Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [105]
“Yeah!” The girl swallowed, put the knife in her pocket, and wiped her hands on her apron. “Yer’d better come in.” Turning, she led the way through a dark, rush-matted corridor, past narrow stairs on which sat a child of about seven, nursing a baby and holding by the hand an infant just old enough to stand. But large families were common; what was less so was that so many within a few years of each other should have survived. Infant mortality was enormous.
The girl knocked on the last door, at the very end of the passage before it turned towards the huge kitchens he could see a dozen yards away.
“Come!” a throaty voice called from inside.
“Thank you.” Pitt dismissed the girl and pulled on the handle. It opened easily and soundlessly into a sitting room that was almost a parody of old Mrs. March’s boudoir. It was doubly startling for its contrast with the threadbare outside and the other rooms Pitt had glimpsed as he passed, and for its joke of familiarity.
The windows looked onto the blind walls of an alley rather than the March’s gracious garden, but it was curtained in a similar hectic pink, faded even by this mean and dirt-filtered light. Probably the curtains had hung unmoved for years. The mantel was draped as well, although in smarter houses fashion had freed the beauty of fine wood or stone from such ornate and destructive prudery. A piano was similarly covered, and every table was bristling with photographs. Lamp shades were fringed and knotted and plastered with mottoes; Home, Sweet Home, God Sees All, and I Love You, Mother.
Seated on the largest pink armchair was a woman of ample, fiercely corseted bosom and prodigious hips, swathed with a dress that on a woman half the size would really have been quite handsome. She had stubby, fat hands with strong fingers, and on seeing Pitt they flew to her face in a gesture of surprise. Her black hair was thick, her black eyes large and shining, her nose and mouth predatory.
“Mrs. Mapes?” Pitt asked civilly.
She waved him to the pink sofa opposite her, the seat worn where countless others had sat.
“That’s me,” she agreed. “An’ ’oo are you, sir?”
“Thomas Pitt, ma’am.” He did not yet intend to tell her his office. Policemen were not welcome in places like St. Giles, and if she had some illegal occupation then she would do everything to hide it, probably successfully. He was in hostile territory, and he knew it.
She regarded him with an experienced eye, seeing immediately that he had little money; his shirt was ordinary and far from new, his boots were mended. But his jacket, in spite of its worn elbows and cuffs, had originally been of fine cut, and his speech was excellent. He had taken his lessons with the son of the estate on which his father worked and never lost the timbre or the diction. She summed him up as a gentleman on hard times, but still considerably better off than herself, and perhaps with prospects.
“Well, Mr. Pitt, wot can I do for yer? This ain’t where you live, so wot you ’ere for?”
“I was given your address by a Mrs. Sybilla March.”
Her black eyes narrowed. “Was yer now? Well, Mr. Pitt, me business is confidential, like. I’m sure yer understands that.”
“I take it for granted, Mrs. Mapes.” He was hoping that if he continued he would learn something from her, however tenuous, that he might pursue. Even a clue as to Mrs. Mapes’s occupation might yield something about Sybilla he had not known. At least she had not denied the acquaintance.
“Course yer do!” she agreed heartily. “Or yer wouldn’t be ’ere yerself, eh?” She laughed, a rich gurgle in her throat, and looked at him archly.
Pitt could not remember ever having been quite so revolted. He forced an answering smile that must have been sickly.
“’Ave a cup o’tea, wiv a drop o’ suffin?” she invited. “’Ere!” She reached for a grubby bellpull. “I could do wiv one meself. An’ it’s only perlite ter keep yer company.”
Pitt had not had time to decline when the door opened and yet another girl peered round, eyes wide, face gaunt. This one might have been fifteen.
“Yes, Mrs.