“Thank you,” he said aloud to Sutherland.
“I’ll write it all out,” Sutherland replied, screwing up his face, “and send it to the station.”
“Thank you,” Pitt repeated, and saw the look of rueful understanding in Sutherland’s expression. “Good night.”
“Good night.” Sutherland picked up his pencil again and continued scribbling on the paper in front of him.
THE MORNING AFTER the theater Charlotte went out quite early, and during the rest of the day was fully occupied in domestic matters, since it was her maid Gracie’s afternoon off. Therefore it was the following day, when Pitt already knew that Stafford had died of opium poisoning, that she began the long task of making a rich fruitcake, and had the opportunity to tell Gracie what had happened.
The first job with the cake was to prepare the fruit itself. The currants and sultanas had to be rubbed in flour to ease out the lumps. Charlotte was busy doing this in the center of the scrubbed kitchen table while Gracie took everything down from the dresser and washed the shelves and the plates and polished the saucepans. She had been with Charlotte for several years now, and was nearly seventeen, but in spite of all Charlotte’s efforts, she was still almost as small and waiflike in appearance as when she had first come. However, her bearing had altered beyond recognition. She had a confidence greater than that of any other maid on the street, quite probably in half of Bloomsbury. She not only worked for a detective, the best in the whole metropolitan force, but she had actually assisted in a case herself. She had had adventures, and she did not accept a cheeky answer from any errand boy or tradesman, whoever they were.
Now she was perched on the dresser at risk to life and limb, a damp cloth in one hand and a china tureen in the other, her face set in concentration as she turned very slowly and set down the tureen before wiping the top shelf with first one side of the cloth, then the other, regarding the dirt with satisfaction, then doing it again.
Charlotte bent over the fruit, her fingers exploring the hard-packed knobs of currants and forcing them into separate pieces.
“Was it a wonderful drama, ma’am?” Gracie asked with interest, climbing backwards precariously.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte said with candor. “To tell you the truth I hardly noticed it. But the main actor was extremely attractive.” She smiled as she said it, thinking of Caroline’s vulnerability in the matter.
“Was ’e terrible ’andsome?” Gracie said curiously. “Was ’e dark and very dashing?”
“Not really dark.” Charlotte pictured Joshua Fielding’s highly individual, whimsical face. “Not really handsome, I suppose, in an ordinary way. But extremely appealing. I think because one felt he had such an ability to laugh without cruelty, and to be gentle. One imagined he might understand all sorts of things.”
“Sounds very nice,” Gracie approved. “I’d like to know someone like that. Was the heroine beautiful? What was she like? All golden ’air and big eyes?”
“No, not at all,” Charlotte replied thoughtfully. “In fact she was about the darkest woman I have ever seen who was still English. But she could make you feel she was the most beautiful woman in the world when she wanted to. She really had a presence. Everyone else looked pallid and washed out beside her. She seemed to burn inside, as if other people were half alive—but not ostentatious, if you know what I mean?”
“No, ma’am,” Gracie admitted. “Oss what?”
“Oh—outwardly showy.”
“Oh.” Gracie climbed down, her skirts and apron in a bunch, and went to the tap to wash her cloth. “I can’t imagine a woman like that—but I’d like to. She sounds real exciting.” She wrung out the cloth with small, thin, very strong hands, and clambered back up onto the dresser. “Why was it you didn’t enjoy the drama, then, ma’am?”
“Because there was a murder in the next box,” Charlotte replied, tipping out more flour onto the sultanas.
Gracie stopped in midair, one hand on the top shelf, the other brandishing a sauceboat. She turned very slowly, her sharp little face alight with excitement.
“A murder? Really? Are you joshing me, ma’am?”
“Oh no,” Charlotte said seriously. “Not at all. A very eminent judge was killed. Actually I exaggerated a little; it wasn’t the next box, it was about four boxes away. He was poisoned.”
Gracie screwed up her face, ever practical of mind. “How can you poison anyone in a theater? I mean on purpose—I ate some eels once wot made me sick—but nobody did it intentional, like.”
“In his whiskey flask,” Charlotte explained, kneading out the last lump from the sultanas and putting them all into the colander ready to wash them under the tap in order to remove the grit before she searched them for odd stalks.
“Oh dear—poor gentleman.” Gracie resumed wiping the shelves. “Was it ’orrible?”
Charlotte took the colander to the sink.
“No, not really. He just sort of sank into a coma.” Charlotte turned on the tap and flushed the water through the fruit. “I was sorrier for his wife, poor soul.”
“She weren’t the one wot done it?” Gracie asked dubiously.
“I don’t know. He was a judge of the appeal court, and he had started to look into a case he dealt with several years ago—a very dreadful murder. The man who was hanged for it was the brother of the actress I told you about.”
“Cor!” Gracie was now totally absorbed. She put the sauceboat back on the wrong shelf, without its dish. “Cor!” she said again, pushing her cloth into her apron pocket and standing quite still on the dresser, her head almost to the airing rail just below the ceiling. “Was it a case the master was on?”
“No—not then.” Charlotte turned the tap off and took the fruit back to the kitchen table, tipped it out onto a soft cloth and patted it dry, then began to look for stalks. “But he will go into it all now, I expect.”
“Why’d they kill the judge, then?” Gracie was suddenly puzzled. “If ’e were goin’ ter look inter the case again, in’t that what she’d want? Oh! O’ course! You mean whoever really did the murder was scared as ’e’d find out it were them. Cor—it could be anybody, couldn’t it? Were it very ’orrible?”
“Yes, very. Much too horrible to tell you about. You’ll have bad dreams.”
“Garn,” Gracie said cheerfully. “Won’t be worse ’n I already ’eard!”
“Possibly not,” Charlotte agreed ruefully. “It was the Farriers’ Lane murder.”
“I never ’eard o’ that.” Gracie looked disappointed.
“You wouldn’t,” Charlotte agreed. “It was five years ago. You were only twelve then.”
“That were before I could read,” Gracie agreed with considerable pride. Reading was a real accomplishment, and placed her considerably above her contemporaries and previous social equals. Charlotte had taken time in which they should both have been employed in domestic chores in order to teach her, but the reward had been enormous, even if she was quite sure Gracie spent much of her reading time with penny dreadfuls.
“The master’s goin’ ter investigate it?” Gracie interrupted her thoughts. “Actresses and judges. ’e’s gettin’ ever so important, in’t ’e?”
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed with a smile. Gracie was so proud of Pitt her face shone when she mentioned his name. Charlotte had more than once overheard her speaking to tradesmen, telling them precisely who she worked for, whose house this was, and that they had better mind their p’s and q’s and provide only the very best!
Gracie began wiping the lower shelves of the dresser and replacing the dishes and pans. Twice she stopped to hitch up her skirt. She was so small that skirts were always a bit too long for her, and she had not taken this one up sufficiently. Charlotte spread out the fruit on a baking tray and put it into the warm oven, which was well damped down to keep it from getting any hotter for the time being.