Southampton Row - Anne Perry [83]
“I’ll go to see him,” Pitt said unhappily. “What’s his name, and where in Teddington does he live?”
“Udney Road, just a few hundred yards from the railway station. London and South West Line, that is.”
“And his name?”
“Francis Wray,” Tellman replied, watching Pitt’s eyes.
Pitt thought of the cartouche with its bent letter inside the circle, like a reversed f. Now he understood more of Tellman’s unhappiness and why he could not cast it aside, much as he would prefer to. “I see,” he acknowledged.
Tellman opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. There really was nothing to say that they did not both know already.
“What have your men found on the other clients?” Pitt asked after a moment or two.
“Nothing very much,” Tellman replied dourly. “All kinds of people; about the only thing they have in common is enough money and time to spend chasing after signs of those already dead. Some of them are lonely, some confused and needing to feel their husband or father still knows what’s going on and loves them.” His voice was getting lower and lower. “A lot of them are just interested, looking for a bit of excitement, want to be entertained. Nobody has a grudge worth doing something about.”
“Did you learn anything about the other ones who came through the garden door from Cosmo Place?”
“No.” There was a flicker of resentment in his eyes. “Don’t know any way of finding them. Where would we begin?”
“About how much did Maude Lamont earn for this?”
Tellman’s eyes were wide. “About four times as much as I do, even with promotion!”
Pitt knew exactly what Tellman would earn. He could imagine the volume of business Maude Lamont could take if she worked four or five days a week. “That is still rather less than running that house must have cost her, and maintaining a wardrobe like hers.”
“Blackmail?” Tellman said without hesitation. His face tightened to a mask of disgust. “It isn’t enough she dupes them, she has to make them pay for silence over their secrets?” He was not looking for any answer, he simply needed to find words for his bitterness. “There are some people who look to be murdered so hard it makes you wonder how they escaped it before!”
“It doesn’t make any difference to the fact that we must find out who killed her,” Pitt said quietly. “The fact of murder cannot go unanswered. I wish I could say that justice would always visit every act fairly and apportion punishment or mercy as it was deserved. I know it won’t. It will be mistaken in both directions. But allowing private vengeance, or escape from anything except threat to life, would be the gateway to anarchy.”
“I know!” Tellman said curtly, angry with Pitt for pointing out to him the helplessness he already understood quite clearly, as if he could not have found the words so easily to express it.
“Anything more from the maid?” Pitt ignored his tone.
“Nothing helpful. Seems a sensible sort of woman on the whole, but I think she may know more about those séances and how they were rigged than she’s telling us. Had to. She was the only one close. All the other staff, cook and laundress and gardener, all came in by the day and were gone before the private sessions ever began.”
“Unless she was equally deceived?” Pitt suggested.
“She’s a sensible woman,” Tellman argued, his voice sharper as he repeated himself. “She wouldn’t be taken in by tricks like pedals and mirrors and oil of phosphorous, all that kind of thing.”
“Most of us have a tendency to believe what we want to,” Pitt replied. “Especially if it matters very much. Sometimes the need is so great we don’t dare disbelieve, or it would break our dreams, and without them we die. Sense has little to do with it. It is survival.”
Tellman stared at him. He seemed on the point of arguing again, then he changed his mind and remained silent. It obviously had not occurred to him that Lena Forrest might also have doubts and loves, people now dead who were woven into the meaning of her life. He flushed very faintly at his omission, and Pitt liked him the better for it.