appointment to be certain of finding Cathcart at home. If he had, he had destroyed the record of it.
“Tomorrow we’ll have to find if he asked anyone local about Cathcart and his habits,” Pitt said aloud.
“And where he got the weapon,” Tellman added. “Someone may have seen him. I suppose it’s just a matter of being thorough.”
“Yes. . I suppose it is.” There was no pleasure in it, no satisfaction in the solution, only a sense of tragedy.
Tellman did not bother to reply.
Pitt spent a restless and unhappy night. The house seemed cold without Charlotte and the children, even though he had kept the kitchen stove alight. It was a sense of darkness, and he expected no more letters from her because in a couple of days she would be home, the weather across the Channel permitting. He had not actually put words to it in his mind until now, but he would be glad when she was safely on land again in England. And Gracie would be back with the children two days after that. The house would be bright and warm again, full of the sounds of voices and footsteps, laughter, chattering, the smells of wax polish, baking, clean laundry.
In the meantime he had to follow the steps of Orlando Antrim and find the proof of exactly how he had murdered Cathcart, and then, when he had it, go and arrest him. There was an anger against Cecily Antrim inside him like a stone, heavy and hard. Her arrogant certainty that she knew best how to pursue her cause, without thought for the consequences, had destroyed her son. He was angry with her for what she had done and because she also woke in him a terrible pity. Could Pitt ever, unthinkingly, pursuing what he believed to be justice or truth, do the same to his own children? His emotions were as strong, perhaps their consequences as profound.
He met Tellman in Battersea, at the far end of the bridge, just after nine o’clock. Tellman was there before him, a forlorn figure standing in the early morning river mist, his coat collar turned up, his hat pulled forward and down over his eyes. Pitt wondered if he had had any breakfast.
“I’ve been thinking,” Tellman said as he heard Pitt’s footsteps and looked up. “He didn’t need to ask about where he lived; he knew that already. And he wouldn’t want to be too open in trying to find out about the household.”
“Household?” Pitt asked.
“Yes!” Tellman was impatient, shivering a little. “You don’t go attacking someone if you think there’s a resident manservant that’ll come to his rescue, or even a maid who’ll remember you, maybe scream the place down. First thing, he’d go and see if there are near neighbors, and how he’s going to get there and away again.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Pitt agreed quickly, increasing his pace. He was wondering if Orlando had intended to use the dress and the chains right from the beginning, or if it had been an inspiration only when he realized they were still there, but he did not say so aloud.
“And what weapon did he mean to use?” Tellman went on morosely as they walked together along the road towards the river and Cathcart’s house. “Or did it go too far and turn into murder?”
Pitt had not wanted to face that question, but it was inevitable. “The time he chose the weapon would answer that.”
“We don’t know what it was,” Tellman reminded him. “It’s probably at the bottom of the river by now anyway. That’s what I would have done with it, wouldn’t you?”
“Unless I dropped it by mistake, in the dark,” Pitt replied. “I should have asked Mrs. Geddes if there was anything missing.” He blamed himself. That was an oversight.
“We could still do that. We know where she lives.” Tellman was half offering.
It should be done. Pitt accepted.
“Right!” Tellman squared his shoulders. “I’ll meet you at the Crown and Anchor at one.” He set off at a smart pace, leaving Pitt to pursue the less-clear objective of tracing Orlando’s investigation into Cathcart’s daily life and domestic arrangements.
He turned and went back towards the Battersea Bridge Road, away from the river and the soft mist curling up from it with the smell of the incoming tide. Autumn was in the air, and the smells of turned earth, wood smoke, chrysanthemums, the last mowing of the grass. When Orlando had come this way did he really think only to quarrel with Cathcart and then walk away? Why? He had no threat against him, no way to stop him from doing such a thing again as often as he wished to, until Cecily was no longer worth photographing, if that time ever came.
He would not have trusted to finding a weapon when he got there, he would have obtained it first. Pitt reached the center of the village, the shops and public houses, places where Orlando might have made enquiries or purchased something to use as a weapon.
It must have been something of considerable weight to land a blow sufficiently hard to kill a man. A length of plumbing pipe would do, or perhaps the handle of a garden implement.
He walked past a chemist’s shop with blue glass bottles in the window, and a grocer’s, and crossed the street. There was a small row of houses opposite a milliner and glovemaker. On the near side was a wine merchant. Would Orlando ask there? A bottle was an excellent weapon.
All Orlando had really needed to know was if Cathcart had any resident household staff. Laundry could be done easily enough by a woman who went in every day. Cooking was another matter.
Pitt had an advantage. He knew the answers already. There was only Mrs. Geddes. Orlando might have wasted much time before he had learned that. Also, Pitt did not have to be discreet.
He tried the laundry, the dairy, the greengrocer and the butcher. No one remembered anybody answering Orlando’s description. He might have been there, he might not. They could not say.
He was at the Crown and Anchor before one, and had a glass of cider waiting for Tellman when he arrived.
“Nothing missing,” Tellman said with a nod of thanks. He drank thirstily, looking towards the open door to the kitchen, from which drifted the smell of steak and kidney pudding. He was very partial to a good suet crust, as was Pitt himself. “Going to get some?” There was no need to specify what he meant.
In the early afternoon they started to consider where Orlando would have found or purchased a suitable weapon.
“Well, it won’t have been something you’d think of as meant for harm,” Tellman said, shaking his head. He looked profoundly unhappy, in spite of his excellent meal. “Who’d have thought people that clever would end up murdering someone?” he said miserably. “They’ve got a kind of. . magic. . in their minds. It really had me. .” He stumbled for words to express the wonder he had felt, the excitement and awe at the world it had allowed him to glimpse and wooed him to enter. He had been more than willing to go. He would certainly not admit it to anyone at the Bow Street station, but he might one day go and watch a whole Shakespeare play, right from beginning to end. There was something about it. In spite of the fact that they were kings and queens and princes, the feelings in them were as real as those in the people he knew from day to day, it was just that they knew how to put them into those wonderful words.
Pitt knew no answer was necessary. He understood Tellman’s feelings. He shared them.
They went first to the ironmonger’s. It seemed the obvious place to start. The entire shop was crammed with every conceivable piece of equipment for the house, from watering cans to jelly molds, carriage foot warmers to chop covers and game ovens. There were gas lanterns, jelly bag stands, corkscrews and table gongs, toast racks, cake baskets, sardine boxes, butter coolers. There were also spades, forks, scythes, baby perambulators and a newly invented torpedo washer, which claimed to launder linens better than ever before. There were tin baths, carpenter’s tools and an array of knives for every purpose imaginable. He saw trussing needles, larding pins, turnip scoops, egg whisks, meat saws and a heavy ceramic rolling pin.
The words were out before he had time to reconsider.
“That’s a nice piece. Have you sold any of those lately?” He picked it up and felt the solidity of it. It was a perfect weapon, round, hard, heavy, and easily handled.
“That’s the last one I got, till more come in,” the ironmonger replied. “You’re right, sir, it’s a good one. That’ll be ninepence to you, sir.”
Pitt was quite sure it would be ninepence to anybody, but he did not say so. He might have bought a new rolling pin for Charlotte, but not this one.
“Did you sell one about two weeks ago?” he persisted.
“Probably. We sell a lot of those. They’re very good quality.” The man was determined to do business.
“I daresay,” Pitt replied with a sudden wave of anger and unhappiness. “But I’m a police officer investigating
