Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [94]
Charlotte could think of no answer. “You are being unnecessarily rude, Dr. Shaw.” She heard herself mimicking Aunt Vespasia’s tone, and thought for an awful moment that she sounded ridiculous. Then she saw Shaw’s face and the sudden color of shame in his cheeks.
“I apologize, Mrs. Pitt. Of course I am.” He was contrite. “Please forgive me.” He did not mention either his bereavement or the loss of his friend; as an excuse it would have been cheap and beneath him.
She smiled at him with all the warmth and deep empathy that she felt for him, and the very considerable liking. “The matter is forgotten.” She dismissed it charmingly. “Can you help me? I should be so obliged. Her crusade is one in which I should like to become involved myself, and draw others. It would be foolish not to profit from what she has already done. She has earned much admiration.”
Very slowly, wordlessly, Matthew Oliphant sat down again and opened his Bible, upside down.
“Do you?” Shaw frowned in some inner concentration. “I cannot see that it will be much advantage to you. She worked alone, so far as I know. She certainly did not work with the parish ladies, or the vicar.” He sighed. “Not that poor old Clitheridge could fight his way out of a wet paper bag!” He looked at her gravely, a kind of laughing admiration in his eyes she found a trifle discomfitting. One or two rather absurd thoughts flashed through her mind, and she dismissed them hastily, a flush in her cheeks.
“Nevertheless I should like to try,” she insisted.
“Mrs. Pitt,” he said gently. “I can tell you almost nothing, only that Clemency cared very much about reforming the laws. In fact I think she cared more about them than almost anything else.” His face pinched a little. “But if, as I suspect, what you are really seeking is to discover who set fire to my house, you will not accomplish it this way. It is I who was meant to die in that fire, as it was when poor Amos died.”
She was at once fiercely sorry for him and extraordinarily angry.
“Indeed?” Her eyebrows shot up. “How arrogant of you! Do you assume that no one else could possibly be important enough in the scheme of things, and only you arouse enough passion or fear to be murdered?”
It was one sting too much. His temper exploded.
“Clemency was one of the finest women alive. If you had known her, instead of arriving the moment she was dead, you wouldn’t have to be told.” He was leaning forward a little, his shoulders tight and hunched. “She did nothing to incur the kind of insane hatred that burns down houses and risks the lives of everyone in them. For heaven’s sake if you must meddle—at least do it efficiently!”
“I am trying to!” she shouted back. “But you are determined to obstruct me. One would almost think you did not want it solved.” She pointed at him sharply. “You won’t help. You won’t tell the police anything. You stick to your wretched confidences as if they were secrets of state. What do you imagine that we are going to do with them, except catch a murderer?”
He jerked very upright, back straight. “I don’t know any secrets that will catch anyone but a few unfortunate devils who would rather keep their diseases private than have them spread ’round the neighborhood for every able and nosy busybody to turn over and speculate on,” he shouted back. “Dear God—don’t you think I want him caught—whoever he is? He murdered my wife and my best friend—and I may be next.”
“Don’t give yourself airs,” she said coldly, because suddenly her anger had evaporated and she was feeling guilty for being so ruthless, but she did not know how to get out of the situation she had created. “Unless you know who it is, as it appears poor Mr. Lindsay did, you are probably not in danger at all.”
He threw an ashtray into the corner of the room, where it splintered and lay in pieces, then he walked out, slamming the door.
Gracie was still standing on the spot, her eyes like saucers.
Oliphant looked up from his Bible and at last realized it was