Seven Dials (14 page)

Dottie came back from the scullery, wiping her hands on the corner of her apron. “Well ’e were visitin’ a Mr. Sandeman someplace down the east end,” she said hopefully. “Mebbe ’e’d know summink?”

Gracie put the cup down carefully, feeling it wobble as her hands shook. “Sandeman?” she repeated. “ ’Oo’s ’e? D’yer know?”

Dottie looked crestfallen. “Sorry, I in’t got no idea.”

Gracie swallowed her disappointment. “Never mind, mebbe somebody will. Thank yer, Mrs. Culpepper.”

Mrs. Culpepper shook her head. “I’m real sorry. Poor thing. Mebbe she’ll get better, yer ne’er know.”

“Yeah,” Gracie agreed, not feeling she was lying because her thoughts were with Martin, not Tilda. “Keep ’opin’, eh!”

Dottie took her to the back door, and a moment later Gracie was out on the pavement hurrying as fast as her feet could carry her towards Keppel Street.

OF COURSE SHE TOLD Charlotte all that she had learned as soon as she was back at Keppel Street, but to repeat it to Tellman was much more difficult. To begin with she had to find him, and there was nowhere to begin except the Bow Street police station, or the lodging house where he lived. It was always possible that he would go straight from whatever task he was on back to his rooms for the night, and that could be at any hour. Added to which, she had no wish to embarrass him by being seen in Bow Street, where they would know who she was, even if she did not actually ask for him at the desk. More important, they might remember that she was Pitt’s maid and assume that that was why she was there to see Tellman, which could make things very awkward for him with his new superintendent.

So she ended up standing on the pavement outside his lodging house in the early evening, staring up at the windows of his room on the second floor and seeing only darkness where, were he at home, there would be slits of light between the curtains.

She stood uncertainly for several minutes, then realized that he could be an hour or more yet, or if he was on a serious case, even longer. She knew there was a pleasant tearoom only a few hundred yards away; she could spend a little time there, and return later to see if he was home yet.

She had walked fifty yards when she thought how easy it would be to return half a dozen times before she found him, or on the other hand, wait far too long. She turned and walked back, knocked on the door, and when the landlady came told her very politely that she had important information for Inspector Tellman and she would be waiting for him in the tearoom, if he could come and find her there.

The landlady looked a trifle dubious, but she agreed, and Gracie left feeling satisfied with the arrangement.

Tellman came in tired and cold almost an hour after that. He had had a long and tedious day, and he was more than ready to eat a brief supper and go to bed early. She knew as soon as she saw his face and the stiffness of his body that he remembered their quarrel and was not at all sure how to speak to her now. The fact that she had come to start the whole subject again was only going to make it worse, but she felt no choice at all. Martin Garvie’s life might be at stake, and what was anyone’s love or comfort worth if, when faced with unpleasantness or difference of opinion, it crumbled and fell away?

“Samuel,” she began as soon as he was seated opposite her and had given his order to the waitress.

“Yes?” he said guardedly. He seemed about to add something, then bit it off.

There was nothing to it but to plunge in. The longer she sat there with either silence between them or stilted conversation, saying one thing and thinking and caring about another, the worse it would get. “I bin ter the Garrick ’ouse,” she said, looking across the table at him. She saw him stiffen even more, his fingers white where his hands were clenched on the table. “I just went ter the kitchen,” she hurried on. “I asked the cook an’ the scullery maid, on account o’ Tilda bein’ ill an’ Martin was the only family she got.”

“Is she ill?” he said quickly.

“Only wit worry,” she answered honestly. “But I said as she ’ad a bad fever.” Now she was embarrassed. He would not approve of lying, and she wished she did not have to tell him that she had done so. But not to would mean lying to him, and that was something she was not prepared to do. She went on quickly to cover it. “I jus’ asked where Martin were, so’s I could tell ’im. They dunno, Samuel, I mean really dunno! They’re worried too.” She leaned forward, closer to him. “They said as Mr. Stephen drinks far too much an’ ’as terrible tempers, and black moods o’ misery wot are summink awful. No one can ’elp ’im, ’cept Martin, an’ ’e’d never put Martin out, ’cos o’ that.” She stared at him, seeing the worry and the disbelief struggling in his eyes.

“You sure they told you all these things?” he said with a frown. “If they said that to anyone that came to the door, Mr. Garrick would throw them out without a character. I never met servants who would say anything about their household, unless they’d already been dismissed and were looking to make trouble.”

“They didn’t say it like that,” she explained patiently. “I sat in the kitchen an’ they gave me a cup o’ tea while I told ’em ’bout Tilda, an’ they was tellin’ me ’ow good Martin were. It jus’ sort o’ come out wot sort o’ good ’e were, an’ why.”

A tiny smile flickered over Tellman’s mouth. It might have been admiration, or only amusement.

Gracie found herself blushing, something she never did as a rule, and it annoyed her, because it gave away her emotions. She had no wish at all for Samuel Tellman to get ideas that she had feelings for him.

“I’m very good at asking pert’int questions!” she said hotly. “I worked for Mr. Pitt for years and years. Longer ’n you ’ave!”

He took in his breath sharply and half smiled, then let it out again without saying whatever it was he thought. “So they are certain that Garrick wouldn’t have let him go? Could he have got tired of catering to Garrick’s temper and gone by himself?”

“Without tellin’ Tilda, or anyone else?” she said incredulously. “ ’Course not! Yer give notice, yer don’ walk out.” She saw the flicker of contempt in his face, reminding her again of how he viewed the whole concept of living and working in service. “Don’ start that again,” she warned. “We got someone in danger an’ it’s real, an’ could be serious. We got no time ter be arguin’ about the rights an’ wrongs o’ the way folk live.” She looked at him very levelly, feeling a shiver of both excitement and familiarity as she saw the intensity with which he stared back at her. She was aware of the heat in her cheeks, and her eyes wavered. “We gotta do summink ter ’elp.” She said “we” very carefully. “I can’t do much without yer, Samuel. Please don’ make me ’ave ter try.” She had placed their relationship in the balance, and was amazed that she had taken such a risk, because it mattered far more than she had realized until this instant. “Summink’s ’appened ter ’im,” she added very quietly. “Mebbe Mr. Stephen’s as mad as they say, an’ ’as done ’im in, an’ they’ve ’id it. But it’s a crime, an’ no one else is gonna ’elp, ’cos they dunno.”

The waitress brought his meal and a fresh pot of tea, and Tellman thanked her. He already knew what his decision was; it was in his eyes, in the line of his mouth and the stillness of his hands. He made only a momentary gesture of resistance by hesitating, as if he were still weighing it up. It was a matter of pride to pretend, but they both knew his decision was made.

“I’ll take a look,” he said at last. “There’s been no crime reported, so I’ll have to be careful. I’ll tell you what I find.”

“Thank yer, Samuel,” she said with perfectly genuine humility.

Perhaps he recognized that, because he suddenly smiled, and she saw an extraordinary tenderness in it. She would never have said so to anyone else, but at that moment his face held something that she would have called beauty.

PITT LEFT THE PURSUIT of Edwin Lovat’s life and the trail of pain he had created behind his various love affairs. He had followed every name, and found nothing but unhappiness and helpless anger.

A wild thought came to him as he tried looking at the case from an entirely different angle. Sometimes it was profitable to abandon even the most obvious assumptions and consider the story as if they were untrue. Lovat had been shot in a garden in the middle of the night. There seemed to be no sense in Ayesha Zakhari’s having taken her gun and gone outside to see who it was lurking in the bushes. She had a perfectly capable manservant and a telephone in her home to call for assistance.

He had assumed that she had known it was Lovat, but there seemed no sane reason to have killed him. If she did not wish to see him she had merely to remain inside. If she did not know who it was, the answer was the same.

But what if she had supposed it was someone else? What if she had not recognized Lovat until after he was dead? The garden was dark. They were not in a path of light thrown from the house, even if all the lamps had been lit in the downstairs rooms, which in itself was unlikely at three in the morning.

Who might she have mistaken him for? Was it possible that a perfectly rational answer to the murder lay in the fact she had believed him to be someone else?

He began by going back to Eden Lodge. It looked curiously empty in the sharp autumn morning, the long light golden across the quiet street, and in the absolute stillness not even the leaves of the birch trees stirred. He could hear hooves in the distance, and a bird singing somewhere above him. A small black cat wove in and out through the dead lily stems waiting to be cut back.

Tariq el Abd answered the door.

“Good morning, sir,” he said politely, his face expressionless. “How can I help you?”

“Good morning,” Pitt replied. “I need to make some further enquiries, and you can help me.”

El Abd invited him in and led the way through to the withdrawing room. He did not look entirely comfortable about having the police in this part of the house-they were hardly social acquaintances-but the kitchens and laundry rooms were his domain, and he did not wish them there either. He drew the line at offering refreshment.

“What is it you need to ask me, sir?” he said, remaining standing so Pitt should do so as well.

Pitt had little time to look around the room, but he had a sense of subtle colors and light. The lines were less cluttered than he was accustomed to; everything was simpler. There was an elaborate ornament of a dog with large ears, the whole creature perhaps a foot and a half long, crouching on one of the side tables. It was a thing of great loveliness.

El Abd must have seen his eye caught by it.

“Anubis, sir,” he said. “One of the ancient gods of our country. Of course, the people who believed in him are long dead.”

“The beauty of their workmanship remains,” Pitt answered with feeling.

“Yes, sir. What is it you wish to ask me?” His face was still almost devoid of expression.

“Were the lights on in this room when Mr. Lovat was shot?”

“I beg your pardon, sir? I do not understand. Mr. Lovat was shot in the garden… outside. He never entered the house.”

“You were awake?” Pitt asked in surprise.

El Abd’s face showed an instant’s lack of composure, then it was gone again. “No, sir, not until I heard the shot. Miss Zakhari said he did not come inside. I believe her. There had been no one in here. The lights were not on.”

“Anywhere else in the house?”

“There were no lights lit anywhere downstairs, sir, except in the hall. They are never turned completely off.”

“I see. And upstairs?”

“I do not understand what it is you seek, sir. The lights were on in Miss Zakhari’s bedroom and her sitting room upstairs, and on the landing above the stairs, as always.”

“Are there some at the front of the house, or the back?”

“The front, sir.” It was natural. Master bedrooms usually faced the front.

“So there was no light from the house on the back garden where Mr. Lovat was shot?” Pitt concluded.

El Abd hesitated, as if he perceived a trap of some sort. “No, sir…”

“Is it possible Miss Zakhari was unaware of Mr. Lovat’s identity? Might she have thought he was someone else?”

For the first time el Abd’s composure cracked. He looked not merely startled but as if he was in a moment’s actual danger. Then it passed, and he stared back at Pitt, blinking a little. “I never thought of that, sir. I can’t say. If… if she thought it were a robber, surely she could have called me? She knows I would defend her… it is my duty.”

“Of course,” Pitt agreed. “I was not thinking of a robber, but of someone else she actually knew, someone who was a threat to her in some way?”

El Abd was sounding confident now, his balance found again. “I know of no such person, sir. Surely if that were so, she would have told the police that it was an accident? A mistake… in self-defense? Are you permitted to shoot in self-defense in England?”

“If there is no other way to protect yourself, yes you are,” Pitt answered. “I was thinking of someone she knew and who was an enemy, a danger to her not physically but in another way, to her reputation, or to some interest about which she cared passionately.”

“I do not know what you mean, sir.” El Abd’s face was back to its smooth, polite servant’s mask.

“Your loyalty is commendable,” Pitt said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “But pointless. If she is found guilty of murdering Mr. Lovat, she will be hanged for it. If she mistook him for someone else, who was perhaps a threat to her, then she might be able to plead some justification.”

It was marvelous how el Abd changed his expression hardly at all, and yet managed to alter from deference to contempt. “I think, sir, that it is Mr. Ryerson you are interested in seeing. And if he knew Miss Zakhari’s reason for killing the man, whoever she believed him to be, then he should tell you the truth, and justify himself, and her also. If he does not know, but found only Mr. Lovat, with no excuse, then he is guilty, whatever Miss Zakhari believed. Is it not so?”

“Yes,” Pitt said uneasily. “It is so. But perhaps Miss Zakhari would prefer not to accept that she shot Mr. Lovat, for no sensible reason at all, than tell us the truth of what she believed.”