Charlotte was deeply distressed that Lindsay had died in the second fire. Her relief that Shaw had escaped was like a healing on the surface of the first fear, but underneath that skin of sudden ease there ached the loss of a man she had seen and liked so very shortly since. She had noticed his kindness, especially to Shaw at his most abrasive. Perhaps he was the only one who understood his grief for Clemency, and the biting knowledge that she might have died in his place; that some enmity he had earned, incited, somehow induced, had sparked that inferno.
And now Amos Lindsay was gone too, burned beyond recognition.
How must Shaw be feeling this morning? Grieved-bewildered-guilty that yet another had suffered a death meant for him-frightened in case this was not the end? Would there go on being fires, more and more deaths until his own? Did he look at everyone and wonder? Was he even now searching his memory, his records, to guess whose secret was so devastating they would murder to keep it? Or did he already know-but feel bound by some professional ethic to guard it even at this price?
She felt the need for more furious action while the questions raced through her thoughts. She stripped the beds and threw the sheets and pillowcases down the stairs, adding nightshirts for all the family, and towels; then followed them down, carrying armfuls into the scullery, off the kitchen, where she filled both tubs with water and added soap to one, screwed the mangle between them, and began the laundry. She was in one of her oldest dresses, sleeves rolled up and a pinafore around her waist, scrubbing fiercely, and she let her mind return to the problem again.
For all the possible motives to murder Shaw, including money, love, hate and revenge (if indeed someone believed him guilty of medical neglect, Theophilus Worlingham or anyone else), her thoughts still returned to Clemency and her battle against slum profiteers.
She was up to her elbows in suds, her pinafore soaked, and her hair falling out of its pins, when the front doorbell rang. Fishmonger’s boy, she thought. Gracie will get it.
A moment later Gracie came flying back up the corridor, her feet clattering on the linoleum. She swung around the kitchen doorway, breathless, her eyes wide with amazement, awe and horror as she saw her mistress.
“Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould!” she said squeakily. “She’s right ’ere be’ind me, ma’am! I couldn’t put ’er in the parlor, ma’am; she wouldn’t stay!”
And indeed Great-Aunt Vespasia was on Gracie’s heels, elegant and very upright in a dark teal gown embroidered in silver on the lapels, and carrying a silver-topped cane. These days she was seldom without it. Her eyes took in the kitchen, scrubbed table, newly blacked range, rows of blue-and-white china on the dresser, earthenware polished brown and cream, steaming tubs in the scullery beyond, and Charlotte like a particularly harassed and untidy laundry maid.
Charlotte froze. Gracie was already transfixed to the spot as Vespasia swept past her.
Vespasia regarded the mangle with curiosity. “What in heaven’s name is that contraption?” she inquired with her eyebrows raised. “It looks like something that should have belonged to the Spanish Inquisition.”
“A mangle,” Charlotte replied, brushing her hair back with her arm. “You push the clothes through it and it squeezes out the soap and water.”
“I am greatly relieved to hear it.” Vespasia sat down at the table, unconsciously arranging her skirts with one hand. She looked at the mangle again. “Very commendable. But what are you going to do about this second fire in Highgate? I presume you are going to do something? Whatever the reasons for it, it does not alter the fact that Clemency Shaw is dead, and deserves a better epitaph than that she was murdered in error for her husband.”
Charlotte wiped her hands and came to the table, ignoring the sheets still soaking in the tub. “I am not sure that she was. Would you like a cup of tea?”
“I would. What makes you believe that? Why should anyone murder poor Amos Lindsay, if not in an attempt to get rid of Shaw more successfully than last time?”
Charlotte glanced at Gracie, who at last moved from the doorway and reached for the kettle.
“Maybe they were afraid Shaw had realized who they were, or that he might realize?” she suggested, sitting down opposite Vespasia. “He may well have all the information, if he knew how to add it up and see the pattern. After all, he knew what Clemency was doing; she may have left papers which he had seen. In fact, that may be why they chose fire. To destroy not only Clemency but all the evidence she had collected.”
Vespasia straightened a little. “Indeed, that is something I had not considered. It is foolish, because it makes no difference to her, poor creature, but I should prefer not to believe she did not even die in her own right. If Shaw knows already who it is, why does he not say so? Surely he has not yet worked it out, and certainly has no proof. You do not suggest he is in any kind of collusion with them?”
“No-”
Behind Charlotte, Gracie was rather nervously heating the teapot and spooning in tea from the caddie. She had never prepared anything for someone of Great-Aunt Vespasia’s importance before. She wished to make it exactly right, and she did not know what exactly right might be. Also she was listening to everything that was said. She was horrified by and very proud of Pitt’s occupation, and of Charlotte’s occasional involvement.
“I assume Thomas has already thought of everything that we have,” Vespasia continued. “Therefore for us to pursue that line would be fruitless-”
Gracie brought the tea, set it on the table, the cup rattling and slopping in her shaking hands. She made a half curtsey to Vespasia.
“Thank you.” Vespasia acknowledged it graciously. She was not in the habit of thanking servants, but this was obviously different. The child was in a state of nervous awe.
Gracie blushed and withdrew to take up the laundry where Charlotte had left off. Vespasia wiped out her saucer with the napkin Charlotte handed her.
Charlotte made her decision.
“I shall learn what I can about Clemency’s work, who she met, what course she followed from the time she began to care so much, and somewhere I shall cross the path of whoever caused these fires.”
Vespasia sipped her tea. “And how do you intend to do it so you survive to share your discoveries with the rest of us?”
“By saying nothing whatever about reform,” Charlotte replied, her plan very imperfectly formed. “I shall begin with the local parish-” Her mind went back to her youth, when she and her sisters had trailed dutifully behind Caroline doing “good works,” visiting the sick or elderly, offering soup and preserves and kind words. It was part of a gentlewoman’s life. In all probability Clemency had done the same, and then seen a deeper pain and not turned away from it with complacency or resignation, but questioned and began the fight.
Vespasia was looking at her critically. “Do you imagine that will be sufficient to safeguard you?”
“If he murders every woman who is involved in visiting or inquiring after the parish poor, he will need a bigger conflagration than the great fire of London,” Charlotte replied with decision. “Anyway,” she added rather more practically, “I shall be a long way from the kind of person who owns the properties. I shall simply start where Clemency started. Long before I discover whatever someone murdered to keep, I shall draw other people in, you and Emily-and of course Thomas.” Then suddenly she thought she might be being presumptuous. Vespasia had not said she wished to be involved in such a way. Charlotte looked at her anxiously.
Vespasia sipped her tea again and her eyes were bright over the rim of her cup.
“Emily and I already have plans,” she said, setting the cup down in its saucer and looking over Charlotte’s shoulder at Gracie, who was self-consciously scrubbing at the washboard, her shoulders hunched. “If you think it advisable not to go alone, leave the children with your mother for a few days and take your maid with you.”
Grade stopped in mid-motion, laundry dripping in the sink, her back bent, her hands in the air. She let out a long sigh of exquisite anticipation. She was going to detect-with the mistress! It would be the biggest adventure of her entire life!
Charlotte was incredulous. “Gracie!”
“And why not?” Vespasia inquired. “It would appear quite natural. I shall lend you my second carriage and Percival to drive it for you. There is no point in doing it if you do not do it as well as possible. I am concerned in the matter. My admiration for Clemency Shaw is considerable. I shall require you to inform me of your findings, if any. Naturally you will also tell Thomas. I have no intention of allowing the whole thing to be swallowed up in public assumption that the intended victim was Stephen Shaw, and Clemency’s death can be dismissed as an error,
