Brunswick Gardens (44 page)

“Go on,” she said huskily.

He obeyed, reading the second and the third, right through to the last.

“Does that have to mean he was right?” she asked.

“No. But it does mean he can’t have done it himself.”

She did not mention Mallory, but it hung unspoken between them, possible, but only a hope, too fragile to cling to.

“What are you going to do?” she said at last.

“I’m not sure.”

Again she sat silently for several moments. The fire settled down, flames brilliant as it consumed the unburnt coal, then sinking again. Pitt reached forward for the tongs and put on half a dozen more pieces.

“You can’t leave it,” she said at last. “Even if we didn’t have to know, you can’t allow Ramsay Parmenter to be blamed for something he didn’t do.”

“He is dead,” he pointed out.

“His family isn’t. Clarice isn’t. Anyway, don’t you have to know? I shall always be afraid it was Dominic. Maybe it isn’t. Isn’t the truth better, whatever it is?”

“Not always.”

She put her pen and ink away, even though the letter was unfinished. She lifted her feet and tucked them beside her on the sofa. It was a position she adopted when she was cold, frightened, or deeply miserable.

“Even so, I think you had better find out all you can. You can look … can’t you?”

“Yes. There’s enough in Ramsay’s notebook to start.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I suppose so.”

She said nothing else, but hugged her arms around herself and shivered.

    Pitt set out with Ramsay’s notebook in his coat pocket. It made the right side bulge and hang crookedly, but that hardly
mattered. He walked rapidly. Now that he had determined to do it there was no point in hesitating. It was raining quite hard, although over the roofs to the west there were gleaming patches of blue in the sky … “enough to make trousers for one sailor,” as his mother used to say.

He took a cab to Maida Vale, back to the house in Hall Road.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Morgan said fiercely. She was dressed in green and white and looked quaintly regal with a crown of leaves in her hair. She was quite unself-conscious of any absurdity. As before, they were in her studio, cluttered with canvases, but this time the light was flat, draining the color, and rain beat against the windows. She had been painting before he came in, but there were only greens and yellows on her palette, which now sat on a stool a yard away.

“I have never heard of Unity Bellwood,” she denied. “And we have had no tragedy here, except Jenny’s death, and you already know all about that.” Her face darkened. “You did not need to have sent your man behind my back to ask the boy. That was devious.”

Pitt smiled at her naive indignation; it was the only sensible reaction.

“Why are you laughing at me?” she demanded, but he could see in her eyes that she half understood. “I don’t discuss other people’s affairs, least of all with police,” she went on. “It is not wrong to protect people from inquisitive strangers, it is wrong not to. It is part of the nature of friendship not to betray, especially whatever you think or fear might be a weakness.” Her light blue eyes were clear. Whatever she knew or suspected, at least this sentiment was honest.

“Do you place the interests of your friends before those of others?” he asked, leaning his weight against the mantel.

“Of course,” she replied, staring at him.

“Always?”

She did not answer.

“Does it matter how little your friend loses, or how much the
other person does? Is your friend always right, no matter the issue or the price?”

“Well … no …”

“Dominic’s embarrassment against Ramsay Parmenter’s life? What about your own morality? Do you have a faith to yourself as well?”

Her neck stiffened. “Of course I do. Is it Ramsay Parmenter’s life?”

“No. It is just a question, to see where your judgment is.”

“Why do you pick Ramsay Parmenter?” She did not believe him, and it was clear in her face.

“His life is not in the balance. He is already dead.”

That jolted her. The color faded from her skin, leaving her looking tired. “If he’s dead, why do you need to know?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“Are you trying to say Dominic killed him?” She was very white now. “I don’t believe that!” But the raw edge to her voice showed that she could not dismiss it from her mind so completely.

“Where was he living before he was here?” he pressed. “You must know. He didn’t appear from nowhere. He had clothes, belongings, letters, at least acquaintances. He always dressed well. What about his tailor? Where did his money come from? Or did you keep him?”

She flushed. “No, I did not keep him! I don’t know all those things. I didn’t ask. We don’t ask questions of one another. It is part of friendship, and trust.”

“Did he leave anything behind when he went to Icehouse Wood?”

“I don’t know. But if he did, it is long since cleared away. Anyway, it wouldn’t tell you anything.”

“What about clothes? Did he buy any new clothes while he was here?”

She thought about it for a moment. “A coat, a brown overcoat.”

“Didn’t he have one before?”

She smiled. “Yes, of course he did. Can’t a man have two coats? Anyway, he didn’t keep the old one. He gave it to Peter Wesley, next door. He hadn’t one.”

“Is Peter Wesley still there, next door?”

“No. He moved.”

“Where to?”

“What does it matter?” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He pressed her further and learned nothing except that Dominic seemed to have been very secretive about his immediate past, and she had gained the impression, never substantiated, that there was someone he would prefer did not find him there.

“Did he receive any letters?” Pitt asked her.

“No, never that I remember.” She thought for a moment. “No, I am sure he never did. And what he purchased he would have paid for at the time, because there were no bills, either, not even from his tailor, bootmaker, or shirtmaker.”

It completed a picture of a man who feared pursuit and was anxious to conceal all signs of where he was. Why? Who wished to find him, and for what reason?

He thanked her and went to search for the brown overcoat, which might at least offer him a tailor’s name.

But no one at the next house knew where Peter Wesley had gone to. Pitt was left on the doorstep looking out at a now-busy street which offered nothing further to tell where Dominic Corde had been before this place, or what had driven him from it.

An open carriage passed, ladies braving the sharp air to display their fashionable hats and pretty faces. They were shivering with cold but smiling brightly. He could not help smiling back, half in pleasure, half in amusement at their youthful vanity and optimism.

A coal cart passed, horses leaning forward into the harness against the weight. A newsboy shouted the headlines, mostly political. There was disturbing news from Africa, something
about Cecil Rhodes and diamonds in Mashonaland, and settlers in Dutch South Africa. No one cared about the death of one not particularly fashionable cleric in what, so far as they knew, was a domestic accident.

A costermonger walked along the side of the street pushing a barrow, his shoulders straining against a coat a size too small but of very good cut and cloth. It reminded Pitt again of Dominic’s coat. A tailor would have been a good place to start. A man often did not change his tailor, even if he moved his accommodation. And if that were true of Dominic, then perhaps four or five years ago he had still had the same tailor as when he had lived in Cater Street. Pitt had no idea who that had been, and probably Charlotte had not. But Caroline might!

He had already walked rapidly to the main cross street and hailed a cab, and was sitting down in it when he realized it was quite possible Caroline was not at home. These days, if Joshua were touring with a play, she would go with him. She could be anywhere in England.

He fidgeted all the way to Cater Street, trying to think what to do next if Caroline were away or if she had not the slightest idea who Dominic’s tailor had been. Of course, the best person to ask would be the valet, only she had let him go when Edward died. Joshua would have brought his own man. But Maddock, the butler, might know. There would hardly be household accounts left from a decade ago, and a tailor’s account was personal anyway.

He was rattling through quiet, house-lined streets, passing delivery wagons, private carriages, other hansoms, all the routine traffic of any residential district. There were three million people in London. It was the largest and busiest city in the world, the heart of an empire that covered continents—India, Africa and Asia—the Pacific, the vast prairies and mountains of Canada from one ocean to another, and islands uncountable in every body of water known to man. How did you look for one private individual who wanted to be lost five years ago?

Except that a man is a creature of habit. One clings to identity. In all the upheaval and strangeness of tragedy or of guilt, physical things that are familiar are perhaps the only comfort left. If we lose places and people, then possessions become the more valuable.

They were in Cater Street. The cab stopped, and within moments Pitt was on the doorstep waiting for someone to answer. The minutes seemed to drag. There must be someone, even if Caroline and Joshua were away.

Maddock was on the step, looking older and quite a bit grayer. It made Pitt realize how long it had been since he had been there. Caroline had so often visited them in Keppel Street instead, and although Charlotte had been there recently, it was alone, when he had been busy.

“Good morning, Mr. Pitt, sir,” Maddock said, concealing his surprise. “Is all well, sir?”

“Very well, thank you, Maddock,” Pitt answered him. “Is Mrs. Fielding at home?”

“Yes sir. If you care to come in, I shall inform her you are here.” He stood aside, and Pitt stepped into the familiar hallway. In one sweep it took him back ten years to the first time he had come following the first Cater Street garottings. He had met Charlotte when she was the middle daughter, seeming to her own social class so rebellious and different, and to him so exactly what he expected a well-bred unmarried young lady to be. He smiled at the memory.

Dominic Corde had been married to Sarah then, before her murder by the same hand as all the others. What would Caroline know of him?

He had only a few moments to wait in the morning room before she came in. She had changed utterly since her respectable widowhood from pleasant and predictable Edward and her scandalous marriage to charming and desperately unsuitable Joshua, an actor seventeen years her junior. She looked radiant. She had always been a handsome woman, not as much
as Charlotte—at least not to Pitt’s eye—but very good-looking, nonetheless. He admired her warm coloring and nicely curved figure. She was wearing a morning gown with roses on it, something she would have considered in Edward’s time as being far too showy and self-indulgent.

“Good morning, Thomas,” she said with a slight frown. “Maddock said everything was all right, but are you sure? Charlotte is not ill or troubled?”

“Not in the slightest,” he assured her, “except that there is an unpleasantness where Dominic is now living, and it may concern him. But that is all. The children are very well.”

“Are you?” She regarded him still with a trace of seriousness.

He smiled. “I am up against a difficulty I am hoping you can help me solve,” he replied honestly.

She sat down on the sofa, draping her flowing skirts around her. He noticed that she carried herself with less dignity and more grace than before she had known Joshua.
Theatrical
was too strong a word to use, but certainly she had a more dramatic flare than before. Years of behaving modestly and appropriately had fallen away, revealing a more colorful woman.

“I?” she said with surprise. “What could I do? What is this difficulty?”

“Do you know where Dominic went after he left here?”

She looked at him very steadily, her eyes shadowed. “You said that the unpleasantness may concern him. You do not waste your time with petty thefts, Thomas. It must be very unpleasant indeed to warrant your attention. Just how much does it concern Dominic? And please don’t fob me off with a comforting story that is not true.”

“I don’t know how much it concerns him,” he said, meeting her eyes without pretense. “I hope not at all. He appears to have changed completely from the rather shallow, charming young man he used to be.”

“But …” she prompted.

“But the case is murder.” He hated having to say it. He saw her face tighten and the shadows cross her eyes.

“You don’t think he did it … surely …”

“I hope not.” He surprised himself by how much he meant that. He really wanted to prove that it was not Dominic.

“Then how can I help?” she asked gravely. “I don’t know where he went after Burton Street, and I don’t think he was there long.”

“Burton Street?” he asked.

“He took rooms there after he left here. He didn’t feel he could remain after Sarah … died.” The pain was there in her eyes for a moment, the anguish of memory, the shock and the grief that never really left. Then she forced her attention to the present again. Sarah was beyond any ability to help now, or any need for it. Dominic was still here, and open to injury and fear. “Why do you want to know? Surely you know where he is at present?”

“Yes, in Brunswick Gardens,” he replied. “But I need the past, between Cater Street and Maida Vale.”

“Maida Vale? I didn’t know he had lived there.” She looked surprised.

“For a while. Do you know the address in Burton Street? I might be able to find someone who could help me there.”

“I don’t remember it, but I’m sure I have it somewhere. I used to forward mail for him. I presume you don’t believe whatever he has told you?”

He smiled a little self-consciously. He had not actually asked Dominic. Perhaps if he had Dominic would have told him the truth, but he doubted it. If Dominic had really known Unity Bellwood in some circumstance so personally tragic that Ramsay had believed it had provoked her murder, if he were going to confess it, he would have done so at the time, not allowed Ramsay to be suspected and to suffer the fear and isolation which it seemed in the end had broken him. That was a dark
thought, and one which had not occurred to Pitt in precisely that form before. It was painful.