“It’s ’im, sir. I’d know Horrie Snipe anywhere. He was the busiest procurer the Row ever had.”
“So it seems,” Pitt said drily. “But for this morning, I still refuse to believe it.”
7
On Monday Charlotte received a handwritten note from Aunt Vespasia, inviting her to call that morning and be prepared to stay for some little while, in fact, over luncheon and into the afternoon. No reason was given, but Charlotte knew Aunt Vespasia far too well to imagine it was idle. A request at such short notice, and stating such a specific time and duration, was not casual. Charlotte could not possibly ignore it; apart from good manners, curiosity made it absolutely imperative she go.
Accordingly, she took Jemima over the street to Mrs. Smith, who was always more than willing to tend her with great affection, in return for a little gossip as to the dress, manners, and especially foibles of the society that Charlotte kept. Her own resulting importance in the street, as Charlotte’s confidante, was immeasurable. She was also quite genuinely a kind woman and enjoyed helping, especially a young woman like Charlotte who was obviously ill prepared by her own upbringing to cope with the realities of life such as Mrs. Smith knew them.
Having been rather rash with the housekeeping in buying bacon three days in a row, instead of making do with oatmeal or fish as usual, Charlotte was obliged to catch the omnibus to its nearest point to Gadstone Park, instead of hiring a hansom, and then walk in rising sleet the rest of the way.
She arrived on the doorstep with wet feet and, she feared, a very red nose: not in the least the elegant image she would wish to have presented. So much for bacon for breakfast.
The maid who answered was too sensitive to her mistress’s own eccentricities to allow her thoughts to be mirrored in her face. She was becoming inured to any kind of surprise. She moved Charlotte into the morning room and left her standing as near to the fire as she dared without risking actually setting herself alight. The heat was marvelous; it brought life back into her numb ankles, and she could see the steam rising from her boots.
Aunt Vespasia appeared after only a few moments. She glanced at Charlotte, then took out her lorgnette. “Good gracious, girl! You look as if you came by sea! Whatever have you done?”
“It is extremely cold outside,” Charlotte attempted to explain herself. She moved a little forward from the fire; it was beginning to sting with its heat. “And the street is full of puddles.”
“You appear to have stepped in every one of them.” Vespasia looked down at her steaming feet. She was tactful enough not to ask why she had walked in the first place. “I shall have to find something dry for you, if you are to be in the least comfortable.” She reached out for the bell and rang it sharply.
Charlotte half thought of demurring, but she was wretched with cold, and if she was to be there for some time, it would be quite worth it to borrow something warm and dry.
“Thank you,” she accepted.
Vespasia gave her a look of sharp perception; she had seen the edge of argument and quite possibly understood. When the maid came, she treated the whole matter quite lightly.
“Mrs. Pitt has unfortunately been splashed, and quite soaked, on her journey here.” She did not even bother to look at the girl. “Go and have Rose put out dry boots and stockings for her, and that blue-green afternoon gown with the embroidery on the sleeve. Rose will know which one I mean.”
“Oh, dear.” The girl looked at Charlotte with sympathy. “Some of those hansom drivers don’t look in the least where they’re going, ma’am. I’m ever so sorry. Cook only took a step down the road the other day, and two of them lunatics passed, seein’ as they could race each other, and she was fair covered in mud. Said something awful, she did, when she got ’ome again. I’ll find something dry for you straightaway.” She whisked out of the door, bound on an errand of mercy, and hoping eternal punishment for cab drivers in general and careless ones in particular.
Charlotte smiled broadly. “Thank you, that was remarkably tactful of you.”
“Not at all.” Vespasia dismissed it. “I am holding a small soiree this afternoon, very small indeed.” She fluttered her hand slightly to indicate how very minor it was. “And I would like you to be here. I’m afraid this wretched business of Augustus is not going well.”
Charlotte was not immediately sure what she meant. Her mind flew to Dominic. Surely there could be no one who genuinely suspected him-
Vespasia saw her look and read it with an ease that made Charlotte blush, thinking if she were so transparent now, how truly painful she must have been in the past.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “I had hoped people would put it from mind, now that he is reinterred. It does seem as if he was only the unfortunate victim of some insane creature who is tearing up graves all over the place. There have been two more, you know-apart from Lord Augustus and the man in the cab!”
She had the satisfaction of seeing Vespasia’s eyes widen in surprise. She had told her something she not only did not know but had not foreseen.
“Two more! I heard nothing of it. When, and who?”
“No one you would know,” Charlotte replied. “One was an ordinary man who lived near Resurrection Row-”
Vespasia shook her head. “Never heard of it. It sounds most insalubrious. Where is it?”
“About two miles away. Yes, it isn’t very pleasant, but nothing like a slum, just a back street, and of course there is a cemetery-there would be, with such a name. That is where the other corpse was found-in the graveyard.”
“Appropriate,” Vespasia said drily.
“Yes, but not sitting up on a tombstone, and with his hat on!”
“No,” Vespasia agreed, pulling a painful face. “And who was he?”
“A man called Horatio Snipe. Thomas would not tell me what he did, so I presume it must be something disreputable-I mean worse than merely a thief or a forger. I suppose he kept a house of women, or something like that.”
Vespasia looked down her nose. “Really, Charlotte,” she snorted. “But I dare say you are right. However, I don’t think it will help. Suspicion is a strange thing; even when it is proved to be entirely unjustified, the flavor of it stays on: rather like something disagreeable one has disposed of-the aroma remains. People will forget even what it was they suspected Alicia or Mr. Corde of having done-but they will remember that they did suspect them.”
“That is quite unjust!” Charlotte said angrily. “And it is unreasonable!”
“Of course,” Vespasia agreed. “But people are both unjust and unreasonable without the slightest awareness or intention of being either. I hope you will stay to the soiree; that is principally why I invited you today. You have something of a perception of people. I have not forgotten you understood what had really happened in Paragon Walk before any of the rest of us. Perhaps you can see something in this that we do not-”
“But in Paragon Walk there had been a murder!” Charlotte protested. “Here there has been no crime-unless you think Lord Augustus was murdered?” It was a horrible thought and she had not accepted it, nor did she now. She meant it as a criticism, a shock rather than a question.
Vespasia was not shaken. “Most probably he died quite naturally,” she replied, as if she had been discussing something that happened every day. “But one must face the possibility that he did not. We know a great deal less about people than we like to imagine. Maybe Alicia is as simple as she seems, a pleasant girl of good family and more than usual good looks, whose father married her advantageously; and she was, if not pleased by it, at least not imaginative or rebellious enough to object, even in her own mind.
“But, my dear, it is also possible that, as her marriage became more and more tedious, and she began to realize it would never be otherwise and could well last another twenty years, the thought became unbearable. And then when Dominic Corde came along and at precisely the same time an opportunity presented itself quite easily to be rid of her husband, in an instant she took it. It would be very easily done, you know, merely a small movement of the hand, a drop, two drops too much, nothing more: no evidence, no lies as to where she had been or with whom. She could almost forget it, wipe it from memory, convince herself it had not happened.”
“Do you believe that?” Charlotte was afraid. Even in front of the fire she became conscious of coldness again, of her feet being wet. Outside, the sleet clattered against the glass of the windows.
“No,” Vespasia said quietly. “But I do not deny its possibility.”
Charlotte stood still.
