Anne Perry - Southampton Row

It was possible the Bishop was actually the person who had killed the unfortunate spirit medium, although the more she thought about it, the less did she actually believe he had done it. But she had not the right to conceal information on the strength of her own beliefs when they were not knowledge. Somebody had killed Maude Lamont, and the other people there that evening seemed equally unlikely.

She had thought she knew her husband, but she had been completely unaware of his crisis of faith, the terror inside him. It could not have arisen suddenly, even if it had seemed so to him. The underlying weakness must have been there for years, perhaps always?

How much do we ever know other people, especially if we don’t really care, not deeply, not with compassion and the effort to watch, to listen, to stretch the imagination and to stop placing self to the front? The fact that he did not know her, or particularly want to, was not an excuse.

She sat thinking all these things, not moving from her chair, not finding anything to comfort herself with or even anything there was purpose in doing until he should return, either with or without the proof he sought.

What would she say to him then? Would she have to tell him that she had been to Cornwallis? Probably. She would not be able to lie to him, to live in the same house, sit across the meal table and make idiotic conversation about nothing, all the time hiding that secret.

She was still sitting doing nothing, her mind consumed in thought, when the maid came to say that Captain Cornwallis was in the morning room and said he must see her.

Her heart lurched, and for a moment she felt so dizzy she could not stand up. So it was Reginald who had killed the medium! He had been arrested. She told the maid that she would come, and then as the girl stood staring at her, she realized she had spoken only in her mind.

“Thank you,” she said aloud. “I shall see him.” Very slowly she stood up. “Please do not interrupt unless I send for you. I. . I fear it may be bad news.” She walked past the girl and out of the door, across the hall and into the morning room, closing the door behind her before she faced Cornwallis.

At last she looked at him. He was very pale, his eyes fixed as if something had shocked him so profoundly he was slow to react in the most physical sense. He took a step towards her, then stopped.

“I. . I know of no gentle way to tell you. .” he began.

The room swam around her. It was true! She had not even really thought it could be, not even a moment ago.

She felt his hands on her arms, holding her, almost supporting her weight. It was ridiculous, but her legs were buckling under her. She staggered back and sank into one of the chairs. He was leaning over her, his face tense with overwhelming emotion.

“Bishop Underhill went to Southampton Row and spoke for some time to the housekeeper, Lena Forrest,” he was saying. “We do not know exactly what was the cause, but there was a fire, and then an explosion which broke the gas lines.”

She blinked. “Is he. . hurt?” Why did she not ask what really mattered: Is he guilty?

“I am afraid there was another, bigger explosion,” he said very quietly. “They were both killed. There is very little left of the house. I’m so sorry.”

Dead? Reginald was dead? That was the one thing she had not thought of. She should be feeling horror, loss, a great aching hollow inside herself. The pity was all right, but not the sense of escape!

She closed her eyes, not for grief, but so Cornwallis would not see in her the confusion, the great rise of overwhelming relief that she would not have to watch Reginald suffer shame, humiliation, rejection by his fellows, the confusion and pain that would follow. Then perhaps a long and debilitating illness, and the fear of death that would go with it. Instead, death had found him suddenly, with no time for him even to recognize its face.

“Will they ever know the real reason he went there?” she asked, opening her eyes and looking at him.

“I know of no reason why they should,” he replied. “It was the housekeeper who killed Maude Lamont. It seems her sister had had a tragic experience with a medium years ago, and took her own life as a result. Lena never got over it. She believed in Maude Lamont until just recently. At least that is what Pitt explained to me.” He dropped to his knees in front of her, taking her stiff hands in his. “Isadora.”

It was the first time he had used her name.

Suddenly she wanted to weep. It was shock, the warmth of him close to her. She felt the tears flood her eyes and spill over.

For a moment he was at a loss, then he leaned forward and put his arms around her, holding her and allowing her to weep as long as she needed to, safe, very close, his cheek against her hair. And she stayed there long after the shock had worn itself out, because she did not wish to move, and she knew in her heart that he did not, either.

Pitt met Narraway again at the railway station, waiting for the train to Teddington. Narraway had a tight, hard smile on his face, still savoring the satisfaction of telling Wetron the conclusion of the case and handing it to him.

“Cornwallis will tell Mrs. Underhill,” Pitt said briefly. His mind was leaping ahead to the coroner, and the thin thread of hope that in examining Wray’s body he would find something that would show any truth better than the one Pitt feared.

There was little to say on the train journey. Both men had been bruised physically and emotionally by the tragedy of the morning. Pitt at least felt a mixture of compassion and revulsion for the Bishop. Fear was too familiar not to understand it, whether it was of physical pain and then extinction, or of emotional humiliation. But there had been too little in the man to admire. It was a pity without respect.

Lena Forrest was different. He could not approve what she had done. She had murdered Maude Lamont in revenge and outrage, not to save her own life, or anyone else’s, at least not directly. She may have believed it so in her own imagination. They would never know.

But she had planned it with great care and ingenuity, and after carrying it out, had been perfectly willing to allow the police to suspect others.

Still, he felt sorry for the pain she must have endured over the years since her sister’s death. And they had suspected others of having killed Maude Lamont only because there were those she had given real cause to hate and fear her. She was a woman prepared to act with extraordinary cruelty and to manipulate the tragedies of the most vulnerable for her own personal gain.

He would have guessed Cornwallis might have felt similarly. Of Narraway’s thoughts he had no idea at all, and no intention of asking. If after this he was still able to work in London at all, it would be for Narraway. He could not afford anger or contempt for him.

They sat in silence all the way to Teddington, and to Kingston beyond. The noise of the train was sufficient to make conversation difficult, and neither had any desire to discuss either what had passed or what might be to come.

At Kingston they took a hansom from the station to the mortuary where the autopsy had been conducted. Narraway’s position was sufficient to command an almost immediate attention from a highly irritated doctor. He was a large man with a snub nose and receding hair. In his youth he had been handsome, but now his features had coarsened. He regarded the two bruised, filthy men with extreme distaste.

Narraway retained his look with a level stare.

“I can’t imagine what Special Branch wants with the death of an unfortunate old man of such distinction in his life,” the doctor said tartly. “Good thing he has only friends, and no family to be distressed by all this!” He flicked his hand, indicating the room behind him, where presumably autopsies were carried out.