Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [32]
It was not a long journey and Pitt had little time to think. His mind was in turmoil, all rationality drowned in grief for Emily and a surprising sense of loss for himself. He had liked George; there was an openness about him, a generosity of thought, a pleasure in life. Who on earth would want to kill George? A chance attack in the street he could have understood, even a quarrel in some gentleman’s club or at a sporting game which had gotten out of hand. But this was in a town house with his own family!
Why was the cab going so slowly? It was taking forever, and yet when they were there he was not ready.
“Mr. Pitt, sir?” Stripe prompted.
“Yes.” He climbed out and stood on the hot pavement in front of the magnificent facade of Cardington Crescent; the Georgian windows perfectly proportioned, three panes across, four down, the ashlar stone, the simple architraves and the handsome door. It looked like everything that was comfortable and centuries secure. It made it worse: there was nothing left inviolable anymore.
Stripe was standing beside him, waiting for him to move.
“Yes,” he repeated. He payed the cabbie and walked up to the front door, to Stripe’s acute discomfort. Police went to the tradesmen’s entrance. But that was something Pitt had always refused to do, though Stripe did not know that yet. He had only dealt with the criminal world of the tenements and rookeries, rat-infested labyrinths of the slums like St. Giles, a stone’s throw from Bloomsbury, or the petty bourgeoisie, clerks and shopkeepers, artisans grasping after respectability but boasting only one street entrance all the same.
Pitt pulled the bell, and a moment later the butler stood in the doorway, grave and calm. Of course. Vespasia would have told him that Pitt never went to the back. He regarded Pitt’s height, his unruly hair, the bulging pockets, and reached his conclusion immediately.
“Inspector Pitt? Please come in, and if you will wait in the morning room, Mr. March will see you, sir.”
“Thank you. But I will have Constable Stripe go to the servants’ hall and begin inquiries there, if you don’t mind.”
The butler hesitated for a moment, but realized the inevitability of it. “I will accompany him,” he said carefully, making sure they both realized that the servants were his responsibility and he intended to discharge it to the full.
“Of course,” Pitt agreed with a nod.
“Then if you will come this way.” He turned and led Pitt across the fine, rather ornate hallway and into a heavily furnished room; masculine, hide-covered armchairs by a rosewood desk, Japanese lacquer tables in startling reds and blacks, and an array of Indian weapons, relics of some ancestor’s service to queen and Empire, displayed haphazardly on the walls opposite a Chinese silk screen.
Here, rather awkwardly, the butler hesitated, confused as to how he should deal with a policeman in the front of the house, and eventually left him without saying anything further. He must retrieve Stripe from the entrance and conduct him to the servants’ hall, making sure he did not frighten any of the younger girls, who were no more than thirteen or fourteen, and that the staff acquitted themselves honorably and in no way spoke out of turn.
Pitt remained standing. The room was like many he had seen before, typical of its station and period, except that it contained an unusual clash of styles, as if there were at least three distinct personalities whose wills had met in the decisions of taste: at a guess, a robust, opinionated man, a woman of some cultural daring, and a lover of tradition and family heritage.
The door opened again and Eustace March came in. He was a vigorous, florid man in his mid fifties, at this moment torn by profoundly conflicting emotions and forced into a role he was unused to.
“Good afternoon, er—”
“Pitt.”
“Good