Thomas & Charlotte Pitt 29 - Death On Blackheath (15 page)

‘How do you do, Mr Talbot?’ she replied, meeting his hard, steady eyes. She wondered how Pitt knew him, and whether it was as an ally or an antagonist. Something in his manner suggested the latter.

The conversation continued, mostly consisting of meaningless polite observations, the sort of thing one says to new acquaintances. Charlotte took part as much as was necessary, but mostly she studied Rosalind and Ailsa Kynaston. Ailsa must have been a widow for some time. She was striking to look at and clearly self-composed and intelligent. She could easily have married again, had she wished to. Had she loved Bennett Kynaston too much ever to consider such a thing?

But then, if anything happened to Pitt … Even the thought of it chilled her and caught the breath in her throat. Charlotte could not imagine marrying anyone else. She felt a sort of sympathy for the woman standing only a couple of yards from her, and with no idea that Charlotte had more than glanced at her when they were introduced. At what price did she exercise such courage? Looking at her now as the rest of them discussed what was rumoured of the play, she could see a tension in the other woman’s body, in the ruler-straight way she held her back and the proud tilt of her head.

‘… Mrs Pitt?’

Suddenly she realised that Talbot had been speaking to her, and she had no idea what he had said. If she replied foolishly it would reflect on Pitt. Honesty was the only course open to her.

‘I beg your pardon,’ she smiled at him as charmingly as she could, although she did not feel it in the least. ‘I was daydreaming and I did not hear you. I’m so sorry.’ She made herself meet his eyes warmly, as if she liked him.

He was flattered; she could see it in the sudden ease in his face. ‘The theatre is the place for dreams,’ he replied. ‘I was asking if you agree with your sister’s opinion of the leading actress’s last performance.’

‘As Lady Macbeth,’ Emily put in helpfully.

Charlotte remembered reading a critic’s response to it and hesitated, wondering if she could get away with quoting them. She would look such a fool, so much too eager to impress, if she were caught. ‘I read it was rather too melodramatic,’ she replied. ‘But I didn’t see it.’

‘Because of what the critic said?’ Talbot asked curiously.

‘Actually that would have made me more inclined to look for myself,’ she replied without hesitation. Then she remembered what Emily had said of the performance. ‘And Emily did tell me a few other performances were …’ She shrugged slightly, not willing to repeat the negative opinion.

‘And of course you believed her?’ Talbot said with a smile.

‘I had a sister too,’ Ailsa said quietly, her voice tight with a strain she could not disguise. ‘But she was younger than I. I would still have taken her word for anything …’

Charlotte saw Emily’s face and the shock of realisation in it. Jack was startled, then embarrassed. Clearly he had no idea what to say.

It was Pitt who broke the silence. ‘Unfortunately my wife lost her elder sister many years ago. It is a memory we don’t go back to, because it was very painful circumstances.’

‘My sister also,’ Ailsa said, looking at him with interest, almost challenge. ‘Forgive me for having raised the subject. It was clumsy of me. Perhaps we should go into the theatre and find our seats.’

The following day Charlotte put off a dressmaker’s appointment and went instead to visit her great-aunt Vespasia or, to be more accurate, Emily’s late husband’s great-aunt. She could think of no one in the world she liked better, or trusted more. February was still winter, in spite of the slightly lengthening afternoons, and they sat in front of the fire while rain beat against the windows out on to the garden. Charlotte put her feet as close to the fender as she could in the hope of drying out her boots and the hem of her skirt.

Vespasia poured the tea and offered the plate of wafer-thin egg and cress sandwiches. ‘So you did not enjoy your visit to the theatre,’ she observed, after Charlotte had mentioned it.

Charlotte had long since abandoned prevarication with Vespasia. In fact, she was more honest with her than with anyone else. She felt none of the emotional restrictions that she had with her mother, or with Emily. Even with Pitt she was sometimes a little more careful.

‘No,’ she said, accepting the tea and trying to judge how soon she could sip it and let its warmth slide down inside her. Certainly she would burn herself with it now. ‘The conversation lurched from the edge of one precipice to the edge of another, and finally, for Emily, toppled over into the abyss.’

‘It sounds disastrous,’ Vespasia responded. ‘Perhaps you had better tell me the nature of this abyss?’

‘That she isn’t funny or wise or beautiful any more. And, more specifically, that Jack is no longer in love with her. I suppose it is the sort of thing we all have nightmares about some time or other.’

Vespasia looked very serious. She did not even pick up her cup. ‘Possibly,’ she replied. ‘But usually we do not tell other people, because it comes more like a realisation that it is dusk, not a sudden nightfall. Has something happened to Emily?’

‘I don’t think so. But she is restless – bored, I think. We used to be involved in so much, not always as exciting or pleasant as it seemed, looking back on it now. I know that, and I think Emily does too. But being a good Society wife, and an attentive mother to children who need you less and less, hardly exercises the imagination. And it is certainly not exciting …’ She saw the understanding in Vespasia’s expression and stopped. ‘I think at the heart of it she is very aware that she will soon be forty, and a part of life is slipping out of her grasp,’ she added.

‘And Jack?’ Vespasia enquired.

‘Jack is as handsome as ever, in fact I think more so. A few added years suit him. He is not so … shallow.’

‘Ooh!’ Vespasia gave a tiny wince, so small as to be almost invisible.

Charlotte blushed. ‘I’m sorry …’

‘Don’t be.’ Vespasia picked up her cup at last and took a sip, then offered Charlotte the sandwiches again before taking one herself. ‘Which particular precipice did you fall over yesterday evening?’

‘Someone assumed that Emily was my older sister.’

‘Oh dear.’ Vespasia sipped her tea again. ‘Sibling rivalry is a snake you can never quite kill. I’m afraid Emily has been used to being a step ahead for rather too long. She is finding it hard to adjust to being a step behind.’

‘She isn’t behind!’ Charlotte said instantly.

Vespasia merely smiled.

‘Well … she needs something to do, I mean something that matters,’ Charlotte tried again. ‘The way we used to when we could help with Thomas’s cases, before they were secret.’

‘Be careful,’ Vespasia warned.

Charlotte thought of denying that the affair of Kynaston and the missing maid was in her mind, but she had never deliberately lied to Vespasia, and their friendship was too precious to begin now, even to defend Emily.

‘I will be,’ she said instead. It was half-way to the truth.

‘I mean it, my dear,’ Vespasia’s voice was very grave again. ‘I know Thomas is inclined to believe that Dudley Kynaston is not unfortunately involved with this missing maid, and possibly even that the body in the gravel pit was not hers. He may be right. That does not mean that Kynaston has nothing to hide. Be very careful what you do … and perhaps even more careful what you arrange for Emily to do. Her mind is filled with her own misgivings: her fear of boredom, and thus of becoming boring herself. Her beauty, to which she has been accustomed, is beginning to lose its bloom. She will have to learn to rely on character and charm, style, even wit. It is not an easy adjustment to make.’ She smiled with deep affection. ‘Especially when your older sister has never relied on her looks and has already learned wit and charm, and now at the age when other women are fading, she is coming into bloom. Be gentle with her, by all means, but do not be indulgent. None of us can afford the errors that come with carelessness, or desperation.’

Charlotte said nothing, but she thought about it very deeply as she took the last sip of her tea. Regardless of Vespasia’s advice, and the wisdom she knew it held, she was going to involve Emily, she had to.

STOKER STOOD in front of Pitt’s desk, his face bleak, and oddly bruised-looking.

‘How did you find it?’ Pitt asked, looking at the sodden wet tangle of felt and ribbon on his desk. It was barely recognisable as a hat. It was impossible to tell what colour it had been, except from the tiny flash of red on what was left of a feather.

‘Anonymous tip-off, sir,’ Stoker said quietly. ‘Tried to trace who it came from, but no luck so far. Just a note in with the post.’

‘What did it say, exactly?’ Pitt asked. He was pursuing it as a matter of course. He did not seriously think it would prove of any value.

‘Just that the sender had been out walking in the early morning and sat down on a frozen log, then seen this odd-looking mass of what looked like fabric. He poked it with a stick, and then realised that it was a hat. He knew there’d been a body found up near there, and wondered if it might have any connection.’

‘Those words?’ Pitt said curiously.

‘No, I’m elaborating a bit.’ Stoker grimaced. ‘Word for word, it was more like “Was sitting on a log up the gravel pit where that woman got found. Thought this might have something to do with it, like maybe it was hers.”’

‘What kind of paper?’ Pitt asked. ‘Pen or pencil? What was the writing like?’

Stoker’s mouth pulled tight. ‘Ordinary, cheap paper, written in pencil, but no real attempt to disguise the hand. Bit of a scrawl, but perfectly legible.’

‘And the spelling?’ Pitt asked.

‘Right spelling,’ Stoker replied. ‘But there was nothing difficult in it. Simple words.’

Pitt looked at what was left of the hat, and then up at Stoker. He did not need to ask the question, but he did anyway.

‘Why do you think it’s Kitty Ryder’s?’

Stoker answered as if his throat were tight and he had to force the words out. ‘The red feather, sir. I got to know one of the barmaids at the Pig and Whistle who was a friend of Kitty’s … Apparently they had tea together on their days off. Kitty really wanted a hat like that and she saved up to buy it. It was the red feather that mattered, because it was unexpected. In a way it didn’t fit in with the rest of it, and it made people look, and smile. At least that’s what Violet said – Violet Blane, the barmaid.’

‘I see. Thank you.’

Stoker did not move. ‘We’ll have to go back to Kynaston, sir.’

‘I know that,’ Pitt agreed. ‘Before I do that I want to go over all the statements he’s made and everything we know about him. I want the inconsistencies, anything with which I can prove he’s lying. So far all we have is that Kitty worked for him, and that the woman in the gravel pit had his watch, which he says a pickpocket took, which his wife confirms. Which means nothing. We’ve searched the house and found nothing. None of the servants know anything of use. We’ve been over the cellars and the ice house and found no trace of Kitty, or anything at all out of order. And the servants were in and out of there all the time anyway.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Stoker said flatly. ‘I’ve got notes as to what Violet said and if you compare it with Mrs Kynaston’s diaries, and then his, I think you’ll find a few places where it doesn’t match.’

Pitt did not answer, but opened one of the drawers beside the desk and took out his notes from the Kynaston diaries, then held out his hand for Stoker’s notebook.

‘Why didn’t we find the hat when we looked before?’ he asked.

‘Probably too intent on the body,’ Stoker replied. ‘It was thirty feet away. If you didn’t see the red feather you wouldn’t have seen the rest. It looks like leaves on mud.’

That was true. It had been found now only by chance.

‘Thank you. I’ll look at all the notes again, then I’ll go and see Kynaston this evening. He won’t be there at this time of day.’

Even so, Pitt was a little early. He disliked having to harass the man again. He personally liked him, therefore he determined to finish this business tonight and get it over with. He did not want to give Kynaston the chance to come home, change and then go out to dinner somewhere. After meeting Kynaston and his wife and sister-in-law at the theatre this was even more unpleasant.

He stood uneasily in Kynaston’s morning room, staring at one bookshelf after another, unable to concentrate on the titles. Occasionally he paced back and forth. He had actually been invited by Mrs Kynaston to wait in the withdrawing room, but he felt guilty about accepting it when his purpose was far from social.

He had been there less than half an hour when he heard Kynaston come in through the front door, and within minutes he was in the morning room, smiling.

Pitt’s heart sank and he felt his throat tighten. He walked forward from the fireplace.

‘Good evening, Mr Kynaston. I’m sorry to intrude on your time, but I have further questions I need to ask you.’

Kynaston indicated the chair near the fire, and when Pitt sat down, he took the other one himself. He looked slightly puzzled, but not yet alarmed.

‘Has there been some further development?’ he enquired.

‘I’m afraid there has. We discovered a hat at the gravel pit, near where the body was found.’ He watched Kynaston’s face as he spoke. ‘It’s in a state that makes it impossible to identify, but it is an unusual shape, as much as we can make out, and quite clearly it still has a small red feather tucked in the ribbon where the crown meets the brim. It is distinctive, and one of Kitty’s friends we have spoken to says that she had exactly such a hat with a red feather, and saved up until she could buy it.’

Kynaston blanched but he did not avoid Pitt’s eyes. ‘Then it was Kitty …’ he said very quietly. ‘Perhaps it was foolish, but I was still hoping that it wasn’t. I’m so sorry.’ He took a deep, rather shaky breath. ‘Will you be looking for the young man she was walking out with? I believe he was a somewhat itinerant carpenter. He went where the work was a lot of the time.’ There was an edge to his voice, but it was not anger, and – as far as Pitt could judge – it was not fear either. Was he really so sure of himself, and his own safety?