mouth to object, then saw Charlotte’s pale face and thought better of it.
By late morning Charlotte was walking briskly in the icy sunlight under the bare trees on the edge of Green Park looking for Constable Maybery. The duty officer at Bow Street had informed her, unhappily, that Maybery was investigating the death of the woman in pink. He had been loath to tell her, but he was even more unwilling to face the prospect of dealing with a hysterical woman in the police station. He hated scenes, and from the look of her flushed face and brilliant eyes, this one might very soon fall into that category.
Charlotte saw the blue figure in his tall hat and cape just as he emerged from Half Moon Street into Piccadilly. She dashed across the road, heedless of oncoming carriages, infuriating the drivers, and caught up with him in a most unseemly run.
“Constable!”
He stopped. “Yes, ma’am? You all right, ma’am?”
“Yes. Are you Constable Maybery?”
He looked puzzled, his round face wrinkled in apprehension.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Pitt, Mrs. Thomas Pitt.”
“Oh.” Conflicting emotions crossed his face: embarrassment followed by sympathy, then an eagerness to speak. “I went an’ saw Mr. Pitt yesterday, ma’am. ’E didn’t look too badly, considerin’.” His eyes flickered doubtfully for a moment. There was no guilt in his expression, however.
Charlotte’s courage returned. It was just possible he did not believe Pitt was guilty. Perhaps that relief in his face was a sign that they were on the same side.
“Constable-you are investigating the death of the woman in pink? What do you know about her? What was her name? Where was she before she came to Seven Dials?”
He shook his head very slightly, but his eyes remained perfectly steady. “We don’t know nothin’ at all about ’er, ma’am. She got to the ’ouse in Seven Dials only three days before she was killed, an’ she gave the name o’ Mary Smith, an’ nobody ever ’eard of ’er before. She said nothin’, and they didn’t ask. O’ course, in that kind o’ business people don’t. But one thing, ma’am, Mr. Pitt seemed very certain as she was-’e said a ‘courtesan,’ very expensive an’ pickin’ ‘er own custom. But I saw the body, beggin’ yer pardon for discussin’ it, ma’am, but the body as I saw in Seven Dials ’ad calluses on ’er ’ands, an’ on ’er knees. Not ’eavy, like, but I seen ’em enough to know ’em. She weren’t livin’ like no expensive kept woman. I reckon as ’e must be wrong about that.”
“But she was!” Charlotte was nonplussed. Whatever she had expected, it was not this! “She was a great beauty! Oh, not traditional, certainly, we knew that. But she was extraordinary; people noticed her. She was very graceful, she had style, panache. She could never have scrubbed floors!”
He stood firm. “You’re wrong, ma’am. She may ’ave ’ad character; since I never saw ’er alive I couldn’t tell. But she were quite ordinary to look at. ’Er skin weren’t particular. Bit sallow. She ’ad good ’air, if yer like it black, an’ she was definitely on the thin side. In fact, I’d say skinny. No ma’am beggin’ yer pardon again, but I seen ’er, and she were ordinary.”
Charlotte stood still on the pavement. A carriage went by at a spanking pace, its brief wind tilting her hat. Then the woman was not Cerise-she must be someone else. Someone else had been killed to put Pitt, and all of them, off her trail. Perhaps it was only a fortunate accident that Pitt had found her at just that moment and had been arrested for her murder-or was that, too, part of the plan? She must be even more important than they had thought.
Then a startling idea came into Charlotte’s mind. It was horrifying, perhaps mad, certainly dangerous-but there seemed to be nothing else left.
“Thank you, Constable Maybery,” she said aloud. “Thank you very much. Please give my love to Thomas, if- if you’re allowed to. And please, don’t mention this conversation. It will only worry him.”
“All right, ma’am, if that’s what you want.”
“Yes, most definitely, please. Thank you.” And she turned round and hurried away towards the nearest omnibus stop. The new idea spun crazily in her mind. There must be something better, something saner and more intelligent-but what? There was no time to wait. There was no one left to question, no physical evidence to produce like a rabbit out of a hat, to force a confession. The only thing was to startle someone violently, forcing a betrayal- and she could think of no other way than the wild idea forming in her mind now.
She did not go home but to Jack Radley’s rooms in St. James’s. She had never been there before, but knew the address from writing to him. Normally he spent as little time there as possible, preferring to be someone’s guest in one of the fine town houses. It was both more pleasant and easier on his frugal finances. But he had promised he would be available as long as this crisis lasted, and she did not hesitate to call upon him.
The building was a good second best, and not an address one would be embarrassed to mention. She asked the porter in the hall and was told courteously, with only the slightest frown, that Mr. Radley’s rooms were on the third floor, and the stairs were to her left.
Her legs were tired when she got there, and there was no view to reward her effort, since his rooms were at the back. She knocked sharply on the door. If he was not there she would have to leave a note. She shifted from one foot to the other impatiently in the few minutes till the door opened-in fact she had been on the point of rattling the handle.
“Charlotte!” Jack looked startled, caught out; then self-concern vanished and he welcomed her in. “What is it? Has something happened?”
She had little time to look round. A few weeks ago she would have been consumed with curiosity-a person’s home said much about them-but now she had neither the time nor the need. Doubts of Jack had died without her noticing. She observed only that the rooms were elegantly furnished but small, and she had economized enough herself to recognize it in others.
“Well?” he demanded.
“I have just met the constable who is investigating Cerise’s death.”
His face darkened. “What do you mean, ‘just met’?”
“I found him.” She brushed the means and the circumstances aside. “Coming out of Half Moon Street. But the important thing is, he described the body. Jack, I’m sure it isn’t her. It was made to look like her, but it was just some poor woman in a pink dress-”
“Just a minute! Why?”
“Because of her hands, but even more her knees.”
His face was incredulous; he looked almost as if he might burst out laughing.
“Calluses,” she exclaimed peremptorily. “From scrubbing floors. But Jack, what it means is that the real Cerise is still alive! And I have an idea. I know it is extreme, even idiotic-but I’ve racked my brains and I can’t think of anything else at all. I need your help. We must go again to the Yorks’, and the Danvers must be there, too, and as soon as possible. Time is getting terribly short.”
Every vestige of humor left Jack’s face. No trial date had been set yet, but it would not be long and he had never pretended to her that it might. Now he listened with total gravity. “What else?” he asked.
“I must know at least two days in advance, so I can make arrangements.”
“What arrangements?”
She hesitated, uncertain whether to tell him. He was likely to disapprove.
“Don’t be stupid!” he said abruptly. “How can I help you if I don’t know what you’re doing? You aren’t the only one with brains, nor the only one who cares.”
She felt for an instant as if he had slapped her. She was about to retort, when the truth of it overwhelmed her. It was surprisingly painless, in fact. All at once she felt less alone than she had since Pitt’s arrest.
“The Danvers come to dinner regularly-next time I’m going to dress up as Cerise and make an assignation with each of the men it might have been,” she said frankly. “Only Piers York, the Danvers, and Felix Asherson were there the night Dulcie was killed. I’ll start with the Danvers, because Aunt Adeline saw Cerise at their house.”
Jack was startled. He hesitated for a long, tense moment, struggling for a better idea himself. When nothing came, he conceded doubtfully. “You don’t look much like her-that is, like the descriptions of her,” he said at last.
“I’ll meet them in the conservatory,” she reasoned. “The light’s very poor in there, and I’ll have the right color dress, and a black wig. If I can pass for long enough to get a reaction it might be enough.” The plan sounded desperate as she described it, a very slim chance, and she felt her hopes, thin as wraiths, drain from her grasp. “If
