She’d been strangled, and then put in the water. Sometime last night by the looks of it. But you’ll need the medical examiner to tell you for sure.”
Pitt felt a sorrow so sharp it exploded in him in a kind of wild anger. She had been such a beautiful, vulnerable woman, so full of life, so highly individual. He remembered her vividly at the Duchess of Marlborough’s reception. He could picture her face in his mind as Tellman was talking. It was so seldom he had known a victim in life, the sense of loss was personal, different from the pity that he usually felt.
“Why?” he said violently. “Why would anyone want to destroy a woman like that? It doesn’t make any kind of sense.” Without realizing it he had clenched his fists and his body was tight with rage under his jacket. He was not even aware of his bare feet on the step or the fact he had no trousers on.
“The treason at the Colonial Office …” Tellman said unhappily. “Maybe she knew something?”
Pitt thumped the door lintel with the heel of his clenched fist, and swore.
“You’d better get dressed, sir, and come,” Tellman said quietly. “There’s no one knows about it yet, except the boatman as found her and the constable who reported it to me, but we can’t keep it that way for long. Don’t matter what you say to ’em, discretion and all that, somebody’ll talk to someone.”
“They know who she is?” Pitt was startled.
“Yes sir. That’s why I was called.”
Pitt was irritated with himself; he should have thought of that before.
“How?” he demanded. “How could riverboat men know her?”
“The constables,” Tellman explained patiently. “They were the ones who knew who she was. She was obviously someone of quality, any fool could see that, but she had a locket ’round her neck, little gold thing that opened up, with a picture in it.” He sighed and there was a sadness for a moment in his eyes. “Linus Chancellor, it was, clear as you like. That’s why they called us. Whoever she was, they knew that picture meant something that could only mean trouble.”
“I see. Where is she now?” Pitt looked back at him.
“Still at the Tower, sir. I had ’em cover her up, and left her where she was, more or less, so as you could see.”
“I’ll be down,” Pitt said, and left Tellman on the step. He went back upstairs, taking off his jacket as he reached the landing and pulling off his nightshirt as soon as he was through the bedroom door.
Charlotte had drifted back to sleep and it seemed cruel to waken her, but he had to give her some account of where he had gone. He finished dressing first. There was no time to shave. A brisk splash of cold water in the basin and a rubdown with the towel would have to do.
He reached over and touched her gently.
There must have been some rigidity in him, or perhaps the coldness of his hands after the water, but she woke immediately.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” She opened her eyes and saw him dressed. She struggled to sit up. “What’s happened?”
He had no time to tell her gently. “Tellman’s come to say they have found Susannah Chancellor’s body washed up from the river.”
She stared at him, unable for a moment to comprehend what he had said.
“I have to go.” He bent to kiss her.
“She committed suicide?” she said, her eyes still fixed on his. “The poor creature … I …” Her face was wrenched with pity.
“No … no. She was murdered.”
There was both shock and a kind of relief in her face.
“Why did you think she committed suicide?” he asked.
“I … I don’t know. She seemed so troubled.”
“Well there was no doubt about it, from what Tellman says.”
“How was she killed?”
“I haven’t been there yet,” he answered, not wanting to tell her. He kissed her quickly on the cheek and stepped back.
“Thomas!”
He waited.
“You said ‘from what Tellman said.’ What did he say?”
He let out his breath slowly. “She was strangled. I’m sorry. He’s waiting for me.”
She sat still, her face full of grief. There was nothing he could do. He went out feeling sad and helpless.
Tellman was waiting in the hall and he turned and led the way out into the street as soon as Pitt appeared. Pitt closed the door and hastened to catch him up. At the corner they crossed into the main thoroughfare, and it was only a matter of minutes before they hailed a hansom and Tellman directed it to the Tower of London.
It was a long journey from Bloomsbury. They went south first to Oxford Street, and then east until it turned into High Holborn and then for nearly a mile before turning right farther towards the river down St. Andrews Street, Shoe Lane and St. Bride’s to Ludgate Circus.
Tellman sat in silence. He was not a companionable man. Whatever his thoughts were he was disinclined to share them and he sat uncomfortably, staring straight ahead.
Several times it was on the edge of Pitt’s tongue to ask him something, but he could think of nothing that would be useful. Tellman had already said all he knew for certain. The rest would be only speculation. Anyway, Pitt was not sure he wanted to hear Tellman’s ideas on Susannah Chancellor. Her lovely, intelligent face with its capacity for pain was too sharp in his mind, and he knew what he was going to see when they got to the Tower.
They turned along Ludgate Hill and swung around St. Paul’s churchyard with the giant mass of the cathedral above them. Its dome was dark against the pale, early sky, which was marked only by a few shreds of cloud like banners across its limpid blue. There were very few people about. Down the whole length of Canon Street they passed only half a dozen cabs, two drays and a dung cart. Canon Street turned into East Cheap and then into Great Tower Street.
Tellman leaned forward and suddenly banged sharply against the roof for the cabby’s attention.
“Turn right!” he ordered. “Turn down Water Street to Lower Thames Street.”
“Ain’t nothing down there but Queen’s Stairs and Traitors Bridge,” the cabby replied. “If you want the Tower, like you said, you’d be better off in Trinity Square, which is up to the left.”
“Just take us to Queen’s Stairs and then go about your business,” Tellman said curtly.
The cabby muttered something inaudible, but obeyed.
They glimpsed the Custom House to the west, already busy with men coming and going. Then they turned right facing the great medieval bastion of the Tower of London, a stone memory of a conquest that spanned back to the Dark Ages and a history recorded only in brief bursts by illuminated writing and quaint works of art and tales of bloody battles and exquisite, passionate islands of Christianity.
The hansom stopped at Queen’s Stairs. Pitt paid the cabby and he turned and left, his horses moving into a brisk trot.
It was two minutes before six. The great silver sheet of the river was utterly calm. Even the cargo barges, dark against the bright surface, barely made a ripple. The air was fresh and slightly damp and smelled of salt from the tide.
Tellman led the way along the water’s edge to the stairs, where a boatman was waiting for them. He looked up without a change of expression and deftly maneuvered the small craft around so they could get in.
Pitt looked questioningly at Tellman.
“Traitors Gate,” he said succinctly, climbing in ahead of Pitt and sitting down. He disliked boats, and it showed in his face.
Pitt followed him easily and thanked the boatman as he pulled away.
“She was washed up at Traitors Gate?” he asked with a catch in his voice.
“Tide left her there,” Tellman replied. It was only a few yards down the river to the gate itself, the entrance to the Tower by which condemned people had been brought to their execution, and which opened directly onto the water.
Pitt could see the little knot of people already gathered around: a constable in uniform looking cold in spite of
