Callander Square - Anne Perry [31]
“I apologize,” Reggie said affably. “The child is a menace.” He looked at Pitt’s face and his quaint, rather untidy attire. He made an instant decision to assume an air of frankness, and try to enlist the man as an ally, or at least a confidant. “Children so easily misunderstand,” he went on with a smile. “As indeed do a lot of people. Still, I expect as a man of experience, you’ve seen a lot of life, and you know truth from error when you see it. Have a glass of brandy?” Pity to use the best brandy on a policeman who probably would not know it from the stuff they sold at alehouses. But it might be a good investment in the long event.
Pitt hesitated, made a rapid decision, and accepted.
“Sit down,” Reggie offered expansively. “Wretched business. Don’t envy you. Must be damned hard to sift the truth from all the inventions.”
Pitt smiled slowly, taking the brandy from him.
”Maids bound to spin a few stories,” Reggie continued. “Natural thing. Read too many penny novels, too much imagination. Never realize the damage it can do.”
Pitt raised his eyebrows inquiringly and sipped at the brandy.
Reggie decided to press home the point while the fellow seemed so agreeable. Better to set him straight in advance of any gossip he might hear belowstairs, where he would undoubtedly go in time.
“Easy to understand,” he elaborated in an attempt at jocularity without obvious condescension. “Poor creatures haven’t a lot of excitement, I suppose. A man of intelligence would be bored to death. Bound to embroider the truth a little, eh?”
“Could be mischievous,” Pitt agreed, his clear eyes smiling back at Reggie.
Nice fellow, Reggie thought. Should not be too difficult to steer him into dismissing any unpleasant tales he might hear.
“Quite,” he agreed. “I can see that you understand. Must have run into it before, I daresay. Had this kind of thing happened often?”
Pitt took another sip of his brandy.
“Not quite like this. Not in a square of this—quality.”
“No—no, I suppose not. Thank goodness, eh? Still, I expect you’ve run across servant girls who’ve got themselves into trouble before now, eh, what?” he laughed.
Pitt looked blandly back at him; for a man with so remarkably expressive a face, he now conveyed almost nothing.
“All sorts of people with problems,” he agreed.
“Ah, but you know what sort of trouble I mean.” Reggie wondered for an instant if the man were foolish. Perhaps he had better be more explicit. “Babies must be some servant girl’s who got herself with child and the fellow wouldn’t marry her; or perhaps she didn’t even know who he was, eh?”
Pitt opened his eyes a little wider.
“Any girls of that sort of character in your establishment, sir?”
“Good God, no!” Reggie stiffened indignantly, then realized with a flash of anger that he had just defeated his own purpose. “I mean, not that I know of, of course. But it only takes one mistake! Perhaps a girl who entertains romantic notions, thinks to better herself, or—oh, well!” he broke off, not quite sure what to suggest next.
“You think that such a girl might—” Pitt chose just the right phrase “—put her daydreams into words, and inadvertently cause mischief?”
“Quite!” Reggie pounced on it. At last the fellow seemed to have grasped the point. “Exactly! You take my meaning to a nicety. Could be embarrassing, don’t you see?”
“Oh very,” Pitt agreed. “Very difficult to disprove, too,” he smiled guilelessly and Reggie felt sharply uncomfortable. There was a very ugly truth in it.
“There must be laws against that sort of—irresponsibility!” he said hotly. “A decent person must be able to protect himself!”
“Oh, there are,” Pitt affirmed smoothly. “Slander, and all that. Always take it to court.”
“Court! Don’t be preposterous, man! Whoever heard of a man taking his servant girl to court because she said he slept with her! You’d be the laughingstock of society!”
“Probably because in many cases it would be true,” Pitt looked at the bronze-colored brandy in his glass. “And no one would