was unnecessary for the doctor to tell Pitt that the man had been badly burned.
Pitt stood by the bedside and in spite of the fact that it was blood, carbolic, sweat and the faint odor of chloroform that he could smell in the air, the sharp stench of smoke and wet cinders came back to him as if he had stood by the ruined house only a few minutes since, and then seen the charred wreck of Clemency Shaw’s body lying on a stretcher in the morgue, barely recognizable as human. The anger inside him knotted his stomach and his chest till he found it hard to form the words in his mouth or force the breath to make speech.
“Mr. Burdin?”
The butler opened his eyes and looked at Pitt with no interest.
“Mr. Burdin, I am Inspector Pitt of the Metropolitan Police. I have come to Highgate to find out who set the fire that burned Dr. Shaw’s house-” He did not mention Clemency. Perhaps the man had not been told. This would be a cruel and unnecessary shock. He should be informed with gentleness, by someone prepared to stay with him, perhaps even to treat his grief if it worsened his condition.
“I don’t know,” Burdin said hoarsely, his lungs still seared by the smoke. “I saw nothing, heard nothing till Jenny started screaming out. Jenny’s the housemaid. Her bedroom’s nearest the main house.”
“We did not imagine you had seen the fires started.” Pitt tried to sound reassuring. “Or that you knew anything obvious. But there may have been something which, on reflection, could be of importance-perhaps when put together with other things. May I ask you some questions?” It was a polite fiction to seek permission, but the man was badly shocked, and in pain.
“Of course.” Burdin’s voice dropped to a croak. “But I’ve already been thinking, turning it over and over in my mind.” His face furrowed now with renewed effort. “But I don’t remember anything different at all-not a thing. Everything was just as-” The breath caught in his throat and he began to cough as the raw lining hurt anew.
Pitt was confused for a moment, panic growing inside him as the man’s face suffused with blood as he struggled for air, tears streaming down his cheeks. He stared around for help, and there was none. Then he saw water on the table in the corner and reached for it, tipping it into a cup clumsily in his haste. He clasped Burdin around the shoulders and eased him up and put the cup to his lips. At first he choked on it, spluttering it over himself, then at last enough trickled down his burning throat and cooled it. The pain was eased and he lay back, exhausted. It would be cruel and pointless to require him to speak again. But the questions must be asked.
“Don’t speak,” Pitt said firmly. “Turn your hand palm up if the answer is yes, and down if it is no.”
Burdin smiled weakly and turned his palm up.
“Good. Did anyone call on the doctor at his house that day, other than his surgery appointments?”
Palm up.
“Tradesmen or business?”
Palm down.
“Personal acquaintance?”
Palm on its side.
“Family?”
Palm up.
“The Worlingham sisters?”
Palm down, very definitely.
“Mr. or Mrs. Hatch?”
Palm up.
“Mrs. Hatch?”
Palm down.
“Mr. Hatch? Was there a quarrel, raised voices, unpleasantness?” Although Pitt could think of nothing that could aggravate a temperamental difference into murder.
Burdin shrugged fractionally and turned his hand on its side.
“Not more than usual?” Pitt guessed.
Burdin smiled and there was a flicker of something like humor in his eyes, but again he shrugged. He did not know.
“Anyone else call?”
Palm up.
“Local person?”
Palm up and raised a little.
“Very local? Mr. Lindsay?”
Burdin’s face relaxed in a smile, the palm remained up.
“Anyone else that you know of?”
Palm down.
He thought of asking if there was any mail that might be unusual or of interest, but what would such a thing be? How could anyone recognize it?
“Did Dr. Shaw seem anxious or disturbed about anything that day?”
The palm was down, but indecisive, hovering above the bed cover.
Pitt took a guess, drawn from what he had observed of Shaw’s temperament. “Angry? Was he angry about something?”
The palm came up quickly.
“Thank you, Mr. Burdin. If you think of anything else, comments, a letter, unusual arrangements, please tell the hospital and write it down for me. I shall come immediately. I hope you recover quickly.”
Burdin smiled and closed his eyes. Even that small effort had tired him.
Pitt left, angry himself at so much physical pain, and helpless because he could do nothing for it, and he had learned little he felt of use. He imagined Shaw and Hatch probably quarreled fairly regularly, simply because their natures were utterly different. They would almost certainly perceive any issue with opposite views.
The Shaws’ cook was in a far less serious state of health, and he left the hospital and took a hansom for the short ride down Highgate Hill and through Holloway to the Seven Sisters Road and the house of her relatives, which Murdo had given him. It was small, neat and shabby, exactly what he expected, and he was permitted in only with reluctance and after considerable argument.
He found the cook sitting up in bed in the best bedroom, wrapped around more against the indecency of being visited by a strange man than to prevent any chill. She had been burned on one arm and had lost some of her hair, giving her a lopsided, plucked look which had it been less tragic would have been funny. As it was Pitt had difficulty in maintaining a perfectly sober expression.
The niece, bustling with offense, remained obtrusively present every moment of the time.
“Mrs. Babbage?” Pitt began. All cooks were given the courtesy title of “Mrs.” whether they were married or not.
She looked at him with alarm and her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a shriek.
“I mean you no harm, Mrs. Babbage-”
“Who are you? What do you want? I don’t know you.” She craned upwards as if his mere presence threatened her with some physical danger.
He sat down quickly on a small bedroom chair just behind him and tried to be disarming. She was obviously still in an extreme state of shock, emotional if not from her injuries which appeared to be relatively slight.
“I am Inspector Pitt,” he said, introducing himself, avoiding the word
“Not in my kitchen!” she said so loudly it startled her niece, who drew her breath in in a loud gasp. “Don’t you go accusing me, or Doris! I know how to tend a stove. Never had so much as a coal fall out, I ’aven’t; never mind burnin’ down an ’ole ’ouse.”
“We know that, Mrs. Babbage,” he said soothingly. “It did not begin in the kitchen.”
She looked a trifle mollified, but still her eyes were wide and wary and she twisted a rag of a handkerchief around and around in her fingers till the flesh of them was red with the friction. She was afraid to believe him, suspecting a trap.
“It was begun deliberately, in the curtains of four different ground-floor rooms,” he elaborated.
“Nobody would do such a thing,” she whispered, winding the handkerchief even more tightly. “What do you
