Cater Street Hangman

are!”

“You surprise me!” she said cuttingly.

“Do you disapprove of sarcasm, Miss Ellison?”

She felt her face flush; it had been the perfect barb.

“I find you offensive, Mr. Pitt. If you have some question to ask in connection with your business, please do so. Otherwise permit me to call Maddock to have you shown out.”

To her surprise he also blushed, and for once he did not look at her.

“I apologize, Miss Ellison. The last thing I wished was to offend you.”

Now she was confused. He looked unhappy, as if she had actually hurt him. She was at fault, and she knew it. She had been intolerably rude and he had so far forgotten himself as to give her as good in return. She had used her social advantage to fire the last shot. It was not something to be proud of; in fact it was an abuse of privilege. It must be rectified.

She did not look at him either.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pitt. I spoke hastily. I am not offended at you, but a little more disturbed by. . by circumstances than I had allowed for. Please pardon my rudeness.”

He spoke quietly. Emily was right; he had a beautiful voice.

“I admire you for that, Miss Ellison.”

Again she felt acutely uncomfortable, knowing he was staring at her.

“And there is no need to fear for Maddock. I have no evidence on which to arrest him, and quite honestly, I think it is very unlikely he had anything to do with it.”

Her eyes flew up to meet his, to search and see if he were being honest.

“I wish I did have some idea who it was,” he went on seriously. “This kind of man does not stop at two, or three. Please, be most careful? Do not go out alone, even for the shortest distance.”

She felt a confusion of horror and embarrassment run through her: horror at the thought of some nameless madman stalking the streets, just beyond the darkened windows, and embarrassment over the depth of feeling in Pitt’s eyes. Surely it wasn’t conceivable that he actually-? No, of course not! It was just Emily’s stupid tongue! He was a policeman! Very ordinary. He probably had a wife somewhere, and children. What a big man he was, not fat, but tall. She wished he would not look at her like that, as if he could see into her mind.

“No,” she said with a quick swallow. “I assure you I have no intention of going out unaccompanied. We none of us shall. Now if there is nothing more I can tell you, you must persist in your enquiries-elsewhere. Good day, Mr. Pitt.”

He held the door open for her.

“Good day, Miss Ellison.”

It was late afternoon and she was alone in the garden, picking off dead rose heads, when Dominic came over the grass towards her.

“How very tidy,” he looked at the rose bushes she had done. “Funny, I never thought of you as so- regimented. That’s more like Sarah, tidying up after nature. I would have expected you to leave them.”

She did not look at him; she did not want the disturbing emotion of meeting his eyes. As always, she said what she meant.

“I don’t do it to be tidy. Taking off the dead heads means the plant doesn’t put any more goodness into them, seeds and so forth. It helps to make them bloom again.”

“How practical. And that sounds like Emily.” He picked a couple off and dropped them into her basket. “What did Pitt want? I would have thought he’d asked us everything possible by now.”

“I’m not really sure. He was very impertinent.” Then she wished she had not said it. Perhaps he had been, but she had also been rude, and it was less forgivable in herself. “It may be his way of. . of surprising people into frankness.”

“A little redundant with you, I would have thought?” he grinned.

Her heart turned over. Habit, familiarity all vanished and it was as if she had just met him again, enchanted. He was everything that was laughing, masculine, romantic. Why, oh why could she not have been Sarah?

She looked down at the roses in case he read it all in her eyes. She knew it must be naked there. For once she could think of nothing to say.

“Did he go on about Maddock?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He snapped off another dead head and dropped it into the basket.

“Does he honestly think the poor devil was so besotted by Lily that when she chose Brody instead he followed after her and killed her in the street?”

“No, of course not! He wouldn’t be so stupid,” she said quickly.

“Is it so stupid, Charlotte? Passion can be very strong. If she laughed at him, mocked him-”

“Maddock! Dominic?” she faced him without thinking. “You don’t think he did, do you?”

His dark eyes were puzzled.

“I find it hard to believe, but then I find it hard to believe anyone would strangle a woman with a wire like that. But someone did. We only know one side of Maddock. We always see him very stiff and correct: ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, ma’am.’ We don’t ever think what he feels or thinks underneath.”

“You do think so!” she accused.

“I don’t know. But we have to consider it.”

“We don’t! Pitt might have to, but we know better.”

“No we don’t, Charlotte. We don’t know anything at all. And Pitt must be good at his job, or he wouldn’t be an inspector.”

“He’s not infallible. And anyway, he said he didn’t think that Maddock was involved; he just had to exhaust all the possibilities.”

“Did he say that?”

“Yes.”

“Then if he doesn’t think it’s Maddock, why does he keep coming here?”

“I suppose because Lily worked here.”

“What about the others, Chloe and the Hiltons’ maid?”

“Well, I suppose he goes there, too. I didn’t ask him.”

He stared at the grass, frowning.

She longed to say something wise, something he would remember, but nothing came to her but a storm of feelings.

He took off the last rose and picked up the basket.

“Well, I suppose he’ll either arrest someone, or declare it an unsolved crime,” he said drily. “Not a very comforting thought. I think I’d rather anything than that.” And he walked back into the house.

She followed after him slowly. Papa and Sarah and Emily were all in the withdrawing room, and as she came in after Dominic, Mama also entered from the other door. She saw the basket of flower heads.

“Ah, good. Thank you, Dominic.” She took them as he held them out.

Edward looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

“What did that policeman ask you this morning, Charlotte?” he asked.

“Very little,” she replied. Actually all she could clearly remember was how rude she had been, and the relief that he did not seriously suspect Maddock.

“You were in there long enough,” Emily observed. “If he was not asking you questions, what on earth were you doing?”

“Emily, don’t be foolish!” Edward said tersely. “And your comments are in poor taste. Charlotte, please answer me a little more fully. We are concerned.”

“Really, Papa, he seemed only to be going over the same things again, about Maddock, what time he went out, what Mrs. Dunphy said. But he did admit that he did not believe Maddock guilty himself, only that he had to pursue every possibility.”

“Oh.”

She had expected relief, even joy; she could not understand the silence that greeted her.

“Papa?”