Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [75]
Finally he left them and retraced his own steps to look for Mundo and begin the miserable task of questioning the closest neighbors to see if any of them had seen or heard anything before the fire, anyone close to Lindsay’s house, any light, any movement.
Murdo was amazed by how tumultuous were his feelings about accompanying Pitt to the Lutterworths’. Away from the immediate heat of the fire his face hurt where the skin was a little scorched, his eyes stung and watered from the smoke, even his throat ached from it, and there was a large and painful blister forming on his hand where he had been struck by a flying cinder. But his body was chilled, and inside the coat Oliphant had found for him, he was shivering and clenched with cold.
He thought of the huge, dark house of the Lutterworths, of the splendor inside it, carpets, pictures, velvet curtains bound with sashes and splayed on the floor like overlong skirts. He had only ever seen such luxury at the Worlinghams’ themselves, and theirs was a lot older, and worn in one or two places. The Lutterworths’ was all new.
But far sharper in his mind, and making him clench his sore hands before he remembered the blister, was the memory of Flora Lutterworth with her wide, dark eyes, so very direct, the proud way she carried her head, chin high. He had noticed her hands especially; he always remarked hands, and hers were the most beautiful he had ever seen, slender, with tapering fingers and perfect nails, not plump and useless like those of so many ladies of quality—like the Misses Worlingham, for example.
The more he thought of Flora the lighter his feet were on the frosty pavement, and the more wildly his stomach lurched at the prospect of Pitt knocking on the front door with its brass lion’s head, until he disturbed the entire household and brought the footman to let them in, furious and full of contempt, so they could stand dripping and filthy on the clean carpet till Lutterworth himself was roused and came down. Then Pitt would ask him a lot of intrusive questions that would all be pointless in the end, and could have waited until morning anyway.
They were actually on the step when he finally spoke.
“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until morning?” he said breathlessly. He was still very wary of Pitt. At times he admired him, at others he was torn by old loyalties, parochial and deep rooted, understanding his colleagues’ resentment and sense of having been undervalued and passed by. But most often he was lost in his own eagerness to solve the case and he thought of nothing but how could he help, what could he contribute to their knowledge. He was gaining a measure of respect for Pitt’s patience and his observation of people. Some of his conclusions had escaped Murdo. He had had no notion how Pitt knew of some of the exchanges between Pascoe and Dalgetty—until Pitt had quite openly recounted how Mrs. Pitt had attended the funeral supper and repeated back: to him all her impressions. In that moment Murdo had ceased to dislike Pitt; it was impossible to dislike a man who was so candid about his deductions. He could easily have pretended a superior ability, and Murdo knew a good many who would have.
Pitt’s reply was unnecessary, both because Murdo knew perfectly well what it would be, and because the front door swung open the moment after Pitt knocked and Alfred Lutterworth himself stood in the lighted hall, hastily but fully dressed. Only his neck without a tie and his ill-matched coat and trousers betrayed that he had already been up. Perhaps he had been one of the many who had crowded around the edge of the fire, anxious, curious, concerned, some offering help—or to see the job done to its bitter conclusion.
“Lindsay’s ’ouse.” He made it a statement rather than a question. “Poor devil. ’E was a good man. What about Shaw—did they get ’im this time?”
“You believe it was Shaw they were after, sir?” Pitt stepped in and Murdo followed him nervously.
Lutterworth closed the door