The alternative was to tell him the truth, and the reasons for pursuing the York murder. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I think so.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” he said doubtfully.
“I’m an awfully bad liar, Jack.”
“You amaze me!” he said, his voice rising mockingly. “I would never have guessed it!”
“Pardon?” she asked sharply.
“I should say I’d witnessed a bravura performance this evening.”
“Oh—that’s quite different. It doesn’t count.”
He started to laugh, and although she was furious, she liked him for it. Perhaps Emily would be all right.
Charlotte got up before dawn the following morning, and by seven o’clock she was at home in her own kitchen frying prime bacon and fresh eggs, a peace offering from Emily.
“Is Emily ill?” Pitt looked worried, but she knew he was on the edge of losing his temper if her answer was not satisfactory. She knew perfectly well that she looked too excited, too pleased with herself, to have been up all night by a sickbed.
“Thomas ...” She had thought about this a long time, at least an hour of the short night.
“Yes?” His voice was guarded.
“Emily isn’t ill, but she is very lonely, and being in mourning is pretty wretched.”
“I know that, my dear.” Now there was compassion in his voice, and it made her feel guilty.
“So I thought we should get involved in something,” she hurried on. She poked the bacon and it hissed gently, sending out an exquisite aroma.
“Something?” he pressed with heavy skepticism. He knew her far too well for this to succeed.
“Yes, something totally absorbing—like a mystery. So we started to look into Robert York’s death, which you told me about.” She reached for an egg and cracked it into the pan, then another. “Jack Radley—and that’s another reason: I really do want to get to know him rather better, just in case,” she hurried on, taking a deep breath, “Emily considers marrying him. Someone has to look after her interests—”
“Charlotte!”
“Well, I did have two reasons,” she insisted, then went on hastily. “Anyway, I went to tea with Veronica York and her mother-in-law. Emily arranged it so that Jack Radley took me—that way I was able to observe him while making some discoveries about the Yorks.” She could feel Pitt’s presence behind her as she turned the eggs gently, then took them out and put them on his plate next to the bacon. “There you are,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Last night I dined with the Danvers. I met them all, and they are most interesting. By the way, the Yorks and the Danvers appear to have about the same financial status, so neither Veronica nor Julian Danver would marry the other for money.” As she spoke she made the tea and set it on the table, all without meeting his eyes. “And Aunt Adeline told me the oddest thing: she saw a beautiful, glamorous woman wearing an outrageous shade of cerise in the house. Do you suppose she was a spy?” At last she looked at her husband, and was immensely relieved to see amazement in his face. His eyes were wide and his hand had stopped halfway to his mouth.
“A woman in cerise?” he said after a moment’s silence. “Did she say in cerise?”
“Yes. Yes, why? Have you heard of her? Is she a spy? Thomas!”
“I don’t know. But the maid at the Yorks’ saw her too.”
Charlotte slipped into the seat opposite him and leaned forward, forgetting her own bacon. “What did she say? When did she see her? Do you know who she is?”
“No. But I shall go back and speak to the maid again, I think, and ask her for a closer description, and exactly when she saw this woman. I must find out who she is, if I can.”
But before he went to Hanover Close again, he called by at the Bow Street station to attend to a few other inquiries, particularly a burglary in the Strand. He was halfway through reading the reports when a constable came in, a mug of tea in one hand. He put it down on Pitt’s desk.
“Thank you,” Pitt said absently.
“Thought you’d like to know, Mr. Pitt,” the constable said with a sniff as he reached for a large cotton handkerchief, sneezing into it and blowing his nose, “been a haccident yesterday, sir, at ’anover Close. Very sad. One of the upstairs maids fell out o’ the window, poor soul. Musta leaned out too far for suffink or other, maybe to call to someone. Any’ow the poor girl is dead, sir.”
“Dead?” Pitt looked up, startled and chilled. “Who?”
The constable looked down at the paper in his hand. “Dulcie Mabbutt, sir. Lady’s maid.”
5
WHEN CHARLOTTE LEFT to go back home, Emily was wide awake, an endless day stretching ahead and nothing planned. She tried to go back to sleep again—quarter to six was far too early—but her mind was restless.
At first she contemplated Charlotte’s evening with the Danvers. Who was the mysterious woman in the cerise gown? Probably just an old love of Julian’s he had been indiscreet enough to entertain under his father’s roof.
No, that would not do. No man with half an ounce of intelligence would do such a thing, and by Charlotte’s account Julian Danver was quite a presence. She had spoken of him with some admiration and said she completely understood why Veronica York should wish to marry him. And Charlotte could never abide a fool, even though she imagined she was tolerant.
