Anne Perry - Southampton Row

Pitt was surprised. “Early for a lady to get up, isn’t it? Especially one who didn’t begin work until the evening and frequently stayed late with clients.”

“I asked her that, too.” Tellman glared. “She said Miss Lamont always got up early and took a nap in the afternoons.” His expression suggested the pointlessness of trying to make sense of any of the habits of someone who thought she spoke to ghosts.

“Did she touch anything?”

“She says not, and I can’t see any evidence that she did. She said that she could see straight away that Miss Lamont was dead. She wasn’t breathing, she had this bluish look, and when the maid put a finger on her neck, it was quite cold.”

Pitt turned enquiringly towards the doctor.

Snow pursed his lips. “Died sometime yesterday evening,” he said, staring at Pitt with sharp, questioning eyes.

Pitt looked towards the body again, then took a step closer and peered at the face and the strange sticky mess spilling out of her mouth and down over the side of her chin. At first he had thought it vomit from some ingested poison; on closer examination there was a texture to it, a thickness that looked almost like a very fine gauze.

He straightened up and turned to the doctor. “Poison?” he said, his imagination racing. “What is it? Can you tell? Her face looks as if she’s been strangled, or suffocated.”

“Asphyxia.” Snow inclined his head in a very slight nod. “I can’t be sure until I get to my laboratory, but I think that’s white of egg-”

“What?” Pitt was incredulous. “Why would she swallow white of egg? And what is the-the. .”

“Some sort of muslin or cheesecloth.” Snow’s mouth twisted wryly as if he were on the brink of some deeper knowledge of human nature, and afraid of what he would find. “She choked on it. Inhaled it into her lungs. But it wasn’t an accident.” He moved past Pitt and pulled open the lace front of the bodice to the dead woman’s gown. It came away in his hand where it had obviously been torn before in the need to examine her, and closed over again for decency’s sake. On the flesh between the swell of her breasts was the beginning of a wide bruise, only just darkening when death had cut off the flow of blood.

Pitt met Snow’s eyes. “Force to make her swallow it?”

Snow nodded. “I’d say a knee,” he agreed. “Someone put that stuff down her throat and held her nose. You can see the very slight scratch of a fingernail on her cheek. They pinned her down with considerable weight until she couldn’t help breathing in, and choking.”

“Are you certain?” Pitt tried to rid his mind of the picture, the sense of the thick liquid gagging in her throat, the woman fighting for air.

“As certain as we can be,” Snow answered. “Unless on autopsy I find something completely different. But she died of asphyxia. Can tell that from her expression, and from the tiny blood clots in her eyes.” He did not show them and Pitt was glad. He had seen it before and was content to accept Snow’s word. Instead he picked up one of the cold hands and turned it slightly, looking at the wrist. He found the slight bruises as he had expected. Someone had held her, perhaps only briefly, but with force.

“I see,” he said softly. “You’d better tell me if it is egg white, but I’ll assume it is. Why would anyone choose such a bizarre, unnecessary way of killing someone?”

“That’s your job,” Snow said dryly. “I can tell you what happened to her, but not why, or who did it.”

Pitt turned to Tellman. “You said the maid found her?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Not much, only that she did not see or hear anything after she left Miss Lamont when her clients were due. But then she says she took care not to. One of the reasons they liked Miss Lamont was the privacy she offered them. . as well as her. . whatever you call it?” He frowned, searching Pitt’s face. “What is it?” He had steadfastly refused to call him “sir” right from the first difficult days when Pitt himself was newly promoted. Tellman had resented him because he considered him, as a gamekeeper’s son, not to be suitable for command of a station. That was for gentlemen, or returned military or naval men, such as Cornwallis. “What do you call it-a skill, an act, a trick?”

“Probably all three,” Pitt replied. Then he went on thinking aloud. “I suppose if it’s for entertainment it’s harmless enough. But how do you know if someone takes it seriously, whether you mean them to or not?”

“You don’t!” Tellman snorted. “I like my conjuring to be strictly a deck of cards or rabbits out of a hat. That way nobody gets taken in.”

“Do you know who yesterday evening’s clients were, and if they came one at a time or all together?”

“The maid doesn’t know,” Tellman answered. “Or at least that’s what she says, and I’ve no reason to disbelieve her.”

“Where is she? Is she in a fit state to answer questions?”

“Oh yes,” Tellman said with assurance. “A little shaken, of course, but seems like a sensible woman. I don’t suppose she’s realized yet what it will mean for her. But once we’ve searched the house completely, and maybe locked off this room, there’s no reason why she can’t stay here for a while, is there? Till she finds another position, anyway.”

“No,” Pitt agreed. “Better she does. We’ll know where to find her if we have more to ask. I’ll go and see her in the kitchen. Can’t expect her to come in here.” He glanced at the corpse as he crossed the room to the door. Tellman did not follow him. He would have his own men to send on errands, searches, perhaps questions of people in the neighborhood, although it was reasonable to suppose that the crime would have taken place after dark and the chances that anyone had observed anything of use were slight.

Pitt followed the passage towards the back of the house, past several other doors, to the one at the end which was open, with a pattern of sunlight on a scrubbed wooden floor. He stopped in the entrance. It was a well-kept kitchen, clean and warm. There was a kettle steaming very slightly on the black cooking stove. A tall woman, a little thin, stood at the sink with her sleeves rolled up above her elbows and her hands in soapy water. She was motionless, as if she had forgotten what she was there for.

“Miss Forrest?” Pitt asked.

She turned slowly. She seemed in her late forties; her brown hair, graying at the temples, was pinned back off her brow. Her face was unusual, with beautiful bones around her eyes and cheeks, her nose straight but not quite prominent enough, her mouth wide and well-shaped. She was not beautiful; in fact, in a way she was almost ugly.

“Yes. Are you another policeman?” She spoke with a very slight lisp, although it was not quite an impediment. Slowly she lifted her hands out of the water.

“Yes, I am,” Pitt replied. “I’m sorry to ask you more questions when you must be distressed, but we cannot afford to wait for a better time.” He felt a trifle foolish as he said it. She looked completely in control of herself, but he knew that shock affected people in different ways. Sometimes when it was very profound, there were no outward signs at all. “My name is Pitt. Would you sit down please, Miss Forrest.”

Slowly she obeyed, automatically drying her hands on a towel left over a brass rail in front of the stove. She sat down on one of the hard-backed chairs near the table, and he sat on one of the others.

“What is it you want to know?” she asked, staring not at him but at some space over his right shoulder. The kitchen was orderly: there was clean, plain china stacked on the dresser, and a pile of ironed linen on one of the broad sills, no doubt waiting to be put away. More hung from the airing rail winched up near the ceiling. The coke scuttle was full on the floor by the back door. The stove was polished black. Light winked softly over the sides of the copper pans hanging from the cross beam, and there was a faint aroma of spices. The only thing missing was any sight or smell of food. It was a house no longer with any purpose.