Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [38]
He left the sentence hanging in the air, hoping it would be unnecessary to press any further.
Lindsay was too intelligent to need or wish for any more prompting. His eyes wandered over the relics here in the room. Perhaps he was thinking of other lands, other peoples with the same passions, less colored and confused by the masks of civilization.
“Stephen has certainly made enemies,” he said quietly. “People of strong convictions usually do, especially if they are as articulate about them as he is. I am afraid he has little patience with fools, and even less with hypocrites—of which this society provides a great many, in one form or another.” He shook his head. A coal settled in the fire with a shower of sparks. “The more we think we are sophisticated sometimes the sillier we get—and certainly the more idle people there are with nothing to fill their minds except making moral rules for everyone else, the more hypocrisy there is as to who keeps them and who doesn’t.”
Pitt envisioned a savage society in the sun on vast plains with the flat-topped trees he had seen in paintings, and grass huts, drum music and imprisoning heat—a culture that had not changed since memory’s record began. What had Lindsay done there, how had he lived? Had he taken an African wife, and loved her? What had brought him back to Highgate on the outskirts of London and the heart of the Empire with its white gloves, carriages, engraved calling cards, gas lamps, maids in starched aprons, little old ladies, portraits of bishops, stained-glass windows—and murder?
“Whom in particular may he have offended?” He looked at Lindsay curiously.
Lindsay’s face was suddenly wreathed in smiles. “Good heavens, man—everyone. Celeste and Angeline think he failed to treat Theophilus with proper attention, and that if he had not, the old fool would still be alive—”
“And would he?”
Lindsay’s eyebrows shot up. “God knows. I doubt it. What can you do for an apoplectic seizure? He couldn’t sit ’round the clock with him.”
“Who else?”
“Alfred Lutterworth thinks Flora is enamored of him—which she may well be. She’s in and out of the house often enough, and sees Stephen on her own, out of normal surgery hours. She may imagine other people don’t know—but they most certainly do. Lutterworth thinks Stephen is seducing her with an eye to the money, of which there is a very great deal.” The bland look of slight amusement on his face made Pitt think that the idea of Shaw murdering his wife because she stood in the way of such a marriage had not crossed his mind. His weathered face, so lined it reflected every expression, was touched with pity and a shadow of something like contempt, without its cruelty—but there was no fear in it.
“And of course Lally Clitheridge is appalled by his opinions,” Lindsay went on, his smile broadening. “And fascinated by his vitality. He is ten times the man poor old Hector is, or ever will be. Prudence Hatch is fond of him—and frightened of him—for some reason I haven’t discovered. Josiah can’t abide him for a dozen reasons that are inherent in his nature—and Stephen’s. Quinton Pascoe, who sells beautiful and romantic books, reviews them, and quite genuinely loves them, thinks Stephen is an irresponsible iconoclast—because he supports John Dalgetty and his avant-garde views of literature, or at least he supports his freedom to express them, regardless of whom they offend.”
“Do they offend people?” Pitt asked, curious for himself as well as for any importance it might have. Surely no literary disapproval could be powerful enough to motivate murder? Ill temper, dislike, contempt, but surely only a madman kills over a matter of taste?
“Grossly.” Lindsay noted Pitt’s skepticism and there was a light of irony in his own eyes. “You have to understand Pascoe and Dalgetty. Ideals, the expression of thought and the arts of creation and communication are their lives.” He shrugged. “But you asked me who hated Stephen from time to time—not who I thought would actually set fire to his house with the intent of burning him to death. If I knew anyone