Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [112]
Pitt smiled briefly, but without pleasure.
Superintendent Latimer was doing very well for himself to live in such an area. There was the possibility, of course, that he had either inherited money or married a woman of substantial means. Both were circumstances Pitt would have to inquire into. Preliminary questions in Bow Street had elicited nothing, but he had not expected they might since Latimer was based at the Yard.
He rang the front doorbell at number 43, and after a moment the door was opened by a housemaid in a smart uniform. At least, Pitt judged her to be a housemaid; he noticed a feather duster tucked discreetly behind the hall table, as if she had put it down so she might change roles to answer the door. It was a small thing, but a sign that Mrs. Latimer cared very much about appearances. She lived in a street where most people could afford a separate parlormaid, and she could not.
“Yes sir?” the maid said politely. She looked no more than seventeen or eighteen, but of course she had probably been in service for four or five years and was well used to her job.
“Good morning,” Pitt replied in a businesslike manner. “My name is Pitt. I apologize for disturbing Mrs. Latimer so early, but certain matters have arisen which it is necessary I discuss with her. Will you be kind enough to inform her that I am here?” He produced his card, on which he had added by hand his police rank.
The girl colored in annoyance at herself for not having remembered to bring the silver tray on which visitors could place their cards, but she had been caught by surprise. She had not been expecting social calls for at least another thirty minutes. There were exact times for the well-bred to do such things, and Mrs. Latimer’s acquaintances knew what to do, and what not to do. She took the card in her hand.
“Yes sir. If you’ll wait here I’ll ask if Mrs. Latimer will see you,” she said with disapproval.
“Of course,” he agreed. Either there was no morning room, or else it was not available.
She scurried away and he looked around the hall. Architecturally it was spacious, but it was filled by its furniture and pictures, a stag’s head on the wall, a stuffed stoat in a glass case on a table to the right, and two stuffed birds in another case to the left, a large hat and umbrella stand and a magnificent carved table with a mirror behind it. The carpets were also excellent and in very fine condition. They could not have been more than a year or two old. They were all signs of affluence.
Was the rest of the house so richly furnished? Or was this the part which visitors saw, and had been dressed accordingly, at the expense of the private rooms? He knew from long experience that hallways and reception rooms were indications of aspiration, of how people wished to be perceived, not of reality.
Mrs. Latimer came down the staircase and he was aware of her long before she had reached the bottom. She was a remarkably striking woman, slender, of average height but with hair so very fair it seemed almost luminous as it caught the light from the chandeliers. Her skin was unusually pale, and as flawless as a child’s. Indeed her wide eyes and light brows gave her face a look of innocence astounding in a grown woman, and Pitt found his planned words fleeing from him as too brusque and worldly for this ethereal creature.
She came down the last steps and stopped some distance from him. She was dressed in a muslin gown of lilacs and blues on white. It was extremely elegant, but he found it jarring on his taste because it seemed so impractical, so designed merely to be gazed at rather than for any physical or purposeful use, as if the being within it were not entirely human. He preferred a woman more immediately flesh and blood, like himself.
“Good morning, Mrs. Latimer. I apologize for disturbing you so early, and without seeking your permission first,” he began with the prepared apology, having nothing else thought of. “But the matter about which I come is urgent, and must be handled with