Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [17]
He hailed a hansom and gave the Staffords’ home address in Bruton Street, off Berkeley Square, which he had obtained from the desk sergeant in Bow Street. He sat back as the cab bowled west along Long Acre, and began to contemplate the questions to which he must find answers.
It was an unpleasant thought that if the judge’s death had nothing to do with the Blaine/Godman case, then since Stafford was not presently involved in any other plea, it might prove to be a personal matter, a private vengeance or fear, very probably to do with his family—his widow—perhaps money.
Tomorrow he would know more, at least if Sutherland found opium in the body and in the flask. But if Stafford had in fact died of some disease no one else had been aware of, if his private physician could offer some explanation, then he could happily forget the whole matter. But it was a hope that hovered beyond the edge of his mind, not a solution he expected.
The Staffords’ house was easy to find. There were dark wreaths hung on the door and black crepes over the drawn curtains on the windows. A pale-faced maid in a hat and coat came up the areaway steps and set out along the footpath on some task, and a footman with a black armband carried a coal scuttle inside and closed the door. It was a house conspicuously in mourning.
Pitt alighted, paid the cabby, and went to the front door.
“Yes sir?” the answering parlormaid asked dubiously. She regarded Pitt with disfavor. He looked like a peddler at first glance, except that he carried nothing to sell. But there was a confidence in his manner, even an arrogance, which belied any attempt to ingratiate. She was flustered and overwhelmed with the drama of events. The housemaids were all in tears, the cook had fainted twice, the butler was more than a trifle maudlin, after a long time in his own pantry with the cellar keys, and Mr. Stafford’s valet looked as if he had seen a ghost.
“I am sorry to disturb Mrs. Stafford at such a time,” Pitt said with all the charm he could muster, which was considerable. “But I require to ask her a few questions about events last night, in order that everything may be settled as quickly and decently as possible. Will you please ask her if she will see me.” He fished in his pocket and presented her with one of his cards, an indulgence which had rewarded him many times.
The maid took it, reading it for his occupation and not finding it. She put it on the silver tray used for such purposes and told him to wait while she delivered his enquiry.
He was not long in the dim hallway with its hastily placed crepes before the maid returned to conduct him to the room towards the back of the house where Juniper Stafford received him. It was expensively decorated in warm colors, with stenciled patterns around the doors lending an individual touch. A carved chaise longue had a woven rug draped on it in reds and plums, and no one had changed the bowl of late chrysanthemums on the polished table.
Juniper looked very tired this morning, and shocked, as if the realization of her husband’s death was beginning to come to her, with all the changes in her life that it would mean. In the harsher daylight her skin looked papery and the tiny natural blemishes more pronounced, but she was still a handsome woman with excellent features and very fine dark eyes. Today she was dressed in unrelieved black, but the excellence of the cut, the perfect drape of the fabrics across the hips and the swath of the bustle made it a garment of fashion, and most becoming.
“Good morning, Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said formally. “I am truly sorry to disturb you again so soon, but there were questions I could not ask you last night.”
“Of course,” she