Highgate Rise (35 page)

9

C
HARLOTTE HAD RECOUNTED
to Pitt at least the salient points of her experiences searching for the ownership of the buildings in Lisbon Street, and when she made the shattering discovery not only that it was the Worlingham family themselves, but that Clemency had learned it several months before she died, she poured it all out to him the moment she arrived home. She saw his coat in the hall and without even taking off her hat she raced down the corridor to the kitchen.

“Thomas. Thomas—Lisbon Street was owned by Bishop Worlingham himself! Now the family takes all the rents. Clemency discovered it. She knew!”

“What?” He stared at her, half turned in his seat, his eyes wide.

“Bishop Worlingham owned Lisbon Street,” she said again. “All those slums and gin houses were his! Now they belong to the rest of the family—and Clemency discovered it. That’s why she felt so awful.” She sat down in a heap in the chair opposite him, skirts awry, and leaned across the table towards him. “That’s probably why she worked so hard at undoing it all. Just think how she must have felt.” She
closed her eyes and put her head in her hands, elbows on the table. “Oh!”

“Poor Clemency,” Pitt said very quietly. “What a very remarkable woman. I wish I could have known her.”

“So do I,” Charlotte agreed through her fingers. “Why do we so often get to know about people only when it’s too late?”

It was a question to which she expected no answer. They both knew that they would have had no occasion to know of Clemency Shaw had she not been murdered, and it required no words to convey their understanding.

It was another half hour before she even remembered to tell him that Jack was seriously considering standing for Parliament.

“Really?” His voice rose in surprise and he looked at her carefully to make sure she was not making some obscure joke.

“Oh yes—I think it’s excellent. He ought to do something or they’ll both be bored to pieces.” She grinned. “We cannot meddle in all your cases.”

He let out a snort and refrained from comment. But there was a sense of deep comfort in him, experiences and emotions shared, horror, exultation, pity, anger, at times fear, all the multitude of feelings that are roused by terrible events, common purpose, and the unique bond that comes of sharing.

Consequently, when he joined Murdo at the Highgate Police Station the next day there were several things he had to tell him, most of which only added to Murdo’s growing anxiety about Flora Lutterworth. He thought of their few brief and rather stilted conversations, the hot silences, the clumsiness he felt standing there in her magnificent house, his boots shining like huge wedges of coal, his uniform buttons so obviously marking him out as a policeman, an intruder of the most unwelcome sort. And always her face came back burning across his mind, wide-eyed, fair-skinned with that wonderful color in her cheeks, so proud and full of courage. Surely she must be one of the most beautiful women he could
ever see? But there was far more than beauty to her; there was spirit and gentleness. She was so very alive, it was as if she could smell winds and flowers he only imagined, see beyond his everyday horizons into a brighter, more important world, hear melodies of which he only knew the beat.

And yet he also knew she was afraid. He longed to protect her, and was agonizingly aware than he could not. He did not understand the nature of what threatened her, only that it was connected with Clemency Shaw’s death, and now with Lindsay’s as well.

And with a part of him he refused even to listen to, in spite of its still, cold voice in his brain, he was also aware that her role in it might not be entirely innocent. He would not even think that she was personally involved, perhaps actually to blame. But he had heard the rumors, seen the looks and blushes and the secrecy; he knew there was a special relationship between Flora and Stephen Shaw, one so definite that her father was furious about it, yet she felt it so precious to her she was prepared to brave his anger and defy him.

Murdo was confused. He had never felt jealousy of this muddled nature before, at once so sure she had done nothing shameful, and yet unable to deny to himself that there was a real and deep emotion inside her towards Shaw.

And of course the alternative fear was large; perhaps it was its very size which blocked out the other even more hideous thought—that Alfred Lutterworth was responsible for the attempts on Shaw’s life. There were two possible reasons for this, both quite believable, and both ruinous.

The one he refused to think was that Shaw had dishonored Flora, or even knew of some fearful shame in her life, perhaps an illegitimate child, or worse, an abortion; and Lutterworth had tried to kill him when somehow he had learned of it—to keep him silent. He could hardly hope for a fine marriage for her if such a thing were known—in fact no marriage at all would be possible. She would grow old alone, rich, excluded, whispered about and forever an object of pity or contempt.

At the thought of it Murdo was ready to kill Shaw himself.
His fists were clenched so tight his nails, short as they were, bit into the flesh of his palms. That thought must be cast out, obliterated from his mind. What betrayal that he would let it enter—even for an instant.

He hated himself even for having thought it. Shaw was pestering her; she was young and very lovely. He lusted after her, and she was too innocent to see how vile he was. That was far more like it. And of course there was her father’s money. Shaw had already spent all his wife’s money—and there was extraordinary evidence for that. Inspector Pitt had found out just yesterday that Clemency Shaw’s money was all gone. Yes—that made perfect sense—Shaw was after Flora’s money!

And Alfred Lutterworth had a great deal of money. That thought was also wretched. Murdo was a constable, and likely to remain so for a long time; he was only twenty-four. He earned enough to keep himself in something like decency, he ate three times a day and had a pleasant room and clean clothes, but it was as far from the splendor of Alfred Lutterworth’s house as Lutterworth’s was in turn from what Murdo imagined of the Queen’s castle at Windsor. And Lutterworth might as well cast eyes upon one of the princesses as Murdo upon Flora.

It was with a finality of despair that he forced the last thought, the one prompted by Inspector Pitt’s wife’s discovery of the ownership of some of the worst slum tenements by old Bishop Worlingham. Murdo was not so very amazed. He had long known that some outwardly respectable people could have very ugly secrets, especially where money was concerned. But what Pitt had not mentioned was that if Mrs. Shaw, poor lady, had discovered who owned those particular houses, she might also have discovered who owned several others. Pitt had mentioned members of Parliament, titled families, even justices of the courts. Had he not also thought of retired industrialists who wanted to enter society and needed a good continuing income, and might not be too particular as to where their money was invested?

Alfred Lutterworth might well have been in every bit as
much danger from Clemency Shaw as the Worlinghams were—in fact more. Clemency might protect her own—it appeared she had. But why should she protect Lutterworth? He had every reason to kill her—and if Lindsay had guessed this, to kill him too.

That is, if he owned slum property too. And how could they ever find that out? They could hardly trace the ownership of every piece of rotten plaster and sagging timber in London, every blind alley, open drain and crumbling pile of masonry, every wretched home of cold and frightened people. He knew because he had tried. He blushed hot at the memory of it; it was a kind of betrayal that he had let the thought take root in his mind and had asked questions about Lutterworth’s finances, the source of his income and if it could involve rents. But it was not as easy as he had imagined. Money came from companies, but what did those companies do? Time had been short, and he had no official instructions to give his questions the force of law.

Nothing had been resolved; he was simply uncertain and appallingly conscious of his guilt. Nothing he could even imagine doing would remove the ache of fear and imagination at the back of his mind.

He saw Flora’s face in his heart’s eye and all the pain and the shame she would feel burned through him till he could hardly bear it. He was even glad to hear Pitt’s footsteps return and to be told their duty for the morning. Part of him was still outraged that they sent an outsider—did they think Highgate’s own men were incompetent? And part of him was immensely grateful that the responsibility was not theirs. This was a very ugly case, and the resolution seemed as far off now as it had when they were standing in the wet street staring at the smoldering remains of Shaw’s house, long before the taper was struck to set Lindsay’s alight.

“Yes sir?” he said automatically as Pitt came around the corner and into the foyer where he was standing. “Where to, sir?”

“Mr. Alfred Lutterworth’s, I think,” Pitt barely hesitated on his way out. He had been to the local superintendent, as
a matter of courtesy, and on the small chance that something had occurred that Murdo did not know about, some thread worth following.

But the superintendent had looked at him with his habitual disfavor and reported with some satisfaction another fire, in Kentish town, a possible lead on the arsonist he personally was sure was the guilty party in all cases, and rather a negative report on house insurance and the unlikelihood of either Shaw or Lindsay being involved in fire for the purposes of fraud.

“Well I hardly imagined Lindsay burned himself to death to claim the insurance!” Pitt had snapped back.

“No sir,” the superintendent had said coldly, his eyes wide. “Neither did we. But then we are confident the fires were all set by the arsonist in Kentish Town—sir.”

“Indeed.” Pitt had been noncommittal. “Odd there were only two houses that were occupied.”

“Well he didn’t know Shaw’s was—did he?” the superintendent had said irritably. “Shaw was out, and everyone thought Mrs. Shaw was too. She only canceled at the last minute.”

“The only people who thought Mrs. Shaw was out were the people who knew her,” Pitt had said with satisfaction.

The superintendent had glared at him and returned to his desk, leaving Pitt to go out of the door in silence.

Now he was ready to go and probe and watch and listen to people, where his true art lay. He had days ago given up expecting things to tell him anything. Murdo’s heart sank, but there was no escaping duty. He followed Pitt and caught up with him, and together they walked along the damp, leaf-scattered footpath towards the Lutterworths’ house.

They were admitted by the maid and shown into the morning room, where there was a brisk fire burning and a bowl of tawny chrysanthemums on the heavy Tudor dresser. Neither of them sat, although it was nearly quarter of an hour before Lutterworth appeared, closely followed by Flora, dressed in a dark blue stuff gown and looking pale but composed. She glanced at Murdo only once, and her eyes flickered
away immediately, a faint, self-conscious flush on her cheeks.

Murdo remained in a bitterly painful silence. He longed to help her; he wanted to hit out at someone—Shaw, Lutterworth for allowing all this to happen and not protecting her, and Pitt for forging blindly ahead with his duty, regardless of the chaos it caused.

For an instant he hated Pitt for not hurting as much as he did, as if he were oblivious of pain; then he looked sideways for just a moment at him, and realized his error. Pitt’s face was tense; there were shadows under his eyes and the fine lines in his skin were all weary and conscious of realms of suffering past and to come, and of his inability to heal it.

Murdo let out his breath in a sigh, and kept silent.

Lutterworth faced them across the expensive Turkish carpet. None of them sat.

“Well, what is it now?” he demanded. “I know nowt I ’aven’t told you. I’ve no idea why anyone killed poor old Lindsay, unless it was Shaw, because the old man saw through ’im and ’ad to be silenced. Or it were that daft Pascoe, because ’e thought as Lindsay were an anarchist.