Rutland Place

do about it, and even if there were you have no right to interfere.'

'She's my mother!'

'That makes you care-but it does not give you the right to step into her affairs, which you are only guessing at.'

'I saw her! Thomas, I'm perfectly capable of putting together what I saw this afternoon, the locket, and what will happen if Papa finds out!'

'Then do what you can to make sure that he doesn't. Warn her to be careful, by all means, and to forget the locket, but don't do anything more. You will only make it worse.'

She stared back at him, into his light, clever eyes. This time he was wrong. He knew a lot about people in general, but.she knew more about women. Caroline needed more than a warning. She needed help. And whatever Pitt said, Charlotte would have to give it.

She lowered her eyes. 'I'll warn her-about pursuing the locket,' she agreed.

He understood her better than she knew. He would not press her into a position where she was obliged to lie. He sat back, resigned but unhappy.

Pitt was too busy with his own duties to harass his mind with anxieties over Caroline. Previous cases had led him into associa shy;tion with people of similar positions in Society, but the circum shy;stances in which he had seen them had necessarily been unusual, and he was aware that these past associations gave him little real understanding of their beliefs or their values. He understood even less of what might be acceptable to them in their relationships, and what would cause irreparable harm.

Pitt felt it was dangerous for Charlotte to get mixed up in the Rutland Place thefts, but he knew that most of his reaction sprang from his emotions rather than his reason: he was afraid she would be hurt. Now that she had moved from Cater Street and left her parents' home, she had absorbed new beliefs, albeit some of them unconsciously, and she had forgotten many as shy;sumptions that used to be as natural to her as they still were to her parents. She had changed, and he was afraid that she had not realized how much-or that she had expected them to have changed also. Her loyal, fiercely compassionate, but blind inter shy;ference could so easily bring pain to them all.

But he did not know how to persuade her from it. She was too close to see.

He was sitting at his brown wood desk at the police station looking at an unpromising list of stolen articles, his mind on Charlotte, when a sharp-nosed constable came in, his face pinched, eyes bright.

'Death,' he said simply.

Pitt raised his head. 'Indeed. Not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately. Why does this one interest us?' His mind pic shy;tured the alleys and creaking piles of rotting timber of the rookeries, the slums that backed onto the solid and spacious houses of the respectable. People died in them every day, every hour: some died from cold, some from disease or starvation, a few from murder. Pitt could afford to concern himself only with the last, and not always with them.

'Whose?' he asked.

'Woman.' The constable was as sparing with words as with his money. 'Wealthy woman, good address. Married.'

Pitt's interest quickened. 'Murder?' he said, half hopeful, and ashamed of it. Murder was a double tragedy-not only for the victim and those who cared for her, but for the murderer also, and whoever loved or needed or pitied the tormented soul. But it was less gray, less inherently part of a problem too vast to begin, than death from street violence, or poverty, which was innate in the very pattern of the rookeries.

'Don't know.' The constable's eyes never moved from Pitt's face. 'Need to find out. Could be.'

Pitt fixed him with a cold stare.

'Who is dead?' he demanded. 'And where?'

'A Mrs. Wilhelmina Spencer-Brown,' the constable answered levelly, a faint ring of anticipation in his voice at last. 'Of number eleven Rutland Place.'

Pitt sat up. 'Did you say Rutland Place, Harris?'

'Yes, sir. Know it, do you, sir?' He added the 'sir' only to keep from being impertinent; usually he did without such extra niceties, but Pitt was his superior and he wanted to work on this job. Even if it was not murder, and it probably was not, a death in Society was still a great deal more interesting than the run-of-the-mill crimes he would otherwise employ himself with. All too seldom did he find a genuine mystery.

'No,' Pitt answered him dourly. 'I don't.' He stood up and pushed his chair back, scraping it along the floor. 'But I imag-

rutland place

ine we are about to. What do you know about Mrs. Wilhelmina Spencer-Brown?'

'Not a lot.' Harris fell in behind him as they collected hats, coats, and mufflers, and strode down the police station steps into the March wind.

'Well?' Pitt demanded, keeping his eye on the thoroughfare in hope of seeing an empty cab.

Harris doubled his step to keep up.

'Early thirties, very respectable, nothing said against her. Still,' he said hopefully, 'there wouldn't be, in that sort of address. Plenty of servants, plenty of money, by the looks. Although looks don't always mean much. Known those as had three servants, bombazine curtains, and nothing but bread and gravy on the table. All appearance.'

'Did Mrs. Spencer-Brown have bombazine curtains?' Pitt inquired, moving sideways sharply as a carriage sped by him,1 splattering a mixture of mud and manure onto the pavement. He swore under his breath, and then yelled 'Cabbie!' furiously at the top of his lungs.

Harris winced. 'Don't know, sir. Only just got the report. Haven't been there myself. Do you want a cab, sir?'

'Of course I do!' Pitt glared at him. 'Fool!' he muttered under his breath, then was obliged to take it back the next moment when Harris leapt into the street with alacrity and stopped a hansom almost in its tracks.

A moment later they were sitting in the warmth of the cab, moving at a sharp trot toward Rutland Place.

'How did she die?' Pitt continued.

'Poison,' Harris replied.

Pitt was surprised. 'How do you know?'

'Doctor said so. Doctor called us. Got one of them new machines.'

'What new machines? What are you talking about?'

'Telephones, sir. Machine what hangs on the wall and-'

'I know what a telephone is!' Pitt said sharply. 'So the doctor called on a telephone. Who did he call? We haven't got one!'

'Friend of his who lives just round the corner from us-a Mr. Wardley. This Mr. Wardley sent his man with the message.'

'I see. And the doctor said she was poisoned?'

'Yes, sir, that was his opinion.'

'Anything else?'

'Not yet, sir. Poisoned this afternoon. Parlormaid found her.'

Pitt pulled out his watch. It was quarter past three o'clock.

'What time?' he asked.

'About quarter past two, or just after.'

That would be when the maid went to inquire whether they would be expecting callers for tea, or if Mrs. Spencer-Brown was going out herself, Pitt thought. He knew enough about the habits of Society to be familiar with the afternoon routine.

A few moments later they were in Rutland Place, and Pitt looked with interest at the quiet, gracious facades of the houses, set back a little from the pavement, areaways immaculate, some shaded by trees, windows catching the light. A carriage was drawn up outside one, and a footman was handing a lady down, closing the door behind her. Farther along another was leaving, harness glinting in the sun. One of those houses was Caroline's. Pitt had never been there; it was a tacit understanding that such a call would be comfortable for neither the occupants nor Pitt. They met occasionally, but on neutral territory where no compari shy;sons could be made, even though it