Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [24]
“Slum owners who charge exorbitant rents for filthy and crowded tenements—Clemency Shaw wanted to make them answerable to public opinion by not being able to be anonymous behind rent collectors and companies and things.”
He was silent for so long she began to wonder if he had heard her.
“Jack?”
“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes we will—but together. You cannot do anything alone, Emily. We shall be threatening some very powerful people—there are millions of pounds—you’d be surprised how many fortunes are seated in St. Giles and the Devil’s Acre—and the misery there.”
She smiled very slightly; the thought was ugly and there flashed through her mind the faces of people she had known in her days with George. She had accepted them easily then; it never occurred to her to wonder where their incomes were generated. Certain people simply had money; it was a state of affairs that had always existed. Now she was less innocent, and it was not a comfortable feeling.
Jack Was still holding her. He brushed one finger gently over her forehead, pushing back a wisp of hair.
“Still want to go on?” he asked.
She was startled how clearly he had understood her thoughts, and the twinges of both guilt and apprehension they had aroused.
“Of course.” She did not move; it was extremely pleasant remaining in his arms. “There is no possible way to retreat now. What should I say to Great-Aunt Vespasia, or Charlotte—and more important, what should I say to myself?”
His smile widened and he kissed her gently, and then gradually with passion.
When she thought about money again, it was a faraway thing to be dealt with another day, real and important then, but for now there were other, better things.
3
BECAUSE PITT had been sent for from the Bow Street station, and did not belong to Highgate, he reported the incident to his own superior officer, a man whom he both respected for his professional ability and liked for his candor and lack of pretension. Perhaps because Drummond was a gentleman by birth and had sufficient financial means not to have to concern himself with it, he did not feel the compulsion to prove his position.
He greeted Pitt with pleasure, interest quickening his lean face.
“Well?” he asked, standing up from his desk, not as a courtesy, which would have been absurd to a junior, even though he had offered Pitt considerable promotion. Pitt had declined it, because although he could dearly have used the money, he would have hated being behind a desk directing other men in the investigations. He wanted to see the people, watch faces, hear the inflections of a voice, the gestures and movements of the body. It was people who gave him both his pleasure and his pain, and the reality of his work. To give instructions to others and shuffle reports would rob him of the chance to exercise the real skills he possessed. To decline it had been Charlotte’s decision as well as his, made because she knew him well enough to understand his happiness, and prefer it to the extra salary. It was one of those rarely-spoken-of generosities which deepened his sense of sharing with her and the knowledge that her commitment was still one of love.
Micah Drummond was regarding him with curiosity.
“Arson,” Pitt replied. “I have looked through the physical evidence, such as it is, and there seems no doubt. There is too little left of the body to learn anything useful, but from the remains of the building the firemen say at least four separate fires were started, so whoever it was was determined to succeed.”
Drummond winced and his eyes reflected his distress.
“And you say it was a woman who was found?”
“There seems little doubt it was a Mrs. Clemency Shaw.” And he explained what they had learned from the brief investigations in the community of the immediate area, and from the Highgate police, including their natural inquiry into all the members of the small crowd which had turned out in the alarm and commotion to stand huddled in the background and stare. Perhaps among the sympathizers and offerers of help there