where she had been, and what she had learned.
Vespasia took the questions to Somerset Carlisle, when the parliamentary business of the day was done. It was after eleven in the evening chill with a rising fog when she finally reached her home. She was tired, but too filled with concern to sleep. Part of her thoughts were turned towards the matters she had raised with him, but a good deal of her anxiety was for Charlotte. It was not untouched with guilt, lest by suggestion, the offer of Percival and the carriage, and the ready ease with which she had taken the children to Caroline Ellison, that she had enabled Charlotte to embark on a course which might become personally dangerous. At the time she had simply thought of Clemency Shaw and the appalling injustice of her death. For once she had allowed anger to outweigh judgment, and had sent the woman she was most fond of into considerable risk. It was true; she cared for Charlotte as much as anyone, now her own daughter was dead. And more than that; she liked her-enjoyed her company, her humor, her courage. It was not only rash, it was completely irresponsible. She had not even consulted Thomas, and he of all people had a right to know.
But it was not her nature to spend time over what could not be undone. She must bear it-and take the blame should there be any. There was no purpose to be served in speaking or writing to Thomas now; Charlotte would tell him, or not, as she wished; and he would prevent her from continuing, or not, as he was able. Vespasia’s meddling now would only compound the error.
But she found it hard to sleep.
The following evening they met at Vespasia’s house for dinner, and to compare notes upon what they had learned, but primarily to hear from Somerset Carlisle the state of the law they must fight, deal with, and change if possible.
Emily and Jack arrived early. Emily was less glamorously dressed than Vespasia could remember her being since she had ceased mourning for George. Jack looked tired; there were lines of strain on his normally handsome face and the humor was absent from his eyes. He was courteous, from habit, but even the usual compliments were not on his lips.
Charlotte was late, and Vespasia was beginning to feel anxious, her mind wandering from the trivial conversation they maintained until the business of the evening could be shared.
Somerset Carlisle came in, grim-faced. He glanced at Vespasia, then Emily and Jack, and forbore from asking where Charlotte was.
But Charlotte finally arrived, brought by Percival and the returned carriage. She was breathless, tired, and her hair markedly less well done than customarily. Vespasia was so overwhelmingly relieved to see her all she could do was criticize her for being late. She dared not to show her emotions; it would have been most unseemly.
They repaired to the dining room and dinner was served.
Each reported what he or she had seen and done, cursorily and with no unnecessary description; the facts were fearful enough. They did not speak as if they had been tired, sickened or endangered themselves. What they had seen dwarfed self-pity or praise.
When the last was finished they turned as one to Somerset Carlisle.
Pale-faced, weary of heart, he explained the law to them as he had ascertained it. He confirmed what they already knew: that is was almost impossible to discover who owned property if the owner wished to remain anonymous, and that the law required nothing to assist the tenant or shield him. There were no basic requirements of fitness for habitation concerning water, sewage, shelter or any other facility. There were no means of redress regarding payment of rents or freedom from eviction.
“Then we must change the law,” Vespasia said when he had finished. “We will continue where Clemency Shaw was cut off by her murderers.”
“It may be dangerous,” Somerset Carlisle warned. “We will be disturbing powerful people. The little I have learned so far indicates there are members of great families who come by at least part of their income that way, some industrialists with vast fortunes reinvested. It has not failed to touch others of ambition and greed, men who can be tempted and who have favors to sell-members of the House, judges of court. It will be a very hard struggle- and with no easy victories.”
“That is a pity,” Vespasia said without even consulting the others by so much as a glance. “But it is irrelevant.”
“We need more people in power.” Carlisle glanced at Jack. “More men in Parliament prepared to risk a comfortable seat by fighting against the vested interests.”
Jack did not reply, but he spoke little the rest of the evening, and all the way home he was deep in thought.
8
Pitt and Murdo were working from early in the morning until long after dark pursuing every scrap of material evidence until there was nothing else to learn. The Highgate police themselves were still searching for the arsonist they were convinced was guilty, but as yet they had not found him, although they felt that every day’s inquiry brought them closer. There had been other fires started in similar manner: an empty house in Kentish Town, a stable in Hampstead, a small villa to the north in Crouch End. They questioned every source of fuel oil within a three-mile radius of Highgate, but discovered no purchases other than those which were accounted for by normal household needs. They asked every medical practitioner if they had treated burns not explained to their certain knowledge. They counseled with neighboring police and fire forces on the name, present whereabouts, past history and methods of every other person known to have committed arson in the last ten years, and learned nothing of use.
Pitt and Murdo also delved into the value, insurance and ownership of all the houses that had been burned, and found nothing in common. Then they asked into the dispositions in wills and testaments of Clemency Shaw and Amos Lindsay. Clemency bequeathed everything of which she died possessed to her husband, Stephen Robert Shaw, with the solitary exception of a few personal items to friends; and Amos Lindsay left his works of art, his books and the mementos of his travels also to Stephen Shaw, and the house itself most surprisingly to Matthew Oliphant, a startling and unexplained gift of which Pitt entirely approved. It was just one more evidence of a kind and most unconventional man.
He knew that Charlotte was busy, but since she was traveling in Great-Aunt Vespasia’s carriage, and with her footman in attendance, he was satisfied there was no danger involved. He thought there was also little profit, since she had told him she was pursuing Clemency Shaw’s last known journeys, and he was quite sure, since Lindsay’s death, that Clemency had been killed by chance and the true intended victim was Stephen Shaw.
So the morning after the dinner at Vespasia’s house in which they had learned the extent and nature of the law, Charlotte dressed herself in tidy but unremarkable clothes. This was not in the least difficult, since that description encompassed the greater part of her wardrobe. She then waited for Emily and Jack to arrive.
They came surprisingly early. She had not honesuy thought Emily rose at an hour to make this possible, but Emily was at the door before nine, looking her usual fashionable self, with Jack only a pace behind her, dressed in plain, undistinguished browns.
“It won’t do,” Charlotte said immediately.
“I am quite aware that it won’t.” Emily came in, gave her a quick peck on the cheek and made her way to the kitchen. “I am only half awake. For pity’s sake have Gracie put on the kettle. I shall have to borrow something of yours. Everything of mine looks as if it cost at least as much as it did-which of course was the intention. Have you got a brown dress? I look terrible in brown.”
“No I haven’t,” Charlotte said a little stiffly. “But I have two dark plum-colored ones, and you would look just as terrible in either of them.”
Emily broke into laughter, her face lighting up and some of the tiredness vanishing.
“Thank you, my dear. How charming of you. Do they both fit you, or might one of them be small enough for me?”
“No.” Charlotte joined in the mood, her eyes wide, preventing herself from smiling back with difficulty. “They will be excellent ’round the waist, but too big in the bosom!”
“Liar!” Emily shot back. “They will bag around the waist, and I shall trip over the skirts. Either will do
