practitioner, and a gentleman,” he added hastily. “But without the finer perceptions. He thinks it witty and progressive to make mock of people’s values. Oh dear-one should not speak so ill of the bereaved, but truth will out. I profoundly regret that I cannot help you.”
“May we question your resident servants, Mr. Pascoe?” Pitt asked only as a formality. He had every intention of questioning them whatever Pascoe said.
“Of course. Of course. But please try not to alarm them. Reasonable cooks are so extremely hard to get, especially in a bachelor household like mine. If they are any good they want to give dinner parties and such things- and I have little occasion, just a few literary colleagues now and then.”
Pitt rose and Murdo stood to attention. “Thank you.”
But neither the cook nor the manservant had seen anything at all, and the scullery maid and housemaid were twelve and fourteen, respectively, and too horrified to do anything but twist their aprons in their hands and deny even being awake. And considering that their duties required them to be up at five in the morning, Pitt had no difficulty in believing them.
Next they visited the house to the south. On this stretch of Highgate Rise the fields opposite fell away towards a path, which Murdo said was called Bromwich Walk, and led from the parsonage of St. Anne’s Church to the south, parallel with the Rise, and ended in Highgate itself.
“Very accessible, sir,” Murdo finished gloomily. “At that time o’ the night a hundred people with pocketsful o’ matches could have crept down here and no one would have seen them.” He was beginning to think this whole exercise was a waste of time, and it showed in his frank face.
Pitt smiled dryly. “Don’t you think they’d have bumped into each other, Constable?”
Murdo failed to see the point. He had been sarcastic. Could this inspector from Bow Street really be so unintelligent? He looked more carefully at the rather homely face with its long nose, slightly chipped front tooth and untidy hair; then saw the light in the eyes, and the humor and strength in the mouth. He changed his mind.
“In the dark,” Pitt elaborated. “There might have been enough moon for Mr. Pascoe to gaze at, but a cloudy night, and no house lights-curtains drawn and lamps out by midnight.”
“Oh.” Murdo saw the purpose at last. “Whoever it was would have had to carry a lantern, and at that time of night even a match struck would show if anyone happened to be looking.”
“Exactly.” Pitt shrugged. “Not that a light helps us much, unless anyone also saw which way it came from. Let us try Mr. Alfred Lutterworth and his household.”
It was a magnificent establishment, no expense spared, the last one on this stretch of the road, and twice the size of the others. Pitt followed his custom of knocking at the front door. He refused to go to the tradesmen’s entrance as police and such other inferiors and undesirables were expected to. It was opened after a few moments by a very smart parlormaid in a gray stuff dress and crisp, lace-edged cap and apron. Her expression betrayed immediately that she knew Pitt should have been at the scullery door, even if he did not.
“Trade at the back,” she said with a slight lift of her chin.
“I have called to see Mr. Lutterworth, not the butler,” Pitt said tartly. “I imagine he receives his callers at the front?”
“He don’t receive police at all.” She was just as quick.
“He will today.” Pitt stepped in and she was obliged to move back or stand nose-to-chest with him. Murdo was both horrified and struck with admiration. “I am sure he will wish to help discover who murdered Mrs. Shaw last night.” Pitt removed his hat.
The parlormaid went almost as white as her apron and Pitt was lucky she did not faint. Her waist was so tiny her stays must have been tight enough to choke a less determined spirit.
“Oh Lor’!” She recovered herself with an effort. “I thought it were an accident.”
“I am afraid not.” Pitt followed up his rather clumsy beginning as best he could. He should be past allowing his pride to be stung by a maid by now. “Did you happen to look out of your window around midnight and perhaps see a moving light, or hear anything unusual?”
“No I didn’t-” She hesitated. “But Alice, the tweeny, was up, and she told me this morning she saw a ghost outside. But she’s a bit daft, like. I don’t know if she dreamt it.”
“I’ll speak to Alice,” Pitt replied with a smile. “It may be important. Thank you.”
Very slowly she smiled back. “If you’ll wait in the morning room, I’ll tell Mr. Lutterworth as you’re ’ere … sir.”
The room they were shown to was unusually gracious, indicating not merely that the owner had money, but he also had far better taste than perhaps he knew. Pitt had time only to glance at the watercolors on the walls. They were certainly valuable, the sale of any one of them would have fed a family for a decade, but they were also genuinely beautiful, and entirely right in their setting, wooing the eye, not assaulting it.
Alfred Lutterworth was in his late fifties with a fresh complexion, at the moment considerably flushed, and a rim of smooth white hair around a shining head. He was of good height and solidly built, with the assured stance of a self-made man. His face was strong featured. In a gentleman it might have been considered handsome, but there was something both belligerent and uncertain in it that betrayed his sense of not belonging, for all his wealth.
“My maid tells me you’re ’ere about Mrs. Shaw bein’ murdered in that fire,” Lutterworth said with a strong Lancashire accent. “That right? Them girls reads penny dreadfuls in the cupboard under the stairs an’ ’as imaginations like the worst kind o’ novelists.”
“Yes sir, I’m afraid it is true,” Pitt replied. He introduced himself and Murdo, and explained the reason for their questions.
“Bad business,” Lutterworth said grimly. “She was a good woman. Too good for most o’ the likes o’ them ’round ’ere. ’Ceptin’ Maude Dalgetty. She’s another-no side to ’er, none at all. Civil to everyone.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t see a thing. Waited up till I ’eard Flora come ’ome, that were twenty afore midnight. Then I turned the light down and went to sleep sound, until the fire bells woke me. Could ’a marched an army past in the street before that an’ I’d not ’ave ’eard ’em.”
“Flora is Miss Lutterworth?” Pitt asked, although he already knew from the Highgate police’s information.
“That’s right, me daughter. She was out with some friends at a lecture and slide show down at St. Alban’s Road. That’s just south of ’ere, beyond the church.”
Murdo stiffened to attention.
“Did she walk home, sir?” Pitt asked.
“It’s only a few steps.” Lutterworth’s deep-set, rather good eyes regarded Pitt sharply, expecting criticism. “She’s a healthy lass.”
“I would like to ask her if she saw anything.” Pitt kept his voice level. “Women can be very observant.”
“You mean nosey,” Lutterworth agreed ruefully. “Aye. My late wife, God rest ’er, noticed an ’undred things about folk I never did. An’ she was right, nine times out o’ ten.” For a moment his memory was so clear it obliterated the police in his house or the smell of water on burnt brick and wood still acrid in the air, in spite of the closed windows. From the momentary softness in his eyes and the half smile on his lips they bore nothing but sweetness. Then he recalled the present. “Aye-if you want to.” He reached over to the mantel and pulled the knob of the bell set on the wall. It was porcelain, and painted with miniature flowers. An instant later the parlormaid appeared at the door.
“Tell Miss Flora as I want ’er, Polly,” he ordered. “To speak to the police.”
“Yes sir.” And she departed hastily, whisking her skirts around the door as she closed it again.
“Uppity, that lass,” Lutterworth said under his breath. “Got opinions; but she’s ’andsome enough, and that’s what parlormaids ’as to be. And I suppose one can’t blame ’er.”
Flora Lutterworth must have been impelled as much by curiosity as her servants, because she came obediently even though her high chin and refusal to meet her father’s eyes, coupled with a fire in her cheeks equal to his, suggested they had very recently had a heated difference of opinion about something, which was still unresolved.
She was a fine-looking girl, tall and slender with wide eyes and a cloud of dark hair. She avoided traditional beauty by the angularity of her cheekbones and surprisingly crooked front teeth. It was a face of strong character, and Pitt was not in the least surprised she had quarreled with her father. He could imagine a hundred subjects on which she would have fierce opinions at odds with his-everything from which pages of the newspaper she should be permitted to read to the price of a hat, or the time she came home, and with whom.
