Hastily she set about mashing potatoes and serving them with a thick, deliciously aromatic stew, then sat down at the end of the table to await his further needs or instructions. She regarded him steadily, still a small pucker between her brows.
“Would you like some pudding, sir?” she asked at length. “I got some treacle sponge.”
“Yes, yes I would.” Treacle sponge was one of his favorites, which he thought she knew.
Her face lit up again, and she forgot to behave with the new dignity she had assumed and scrambled off the seat to get it for him. She presented it with a flourish.
“Thank you,” he accepted. Actually it was extremely good, and he told her so.
She blushed with pleasure.
“Yer gettin’ closer ter catchin’ the ’Eadsman?” she asked with concern.
“Not much.” He continued eating, then thought that was a bit abrupt. “I have been asking the local prostitutes if they knew of anyone who has been abusing the girls and brought a pimp down on them, but they say not. They’ve none of them seen anything, no one living in the park or wandering around.”
“D’yer believe ’em?” she asked skeptically.
He smiled at her. “I don’t know. It would take a lot for a pimp to kill a customer, if he paid—let alone two.”
“Maybe they would if the customer marked a girl, like?” she said thoughtfully. “That’s damaging goods. If you break summat in a shop, yer ’as ter pay for it”
“Quite true,” he agreed, his mouth full of sponge and treacle.
“Yer like a nice ’ot cup o’ tea?” she offered.
“Yes—please.”
She got up and went over to the kettle, apparently lost in contemplation. Several minutes later she returned with a mug full of tea and set it on the table. She did not even seem to have considered bringing the whole teapot.
“Gracie?” he said questioningly.
“Yes sir? Is that too strong?”
“No, it’s just right. What are you thinking about, the girls in the park?”
Her face cleared and she looked at him out of innocent eyes.
“Oh, nuffink really. I ’spec they told yer the truth. Why not?”
It was a wholly unsatisfactory answer, but he did not know why. He drank the tea and thanked her again, then excused himself. He must go upstairs and change into his best clothes. Since Charlotte was not home, he would go and visit the widow of Aidan Arledge.
It was early evening when he finally passed his card to Dulcie Arledge’s butler in Mount Street and then was shown into a charming withdrawing room facing onto a garden with a long lawn sloping down to an old wall. The comer of a conservatory was just visible around the edge of a clump of lilies, the last light gleaming on its glass panes. Dulcie Arledge herself was naturally dressed entirely in black, but it could not mar the delicacy of her skin or the softness of her brown hair. She was as Bailey had said: a woman full of grace and pleasantness, with the sort of features that were not ostentatiously beautiful, yet carried their own regularity. There was nothing in her to offend. In every detail she was comely and feminine.
“How courteous of you to come in person, Superintendent,” she said with a gesture of acknowledgment “However, I fear I can tell you little beyond what I have already said to your men.”
She led him over to a chair upholstered in a pattern of damask roses, its wooden arms heavily carved. Another sat opposite it, complementing the deeper wine-red of the curtains and muted pink of the embossed wallpaper. The proportions of the room were perfect, and in the few moments in which he had to notice such things, the furniture appeared to be rosewood.
She indicated one of the chairs, and as he accepted, sat in the other herself.
“Nevertheless, Mrs. Arledge,” he said gently, “I would appreciate it very much if you would recount the events of that evening to me, as you recall them.”
“Of course. My poor husband went out for what he intended to be a short stroll for a breath of air—shortly after ten, as I recall. He did not intimate that he had expected to meet anyone, or indeed that he would be longer than twenty or thirty minutes. We do not always retire at the same time.” She smiled apologetically. “You see, Aidan was frequently out in the evenings because he conducted at concerts and recitals. It could be after midnight before he returned home, or even later if the traffic were dense and he found it difficult to obtain a hansom.” In spite of the horror of the circumstances there was a warmth about her that brought to mind instantly Bailey’s words about her being a woman of beauty.
“Waiting for someone can be so frustrating, don’t you find?” she asked quietly. “There were many occasions when I did not stay up for him. I was willing to of course, but …” She caught her breath. “He was most considerate.”
“I understand,” Pitt said quickly, wishing he could find any way at all of lessening the hurt for her. “Mrs. Arledge, my sergeant tells me Inspector Tellman did not ask you if you were acquainted with Captain Oakley Winthrop.”
“Oh dear.” She looked at him with alarm and then comprehension. She had very fine eyes, clear and dark blue. “No he didn’t, but it would not have helped if he had. I’m afraid I had never heard the name until the poor man was killed. Does that mean something, Superintendent?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Of course my husband knew a great number of people whom I never met, admirers of his work, musicians and so on. Could Captain Winthrop have been such a person?” she asked gravely.
“Possibly. We shall have to ask Mrs. Winthrop.”
