Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [46]
“It’s too fashionable.” Charlotte bought what she could afford. “I don’t like following everyone else as if I were a sheep without a mind of my own.”
“Quite right, ma’am,” Gracie said. She also had an excellent mind for the practical. “Get a good color, I always says, and the rest’ll take care of itself, as long as you smiles at people, polite like, but not so friendly as to lead ’em on.”
“Excellent advice.” Charlotte nodded. “But I shall take a little look and see what other people are wearing all the same, so I may not be back for luncheon.”
“Yes, ma’am. Never hurry a new dress.”
Charlotte arrived at Emily’s house to find her sister out at the dressmaker’s herself, and was obliged to wait nearly an hour for her to return.
“How on earth can you go visiting seamstresses on a morning like this?” she demanded as soon as Emily was in the room. “For goodness’ sake, don’t you read the newspapers?”
Emily stopped short; then her face tightened. “You mean about Bertie Astley? Charlotte, there is nothing we can do! Thomas already told you not to meddle.”
“That was before, when it only concerned pimps and that odd doctor. Now it has struck one of our own social circle!”
“You mean my social circle!” Emily closed the door and came over to stand in front of the fire. “Actually I don’t know the Astleys, but I don’t see what good it would do if I did.”
“Oh, don’t be so stupid!” Charlotte lost her patience. “What do you suppose Bertie Astley was doing in the Devil’s Acre in the middle of the night?”
“Visiting a house of pleasure.”
“You mean a whorehouse!”
Emily winced. “Don’t be so coarse, Charlotte. You are beginning to lose your refinement. Thomas is right. You shouldn’t meddle in this affair—it is not our sort of case at all.”
“Not even if Bertie Astley knew Max, and they were involved in something together—with Dr. Pinchin?” Charlotte dangled the most tempting bait she could think of: a really first-class scandal.
Emily was silent for a moment. Fashion could become extremely tedious, removed from anything that really mattered. Who cared whether someone had a subtler color or a lower neckline? Even gossip at this time of the year was distinctly jaded.
“That would be different,” she said. “And very serious. It would mean it was not a lunatic at all, but someone perfectly sane, and very dreadful.”
“Quite.”
Emily shivered as her ideas changed altogether. “Where should we start?”
That was less easy. The practical possibilities open to them were very few. “The Astleys,” Charlotte decided after a moment. “There isn’t anywhere else. We might be able to discover exactly why he was in the Acre, and if he knew either Max or Dr. Pinchin.”
“What does Thomas say?”
Charlotte was perfectly honest. “He is too tired to say anything much. He hardly ever tells me about this case, just the odd word. There’s been a lot of public outcry, and the police are being accused of inefficiency, even corruption.”
That removed the last shred of reluctant conscience from Emily’s mind. “Then we must help. I don’t know the Astleys personally, but I do know he was paying considerable attention to May Woolmer. Everyone has been wondering if she would catch him. She is this Season’s newest beauty. Not my taste, actually. Very handsome, I suppose, in a creamy sort of way, like an extremely well-bred dairymaid, and about as interesting.”
“Oh dear!” Charlotte pictured something in frills, carrying a bucket.
“Oh, there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with her.” Emily backtracked a step or two. “But that in itself is bound to grow tiresome in time. She is as predictable as a jug of milk.”
“Whatever did Bertie Astley want to marry her for? Has she money? Or influence?” Charlotte inquired hopefully.
“None at all. But her manners are perfect, and she is certainly extremely agreeable. And all that rich white flesh is attractive to some men.”
Considering