Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [20]
Somerset Carlisle was at home in his study working on papers of some political importance, and for anyone less than Vespasia his footman would politely have refused them entrance. However, he had an appreciation for the dramatic and a knowledge of his master’s past crusades in one cause or another, and he was quite aware that Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould had frequently been involved in them one way or another; indeed she was an effective ally for whom he had great regard.
Accordingly he conducted all three ladies to the study door and knocked before opening it and announcing their presence.
Somerset Carlisle was not young, nor yet middle-aged; quite possibly he never would be, but would pass directly from where he was now into a wiry and unmellowed old age. He was full of nervous energy, his winged eyebrows and thin, mercurial face never seemed completely in repose.
His study reflected his nature. It was full of books on all manner of subjects, both for his work and for his wide personal interests. The few spaces on the walls were crammed with paintings and curios, beautiful, and probably of financial value. The deep Georgian windows shed excellent light, and for winter or evening work there were several gas brackets both on the walls and pendant from the ceiling. A long-legged marmalade cat was stretched out in ecstatic sleep in the best chair in front of the fire. The desk itself was piled with papers in no imaginable sort of order.
Somerset Carlisle put his pen into the stand and rose to greet them with obvious delight, coming around the desk, knocking off a pile of letters and ignoring them completely as they cascaded to the floor. The cat did not stir.
He took the immaculately gloved hand that Vespasia offered him.
“Lady Cumming-Gould. How very nice to see you.” He met her eyes with a spark of humor. “No doubt you have some urgent injustice to fight, or you would not have come without warning. Lady Ashworth—and Mrs. Pitt—now I know something is afoot! Please sit down. I—” He looked around for some place of comfort to offer them, and failed. Gently he removed the cat and placed it on the seat of his own chair behind the desk. It stretched luxuriously and resettled itself.
Vespasia took the chair and Charlotte and Emily sat on the upright chairs opposite. Carlisle remained standing. No one bothered to correct him that Emily was now plain Mrs. Jack Radley. There was time enough for that later.
Vespasia came to the point quickly.
“A woman has died in a fire which was not accidental. We know little other than that, except that her name was Clemency Shaw—” She stopped, seeing the look of distress that had touched his face the moment she said the name. “You knew her?”
“Yes—mostly by repute,” he answered, his voice low, his eyes searching their faces, seeing the surprise and the heightened tension as he spoke. “I only met her twice. She was a quiet woman, still uncertain of how best to achieve her aims and unused to battling the intricacies of civil law, but there was an intense dedication in her and an honesty I admired very much. I believe she cared for the reforms she desired more than her own dignity or the opinions of her friends or acquaintances. I am truly grieved that she is dead. Have you no idea how it happened?” The last question he addressed to Charlotte. He had known Pitt for many years, in fact since he himself had been involved in a bizarre murder.
“It was arson,” she replied. “She was at home because a trip into town had been unexpectedly canceled, and her husband was out on a medical emergency. Otherwise he would have died, and not she.”
“So her death was accidental.” He made it almost a question, but not quite.
“Someone might have been watching and known.” Charlotte would not leave it so quickly. “What was she fighting for—what reforms? Who would want her to fail?”
Carlisle smiled bitterly. “Almost anyone who has invested in slum property and raked in exorbitant rents for letting it to whole families a room at a time, sometimes