Bethlehem Road - Anne Perry [77]
He was startled to see her, and immediately curious. A lady of her quality would never have called unannounced unless her reason were pressing; knowing Vespasia, it had probably to do with crime or injustice, about which she felt intensely.
He rose as soon as she came in, inadvertently spilling a pile of letters, which he ignored.
“Lady Cumming-Gould! It is always a pleasure to see you. But no doubt you have come for something more than friendship. Please sit down.” He rapidly pushed a great long-legged marmalade cat out of the other chair and brushed off the seat with his hand, plumping up the cushion for her. “Shall I send for tea?”
“Later perhaps,” she replied. “For the moment I need your assistance.”
“Of course. With what?”
The marmalade cat stalked over to the desk, jumped up onto it, and tried to climb behind a pile of books, not in alarm but from curiosity.
“Hamish!” Carlisle said absently. “Get down, you fool!” He turned back to Vespasia, and the cat ignored him. “Something has happened?”
“Indeed it has,” she agreed, remembering with a sharply sweet sense of comfort how much she liked this man. “Two members of Parliament have had their throats cut on Westminster Bridge.”
Carlisle’s winged and rather crooked eyebrows rose. “And that brings you here?”
“No, not of itself, of course not. I am concerned because it seems the niece of a very good friend of mine may be suspected by the police.”
“A woman?” he said incredulously. “Hardly a woman’s sort of crime—neither the method nor the place. Thomas Pitt doesn’t think so, surely?”
“I really have no idea,” she admitted. “But I think not, or Charlotte would have mentioned it, always assuming she knew. She has been somewhat preoccupied with Emily’s wedding recently.”
“Emily’s wedding?” He was surprised, and pleased. “I didn’t know she had married again.”
“Yes—to a young man of immeasurable charm and no money whatsoever. But that is not as disastrous as it sounds; I think, as much as one can ever be sure, that he cares for her deeply and has the quality of loyalty in even very trying times, a sense of adventure, and a very agreeable sense of humor, so it may well prove a happy situation. At least it has begun well, which is not always the case.”
“But you are concerned about your friend’s niece? Why on earth should she take to murdering M.P.s?” His face was full of visions of the absurd, but she knew that beneath it he understood fear very well, and his light tone did not mean he did not appreciate the gravity of the situation.
“Because the second victim promised to help her retain custody of her child, and then reneged on his word and assisted her husband, with the result that she lost the child and will in all probability not see her again.”
He was leaning forward towards her, tense now, concentrating. “Why? Why should a mother lose custody of her child?” he asked.
“She is deemed an unsuitable person to raise a girl because she has opinions. For example, she believes that women should have a right to vote for their representatives in Parliament and in local government, and she has associated herself with Mrs. Bezant and the fight for a decent wage and improved conditions for the match girls at Bryant and Mays. No doubt you are better aware than I of the numbers who the of necrosis of the jaw from the phosphorus and are bald before they reach the age of twenty from carrying boxes on their heads.”
His face looked suddenly bruised, as if had seen too much pain. “I am. Tell me, Vespasia,” he said, letting the formality drop without realizing it, “do you believe this woman could have killed the M.P.s?”
“I do,” she confessed. “But I have not met her yet. I may think otherwise when I have, though I doubt it: Nobby—Zenobia Gunne—thinks so too. But I have promised to help. Therefore I have come to ask you if there’s anything at all you can tell me about either Lockwood Hamilton