Highgate Rise (25 page)

She was agreeable to most of these, except walking on the outside—she was older, and taller, and therefore it only made sense that she should.

“Are you working on a very important case, Papa?” Jemima asked, her eyes wide. She was very proud of her father, and everything he did was important.

He smiled at her. Sometimes she looked so like Charlotte must have at the same age, the same soft little mouth, stubborn chin and demanding eyes.

“Yes—away up in Highgate.”

“Somebody dead?” she asked. She had very little idea what “dead” meant, but she had heard the word many times, and she and Charlotte and Daniel had buried several dead birds in the garden. But she could not remember all that Charlotte had told her, except it was all right and something to do with heaven.

Pitt met Charlotte’s eyes over Jemima’s head. She nodded.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Are you going to solve it?” Jemima continued.

“I hope so.”

“I’m going to be a detective when I grow up,” she said, taking another spoonful of her porridge. “I shall solve cases as well.”

“So shall I,” Daniel added.

Charlotte passed Pitt his porridge and they continued in gentle conversation until it was time for him to leave. He kissed the children—Daniel was still just young enough not to object—kissed Charlotte, who definitely did not object, and put on his boots, which she had remembered to bring in this morning to warm, and took his leave.

Outside it was one of those crisp autumn mornings when the air is cold, tingling in the nostrils, but the sky is blue and the crackle of frost under the feet is a sharp, pleasing sound.

He went first to Bow Street to report to Micah Drummond.

“Another fire?” Drummond frowned, standing by his window looking over the wet rooftops towards the river. The morning sunlight made everything gleam in gray and silver and there was mist only over the water itself. “Still they didn’t get Shaw?” He turned back and met Pitt’s eyes.

“Makes one think.”

“He was very distressed.” Pitt remembered the night before with an ache of pity.

Drummond did not answer that. He knew Pitt felt it un-arguably and they both knew all the possibilities that rose from it.

“I suppose the Highgate police are looking into all the known arsonists in the area, methods and patterns and so on? Made a note of all the people who turned out to watch, in case it’s a pyromaniac who just lights them for the love of it?”

“Very keen,” Pitt said ruefully.

“But you think it’s a deliberate murder?” Drummond eyed him curiously.

“I think so.”

“Bit of pressure to get this cleared up.” Drummond was at his desk now, and his long fingers played idly with the copper-handled paper knife. “Need you back here. They’ve taken half a dozen men for this Whitechapel business. I suppose you’ve seen the newspapers?”

“I saw the letter to Mr. Lusk,” Pitt said grimly. “With the human kidney in it, and purported to come ’from hell.’ I should think he may be right. Anyone who can kill and mutilate repeatedly like this must live in hell, and carry it with him.”

“Pity aside,” Drummond said very seriously, “people are beginning to panic Whitechapel is deserted as soon as it’s dusk, people are calling for the commissioner to resign, the newspapers are getting more and more sensational. One woman died from a heart attack with the latest edition in her hand.” Drummond sighed in a twisted unhappiness, his eyes on Pitt’s. “They don’t joke about it in the music halls, you know. People usually make jokes about what frightens them
most—it’s a way of defusing it. But this is too bad even for that.”

“Don’t they?” Curiously, that meant more to Pitt than all the sensational press and posters. It was an indication of the depth of fear in the ordinary people. He smiled lopsidedly. “Haven’t had much time to go to the halls lately.”

Drummond acknowledged the jibe with the good nature with which it was intended.

“Do what you can with this Highgate business, Pitt, and keep me informed.”

“Yes sir.”

This time instead of taking a hansom, Pitt walked briskly down to the Embankment and caught a train. He got off at the Highgate Road station, putting the few pence difference aside towards Charlotte’s holiday. It was a beginning. He walked up Highgate Rise to the police station.

He was greeted with very guarded civility.

“Mornin’ sir.” Their faces were grave and resentful, and yet there was a certain satisfaction in them.

“Good morning,” he replied, waiting for the explanation. “Discovered something?”

“Yes sir. We got an arsonist who done this kind o’ thing before. Never killed anyone, but reckon that was more luck than anything. Method’s the same—fuel oil. Done it over Kentish Town way up ’til now, but that’s only a step away. Got too ’ot for ’im there an’ ’e moved north, I reckon.”

Pitt was startled and he tried without success to keep the disbelief out of his face. “Have you arrested him?”

“Not yet, but we will. We know ’is name an’ where ’e lodges. Only a matter of time.” The man smiled and met Pitt’s eyes. “Seems like they didn’t need to send a top officer from Bow Street to ’elp us. We done it ourselves: just solid police work—checkin’ an’ knowin’ our area. Mebbe you’d best go an’ give them an ’and in Whitechapel—seems this Jack the Ripper’s got the ’ole city in a state o’ terror.”

“Takin’ photographs o’ the dead women’s eyes,” another constable added unhelpfully. “ ’Cause they reckon that the
last thing a person sees is there at the back o’ their eyes, if you can just get it. But we got no corpses worth mentioning—poor devils.”

“And we’ve got no murderer worth mentioning yet either,” Pitt added. He remembered to exercise some tact just in time. He still had to work with these men. “I expect you are already looking into who owned the other property this arsonist burned? In case there is insurance fraud.”

The officer blushed and lied. “Yes sir, seein’ into that today.”

“I thought so.” Pitt looked back at him without a flicker. “Arsonists sometimes have a reason beyond just watching the flames and feeling their own power. Meanwhile I’ll get on with the other possibilities. Where’s Murdo?”

“In the duty room, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Pitt found Murdo waiting for him just inside the door of the duty room. He looked tired and had his hand bandaged and held stiffly at his side. He still looked uncertain whether to like Pitt or resent him, and he had not forgotten Pitt’s treatment of Flora Lutterworth, nor his own inability to prevent it. All his emotions were bare in his face, and Pitt was reminded again how young he was.

“Anything new, apart from the arsonist?” he asked automatically.

“No sir, except the fire chief says this was just like the last one—but I reckon you know that.”

“Fuel oil?”

“Yes sir, most likely—and started in at least three places.”

“Then we’ll go and see if Pascoe is fit to talk to this morning.”

“Yes sir.”

Quinton Pascoe was up and dressed, sitting beside a roaring fire in his withdrawing room, but he still looked cold, possibly from tiredness. There were dark circles under his eyes and his hands were knotted in his lap. He seemed older
than Pitt had thought when they last met, and for all his stocky body, less robust.

“Come in, Inspector, Constable,” he said without rising. “I am sorry I was not able to see you last night, but I really cannot tell you anything anyway. I took a little laudanum—I have been most distressed over the turn of events lately, and I wished to get a good night of rest.” He looked at Pitt hopefully, searching to see if he understood. “So much ugliness,” he said with a shake of his head. “I seem to be losing all the time. It puts me in mind of the end of King Arthur’s table, when the knights go out one by one to seek the Holy Grail, and all the honor and companionship begins to crumble apart. Loyalties were ended. It seems to me that a certain kind of nobility died with the end of chivalry, and courage for its own sake, the idealism that believes in true virtue and is prepared to fight and to die to preserve it, and counts the privilege of battle the only reward.”

Murdo looked nonplussed.

Pitt struggled with memory of
Morte d’Arthur
and
Idylls of the King
, and thought perhaps he saw a shred of what Pascoe meant.

“Was your distress due to Mrs. Shaw’s death?” Pitt asked. “Or other concerns as well? You spoke of evil—a general sense—”

“That was quite appalling.” Pascoe’s face looked drained, as if he were totally contused and overcome by events. “But there are other things as well.” He shook his head a little and frowned. “I know I keep returning to John Dalgetty, but his attitude towards deriding the old values and breaking them down in order to build new …” He looked at Pitt. “I don’t condemn all new ideas, not at all. But so many of the things he advocates are destructive.”

Pitt did not reply, knowing there was no good response and choosing to listen.

Pascoe’s eyes wrinkled up. “He questions all the foundations we have built up over centuries, he casts doubt on the very origin of man and God, he makes the young believe they are invulnerable to the evil of false ideals, the corrosion
of cynicism and irresponsibility—and at the same time strips them of the armor of faith. They want to break up and change things without thought. They think they can have things without laboring for them.” He bit his lip and scowled. “What can we do, Mr. Pitt? I have lain awake in the night and wrestled with it, and I know less now than when I started.”

He stood up and walked towards the window, then swung around and came back again.

“I have been to him, of course, pleaded with him to withhold some of the publications he sells, asked him not to praise some of the works he does, especially this Fabian political philosophy. But to no avail.” He waved his hands. “All he says is that information is sacred and all men must have the right to hear and judge for themselves what they believe—and similarly, everyone must be free to put forward any ideas they please, be they true or false, good or evil, creative or destructive. And nothing I say dissuades him. And of course Shaw encourages him with his ideas of what is humorous, when it is really at other people’s expense.”

Murdo was unused to such passion over ideas. He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

“The thing is,” Pascoe continued intently, “people do not always know when he is joking. Take that wretched business of Lindsay. I am profoundly grieved he is dead—and I did not dislike him personally, you understand—but I felt he was deeply wrong to have written that monograph. There are foolish people, you know”—he searched Pitt’s face—“who believe this new nonsense about a political order which promises justice by taking away private property and paying everyone the same, regardless of how clever or how diligent they are. I don’t suppose you’ve read this miserable Irishman, George Bernard Shaw? He writes so divisively, as if he were trying to stir up contention and make people dissatisfied. He talks of people with large appetites and no dinner at one end, and at the other, people with large dinners and no appetites. And of course he is all for freedom of speech.” He laughed sharply. “He would be, wouldn’t he? He wants
to be able to say anything he pleases himself. And Lindsay reported him.”

He stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry. I know nothing that can be of help to you, and I do not wish to speak ill of others when such an issue is at stake, especially the dead. I slept deeply until I was awoken by the fire bells, and poor Lindsay’s house was a bonfire in the sky.”

Pitt and Murdo left, each in his own thoughts as they stepped out of the shelter of the porch into the icy wind. All through an unfruitful visit to the Clitheridges they said nothing to each other. Lindsay’s manservant could give them no help as to the origin of the fire, only that he had woken when the smell of smoke had penetrated his quarters, at the back of the house, by which time the main building was burning fiercely and his attempts to rescue his master were hopeless. He had opened the connecting door to be met by a wall of flame, and even as he sat hunched in Clitheridge’s armchair, his face bore mute witness to the dedication of his efforts. His skin was red and wealed with blisters, his hands were bound in thin gauze and linen, and were useless to him.

“Dr. Shaw was ’round here early this morning to put balm on them and bind them for him,” Lally said with shining admiration in her eyes. “I don’t know how he can find the strength, after this new tragedy. He was so fond of Amos Lindsay, you know, apart from the sheer horror of it. I think he must be the strongest man I know.”

There had been a bleak look of defeat in Clitheridge’s face for an instant as she spoke, and Pitt had imagined a world of frustration, petty inadequacies and fear of other people’s raw emotion that must have been the vicar’s lot. He was not a man to whom passion came easily; rather the slow-burning, inner turmoil of repressed feelings, too much thought and too much uncertainty. In that instant he felt an overwhelming pity for him; and then turning and seeing Lally’s eager, self-critical face, for her also. She was drawn to Shaw in spite of herself, trying to explain it in acceptable terms of admiration for his virtues, and knowing it was immeasurably deeper than that and quite different.

They left having learned nothing that seemed of use, except Oliphant’s address, where they discovered that Shaw was out on a call.

At the Red Lion public house they ate hot steak and kidney pudding with a rich suet crust which was light as foam, and green vegetables, then a thick fruit pie and a glass of cider.

Murdo leaned back in his chair, his face flushed with physical well-being.

Pitt rose to his feet, to Murdo’s chagrin.

“The Misses Worlingham,” he announced. “By the way, do we know who reported the fire? It seems no one we know saw it till the engines were here, except Lindsay’s manservant, and he was too busy trying to get Lindsay out.”

“Yes sir, a man over in Holly Village was away from home in Holloway.” He flushed faintly as he searched for the right word. “An assignation. He saw the glow, and being in mind of the first fire he knew what it was and called the engine.” Reluctantly he followed Pitt out into the wind again. “Sir, what do you expect to learn from the Misses Worlingham?”