Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [110]
And yet a spirit burned inside him. In the face of other people’s agony Clitheridge was totally inadequate, graceless, inarticulate and left on the outside untouched. Oliphant’s compassion robbed him of awkwardness because he felt the pain as if it were his own and pity taught his tongue.
The answer was clear. Clemency had loved him just as much as he had loved her, and been equally unable to show it even in the slightest way, except when she was dead to leave him something of infinite value to her, and yet which would not seem so very remarkable that it would hurt his reputation. A Bible, not a painting or an ornament or some other article which would betray an unseemly emotion, just a Bible—to the curate. Only those who had seen it would know—and perhaps that would be the solicitor—and Stephen Shaw.
Pitt was staring at her across the table.
“Charlotte?”
She looked up at him, smiling a very little, suddenly a tightness in her throat.
“He loved her too, you know,” she said, swallowing hard. “I realized that when he was helping me to follow Bessie Jones and those awful houses. He knew the way she went.”
Pitt put the cup down and reached to take her hands, gently, holding them and touching her fingers one by one. There was no need to say anything else, and he did hot wish to.
In fact it was the following morning, just before he left, that he told her the other thing that had so troubled him. He was tying up his boots at the front door and she was holding his coat.
“The lawyers have sorted the estate already. It’s quite simple. There is no money—only a couple of hundred pounds left.”
“What?” She felt she must have misunderstood him.
He straightened up and she helped him on with the coat.
“There is no money left,” he repeated. “All the Worlingham money she inherited is gone, except about two hundred and fourteen pounds and fifteen shillings.”
“But I thought there was a lot—I mean, wasn’t Theophilus rich?”
“Extremely. And all of it went to his two daughters, Prudence Hatch and Clemency Shaw. But Clemency has none left.”
There was one ugly thought which she had to speak because it would haunt her mind anyway. “Did Shaw spend it?”
“No—the solicitor says definitely not. Clemency herself paid huge drafts to all kinds of people—individuals and societies.”
“Whatever for?” said Charlotte, although the beginning of an idea was plain in her mind, as she could see that it was in his also. “Housing reform?”
“Yes—most of it that the solicitor knew about, but there is a great deal he cannot trace—to individuals he has never heard of.”
“Are you going to find them?”
“Of course. Although I don’t think it has anything to do with the fire. I still believe that was intended for Shaw, although I haven’t even the beginning of proof as to why.”
“And Amos Lindsay?”
He shrugged. “Because he knew, or guessed, who was responsible; perhaps from something Shaw said, without realizing its significance himself. Or even uglier and perhaps more likely, whoever it is is still after Shaw, and that fire was a failed attempt to kill him also.” He pulled his muffler off the hook and put it around his neck, the ends hanging loosely. “And of course it is still not impossible Shaw set them himself: the first to kill Clemency, the second to kill Lindsay because in some way he had betrayed himself to him—or feared he had.”
“That’s vile!” she said fiercely. “After Lindsay had been his closest friend. And why? Why should Shaw murder Clemency? You just said there