Southampton Row - Anne Perry [26]
Pitt turned to Grenville. “If there’s nothing else, Sergeant, you can leave us to get on with it. Inspector Tellman will have all the facts we know so far.” Except why Narraway considered this anything whatever to do with Voisey. Pitt could not imagine anything less likely to interest Charles Voisey than spiritual séances. Surely his sister, Mrs. Cavendish, could not have been so credulous as to have attended such a gathering at so sensitive a time? And if she had, and had been compromised by her presence here, was that a good thing or bad?
He felt cold at the thought that Narraway expected him to use it to their advantage. The idea of becoming part of the crime, of using it to coerce, was repellent.
He introduced himself to the doctor, whose name was Snow, then turned to Tellman.
“What do you know so far?” he asked politely and as noncommittally as he could. He must not allow his own anger to reflect in his attitude now. None of this was Tellman’s fault, and to antagonize him further would make it more difficult to succeed in the end.
“The maid, Lena Forrest, found her this morning. She’s the only servant living in,” Tellman replied, glancing around the room to indicate his surprise that in a house of this obvious material comfort there was no resident cook or manservant. “Made her mistress’s morning tea and took it up to her room,” he continued. “When she found no one there, and the bed not slept in, she was alarmed. She came down here to the last place she had seen her—”
“When was that?” Pitt interrupted.
“Before the start of last night’s . . . doings.” Tellman avoided the word séance, and his opinion of it all was evident in his very slightly curled lip. Otherwise his lantern-jawed face was carefully devoid of expression.
Pitt was surprised. “She didn’t see her afterwards?”
“She says not. I pressed her about that. No last cup of tea, no going up, drawing a bath for her or helping her undress? But she says not.” His voice allowed no argument. “It seems Miss Lamont liked to stay up as long as she wanted with certain . . . clients . . . and they all preferred the privacy of no servants around, no one to bump into accidentally or interrupt when . . .” He tailed off, his lips pursed.
“So she came in here, and found her?” Pitt inclined his head towards the figure in the chair.
“That’s right. About ten minutes after seven,” Tellman responded.
Pitt was surprised. “Early for a lady to get up, isn’t it? Especially one who didn’t begin work until the evening and frequently stayed late with clients.”
“I asked her that, too.” Tellman glared. “She said Miss Lamont always got up early and took a nap in the afternoons.” His expression suggested the pointlessness of trying to make sense of any of the habits of someone who thought she spoke to ghosts.
“Did she touch anything?”
“She says not, and I can’t see any evidence that she did. She said that she could see straight away that Miss Lamont was dead. She wasn’t breathing, she had this bluish look, and when the maid put a finger on her neck, it was quite cold.”
Pitt turned enquiringly towards the doctor.
Snow pursed his lips. “Died sometime yesterday evening,” he said, staring at Pitt with sharp, questioning eyes.
Pitt looked towards the body again, then took a step closer and peered at the face and the strange sticky mess spilling out of her mouth and down over the side of her chin. At first he had thought it vomit from some ingested poison; on closer examination there was a texture to it, a thickness that looked almost like a very fine gauze.
He straightened up and turned to the