more?”
He considered the family she had to feed and pushed the plate away from him.
“No thank you, Mrs. Colter. That answered the need perfectly. Very fine flavor.”
She colored a little pink. She was unused to compliments, and pleased and awkward at the same time.
“It’s nuthin’ but ordinary.” She turned away to give it a fierce stir.
“Ordinary to you, maybe.” He rose from the table and pushed the chair back in, something he would not have bothered to do at home. “But I’m much obliged to you. Is there anything else you can think of that might have bearing on the fire?”
She shrugged. “There’s always the Worlingham money, I suppose. Though I don’t see ow. Don’t think the doctor cared that much about it, and they ain’t got no children, poor souls.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Colter. You’ve been most helpful.”
“Don’t see that I ’ave. Any fool could’a told you as much, but if it pleases you, then I’m glad. I ’ope you catch whoever done it.” She sniffed hard and turned her back to stir the pot again. “She were a fine woman, an’ I grieve sorely that she’s gorn-an’ in such an ’orrible way.”
“I will, Mrs. Colter,” he said rather recklessly, and then when he was out on the footpath in the sharp evening air, wished he had been more reserved. He had not the faintest idea who had crept around cutting the glass, pouring oil on curtains and lighting those fires.
In the morning he returned to Highgate immediately, turning the case over and over in his mind on the long journey. He had told Charlotte of the progress he had made, largely negative, because she had asked him. She had taken an interest in the case beyond his expectations, because as yet there was little human drama of the sort which usually engaged her emotions. She gave him no explanation, except that she was sorry for the dead woman. It was a fearful way to die.
He had assured her that in all probability Clemency Shaw had been overcome by smoke long before any flames reached her. It was even possible she had not woken.
Charlotte had been much comforted by it, and since he had already told her his progress was minimal, she had asked him no more. Instead she turned to her own business of the day, giving volleys of instructions to Gracie, who stood wide-eyed and fascinated in the kitchen doorway.
Pitt stopped the hansom at Amos Lindsay’s house, paid him off, and walked up to the front door. It was opened by the black-haired manservant again and Pitt asked if he might speak with Dr. Shaw.
“Dr. Shaw is out on call”-the briefest of hesitations-“sir.”
“Is Mr. Lindsay at home?”
“If you care to come in I shall inquire if he will receive you.” The manservant stood aside. “Who shall I say is calling?”
Did he really not remember, or was he being deliberately condescending?
“Inspector Thomas Pitt, of the Metropolitan Police,” he replied a little tartly.
“Indeed.” The manservant bowed so slightly only the light moving across his glistening head determined it at all. “Will you be so good as to wait here? I shall return forthwith.” And without bothering to see if Pitt would do as he was bidden, he walked rapidly and almost silently towards the back of the house.
Pitt had time to stare again around the hall with its fierce and exotic mixture of art and mementos. There were no paintings, nothing of the nature of European culture. The statuary was wooden or ivory, the lines alien, looking uneasy in the traditional dimensions of the room with its paneling and squared windows letting in the dull light of an October morning. The spears should have been held in dark hands, the headdresses moving, instead of pinned immobile against the very English oak. Pitt found himself wondering what an unimaginably different life Amos Lindsay had lived in countries so unlike anything Highgate or its residents could envision. What had he seen, and done; whom had he known? Was it something learned there which had prompted his political views which Pascoe so abhorred?
His speculation was cut short by the manservant reappearing, regarding him with mild disapproval.
“Mr. Lindsay will see you in his study, if you will come this way.” This time he omitted the “sir” altogether.
In the study Amos Lindsay stood with his back to a brisk fire, his face pink under his marvelous white hair. He did not look in the least displeased to see Pitt.
“Come in,” he said, ignoring the manservant, who withdrew soundlessly. “What can I do for you? Shaw’s out. No idea how long, can’t measure the sick. What can I add to your knowledge? I wish I knew something. It’s all very miserable.”
Pitt glanced back towards the hallway and its relics. “You must have seen a good deal of violence at one time and another.” It was more an observation than a question. He thought of Great-Aunt Vespasia’s friend, Zenobia Gunne, who also had trekked into Africa, and sailed uncharted rivers and lived in strange villages, with people no European had seen before.
Lindsay was watching him curiously. “I have,” he conceded. “But it never became ordinary to me, nor did I cease to find violent death shocking. When you live in another land, Mr. Pitt, no matter how strange it may seem at first, it is a very short time until its people become your own, and their grief and their laughter touches you as deeply. All the differences on earth are a shadow, compared with the sameness. And to tell you the truth, I have felt more akin to a black man dancing naked but for his paint, under the moon, or a yellow woman holding her frightened child, than I ever have to Josiah Hatch and his kind pontificating about the place of women and how it is God’s will that they should suffer in childbirth.” He pulled a face and his remarkably mobile features made it the more grotesque. “And a Christian doctor doesn’t interfere with it! Punishment of Eve, and all that. All right, I know he is in the majority here.” He looked straight at Pitt with eyes blue as the sky, and almost hidden by the folds of his lids, as if he were still screwing them up against some tropical sun.
Pitt smiled. He thought quite possibly he would feel the same, had he ever been out of England.
“Did you ever meet a lady named Zenobia Gunne on your travels-” He got no further because Lindsay’s face was full of light and incredulity.
“Nobby Gunne! Of course I know her! Met her in a village in Ashanti once-way back in ’69. Wonderful woman! How on earth do you know her?” The happiness fled from his face and was replaced by alarm. “Dear God! She’s not been-”
“No! No,” Pitt said hastily. “I met her through a relative of my sister-in-law. At least a few months ago she was in excellent health, and spirits.”
“Thank heaven!” Lindsay waved at Pitt to sit down. “Now what can we do about Stephen Shaw, poor devil? This is a very ugly situation.” He poked at the fire vigorously, then replaced the fire iron set and sat down in the other chair. “He was extremely fond of Clemency, you know. Not a great passion-if it ever was, it had long passed- but he liked her, liked her deeply. And it is not given to many men to like their wives. She was a woman of rare intelligence, you know?” He raised his eyebrows and his small vivid eyes searched Pitt’s countenance.
Pitt thought of Charlotte. Immediately her face filled his mind, and he was overwhelmed with how much he also liked his wife. The friendship was in its own way as precious as the love, and perhaps a greater gift, something born of time and sharing, of small jokes well understood, of helping each other through anxiety or sorrow, seeing the weaknesses and the strengths and caring for both.
But if for Stephen Shaw the passion had gone, and he was a passionate man, then could it have been kindled elsewhere? Would friendship, however deep, survive that whirlwind of hunger? He wanted to believe so; instinctively he had liked Shaw.
But the woman, whoever she was-she would not feel such constraints. Indeed she might seethe with jealousy, and the fact that Shaw still liked and admired his wife might make that frail outer control snap-and result in murder.
Lindsay was staring at him, waiting for a reponse more tangible than the thoughtful expression on his face.
“Indeed,” Pitt said aloud, looking up again. “It would be natural if he found it hard at present to think of who might hold him in such enmity, or feel they had enough to gain from either his death or his wife’s. But since you know him well, you may be able to give more suggestions, unpleasant as it would be. At least we might exclude some people …”
He left the sentence hanging in the air, hoping it would be unnecessary to press any further.
Lindsay was too intelligent to need or wish for any more prompting. His eyes wandered over the relics here in
