Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [6]
The footman looked at the ashes and smirked with satisfaction. He turned and went out, closing the polished wooden door with a click. He had not offered to take Pitt’s hat or coat. Five minutes later, he was back, his face pinched with anger. He took Pitt’s outer clothes and ordered him to follow the parlormaid to the library.
In that room a fire was blazing, reflecting bright scarlet in the leather bindings of books and glinting off the polished trophies on the far wall, The general stood behind a great desk littered with inkstands, pens, paperweights, open books, and a miniature field cannon in brass—a perfect replica of a Crimean gun. He had not changed outwardly since Pitt saw him last: the same broad, stiff shoulders, the proud face, the light brown hair perhaps graying a little, although Pitt was not sure. It was a face dominated by strength of bone, and the coloring was incidental.
“Well, Mr. Pitt?” he said formally. He was a man who did not know how to be casual. All his life had been spent observing rules, even in the face of terror or extremity of pain. As a boy soldier, he had stood appalled on the ridge above Balaclava and seen the charge of the Light Brigade. The carnage of the Crimea was indelible in his memory. He knew the men of the “thin red line” who had held against all the might hurled at them by the Russian Army, men who had kept their ground in face of the impossible. Hundreds had fallen, but not a man had broken ranks.
“My footman says you wish to speak to me about a murder? Is that correct?”
Pitt found himself standing a little straighter—not quite to attention, but definitely with his feet together and his head up. “Yes, sir. A week ago there was an extremely unpleasant murder in an area known as the Devil’s Acre, hard by Westminster.”
“I know where it is.” The general frowned. “But surely that was this morning?”
“I’m afraid there was a second one this morning. The first did not make much of a mark in the newspapers. However, I was called in for this one today, and when I heard of the earlier one, naturally I went to see the body.”
“Naturally,” the general’s frown deepened. “What is it you wish of me?”
Now that it came to the point, Pitt felt rather embarrassed at having to ask this man to come and look at the corpse of a dead procurer of whores. What did it matter if it was or was not the man who had been his footman at the time of the Callander Square murders? It could make no real difference now.
He cleared his throat; there was no avoiding it. “I think the man may be someone you knew.”
The general’s eyebrows rose in amazement. “Someone I knew?”
“Yes, sir, I think so.” Pitt explained as briefly as he could the circumstances of Pinchin’s death, and what Inspector Parkins had shown him at the mortuary.
“Very well,” the general said reluctantly, and reached for the bell cord to summon the carriage.
The door opened and, instead of the footman, one of the most striking women Pitt could recall ever having set eyes on came in: Lady Augusta Balantyne. Her face was as fine as bone china, but without any of porcelain’s fragility. Her clothes were magnificent, in the subdued taste of those who have always had money and therefore never felt the compulsion to display it garishly. She stared at Pitt with distaste; her very posture appeared to demand an explanation, not only for his presence in her house but for his very existence.
Pitt refused to be intimidated. “Good afternoon, Lady Augusta,” he said with a slight bow. “I hope I find you well?”
“I am always well, thank you, Mr.—” She could not have forgotten their past meetings; the subject was too bizarre, too painful. “Mr. Pitt.” She arched her eyebrows very slightly, and her eyes were glacial beneath them. “To what unfortunate occurrence do we owe your visit this time?”
“A matter of identification, ma’am,” he answered smoothly. He felt the general relax, even though he could barely see him at the edge of his vision. “A man General Balantyne may be able to name for us, and if so, that might assist us greatly.