Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [126]
“Are they still meeting here?”
“Oh no sir. Don’t know where they all went to, I’m sure I don’t. They got less and less, about five years ago, then the last of ’em disappeared.”
“Do you remember a Mrs. Royce, some seventeen years ago?”
“Mrs. Royce? No sir, no I don’t. There were a few young ladies. Handsome and nicely mannered they were, but they’ve all gone now. I don’t know where, I’m sure. Maybe got married and settled down to a decent life—forgot all that nonsense.”
Pitt could not give up now.
“Do you remember anyone at all from seventeen years ago? It is important, Mr. Plunkett.”
“Bless you, sir. If I can recall anything you are more than welcome to it. What was this Lady Royce like?”
“I am afraid I don’t know. She died about that time, of scarlet fever, I think.”
“Oh—oh my goodness! I wonder if that was the friend of Miss Forrester? Lizzie Forrester. Her friend died, poor soul.”
Pitt kept the excitement out of his voice. It was only a thread, perhaps nothing—it might break in his hands.
“Where can I find Lizzie Forrester?”
“Bless you, I don’t know, sir. But I think her parents still live on Tower Street. Number twenty-three, as I recall. But someone’d tell you, if you were to go there and ask.”
“Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Plunkett!” Pitt rose, shook the man’s hand, and took his leave.
He did not even think of eating. He passed a public house, and the smell of fresh-baked pies did not even tempt him, so eager was he to find Lizzie Forrester and learn another side of the truth, something of the past of Elsie Draper which had sewn in her mind the seeds of such madness.
Tower Street was not hard to find: a couple questions of passersby and he was on the doorstep of number 23. It was a neat tradesman’s-class front door, with a brass knocker in the shape of a horse’s head. Pitt lifted it and let it fall. He stepped back and waited several minutes before a clean and dowdy maid answered it, not unlike the woman who did the heavy work in his own home.
“Yes sir?” she said in surprise.
“Good afternoon. Is this the home of Mr. or Mrs. Forrester?”
“Yes sir, it is.”
“I am Inspector Pitt, from the Bow Street Police Station.” He saw her face blanch and was instantly sorry for his clumsiness. “There’s been no accident, ma’am, and no crime that concerns this household. It is just that someone here may once have been acquainted with a lady we would like to know more about—in order to understand events that have no connection with this family.”
She was still highly dubious. Respectable people did not have the police in their houses—for any reason.
He tried again. “She was a very distinguished lady, the lady we wish to learn more about, but she died many years ago; therefore we cannot ask her.”
“Well—well you’d better come in, an’ I’ll ask. You stay there!” She pointed to a spot on the hall floor on the worn red Turkey carpet next to the stand for sticks and umbrellas and the potted aspidistra. Pitt obeyed dutifully, waiting while she whisked away along the linoleum corridor past the stairs and the polished banisters, the samplers which read THE EYE OF GOD IS UPON YOU and THERE’s NO PLACE LIKE HOME, and a picture of Queen Victoria. He heard the servant rap on a door, then the latch open and close. Somewhere in the back parlor his person and his errand were being described.
It was fully five minutes before a middle-aged couple appeared, dressed in neat and well-worn clothes, he with a watch chain across his middle and she with a lace fichu at her neck pinned with a nice piece of Whitby jet.
“Mr. Forrester, sir?” Pitt inquired politely.
“Indeed. Jonas Forrester, at your service. This is Mrs. Forrester. What may we do for you? Martha says you