compulsion to watch others, to pry into intimate things, to follow, to lift curtains aside, even to open letters and listen at doors. This compulsion always led to dislike and fear, often to imprisonment. It was inevitable that one day it would bring about murder also.
He could hardly start by going directly to the Charringtons. There was no excuse for him to question them about their daughter’s death so long after the event unless he were to tell them of his suspicions, and that was obviously impossible at this point. It might be slander, at best. And on so tenuous a thread they would have no obligation to answer him even so.
Instead he went back to Mulgrew. The doctor had attended most of the families of Rutland Place, and if he had not known Ottilie himself, he would almost certainly be able to tell Pitt who had.
“Filthy day!” Mulgrew greeted him cheerfully. “Owe you a couple of handkerchiefs. Obliged to you. Act of a gentleman. How are you? Come in and dry yourself.” He waved his arms to conduct Pitt along the hallway. “Street’s like a river, or perhaps I should say a gutter! What’s wrong now? Not sick, are you? Can’t cure a cold, you know. Or backache. No one can! At least if someone can, I’ve not met him!” He led the way back to an overcrowded room full of photographs and mementos, bookcases on every wall, cascades of papers and folios sliding off tables and stools. A large Labrador lay asleep in front of the fire.
“No, I’m not sick.” Pitt followed him with a feeling of relief, even elation. Suddenly the ugly things became more bearable, the darkness he must probe less full of shapeless fear, but rather known things, things that could be endured.
“Sit down.” Mulgrew waved an arm widely. “Oh, tip the cat off. She always gets on there the moment my back is turned. Pity she has so much white in her—damn white hairs stick to my pants. Don’t mind, do you?”
Pitt eased the little animal off the chair and sat down smiling.
“Not at all. Thank you.”
Mulgrew sat opposite him.
“Well, if you’re not sick, what is it? Not Mina Spencer-Brown again? Thought we proved she died of belladonna?”
The little cat curled itself around Pitt’s legs, purring gently, then hopped up onto his knees and wound itself into a knot, face hidden, and fell asleep instantly.
Pitt touched it with pleasure. Charlotte had wanted a cat. He must get her one, one like this.
“Are you physician to the Charringtons as well?” he asked.
Mulgrew’s eyes opened wide in surprise.
“Throw her off if you want,” he said, pointing to the cat. “Yes, I am. Why? Nothing wrong with any of them, is there?”
“Not so far as I know. Except that their daughter died. Did you know her?”
“Ottilie? Yes, lovely girl.” His face retreated quite suddenly into lines of heavy sorrow. “One of the saddest things I know, her death. Miss her. Lovely girl.”
Pitt was aware of a genuine grief, not the professional sadness of a doctor who loses a patient, but a sense of personal bereavement, of some happiness that no longer existed. He was embarrassed to have to continue. He had not expected emotion; he had been prepared only for thought, academic investigation. The mystery of murder was ephemeral, even paltry; it was the emotions, the fire of pain, and the long wastelands afterward that were real.
His hands found the cat’s warm little body again, and he stroked it softly, comforting himself as much as pleasing the animal.
“What caused her death?” he asked.
Mulgrew looked up. “I don’t know. She didn’t die here. Somewhere in the country—Hertfordshire.”
“But you were the family physician. Didn’t they tell you what it was?”
“No. They said very little. Didn’t seem to want to talk about it. Natural, I suppose. Shock. Grief takes people differently.”
“It was very sudden, I understand?”
Mulgrew was looking into the fire, his eyes away from Pitt’s, seeing something he could not share.
“Yes. No warning at all.”
“And they didn’t tell you what it was?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you ask?”
“I suppose I must have. All I can really remember was the shock, and how nobody spoke of it, almost as if by not putting it into words they could undo it, stop it from being real. I didn’t press them. How could I?”
“But as far as you know she was perfectly well at the time she left Rutland Place?” Pitt inquired.
Mulgrew looked at him at last.
“One of the healthiest I know. Why? Obviously it matters to you or you wouldn’t be here asking so many questions. Do you imagine it has something to do with Mrs. Spencer-Brown?”
“I don’t know. It’s one of several possibilities.”
“What kind of possibility?” Mulgrew’s face creased in pain. “Ottilie was eccentric, even in bad taste to many, but there was nothing evil in her. She was one of the most truly generous people I ever knew. I mean generous with her time—she was never too busy to listen if she thought someone needed to talk. And generous with her praise—she didn’t grudge appreciation, or envy other people’s successes.”
