“This is hardly the rest of the summer, Dominic,” Sarah said tartly. “But it has nothing to do with Lily, at least not in the way you mean. The wretched police have been here again.”
Charlotte felt only anger, until she saw her father’s face. He seemed less angry than genuinely distressed.
“What for, Papa? Haven’t we told them all we know?”
He frowned, looking away from her.
“It appears they are not satisfied that it was this fellow she was walking out with or, if it was not him, then some lunatic.”
“Well, they can’t imagine it has anything to do with us,” Dominic said incredulously.
“I don’t know what they imagine,” Edward replied sharply. “I personally think they are using it as an excuse to be inquisitive, to exercise their curiosity.”
“What have they been asking?” Charlotte looked from one to the other of them. “Surely if they are impertinent we don’t have to answer them? Send them out of the house.”
“It’s all very well for you to speak!” Sarah snapped. “You were not here.”
“You could have been out, if you’d been prepared to come with me.” Charlotte was quite mild. She was delighted that Dominic had come instead, but a hint of resentment over the spoilt afternoon lingered at the back of her mind.
“Don’t worry, you haven’t escaped anything,” Sarah tossed her head a little. “They are coming back to see you.”
“I don’t know anything!”
“And Dominic.”
Charlotte turned to Edward. “Papa, what can I tell them? I never even saw Lily that day, that I can recall.” She felt a quick stab of shame. “And I didn’t know her very well at any time.”
“I don’t know what they want.” Once again Edward’s anxiety was more apparent than his irritation. “They asked all sorts of odd questions, about myself, and Maddock, and they were very keen to speak to Dominic.”
Dominic frowned, and a flicker of concern crossed his face.
“What about the other victims-apart from Lily?”
“Don’t be foolish!” Sarah said sharply. “They can hardly consider you had anything to do with it, except perhaps that you may have noticed something, some odd person hanging around the street perhaps. After all, you do travel up and down the street almost every day.”
A new and appalling thought occurred to Charlotte. Could the police possibly be idiotic, blind enough to think one of them-? Dominic and Papa were out frequently, passed Cater Street-.
Sarah saw it in her face.
“I shall soon disabuse them of that lunacy,” she said furiously. “I know Dominic far too well. He is not the sort of man even to look at servant girls, much less accost them. He is not some creature of uncontrollable passions. He is a civilized man. Such a thing would not enter into his head.”
Charlotte turned to Dominic and saw for an instant in his face a look of hurt, of deep frustration, as if he had glimpsed and then lost something of inestimable value. She did not know then what momentary dream of sensuality or danger he had seen, and missed.
It was just over an hour later when Pitt returned, this time bringing with him a man Charlotte had not seen before, a man who was very briefly introduced to her as Sergeant Flack. He was a slight man of hardly average height, but looked even smaller beside Pitt. He remained absolutely silent, but his eyes wandered all over the room with consuming interest.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Pitt,” Charlotte said calmly. She was determined not to be ruffled by him, and to dismiss him as soon as possible. “I’m sorry you have taken the trouble to return, since I’m quite sure I can tell you nothing more. However, of course I will answer any questions you wish to ask.” Perhaps that was a little rash. She must not let him be impertinent.
“You would be surprised what is sometimes useful,” Pitt replied. He turned to his sergeant and briefly directed him to the kitchen to question Maddock, Mrs. Dunphy, and Dora.
He looked back to Charlotte. He seemed to be totally at ease, which in itself was irritating. He ought to have been a little. . a little impressed. After all, he was a mere policeman and in the house of those considerably superior to him socially.
“What is it you wish to know?” she said coldly.
He smiled charmingly.
“The name and whereabouts of the lunatic who is garotting young women in the streets of this neighbourhood,” he replied. “Of course that is presuming it is one person, and not a crime, and then another crime in imitation.”
She was surprised into facing him, meeting his eyes.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“That sometimes people hear of a crime, especially if it is a gruesome one, and it gives them the idea to solve their own problems in the same manner: to dispose of someone that is in the way, from whose death they could benefit, financially or otherwise, and,” he snapped his fingers, “you have a second murder, or a third, or whatever. The second murderer hopes the first will be blamed.”
“You make it sound so matter-of-fact,” she said with distaste.
“It is a matter of fact, Miss Ellison. Whether it is this fact or not, I have to enquire-but not until I have exhausted some of the more obvious possibilities.”
“What possibilities do you mean?” she asked and then wished she had not. She did not desire to encourage him. And to be honest, she was a little afraid of the answer.
“Three young women have been garotted in this area over the last few months. The first thing that comes to mind is that there is a maniac loose.”
“I would have thought that was the answer,” she said with some relief. “Why should you imagine any other? Why don’t you take your enquiries to the sort of place where you will find such people-I mean the sort of people who are likely to-” she fumbled for the exact phrase she wanted “-the criminal classes!”
“The underworld?” he smiled a little derisively. There was bitter amusement and a little patronage in his tone. “What sort of a place do you imagine the underworld is, Miss Ellison? Something I find by opening a sewer manhole?”
“No, of course not!” she snapped. “I have no knowledge of it myself, of course. It hardly comes within my social sphere! But I know perfectly well that there is a world of criminal classes whose standards are totally different-” she raked him up and down with a withering stare, “-at least from mine!”
“Oh, very different, Miss Ellison,” he agreed, still smiling, but there was a hardness in his eyes. “Although whether you are referring to moral standards, or standards of living you didn’t say. But perhaps it doesn’t matter-they are not as far apart as the words imply. In fact I have come to think they are usually symbiotic.”
“Symbiotic?” she said in disbelief.
He misunderstood her, supposing she did not know the meaning of the word.
“Each dependent upon the other, Miss Ellison. A relationship of coexistence, of mutual feeding, interdependence.”
“I know what the word means!” she said furiously. “I question your choice of it under the circumstances. Poverty does not necessarily produce crime. There are plenty of poor people who are as honest as I.”
At that he broke into a genuine grin.
“You find that amusing, Mr. Pitt?” she said icily. “I spoke forgetting that you do not know me well enough for that to be any standard. But at least you know that I do not garotte young women in the street!”
He looked at her, at her waist, at her slender hands and wrists.
“No,” he agreed. “I doubt you would have the strength.”
“Your sense of wit is impertinent, Mr. Pitt.” She tried to stare him down, but since he was well over six feet and she was half a foot shorter, she failed. “And not in the least amusing,” she finished.
“It was not intended to amuse, Miss Ellison, nor to be wit. I meant it quite literally.” Now he was serious again. “And I doubt you have ever seen real poverty in your life.”
“Yes, I have!”
“Have you?” His disbelief was quite apparent. “Have you seen children abandoned when they are six or seven years old to beg or steal to keep alive, sleeping in gutters and doorways, soaked to the skin by rain, owning nothing but the rags they stand in? What do you suppose happens to them? How long do you think it takes for an undernourished six-year-old, alone in the streets, to die of starvation or cold? When he has been taught nothing but to survive, when he cannot read or write, when he has been passed from one person to another until nobody wants him, what do you think happens to him? Either he dies-and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of their little bodies lying in the back streets, dead of cold and hunger! — or else he’s lucky, and some kidsman or sweep takes him in.”