Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [120]
“Yes, sir.”
By the time they were back in Tortoise Lane it was fifteen minutes to nine. It was still a clear evening, and at this high-summer time of the year there was another hour of daylight and twenty minutes beyond that of fading dusk, while the color slowly ebbed away and the shadows joined themselves together into a solidity broken only by the gas lamps on the main streets and the occasional lantern or candle in St. Giles.
They stopped outside number 3 and Pitt went in without knocking. There was no sense of triumph; he felt only a vindictiveness uncharacteristic of him. He strode along the corridor to Mrs. Mapes’s sitting room and threw the door open. The constable was still standing, as uncomfortable as when he had left, and Mrs. Mapes was sitting in her own chair, her taffeta skirt spread round her, her black ringlets shining and a satisfied smile on her mouth.
“Well, Mr. Pitt?” she said boldly. “Wot now, eh? Yer goin’ ter stand ’ere all night?”
“No, none of us are going to be here all night,” he replied. “In fact, I doubt if we shall ever be here again. Clarabelle Mapes, I arrest you for the murder of Prudence Wilson when she came to collect her child, whom you had sold.”
For an instant she was still prepared to brazen it out.
“Why? Why should I kill ’er on purpose? Don’t make no sense!”
“Because she threatened to make your trade public!” he said bitterly. “You’ve killed too many babies entrusted to you, rather than feed them. You’d go out of business if that was known.”
This time she was shaken; sweat stood out on her upper lip and across her brow. Her skin was suddenly gray as the blood drained from it.
“Right, constable,” Pitt commanded. “Bring her along.” He turned and went out of the door again and along the passage to the kitchens. “Constable Wyman! I’ll send someone to relieve you. Get these children cared for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll have to inform the parish authorities.”
“You takin’ ’er away, sir?”
“Yes—for murder. She’ll not be back—”
Suddenly there was a cry from the front of the house, the thud of a body landing heavily, and then yells of outrage. Pitt spun on his heel and charged out.
In the passageway the constable was scrambling to his feet, dusty and with rushes sticking to him, his helmet in his hand, and through the open door were disappearing the coattails of the sergeant.
“She’s away!” the constable shouted furiously. “She ’it me!” He ran out with Pitt on his heels and fast overtaking him.
Already twenty yards down Tortoise Lane Clarabelle Mapes was running with surprising fleetness for one so immensely stout. Pitt ignored the sergeant and sprinted as hard as he could after her, scattering into the gutter an old woman with a bundle of rags and a coster returning for his supper. If he lost her now he might never get her back; the warrens and mazes of the London slums could hide a fugitive for years, if they were cunning enough, and had enough to lose by capture.
There was no point in shouting; it would only waste his breath. No one stopped a thief in St. Giles. She was still moving with the speed of terror and even as he watched she turned sharply and disappeared into an open doorway. Had he been ten yards further off he could not have told which one. He charged in after her, knocking into an old man and seeing him collapse with a shower of abuse, but he had no feeling left for anyone but the gross figure of Clarabelle Mapes, black curls flying, taffeta skirts like brilliant overblown sails. He followed her through a room he dimly saw was filled with people bent over a table, ran along a dark passage where his feet echoed, and out into the beer-sour space of a sawdust-strewn taproom.
She swung round and glared at him, her black eyes venomous, and knocked aside a serving girl, sending her sprawling onto the floor, covered in the ale she had been carrying. Pitt was forced to hesitate to avoid falling over her, his feet entangled in her thrusting legs. As