Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [110]
“This is w’ere I brung ’em,” Nellie said, looking up at Pitt anxiously. “I swear it, mister.”
“Who did you give them to?” he asked, staring round and seeing no one.
“Mr. Wigge.” She pointed to the steps down to the dark, gaping cellar.
“Come and show me,” he requested, “please.”
Reluctantly she picked her way through the rubbish to the edge of the stair, descending slowly. At the bottom she turned and knocked on the wooden door which stood open on rusted hinges. Her hands made hardly any sound.
“Mr. Wigge? Sir?”
A scrawny old man appeared almost immediately, clad in a filthy jacket, pockets torn by the weight of the junk he had piled in them over the years, trousers splashed with all manner of ordure. He wore fingerless mittens on his hands in spite of the warmth of the day, and on his thin, uncut hair was a shiny black stovepipe hat, completely unmarked. It might have left the hatter’s shop an hour since.
His lantern-jawed face split in an anticipatory leer, and he squinted up at Pitt.
“Mr. Wigge?” Pitt inquired.
The old man bowed jerkily; it was an affectation of gentility he liked. “Septimus Wigge at your service, sir. ’Ow may I ’elp yer? I got a lovely brass bedstead. I got a dancin’ lady in real porcelain.”
“I’ll come in and take a look.” Pitt had a premonition of disappointment. If Clarabelle Mapes had simply been selling off household goods, her own or others’, to raise a little money, it was not worth pursuing. And yet the knots had been peculiar, identical to those on that terrible parcel in the churchyard and all the others.
What should he do about Nellie? If he sent her back to Tortoise Lane would she tell Mrs. Mapes what he had asked her, and where she had taken him? He did not hold much hope that she would hold out against Mrs. Mapes’s inquisition if she were suspicious. Nellie lived in a cocoon of hunger and fear.
And yet if he kept her with him, what could he do with her? Tortoise Lane was her home—probably all she knew. He had already committed her. She knew about the parcels, and if Clarabelle Mapes had tied those bloody and dreadful ones as well as the innocent one, Nellie’s life was imperiled if she returned and told how she had led Pitt to Septimus Wigge. He had to keep her.
“Nellie, come in with me and help me look.”
“I daren’t, mister.” She shook her head. “I got chores. I’ll be in trouble if I don’t get ’ome in time. Mrs. Mapes’ll be that cross wi’ me.”
“Not if you go back with the money from Mrs. March,” he argued. “She’s in a hurry for that.”
Nellie looked doubtful. She was more afraid of the immediate than the problematical; her imagination did not stretch that far.
Pitt did not have time to argue. She was used to obedience.
“It’s an order, Nellie,” he said briskly. “You stay with me. Mrs. Mapes will be angry if her money is delayed.” He turned to the waiting man.”Now, Mr. Wigge, I’ll take a look at these brass beds of yours.”
“Very reasonable, sir, very reasonable.” Wigge turned and led the way inside the cellar. It was larger than Pitt had expected, higher-ceilinged and stretching back into the recesses of the building. Against one wall there was a large furnace with a metal door hanging open sending heat out into the stone spaces, and in spite of the mildness of the day, its warmth was agreeable under the ground level, where there was no sunlight.
The old man showed him several fine brass bedsteads, a few pieces of quite good china, and several other odds and ends in which Pitt affected to be interested, all the time peering and searching, finding nothing beyond what might or might not be stolen goods. But while haggling with him over a small green glass vase he eventually bought for Charlotte, he did make a very close observation of Mr. Septimus Wigge himself. By the time he left, still followed by Nellie,