Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [173]
“Yer comes ’ere ’cause I give yer tick when no one else will, Maisie Stillwell, an’ don’t yer ferget it neither!” Liza Cobb spat back at her. She turned and cried out shrilly for someone to come and take her place at the counter, then led him into a hot, stale-smelling back room.
“Well?”
“Twenty years ago you were in service in Lord Anstiss’s country house?”
“Yeah—must’a bin abaht then. Why?”
“You found a letter from Lady Anstiss to Lord Byam, who was a guest there?”
“Not exactly,” she said guardedly. “But what if I ’ad?”
“Then what did happen—exactly?”
“W’en Lady Anstiss died, Rose, ’er ladies’ maid, took some of ’er things, they gave ’em ’er, there weren’t nuffin’ wrong in it,” she answered. “Well w’en Rose died, abaht three year ago, them things passed ter me. All rolled up inside them, like, were this letter. Love letter, summink fierce.” Her broad lip curled in a sneer. “Din’t know decent folk wrote letters like that to each other.”
“How did you come to give it to Weems?”
Her eyes were sharp and clever. “I din’t give it ter ’im. Least not all of it. It were in two pages, like. I sold ’im one, an’ kept the other.”
Pitt felt a prickle of excitement.
“You kept the other one yourself?”
She was watching him closely.
“Yeah—why? Yer want ter see it? It’ll corst yer—yer can take a copy, fer five guineas.”
“Is that what Weems paid you?”
“Why?”
“Curious. It’s a fair price. Let me see it. If I think it’s worth it, I’ll pay you five guineas.”
“Let’s see the color o’ yer money. Yer don’t look like yer got five guineas.”
Pitt had come prepared to buy information, although he had not expected to spend it all on one person. But he was increasingly certain that this letter was at the heart of the case. He fished in his pocket and found a gold guinea, six half guineas and a handful of crowns, shillings and six-pences. He held his hand half open so she could see them but not reach them.
“I’ll get it for yer,” she said, her eyes keen, and she disappeared into the back room. Several minutes later she returned with a piece of paper in her hand. She held out her other hand for the money.
Pitt gave it to her, counting it out carefully, and then quickly took the paper. He unfolded it and saw written in a strong, emotionally charged hand:
Sholto, my love,
We have shared a rare and high passion which most of the world will never know as we do. It must never be lost, or denied us. When I look back on our hours together, they hold all that is most exquisite to the body, and the soul. I will permit no one to tear it from me.
Have courage! Fear nothing, and keep our secret in your heart. Turn it over and over, as I do, in the long hours alone. Dream of times past, and times to come.
There was no more, no signature. Apparently there had been at least one other page, and it was missing.
Pitt kept it in his hand. It was a passionate letter, nothing modest in it or waiting to be wooed. Indeed it seemed Laura Anstiss had been a woman of violent emotions, self-assured, willful, not even considering that her love might not be equally returned.
He began to see how indeed she might have been so stunned by rejection that it temporarily unbalanced her mind and threw her into a state of melancholia. If Byam had ever received that letter, he would have been far less surprised at her suicide.
“ ’ere—gimme it back!” Liza Cobb said sharply. “Yer read it.”
Had Laura Anstiss lived in a world of her own fantasy? The letter implied they had been lovers in a very physical sense. Anyone reading it would assume so. Had Anstiss seen either this, or some other like it?
“No,” he said levelly. “It is evidence in a murder case. I’ll keep it for now.”
“Yer thievin’ swine!” She lunged forward at him, but he was taller and heavier than she. He held out his other hand in a loose fist and she met it hard and retreated with ugly surprise in her face. “It’s mine,” she said between closed teeth.
“It