Seven Dials - Anne Perry [76]
Therefore she was pleased to see Tellman on the evening of the third day after Pitt had left. Gracie answered the back door to find him standing there looking tired and cold, his face pinched from the wind. He came in at her invitation, stamping his feet a little on the scullery floor as if to get rid of water, although it was not raining at the moment, but it had been. He took off his coat.
“Good evening, Mrs. Pitt,” he said, looking at Charlotte anxiously, as if somehow it was still his concern to care for her in Pitt’s absence. The old habit died hard, as did the pretense that he did not care.
“Good evening, Inspector,” she replied, amusement in her smile as well as pleasure to see him. She gave him his title intentionally. She had never used his Christian name. She was not even sure if Gracie had more than the odd, highly informal time. “Come in and have a cup of tea,” she invited him. “You look cold. Have you had any supper?”
“Not yet,” he replied, pulling out one of the hard-backed chairs and sitting down.
“I’ll get yer summink,” Gracie said quickly, putting the kettle onto the hob as she spoke. “In’t got nuthin’ left over for yer, though, ’ceptin’ cold mutton an’ bubble an’ squeak—’ow’s that?”
“Very good, thank you,” Tellman said without pleasure, glancing at Charlotte to make sure that was acceptable to her also.
“Of course,” she agreed quickly. “Have you heard something about Martin Garvie?”
He looked across at her, then at Gracie, his face full of pity and a gentleness exaggerated by the gaslight’s soft glow catching the angles of his high cheekbones and hollow cheeks.
“No,” he admitted. “And I’ve looked every way I can without police authority.” The urgency in his voice made it impossible to argue with him.
“Wot did yer get, then?” Gracie asked, putting the frying pan on the top of the stove and bending to riddle the ash down and allow the fire to burn hotly again. She did it almost absently, still looking mostly at Tellman.
“Martin Garvie’s definitely gone,” he answered unhappily. “Nobody’s seen him in almost two weeks now, but nobody’s seen Stephen Garrick either. None of the servants, which is what you said, so at first they supposed he was in his rooms, taken sick, in one of his tantrums—”
“Not for more than a week, without the cook at least being aware of it,” Charlotte interrupted. “Whatever illness he had, she’d be sending food of some sort up to him. And in that length of time, surely they’d have the doctor in?”
“So far as I can find out, there’s been no doctor,” Tellman answered, shaking his head a little. “And no other caller for him either.” His face tightened, his eyes black. “He’s not in the house—and nor is Martin Garvie. There’d be food, bed linen, if nothing else . . .”
Gracie fetched the cold potatoes from the larder. She started to peel and chop the onions with a brief apology, fishing for a handkerchief at the same time. “Bubble an’ squeak’s no good without onions,” she said, by way of explanation. The frying pan was already beginning to get hot.
“Were there no letters?” Charlotte asked. “Invitations? Surely they would be replied to . . . or at least forwarded?”
Tellman bit his lip. “I couldn’t be that direct, but I asked around about Mr. Garrick, and it seems he doesn’t have that many friends. He’s not good company. At least that’s what I understood.”
Gracie sniffed and dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, then slid the chopped onions into the hot fat, and the sizzle