The Cater Street Hangman - Anne Perry [41]
It was almost as if they did not want to believe her.
“No, I didn’t misunderstand. He was perfectly plain.”
“What exactly did he say?” Caroline asked quietly.
“I can’t remember, but I was not mistaken in his meaning, of that I am perfectly sure.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Sarah said, putting down her sewing. She sewed very beautifully; Charlotte had envied her that for as long as she could remember. “Now perhaps the police won’t return.”
Emily smiled. “Yes, they will.”
“What for, if they don’t suspect Maddock?”
“To see Charlotte, of course. Inspector Pitt admires Charlotte greatly.”
Edward drew in a sharp breath. “Emily, this is not an occasion for frivolity. And the less fortunate imaginings of some policeman are not of interest to us. No doubt many men of ordinary background admire women who are above them, but have more sense than to let it be known.”
“But the police have no reason to come back, no real reason,” Sarah pressed.
“That is the most real of reasons,” Emily was not easily suppressed. “Crimes come and go; loves last longer.”
“Some do,” Dominic said drily.
“Well, it’s obviously someone from the criminal classes,” Sarah said, ignoring them both. “I don’t know why they even considered it could be otherwise. It seems incompetent to me.”
“No,” Charlotte said quickly. “It isn’t!”
Edward turned to her in surprise.
“Isn’t what, my dear?”
“Isn’t someone from the criminal classes. They only kill if they can’t help it, either to escape or something of that sort, or else for revenge. They only attack people they don’t know in order to rob. And Lily was not robbed.”
“How do you know all this?”
Charlotte was conscious that they were all looking at her. “Inspector Pitt told me. And it makes sense.”
“I don’t know why you should expect the criminal classes to make sense,” Sarah was impatient. “It will be some lunatic, someone who is quite depraved and does not know what he is doing.” She shivered.
“Poor devil,” Dominic spoke with feeling, and Charlotte was surprised by it. Why should he have such pity for a creature who had horribly killed three times?
“Spare your concern for Lily and Chloe and the Hiltons’ maid,” Edward said with a little snort.
Dominic looked around.
“Why? They’re dead. This poor animal is still alive, at least I presume he is.”
“Stop it!” Edward said sharply. “You’ll frighten the girls.”
Dominic gazed round at them. “I’m sorry. Although I think this is a time when a little fear might save your life.” He turned his head to Charlotte. “So Pitt doesn’t think it’s some madman from the underworld. What does he think?”
There was only one conclusion. She faced it as calmly as she could, but her voice still shook.
“He must think it is someone who lives here, somewhere near Cater Street.”
“Nonsense!” Edward sat up sharply. “I’ve lived here all my life. I know just about everyone within a radius of—of miles. There is no—lunatic of such monstrous proportions in this neighbourhood. Good heavens, if there were, does he not think we should know it? Such a creature could hardly pass unnoticed! He could not appear to be like the rest of us.”
Couldn’t he? Charlotte looked at him, then surreptitiously at Dominic. How much of people really showed in their faces? Did any of them even guess the wildness of feeling in her? Please heaven, no! If such madness, such tormented hatred as this creature felt was there to see, why was this man not known already? He must be seen by someone—family, wife, friends? What did they think, if they knew? Could you know something like that about someone, and not speak? Or would you refuse to believe it, turn away from the evidence, construe it as meaning something else?
What would she do—if she loved someone? If it were Dominic, would she not protect him from everything, die to do it, if necessary?
What a monstrous thought! As if anyone remotely like Dominic could have been involved in violence, the obscene anger that drove one to terrify and destroy, to linger in shadows along the street walls, hungering