Southampton Row - Anne Perry [44]
“Because it’s nonsense!” Tellman responded with vehemence. “She’s making a living out of people who don’t know any better. She tells them what they want to hear. Anybody could do that!”
“Could they?” Pitt said quickly. “Send your men back to ask more carefully. We need to know if she was getting real information that wasn’t public knowledge, and we can’t account for how she heard it.”
Tellman’s eyes opened wide in disbelief and then a shadow of real alarm.
“If she’s got an informant, I want to know about it!” Pitt snapped. “And I mean a flesh-and-blood one.”
Tellman’s face was comical with relief, then he blushed hot, dull red.
Pitt grinned. It was the first time he had found anything to laugh at since Cornwallis had told him he was back in Special Branch. “I assume you have already made enquiries about anyone seen in the street near Cosmo Place,” he went on, “that evening, or any other, who might be our anonymous client?”
“Of course I have! That’s what I have sergeants and constables for,” Tellman said tartly. “You can’t have forgotten that so soon! I’m coming with you to see this Major General Kingsley. I’m sure your judgment of him will be very perceptive, but I want to make my own as well.” His jaw tightened. “And he’s one of the only two witnesses we have who were there at the . . . séance.” He invested the word with all the anger and frustration he felt in dealing with people who exercised their rights to make fools of themselves and involve him in the results. He did not want to be sorry for them, still less to understand, and the struggle to maintain his dispassion was clear in his face, and that he had already lost.
Pitt searched for fear or superstition, and saw not even a shadow. He put down his empty cup.
“What is it?” Tellman said sharply.
Pitt smiled at him, not in humor but in an affection which surprised him. “Nothing,” he replied. “Let’s go and speak to Kingsley, and ask him why he went to Miss Lamont, and what she was able to do for him, most especially on the night she died.” He turned and walked along the passage to the front door, and allowing Tellman to pass him, closed it and locked it behind him.
“Morning, sir,” the postman said cheerfully. “Lovely day again.”
“Yes,” Pitt agreed, not recognizing the man. “Good morning. Are you new on this street?”
“Yes, sir. Just two weeks,” the postman replied. “Getting to know people, like. Met your missus a few days ago. Lovely lady.” His eyes widened. “’Aven’t seen her since, though. Not poorly, I ’ope? Colds can be wicked to get rid of this time o’ year, which don’t seem fair, bein’ so warm, an’ all.”
Pitt was about to reply that she was on holiday, but he realized with a sudden chill that the man could be anyone, or pass on gathered information anywhere!
“No, thank you,” he responded briskly. “She is quite well. Good day.”
“Good day, sir.” And whistling through his teeth, the postman moved on.
“I’ll get a cab,” Tellman offered, looking up and down Keppel Street and seeing none available.
“Why not walk?” Pitt asked, dismissing the postman from his mind and swinging into a long, easy stride eastward towards Russell Square. “It’s not more than half a mile or so. Harrison Street, just the other side of the Foundling Hospital.”
Tellman grunted and did a couple of double steps to catch up with him. Pitt smiled to himself. He knew Tellman was wondering exactly how he had discovered where Kingsley lived without the assistance of the police station, which he would know Pitt had not sought. He would be wondering if Special Branch already had an interest in Kingsley.
They walked in silence around Russell Square, across the traf-fic of Woburn Place, and along Berner Street towards Brunswick Square and the huge, old-fashioned mass of the hospital. They turned right, instinctively avoiding the children’s burial ground. Pitt was touched by sadness, as