Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [6]
“No I didn’t—” She hesitated. “But Alice, the tweeny, was up, and she told me this morning she saw a ghost outside. But she’s a bit daft, like. I don’t know if she dreamt it.”
“I’ll speak to Alice,” Pitt replied with a smile. “It may be important. Thank you.”
Very slowly she smiled back. “If you’ll wait in the morning room, I’ll tell Mr. Lutterworth as you’re ’ere … sir.”
The room they were shown to was unusually gracious, indicating not merely that the owner had money, but he also had far better taste than perhaps he knew. Pitt had time only to glance at the watercolors on the walls. They were certainly valuable, the sale of any one of them would have fed a family for a decade, but they were also genuinely beautiful, and entirely right in their setting, wooing the eye, not assaulting it.
Alfred Lutterworth was in his late fifties with a fresh complexion, at the moment considerably flushed, and a rim of smooth white hair around a shining head. He was of good height and solidly built, with the assured stance of a self-made man. His face was strong featured. In a gentleman it might have been considered handsome, but there was something both belligerent and uncertain in it that betrayed his sense of not belonging, for all his wealth.
“My maid tells me you’re ’ere about Mrs. Shaw bein’ murdered in that fire,” Lutterworth said with a strong Lancashire accent. “That right? Them girls reads penny dreadfuls in the cupboard under the stairs an’ ’as imaginations like the worst kind o’ novelists.”
“Yes sir, I’m afraid it is true,” Pitt replied. He introduced himself and Murdo, and explained the reason for their questions.
“Bad business,” Lutterworth said grimly. “She was a good woman. Too good for most o’ the likes o’ them ’round ’ere. ’Ceptin’ Maude Dalgetty. She’s another—no side to ’er, none at all. Civil to everyone.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t see a thing. Waited up till I ’eard Flora come ’ome, that were twenty afore midnight. Then I turned the light down and went to sleep sound, until the fire bells woke me. Could ’a marched an army past in the street before that an’ I’d not ’ave ’eard ’em.”
“Flora is Miss Lutterworth?” Pitt asked, although he already knew from the Highgate police’s information.
“That’s right, me daughter. She was out with some friends at a lecture and slide show down at St. Alban’s Road. That’s just south of ’ere, beyond the church.”
Murdo stiffened to attention.
“Did she walk home, sir?” Pitt asked.
“It’s only a few steps.” Lutterworth’s deep-set, rather good eyes regarded Pitt sharply, expecting criticism. “She’s a healthy lass.”
“I would like to ask her if she saw anything.” Pitt kept his voice level. “Women can be very observant.”
“You mean nosey,” Lutterworth agreed ruefully. “Aye. My late wife, God rest ’er, noticed an ’undred things about folk I never did. An’ she was right, nine times out o’ ten.” For a moment his memory was so clear it obliterated the police in his house or the smell of water on burnt brick and wood still acrid in the air, in spite of the closed windows. From the momentary softness in his eyes and the half smile on his lips they bore nothing but sweetness. Then he recalled the present. “Aye—if you want to.” He reached over to the mantel and pulled the knob of the bell set on the wall. It was porcelain, and painted with miniature flowers. An instant later the parlormaid appeared at the door.
“Tell Miss Flora as I want ’er, Polly,” he ordered. “To speak to the police.”
“Yes sir.” And she departed hastily, whisking her skirts around the door as she closed it again.
“Uppity, that lass,” Lutterworth said under his breath. “Got opinions; but she’s ’andsome enough, and that’s what parlormaids ’as to be. And I suppose one can’t blame ’er.”
Flora Lutterworth must have been impelled as much by curiosity as her servants, because she came obediently even though her high chin and refusal to meet her father’s eyes, coupled with a fire in her cheeks equal to his, suggested they had