Southampton Row - Anne Perry [31]
He moved her hand out of his way, not that crushing it mattered. It was an automatic gesture. It was then that he noticed the long hair caught around the button on her sleeve, quite unlike the rich color of her own. She was dark, and this shone pale for a moment like a thread of spun glass. Then as he moved it became invisible again.
“What has this got to do with Special Branch?” Tellman demanded suddenly, his frustration hard in his voice.
“I have no idea,” Pitt replied, straightening up and moving the dead woman’s head back to the exact position it had been before.
Tellman stared at him. “Are you going to let me see it?” he challenged.
That was a decision he had not considered. Now he replied without thinking, stung by the absurdity of it. “Of course I am! I want a great deal more out of it than just the names of the people who were here last night. Short of a miracle, we’ll need to learn all we can about this woman. Speak to the rest of her clients. Learn all you can. What sort of people came to her, and why? What do they pay her? Does it account for this house?” Automatically, he glanced around at the room with its elaborate wallpaper and intricately carved Oriental furniture. He knew enough to estimate the cost of at least some of it.
Tellman frowned. “How does she know what to tell those people?” he said, biting his lip. “What is it? A mixture of finding out first, then building on good guesses?”
“Probably. She might pick her clients very carefully, only those she already knows something about, or is certain she can research with success.”
“I’ve looked all ’round the room.” Tellman stared at the walls, the gas brackets, the tall lacquer cabinet. “I can’t see how she did any tricks. What was she supposed to do? Make ghosts appear? Voices? People floating in the air? What? What made anyone believe it was spirits, not just someone telling them whatever they wanted to hear?”
“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. “Ask her other clients, but tread softly, Tellman. Don’t mock another person’s faith, however ridiculous you think it is. Most of us need more than the moment; we have dreams that won’t come true here, and we need eternity.” Without adding anything or waiting for any answer, he went out, leaving Tellman to go on searching the room for something without knowing what it was.
Pitt went to the small study and opened the door. The desk was immediately inside, a beautiful thing, as Lena Forrest had said, golden brown wood inlaid in exquisite marquetry of darker and lighter shades.
He slipped the key into the lock and turned it. It opened easily to form a flat writing surface inlaid with leather. There were two drawers and half a dozen or so pigeonholes. In one of the drawers he found an engagement book and opened it at the page for the previous day’s date. He saw two names, both of which he recognized immediately, and with a coldness in the bottom of his stomach: Roland Kingsley and Rose Serracold. Now he understood precisely why Narraway had sent him.
He stood still, absorbing the information and all it could mean. Could it be Rose Serracold’s long pale hair on the dead woman’s cuff? He had no idea, and he had never seen her, but he would have to find out. Should he show the hair to Tellman or wait to see if he found it for himself, or if the surgeon found it when he removed the clothes for the autopsy? It might mean anything—or nothing.
It was several seconds before he realized that the third line contained not a name at all but a sort of design, like the small drawings the ancient Egyptians had used to signify a word, a name. He had heard them called cartouches. This one was a circle, with a semicircle inside it arched over the