Silence in Hanover Close: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel (Book Nine)

“A sort of hot bluish pink, like magenta or cyclamen.”

“I know what color cerise is, you fool!” He shut his eyes suddenly. “Damn it! I’m sorry. No, I haven’t seen her. What the hell does that have to do with it?”

“It seems likely it was this woman who lured York into betrayal of his country,” Pitt replied. “He may have been having an affair with her.”

Asherson looked surprised. “Robert? I never saw him take the slightest notice of any woman but Veronica. He—he just wasn’t a womanizer. He was very discriminating, a quiet sort of man with excellent taste. And Veronica adored him.”

“It seems he was two men,” Pitt said sadly. He would not tell Asherson that it could have been Veronica herself in cerise. If Asherson had not thought of it, it would not help. And just in case Asherson himself were the traitor, no need to warn him of Pitt’s closeness.

“Well, he’s dead now.” Asherson stood up. “Let the poor devil rest in peace. You won’t find your mysterious woman in Hanover Close. I’m sorry I can’t help.”

“You have helped, Mr. Asherson.” Pitt said smiling bleakly. “Thank you for your frankness, sir. Good evening.”

Asherson did not reply, but stepped back so Pitt could pass him and go out of the door. In the hall a footman appeared from the shadows and showed him to the step and the dark street beyond.

Outside in the Close the last fog had blown away in the north wind, bitter as the Pole, and the stars were glittering in a sky barely marred by an occasional smear of smoke. Ice crackled underfoot in the frozen puddles and gutters. Pitt stepped out briskly; in a tidier man it could almost have been called a march.

He climbed the immaculate porch steps of number two and pulled the brass bell. When the footman opened the door he knew precisely what he was going to say, and to whom.

“Good evening. May I see Mr. York please? I require his permission to speak to his staff about one of them who may have had knowledge of a crime. It is most urgent.”

“Er, yes sir. I ’spect you may.” The youth looked taken aback. “You’d better come in. Library fire’s lit, sir; you can wait in there.”

It was a few minutes until Piers York came in, his benign, slightly quizzical face marked with an unusual frown. “What is it this time, Pitt? Not the damn silver again, surely?”

“No sir.” He stopped, hoping York would not press the point. But he stood staring at Pitt, his eyebrows raised, his eyes small and gray and intelligent. There was no avoiding an answer.

“Treason and murder, sir.”

“Balderdash!” York said smartly. “I doubt the servants even know what treason is, and they never leave this house except on their half days off, which are only twice a month.” His eyebrows rose even higher. “Or are you suggesting this treason took place here?”

Pitt knew he was on very dangerous ground. All Ballarat’s warnings jangled in his ears.

“No sir, I think an agent of treason may have visited your house, unknown to you. Your maid Dulcie Mabbutt saw her; others may have.”

“Saw her?” York’s eyebrows shot up. “Good God! You mean a woman? Well, Dulcie can’t help you, poor child. She fell out of one of the upstairs windows and died. I’m sorry.” His face was pinched and sad. Pitt found it impossible to believe he was not genuinely grieved. Probably he knew nothing about any of it— Cerise, or Robert’s or Dulcie’s death. He was a banker; he alone of the men in the case had nothing to do with the Foreign Office, and Pitt could not imagine a spy wasting her energies on this wry, rather charming man well into his sixties. And he had too much innate humor to harbor the vanity necessary to be so ridiculous.

“I know Dulcie is dead,” Pitt agreed. “But she may have confided to the other maids. Women do talk to each other.”

“Where and when did Dulcie see this woman of yours?”

“Upstairs on the landing,” Pitt replied. “In the middle of the night.”

“Good heavens! What on earth was Dulcie doing out of her own room in the middle of the night? Are you sure she wasn’t dreaming?”

“This woman’s been seen elsewhere, sir, and Dulcie’s description was very good.”

“Well, go on, man!”

“Tall and slender, with dark hair, very beautiful, and wearing a gown of a startling shade of fuchsia or cerise.”

“Well, I certainly haven’t seen her.”

“May I speak to some of your girls who might have been friendly with Dulcie, and then perhaps to the younger Mrs. York? I believe Dulcie was her maid.”

“I suppose so—if it’s necessary.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He spoke to the upstairs maid, the downstairs maid, the laundry maid, the other lady’s maid, the kitchen maid, the scullery maid, and finally the tweeny, but it seemed Dulcie had been remarkably discreet and had kept total confidence on all that she saw of her mistress’s household. He wished she had been less honorable, and yet there was a kind of bitter satisfaction in it. Virtue of any sort kept its sweetness whatever surrounded it. He saved the questions about Dulcie’s death for Veronica. If she was innocent it was cruel, but he could not afford kindness now.

Her mother-in-law was out, the first stroke of good fortune Pitt had had in some time, and Veronica received him in the boudoir.