Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [107]
“You set a good table, Mrs. Mapes,” he began cautiously. “Mr. Mapes is a fortunate man.”
“There ain’t no Mr. Mapes these ten years.” She looked at him with brightening eyes. Then she caught sight of the neat mending on his jacket sleeves and breathed in sharply, pinching her nostrils. That was a wife’s work, if ever she saw it. “Died o’ the flux, ’e did. But ’e thought well o’ me when ’e was ’ere.”
“My mistake,” Pitt said immediately. “I thought with all the children ...”
Her eyes were hard and her hand tightened very slightly in her fat lap.
“I’m a soft ’earted woman, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a guarded smile. “Takes in all sorts to care fer ’em, when they ain’t got nobody. Looks after ’em fer neighbors an’ cousins an’ the like. Always carin’ fer somebody, I am. All Tortoise Lane’ll tell yer that, if they’re honest.”
“How commendable.” Pitt could not keep all the sarcasm out of his voice, although he tried; he was far from finished with Mrs. Mapes. There was the beginning of an ugly idea in his mind. “Mr. Mapes must have left you very well provided for that you have the means and the time to be so charitable.”
Her chin came up, and her smile widened, showing hard, yellow-white teeth. “That’s right, Mr. Pitt,” she agreed. “Thought the world o’ me, did Mr. Mapes.”
Pitt put down his cup and remained silent for a moment, unable to think of another line of attack. She was no longer afraid and he could see it in every curve of her strong, bulging body. He could smell it in the hot air.
“Good o’ yer ter come all this way ter tell me o’ Mrs. March’s death, Mr. Pitt.” She was preparing to dismiss him. Time was short; he had no cause to search the premises, and what was he to look for even if he returned with men and a warrant?
Then a lie occurred to him that might work. Forget her fear, try the paramount urge in her character—greed.
“No more than my duty, Mrs. Mapes,” he replied with only the barest faltering. Please heaven the Metropolitan Police would honor the debt he was about to contract. “Mrs. March remembered you in her will, for—services rendered. You would be that Clarabelle Mapes, wouldn’t you?”
The caution fighting avarice in her face was grotesquely comical, and he waited without interruption while she sought a compromise with herself. She let out her breath in a huge, gusty sigh. Her eyes gleamed.
“Very good of ’er, I’m sure.”
“You are the right person?” he persisted. “You performed some service for her?”
But she was not outmaneuvered so easily—she had already seen that trap. “Private,” she said, staring at him boldly. “Between ladies, as I’m sure yer’ll unnerstand, and not pry, as would be indelicate.”
He allowed a look of doubt to cross his face. “I have a responsibility—”
“Yer got my haddress, or yer wouldn’t be ’ere,” she pointed out. “There ain’t no Clarabelle Mapes ’ere but me. I gotta be the right one, ain’t I? An’ I can prove ’oo I am, never you fear. Wot I done forrer ain’t none o’ your business. Mighta bin no more’n a kind word when she needed it.”
“In Tortoise Lane?” Pitt smiled back dourly.
“I ain’t always bin in Tortoise Lane,” she said, instantly regretting it. She knew she had made a mistake, and it was marked in the sudden slackness in her face, an alteration in the way she sat. “I goes out sometimes!” she said, trying to make good the damage.
“Not to Cardington Crescent, you don’t.” His confidence was growing, although he still had no idea towards what end. “And you’ve been here for some time.” He looked about him. “Certainly since she wrote to you. As you pointed out, she had this house in her address book.”
This time she really did pale; the color blanched from her predatory face leaving the rouge standing on her cheeks, the spot on the left cheek an inch higher than the spot on the right. She said nothing.
Pitt stood up. “I’ll see the rest of the house,” he announced, and went to the door before she could stop him. He opened it and went out into the dogleg of the passage, walking swiftly towards the kitchens, away from the front door. One of the girls he had seen