letters will take to reach me, I cannot send you an address so that you may write to me. I shall just have to look forward to seeing you when I get home again, and then you must tell me everything. I am longing to hear what you have done, and thought, and felt-and learned?
Give my love to Thomas and the children. I have written separately to Mama and Edward, of course. And don't get into any adventures without me,
Your loving sister, Emily
Charlotte folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. She would put it in her work basket; that was one place Pitt would not find it. She would tell him that Emily was having a wonderful time, of course, but it would only hurt him to read of all the things Emily and Jack were able to see, and he and Charlotte were not. She could not pretend to him she was not envious, that she did not want to see Venice, the beauty and history and romance of it: he would not believe her if she did.
Better just to tell him Emily was enjoying herself. He would suppose she did not show him the letter because it contained some secret between sisters, perhaps even some
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details of personal life. After all, Emily was on her honeymoon.
She got up from the kitchen table and put the letter in her apron pocket and began organizing the day. It was spring; she would do some fierce cleaning and renew everything possible. She already had an idea for new curtains on the landing.
Pitt went to the House of Commons in the Palace of Westminster and sought permission to go to Etheridge's office and examine what papers were there, in search of letters and documents that might have to do with William or Florence Ivory. He would also inquire whether there was an office in Etheridge's constituency which might have notes or correspondence on the matter.
A junior official in a stiff winged collar and gold-rimmed pince-nez looked at him dubiously.
'I don't recall the name. What was it concerning? Mr. Etheridge had many constituents appeal for his time or intervention in matters of all natures.'
'The custody of a child.'
'There is an ordinary law which deals with such matters.' The clerk looked over the top of his pince-nez. 'I imagine Mr. Etheridge will have replied to Mr. or Mrs. Ivory informing them of the fact, and that will be all the record we have, if indeed we have that. Space is limited; we cannot store trivial correspondence forever.'
' 'The custody of a child is not trivial!'' Pitt said with barely controlled rage. 'If you cannot find the correspondence, then I'll send in men and they can go through every piece of paper there is until either we find it or we know that it is not here. Then we will look in Lincolnshire.'
The man flushed faintly pink, but it was irritation, not embarrassment.
'Really Inspector, I think you forget yourself! You have no mandate to search all Mr. Etheridge's papers.'
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'Then find me the ones referring to William and Florence Ivory,' Pitt snapped. 'I imagine you have concluded for yourself that it may have to do with murder.'
The man's lips tightened and he swung round and marched away along the corridor, with Pitt at his heels. They came to the office Etheridge had shared with another member of Parliament, and the official muttered a few words under his breath to a more junior clerk. Standing at a cabinet full of files, the clerk looked with some alarm at Pitt.
'Ivory?' he looked confused. 'I don't recall anything. What date was it?'
Pitt realized he did not know; he had not asked. It was a stupid omission, but too late to rectify now.
'I don't know,' he replied with as much coolness as he could muster. 'Start at the present and work backwards.'
The clerk looked at him as if he had been something alive on the dinner plate, then swiveled round to a set of files and began searching, moving his fingers through the piles of papers.
The official sighed and excused himself, and his heels tapped away along the corridor into the distance; Pitt stood still in the office and waited.
