The Hyde Park Headsman - Anne Griffin Perry [31]
Farnsworth’s face was flushed with annoyance and there was a bright glitter in his eyes.
“You are making a mistake, Pitt,” he said between his teeth.
“I don’t belong.” Pitt kept his voice as calm as he could.
“If you want to succeed, you had better make yourself belong.” Farnsworth looked at him unsmilingly. “Otherwise the doors will be closed. And I know what I am talking about. You need to clear up this case quickly.” He gestured towards the window and the street below. “Have you seen the newspapers? The public are beginning to panic already. You have no time to dither.” He walked to the door. “I’ll give you three days, Pitt, then you had better have something very decisive. And I expect you to reconsider that other matter. You need friends, believe me. You need them very much.” And with that he went out, leaving the door open behind him, and Pitt heard his footsteps down the stairs.
3
CHARLOTTE HAD HEARD the newsboys crying out the latest speculation on the Hyde Park murder, but she had given it less of her attention than she usually gave to Pitt’s more sensational cases because her mind was very fully occupied with the matter of plasterwork on the ceiling of the new house. At present she was in the middle of what was to be the withdrawing room, and staring upwards. The builder, a thin, lugubrious man in his thirties with sad eyes and a long nose, was standing in front of her shaking his head.
“Can’t do it, ma’am. Wouldn’t expect you to understand why, but it just in’t possible. Too far gorn, it is. Much too far.”
Charlotte looked up at the broken plaster on the cornice.
“But it’s only about two feet altogether. Why can’t you just replace that bit?” she asked, as she thought, very reasonably.
“Oh no.” Again he shook his head. “It’ll look like a patch, ma’am. Wouldn’t be right Can’t turn out work like that I’ve got my reputation to consider.” He met her eyes with a clear, indignant gaze.
“No it wouldn’t,” she argued. “Not if you put in the same pattern.”
“Can’t patch old wine bottles with new skins, ma’am. Don’t you read your Bible?” he said accusingly.
“Not when I’m looking for instruction on repairing the ceiling, I don’t,” she replied briskly. “Well, if you can’t do that piece, what about the whole of that side?”
“Ah—well.” He squinted up at it, head on one side. “I’m not sure about that Might be a different pattern, mightn’t it?”
“Can’t you find the same one? It doesn’t look very complicated to me.”
“That’s ’cause you in’t a plasterer, ma’am. Why don’t you ask your husband to explain it to you?”
“My husband is not a plasterer either,” she said with rising irritation.
“No ma’am, I daresay not,” he agreed. “But ’cos ’e’s a man, yer see, and men understand these things better than ladies, if you don’t mind my saying so?” He regarded her with a sententious smile. “Now I wouldn’t understand how to stitch a seam, or bake a cake, but I do know about cornices and the like. And you’ll be wanting a new rose too, to ’ang them good chandeliers from. Gotta watch that, or it’ll spoil the ’ole thing.”
“And how much will a new one be?”
“Well now, that’ll depend on whether you want paper stucco, which is very light, like, and very cheap, and comes at anything from three shillings for one what’s nineteen inches across, to one what’s forty-nine inches across, and it’d be too big for this room, at thirty-two and seven pence ha’penny.” He sucked in his breath noisily and continued. “Or you could have plaster, plain or perforated, which comes at one and sixpence or thereabouts for twelve inches across, right up to four and sixpence for thirty inches across. It all depends upon what you want.”
“I see. Well, I’ll think about it. Now what about the lamp in the hall?”
“Ah well now, that’s different. You could have a real plain twisted-’eart pendant which comes at about four and sixpence each, or the bigger ones at seven and sixpence each.” He shook his head. “That don’t include the globe, o’ course.”
“But that won’t be