Anne Perry - Half Moon Street

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 the murder of Mr. Cathcart, about a mile away from here, and I need an answer to my question. Did you sell one of those exactly two weeks ago to a tall, young man, probably with fair hair?”

The ironmonger paled visibly. “I–I didn’t know there was anything wrong! He seemed. . very quiet, very nicely spoken. But, no, not fair hair, as I recall, rather more. . sort of. .”

“His hair doesn’t matter!” Pitt said impatiently. “Was he tall, slender, young. . about twenty-five?” Although Orlando could have disguised that too, if he had thought of it.

“I. . I can’t remember. I sold one that day, though. I know that because I keep very close watch on my stock. Never run out of any household ironmongery if I can help it. If it can be bought, it can be bought here at Foster and Sons.”

“Thank you. You may be required to testify to that, so please keep your records safe.”

“I will! I will!”

Outside on the footpath Tellman stopped and stared at Pitt, his face somber.

“There isn’t much more to do, is there.” It was a statement, almost a surrender. “He could have spent the time till dark in any one of the pubs around here. If you want I’ll go to all of them and ask, but I reckon we don’t need to know, now that we’ve got the rolling pin.”

“No. . not really,” Pitt agreed. He smiled and straightened his shoulders a little. “We’d better go and see if we can find it, although it’s probably in the river. It would be proof. We’ll go through the crime, see what must have happened.”

Tellman pulled his coat collar up and they set out back to the house on the river, walking silently. They must do it before dark, and there were only a couple of hours left.

Mrs. Geddes had been sent for and was at the house waiting, her face full of mistrust as she watched them enter the hallway and solemnly begin the reenactment of the murder, Pitt taking the part of Orlando, Tellman of Cathcart.

Of course they had no idea of what conversation there might have been between the two men, or what reason Orlando had given for his visit. They began from a point which was incontestable.

“He must have stood here,” Tellman said, thin-lipped, placing himself near the pedestal where the vase had been smashed and the alternative set in its stead.

“I wonder why?” Pitt said thoughtfully. “He had his back to Orlando when he was struck, which makes me wonder how Orlando disguised the pin. No one goes to visit carrying a rolling pin, even wrapped in brown paper.”

“Say he’d just bought it. . on his way?” Tellman suggested, frowning with dislike of the thought even as he said it.