Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [126]
He yanked the door open and saw Murdo standing on the step, damp and miserable in the predawn light. The gas lamp a little beyond him to the left gave him the remnants of a halo in the mist.
“I’m sorry sir, but I thought I should tell you—just in case it has to do with it—sir,” he said wretchedly. His words were unexplained, but apparently made sense to him.
“What are you talking about?” Pitt demanded, beginning to hope it was not fire after all.
“The fight, sir.” Murdo shifted from one foot to the other, patently wishing he had not come. What had begun as a good idea now seemed a very bad one. “Mr. Pascoe and Mr. Dalgetty. Mrs. Dalgetty told the station sergeant last night, but I only just learned of it half an hour ago. Seems they didn’t take it serious—”
“What fight?” Pitt pulled his coat off the hook by the door. “If they fought last night couldn’t it have waited till after breakfast?” He scowled. “What do you mean, fight? Did they hurt each other?” He found the idea absurd and faintly amusing. “Does it really matter? They are always quarreling—it seems to be part of their way of life. It seems to give them a kind of validity.”
“No sir.” Murdo looked even more miserable. “They’re planning to fight this morning—at dawn, sir.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Pitt snapped. “Who on earth is going to get out of a warm bed at dawn and plan to have a quarrel? Somebody’s having a very ill considered joke at your expense.” He turned to hang up his coat again.
“No sir,” Murdo said stolidly. “They already had the quarrel, yesterday. The fight is this morning at sunrise—in the field between Highgate Road and the cemetery—with swords.”
Pitt grasped for one more wild instant at the concept of a joke, saw in Murdo’s face that it was not, and lost his temper.
“Hell’s teeth!” he said furiously. “We’ve got two houses in ruins, charred bodies of two brave, kind people—others injured and terrified—and two bloody idiots want to fight a duel over some damnable piece of paper.” He snatched the coat back again and pushed Murdo off the step onto the pavement, slamming the door. The cab Murdo had come in was only a few yards away. “Come on!” Pitt yanked the door open and climbed in. “Highgate Road!” he shouted. “I’ll show these two prancing fools what a real fight is! I’ll arrest them for disturbing the Queen’s peace!”
Murdo scrambled in beside him, falling sideways as the cab jerked into motion and only just catching the door as it swung away. “I don’t suppose they’ll hurt each other,” he said lamely.
“Pity.” Pitt was totally without sympathy. “Serve them both right if they were skewered like puddings!” And he rode the rest of the way in furious silence, Murdo not daring to make any further suggestions.
Eventually the cab came to an abrupt halt and Pitt threw open the door and jumped out, leaving the fare to Murdo to pay, and set off across the path through the field, Highgate Road to his left and the wall of the magnificent cemetery to his right. Three hundred yards ahead of him, paced out on the grass, their figures squat in the distance, were five people.
The solid figure of Quinton Pascoe was standing, feet a little apart, a cape slung over one shoulder, the cold, early sun, clear as springwater, on his shock of white hair. In front of him the dew was heavy on the bent heads of the grass, giving the leaves a strange hint of turquoise as the light refracted.
No more than half a dozen yards away, John Dalgetty, dark-headed, his back to the sun, the shadow masking his face, stood with one arm thrown back and a long object raised as if he were about to charge. Pitt thought at first it was a walking stick. The whole thing was palpably ridiculous. He started to run towards them as fast as his long legs would carry him.
Standing