Callander Square - Anne Perry [0]
Ann Perry
Contents
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
ONE
THE AUTUMN AIR hung mild and faintly misty, and the grass in Callander Square was dappled yellow with fallen leaves in the late afternoon sun. In the small garden in the center of the square two men stood with spades, looking down into a shallow hole. The taller of them bent down and put his hands into the damp soil, searching. Gingerly he brought up the article he sought, a small, bloody bone.
The other breathed out noisily.
“What d’yer reckon it is, then? Too big to be a bird.”
“Pet,” the first replied. “Someone buried a dog, or the like.”
The shorter man shook his head. “They didn’t oughter do that.” He looked disparagingly at the pale Georgian facades rearing up in severe elegance beyond the lacy birch leaves and the limes. “They got gardens for that sort of thing. They oughter have more respect.”
“It musta bin a small dog,” the taller man turned the bone over in his hand. “Maybe a cat.”
“A cat! Go on. Gentlemen don’t ’ave cats; and ladies don’t go digging in gardens. Wouldn’t know a spade if it up an’ bit em.
“Must ’a’ bin a servant. Cook, most like.”
“Still didn’t oughter do it,” he shook his head to emphasize his point. “Like animals, I do. A pet what ’as done ’er service in the ’ouse oughter be buried proper: not where people’s going to go and dig ’er up again, unknowing like.”
“They mightn’t ’a’ thought we was going to dig ’ere. It’s years since we put anything new in this bit. Wouldn’t‘a’ done now, except we got this bush give us.”
“Well we’d better put it somewhere else: a bit over to the left p’raps. Leave the poor little thing in peace. It ain’t right to disturb the dead, even animals. Dare say someone cared for it. Kept someone’s kitchen clean o’ mice.”
“Can’t put it to the left, yer gawp! We’ll kill the forsythia.”
“You watch yer tongue! Put it to the right then.”
“Can’t. That rhode-thing grows like a house, it does. Got to put it ’ere.”
“Then put the cat under the rhode-thing. Dig it up proper, and I’ll do the burying.”
“Right.” He put his spade where he judged it would bring the body up in one piece and set his weight on it. The earth came up easily, soft with loam and leaf mold, and fell away. The two men stared.
“Oh Gawd Almighty!” The spade fell from his hands. “Oh Gawd save us!”
“What—what—is it?”
“It’s not a cat. I—I think it’s a baby.”
“Oh Holy Mother. What do we do?”
“We’d better get the police.”
“Yeah.”
He let the spade down slowly, very gently, as if somehow even now it mattered.
“You going?” The other stared at him.
“No. No, I’ll stay ’ere. You go and get a constable. And ’urry! It’ll be dark soon.”
“Yeah! Yeah!” He was galvanized into action, desperately relieved to have something to do, above all something that would take him away from the hole in the ground and the bloody little mess on the spade.
The constable was young and still new to his beat. The great fashionable squares overawed him with their beautiful carriages, their matched pairs of liveried footmen and armies of servants. He found himself tongue-tied when he was required to speak to them, the magisterial butlers, the irascible cooks, the handsome parlormaids. The bootboys, the scullery maids, and the tweenies were much more his class.
When he saw the hole in the ground and the gardeners’ discovery he knew it was totally beyond him, and with horror and relief, told them to wait where they were, move nothing, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the police station to hand the whole thing over to his inspector.
He burst into the office, abandoning his manners in the excitement.
“Mr. Pitt, sir, Mr. Pitt! There’s been a dreadful thing, sir, a terrible thing!”
Pitt was standing by the window, a big man with long, curved nose and humorous mouth. He was plain to a degree, and quite incredibly untidy, but there was intelligence and wit in his face. He raised his eyebrows at the constable’s precipitate entrance, and when he spoke his voice was beautiful.
“What sort of dreadful thing,