to pay a visit to some even more elegant address. The coachman and footmen wore livery of frock coats, striped waistcoats, shining top hats with black leather cockades, and brilliantly polished boots. A spotted Dalmation dog trotted in step behind, its brass collar and insignia shining in the sun.
Pitt smiled briefly, but without pleasure.
Superintendent Latimer was doing very well for himself to live in such an area. There was the possibility, of course, that he had either inherited money or married a woman of substantial means. Both were circumstances Pitt would have to inquire into. Preliminary questions in Bow Street had elicited nothing, but he had not expected they might since Latimer was based at the Yard.
He rang the front doorbell at number 43, and after a moment the door was opened by a housemaid in a smart uniform. At least, Pitt judged her to be a housemaid; he noticed a feather duster tucked discreetly behind the hall table, as if she had put it down so she might change roles to answer the door. It was a small thing, but a sign that Mrs. Latimer cared very much about appearances. She lived in a street where most people could afford a separate parlormaid, and she could not.
“Yes sir?” the maid said politely. She looked no more than seventeen or eighteen, but of course she had probably been in service for four or five years and was well used to her job.
“Good morning,” Pitt replied in a businesslike manner. “My name is Pitt. I apologize for disturbing Mrs. Latimer so early, but certain matters have arisen which it is necessary I discuss with her. Will you be kind enough to inform her that I am here?” He produced his card, on which he had added by hand his police rank.
The girl colored in annoyance at herself for not having remembered to bring the silver tray on which visitors could place their cards, but she had been caught by surprise. She had not been expecting social calls for at least another thirty minutes. There were exact times for the well-bred to do such things, and Mrs. Latimer’s acquaintances knew what to do, and what not to do. She took the card in her hand.
“Yes sir. If you’ll wait here I’ll ask if Mrs. Latimer will see you,” she said with disapproval.
“Of course,” he agreed. Either there was no morning room, or else it was not available.
She scurried away and he looked around the hall. Architecturally it was spacious, but it was filled by its furniture and pictures, a stag’s head on the wall, a stuffed stoat in a glass case on a table to the right, and two stuffed birds in another case to the left, a large hat and umbrella stand and a magnificent carved table with a mirror behind it. The carpets were also excellent and in very fine condition. They could not have been more than a year or two old. They were all signs of affluence.
Was the rest of the house so richly furnished? Or was this the part which visitors saw, and had been dressed accordingly, at the expense of the private rooms? He knew from long experience that hallways and reception rooms were indications of aspiration, of how people wished to be perceived, not of reality.
Mrs. Latimer came down the staircase and he was aware of her long before she had reached the bottom. She was a remarkably striking woman, slender, of average height but with hair so very fair it seemed almost luminous as it caught the light from the chandeliers. Her skin was unusually pale, and as flawless as a child’s. Indeed her wide eyes and light brows gave her face a look of innocence astounding in a grown woman, and Pitt found his planned words fleeing from him as too brusque and worldly for this ethereal creature.
She came down the last steps and stopped some distance from him. She was dressed in a muslin gown of lilacs and blues on white. It was extremely elegant, but he found it jarring on his taste because it seemed so impractical, so designed merely to be gazed at rather than for any physical or purposeful use, as if the being within it were not entirely human. He preferred a woman more immediately flesh and blood, like himself.
“Good morning, Mrs. Latimer. I apologize for disturbing you so early, and without seeking your permission first,” he began with the prepared apology, having nothing else thought of. “But the matter about which I come is urgent, and must be handled with discretion.”
“Indeed?” she said with polite interest. He thought her voice deliberately softer in pitch than nature had intended it. There was a brightness in her eyes and he tried to assess whether it was a flash of hard intelligence or simply the light from the chandeliers, and could not decide.
“Please come into the withdrawing room and tell me of it,” she offered. “My maid said you are of the police, is that correct?”
“Yes ma’am, from Bow Street.”
“I cannot think why you come to us.” She led the way, walking gracefully and with complete assurance. If she had the slightest apprehension or uncertainty she hid it superbly. “We are hardly in your area, and my husband, as you will no doubt be aware, is a superintendent in Scotland Yard.”
“Yes ma’am, I am aware; and it is not to do with any crime in your area that I have come.”
She opened the double doors into the withdrawing room and swept in, her skirts wide behind her, leaving him to follow. The room was as impressive as the hallway: opulent curtains draped well over the floor around Georgian windows looking onto a small, tree-filled garden, its size disguised by the abundance of leaves so the light and shadows were constantly dancing. She allowed him a moment to appreciate the rest of the room, then she invited him to be seated. The furniture was a little ostentatious for his taste, but extremely comfortable. The carpets had no worn patches that he could see, nor indeed did any of the fabric covering the chairs, nor the embroidered antimacassars on their backs. Again there were dried flower ornaments, glass cases with stuffed birds and silver- framed photographs. The pictures on the walls were large and ornately gilded, but a glance told him they were of little intrinsic value as works of art.
She seemed quite happy that he should be so interested in her home, no doubt admiring it, and she made no move to hurry him.
He felt compelled to say something civil; he had stared long enough to make some remark necessary.
“A very handsome room, Mrs. Latimer.”
She smiled, taking it for admiration not untouched by envy. She knew from his card that his rank was merely inspector.
“Thank you, Mr. Pitt. Now what is this matter in which you believe I may help you?”
She was being more businesslike than he had expected. The childlike air would seem to be part a trick of coloring, part an art she wished to enhance, but in no way marking an indecisive or timorous nature.
He began the story he had prepared. “A most unpleasant person has endeavored to impugn the reputations of several men of importance in London.” That was certainly true, whether it had been Weems or not.
Her gaze remained wide and uncommunicative. It did not touch her yet, and she was unconcerned with others.
“He has suggested financial matters of a dubious nature,” he continued. “Debt, usury, and a certain degree of dishonesty.”
“How unpleasant,” she conceded. “Can you not charge him with slander and silence him? It is a criminal offense to speak ill of people in the way you suggest.”
“Unfortunately he is beyond our reach.” Pitt hid the smile that came naturally to his lips.
“If he has slandered people of importance, Mr. Pitt, he is not beyond the law, whoever he is,” she said with slightly condescending patience.
“He is dead, ma’am,” Pitt answered with satisfaction. “Therefore he cannot be made either to explain his charges or to deny them and make apology.”
Her fair face registered confusion.
“Is that not surely the most effective silencer of all?”
“Most certainly. But the charges have been made, and unless they are proved groundless the smear remains. As discreetly as possible, and without spreading them by the very act of proving them wrong, I must find a way to show that they are groundless and malicious.”
Her blue eyes opened very wide. “But why, if he is dead?”
“Because others know of the charges, and the rumors and whispers may still spread. I am sure you see how damaging that would be-to the innocent.”
“I suppose so. Although I cannot imagine why you come to me. I shall certainly not repeat malicious gossip, even assuming I had heard it.”
“One of the names mentioned by this man is that of your husband.” He watched her closely to see even the faintest, most concealed of responses.
There was nothing whatever visible in her face but incomprehension.
“My husband’s? Are you quite sure?”
