Callander Square - Anne Perry [8]
Duly at two o’clock she presented herself at the front door of Emily’s London house in Tavistock Square.
The parlormaid knew her and admitted her without asking explanation. She was shown into the withdrawing room where there was a fire lit already and barely a moment later Emily herself came in. She was already dressed for her afternoon visiting; she looked magnificent in pale apple green silk with dark brown velvet ribbons. It must have cost more than Charlotte would have spent on clothes in half a year. Her face was alight with pleasure. She kissed her sister delicately, but with genuine warmth.
“Goodness, if you’re going to take up calling, Charlotte, I shall have to teach you what time to begin! It is not done to arrive before three at the very, very earliest. Ladies of rank, of course, later still.”
“I haven’t come calling,” Charlotte said quickly. “I wouldn’t think of it. I came to ask your help, if you can give it; and of course you are interested.”
Emily’s honey-colored eyebrows rose, but her eyes were bright.
“In what? Not a charity, please!”
Charlotte knew her sister too well to have come on such an errand.
“Of course not,” she said sharply. “A crime—”
“Charlotte!”
“Not to commit, goose; to help, when it is solved.”
Even Emily’s new sophistication could not hide her excitement.
“Can’t we solve it? Can’t we help? If we—”
“It’s not a nice crime, Emily, not a robbery or something clean,” Charlotte said hastily.
“Well, what is it?” Emily did not look disconcerted. Charlotte had forgotten how composed she was, how easily she adapted to the unpleasantnesses of life. Indeed, from the day she had decided she would marry Lord George Ashworth, she had accepted frankly that he had faults and that she might never eradicate more than a few of them, but she made her decision and settled for the bargain as it was. She had never complained. Although in truth Charlotte did not know if she had any cause.
“Goodness, Charlotte,” Emily prodded. “Is it so dreadful you cannot put tongue to it? I never before knew you at a loss for words.”
“No. No, it is merely very sad. Two babies’ bodies were dug up in the garden in the center of Callander Square.”
Surprisingly, Emily was shaken.
“Babies?”
“Yes.”
“But who would want to kill a baby? It’s insane.”
“A servant girl who was unmarried, of course.”
Emily frowned.
“And you want to find out who it was? Why?”
“I don’t want to find out who it was,” Charlotte said impatiently. “But if they were born dead, as seems well possible, perhaps you might be able to find her another position, if she were dismissed—”
Emily stared at her, thoughts flashing in her face almost as transparently as they crossed her mind.
Charlotte waited.
“I know someone who lives in Callander Square,” she said at last. “At least George does—Brandy Balantyne. His father is a general, or something. I’m sure they live in Callander Square. He has a sister, Christina. I shall have George introduce us; it can be arranged, with a little thought. Then I shall call on her,” her voice began to rise with excitement. There was a faint color in her cheeks and a set of determination about her head. “We shall discover the real truth. I can learn things the police never could, because I move in the right circles. They will speak to me. And you can speak to the servants; oh, the higher-up ones, of course—cook and governess, and the like. You won’t tell them you are a policeman’s wife, naturally. We shall begin immediately. As soon as George returns home I shall speak to him and he will arrange it!”
“Emily—”
“What? I thought you wanted my help. We cannot possibly know what is best to do if we do not know the truth. It is always best to know the truth, whether you then decide to dismiss it or to conceal it, or even to forget about it entirely. But if we do not know the truth to begin with, we can make the most unfortunate mistakes.”
Charlotte looked at Emily’s dancing eyes and every shred of common sense