouldn’t make any difference if you did,” Pitt replied. “Because I won’t.”

Very slowly Tellman relaxed. He nodded fractionally, and for the first time he smiled.