not have them; and the sort who did have them, and who showed them publicly and embarrassingly. A man who would dress up as the second was beyond his comprehension.
Thinking of women, and love, brought Gracie to his mind. Without intending to, he could see her bright little face, the angle of her shoulders, the quick way she moved. She was tiny-all her dresses had to be taken up-and too thin for most men’s tastes, with not much shape to her, no more than a suggestion. He hadn’t thought he liked women like that himself. She was all spirit and mind, a sharp tongue, all courage and wit.
Tellman had no idea what she really thought of him. He sat on the omnibus going along the embankment and remembered with curiously painful loneliness how her eyes had shone when she spoke of that Irish valet. He did not want to name the pain inside him. It was something he preferred not to recognize.
He would point his mind to what he should ask the river police about tides and where the boat must have started in order to finish at Horseferry Stairs by dawn.
He reported his findings to Pitt in the late afternoon, at Pitt’s home in Keppel Street. It was warm and clean, but it seemed very empty without the women in the kitchen or busying about upstairs. There were no children’s voices; no light, quick feet; no one singing. He even missed Gracie’s orders, telling him to watch his boots, not to bump anything or make a mess.
He sat across the kitchen table from Pitt, sipping at his tea and feeling strangely empty.
“Well?” Pitt prompted.
“Not very helpful, actually,” Tellman answered. There was no homemade cake, only a tin of bought biscuits. It was not nearly the same. “Low water was at three minutes past five at London Bridge, and it gets later the higher you go up the river. Like it would be near quarter past six up at Battersea.”
“And high tide?” Pitt asked.
“Quarter past eleven last night at London Bridge.”
“And an hour and ten minutes later at Battersea. .”
“No. . that’s the thing, only twenty minutes, more like twentyfive to midnight.”
“And the rate of flow? How far would the punt have drifted?”
“That’s the other thing,” Tellman explained. “The ebb tide takes six and three quarter hours, near enough. The flood tide takes only five and a quarter. He reckoned the punt could go as much as two and a half miles an hour, but on the other hand, on ebb tide there are mud shoals and sandbanks it could get stuck on. .”
“But it didn’t,” Pitt pointed out. “If it had, it wouldn’t have come off till the flood again.”
“Or it could have got caught up by passing barges in the dark, or anything else,” Tellman went on. “Caught on the piles of a bridge and then loosed again if something bumped into it. . a dozen things. All they can say for sure is that it most likely came from upriver, because no one’d carry that extra weight against the tide, and there’s no place likely anyone’d keep a boat like that, which is a private sort of pleasure boat, downriver from Horseferry Stairs. It’s all city, docks and the like.”
Pitt remained silent for several minutes, thinking it over.
“I see,” he said at length. “So time and tide don’t really help at all. It could have been as far as eleven or twelve miles, at the outside, and as close as one mile, or wherever the nearest house is with an edge on the water. Or even nearer, if anyone kept that punt moored in the open. It’ll just be a matter of questioning.”
“It would help to find out who he is,” Tellman pointed out. “I still think it could be that French fellow and they’re embarrassed to say so. I’d disown him if any Englishman did that in France!”
Pitt looked at him with a faint smile. “I found a friend of his who thought he had gone to Dover, on the way to Paris. I’d like to know if that’s true.”
“Across the Channel?” Tellman said with mixed feelings. He was not very keen on the idea of foreign travel, but on the other hand it would be quite an adventure to go in a packet boat or a steamer over to Calais, and then perhaps even to Paris itself. That would be something to tell Gracie! “I’d better find out if he did,” he said hopefully. “If he isn’t the body, he might be the one who killed him.”
“If it isn’t he, there’s no reason to suppose he has anything to do with it,” Pitt pointed out. “But you are right, we need to know whose body it is. We’ve got nothing else.”
Tellman stood up. “So I’ll go to Dover, sir. Shipping company ought to know whether he went over to France or not. I’ll go and find out.”
CHAPTER TWO
The last post arrived just as Tellman left, and Pitt felt a surge of excitement as he recognized Charlotte’s handwriting on a thick envelope addressed to him. He ignored the others and went back to the kitchen, tearing hers open and pulling out the sheets of notepaper as he went. He sat down at the table and read:
Pitt sat with the paper in his hand, smiling. Reading her words, written enthusiastically, scrawled across the page, was almost like hearing her voice. Again he was reminded how right he had been to let her go gracefully rather than grudgingly. It was only for three weeks. Every day of it dragged, but it would come to an end. He realized with a start that the time was flying by on wings and he needed to prepare to go out to the theatre with Caroline. He folded up Charlotte’s letter and slid it back into the envelope, put it in his jacket pocket and went upstairs to wash and change into the only evening suit he possessed. It was something he had been obliged to purchase when going to stay, on police duty, at Emily’s country home.
He worked hard at looking tidy and sufficiently respectable not to embarrass his mother-in-law. He was fond of Caroline quite apart from their family relationship. He admired her courage in seizing her happiness with Joshua regardless of the social risks involved. Charlotte had done the same in marrying him, and he did not delude himself that the costs were not real.
