Anne Perry - Rutland Place

Mulgrew looked at him at last.

"One of the healthiest I know. Why? Obviously it matters to you or you wouldn't be here asking so many questions. Do you imagine it has something to do with Mrs. Spencer-Brown?"

"I don't know. It's one of several possibilities."

"What kind of possibility?" Mulgrew's face creased in pain. "Ottilie was eccentric, even in bad taste to many, but there was nothing evil in her. She was one of the most truly generous people I ever knew. I mean generous with her time-she was never too busy to listen if she thought someone needed to talk. And generous with her praise-she didn't grudge appreciation, or envy other people's successes."

So Mulgrew had loved her, in whatever manner. Pitt did not need to know more: the warmth in Mulgrew's voice told of the loss still hurting him, twisting an emptiness inside.

It made Pitt's own thoughts, prompted by Charlotte, the more painful. It was sharp enough for him to lie. He needed to think about it a little, come to it by degrees. He did not look at Mulgrew when he spoke.

"From evidence I've just heard"-he measured his words slowly-"it seems possible that Mina Spencer-Brown was inordi shy;nately curious about other people's affairs, that she listened, and peeped. Does that seem likely to you?"

Mulgrew's eyes widened and he stared at Pitt, but he did not answer for several minutes. The fire crackled, and on Pitt's knees the cat woke and started kneading him gently with her claws. Absentmindedly he eased her up to rest on his jacket, where she could not reach her claws through to his flesh.

"Yes," Mulgrew said at last. "Never occurred to me before, but she was a watcher, never missed a thing. Sometimes people do that. Knowledge gives them an illusion of power, I suppose. It becomes compulsive. Mina could have been one of them. Intelligent woman, but an empty life-one stupid, prattling party after another. Poor creature." He leaned forward and put another piece of coal on the fire. "All day, every day, and not really necessary anywhere. What a bloody stupid thing to die for- some piece of information acquired through idiotic curiosity, no use to you at all." He turned his face away from the firelight. "And you think it had something to do with Ottilie Charrington?"

"I don't know. Apparently, Mina thought her death was a mystery, hinting that there was a great deal more to it than had been told and that she knew what it was."

"Stupid, sad, cruel woman," Mulgrew said quietly. "What on earth did she imagine it was?"

"I don't know. The possibilities are legion." He did not Want to spell them out and hurt this man still more, but he had to mention at least one, if only to discount it. "A badly done abortion, for example?"

Mulgrew did not move.

"I believe not," he said very levelly. "I cannot swear to it, but I believe not. Do you have to pursue it?"

"At least enough to satisfy myself it is wrong."

"Then ask her brother Inigo Charrington. They were always close. Don't ask Lovell. He's a pompous idiot-can't see further than the quality of print on a calling card! Ottilie drove him frantic. She used to sing songs from the music halls-God only knows where she learned them! Sang one on a Sunday once- drinking song, it was, something about beer-not even a decent claret! Ambrosine called me in. She thought Lovell was going to take a seizure. Purple to the hair, he was, poor fool."

At any other time Pitt would have laughed. But the knowledge that Ottilie was dead, perhaps murdered, robbed the anecdote of any humor.

"Pity," he said quietly. "We get so many of our priorities wrong and never know it until afterwards, when it doesn't matter anymore. Thank you. I'll speak to Inigo." He stood up and put the little cat on the warm spot where he had been sitting. She stretched and curled up again, totally content.

Mulgrew shot to his feet. "But that can't be all! If Mina, wretched woman, was a Peeping Tom, she must have seen other things-God knows what! Affaires, at least! There's more than one butler around here should lose his job, that I know of-and more than one parlormaid, if her mistress knew of it!"

Pitt pulled a face. "I daresay. I'll have to look at them all. By the way, did you know there is a sneak thief in Rutland Place?"

"Oh God, that too! No, I didn't know, but it doesn't surprise me. It happens every now and then."

"Not a servant. One of the residents."

"Oh, my God!" Mulgrew's face fell. "Are you sure?"

"Beyond reasonable doubt."

"What a wretched business. I suppose it couldn't have been Mina herself?"

"Yes, it could. Or it could have been her murderer."

"I thought my job was foul at times. I'd a damned sight rather have it than yours."

"I think I would too, at the moment," Pitt said. "Unfortunately we can't chop and change. I couldn't do yours, even if you were willing to trade. Thanks for your help."

"Come back if I can do anything." Mulgrew put out his hand, and Pitt clasped it hard. A few minutes later he was outside again in the rain.

It took him two and a half hours to find Inigo Charrington, by which time it was past noon and Inigo was at the dining table in his club. Pitt was obliged to wait in the smoking room, under the disapproving eye of a dyspeptic steward who kept clearing his throat with irritating persistence, till Pitt found he was counting the seconds each time, waiting for him to do it again.

Finally, Inigo came in and was informed in hushed tones of Pitt's presence. He came over to him, his face a mixture of amusement at the steward's dilemma-and his own as other eyes were raised to stare at him-and apprehension about what Pitt might want. '.

"Inspector Pitt?" He dropped rather sharply into the chair opposite. "From the police?"

"Yes, sir." Pitt regarded him with interest. He was slender, not more than thirty at the most, with an odd, quick-silver face and auburn hair.

"Something else happened?" Inigo said anxiously.

"No, sir." Pitt regretted having alarmed him. Somehow he could not picture him having murdered his sister, or Mina either, to keep a scandal quiet. There was too much sheer humor in his face. "No, nothing at all, that I am aware of. But we have still not found any satisfactory answer as to how Mrs. Spencer-Brown met her death. There seems no explanation, so far, that makes either accident or suicide possible."

"Oh." Indigo sat back a little. "I suppose that means it could only have been murder. Poor soul."

"Indeed. And I daresay a great deal more pain will be caused before the business is finished."

Inigo looked at him gravely. "I imagine so. What do you want me for? I don't think I know anything. I certainly didn't know Mina very well." His mouth turned down in a sour smile. "I didn't have any reason to kill her. Although I suppose you can hardly take my word for that! I wouldn't be likely to tell you so if I had!"

Pitt found himself smiling back. "Hardly. What I was hoping for was information." He could not afford to be direct. Inigo was far too quick; he would anticipate suspicion and cover any trace of real worth.

"About Mina? You'd do much better asking some of the women-even my mother. She's rather absentminded at times, and she gets her gossip a little twisted, but underneath it all she's a pretty shrewd judge of character. She may get her facts wrong, but her feelings are invariably right."

"I shall ask her," Pitt said. "But she might speak considera shy;bly more freely to me if I had approached you first. Normally ladies such as Mrs. Charrington do not confide their opinions of their neighbors to the police."

Inigo's face softened into mercurial laughter, gone in an instant.

"Very tactfully put, Inspector. I imagine they don't. Although Mama has a taste for the bizarre. I'll mention it to her this evening. She might surprise you and tell you all sorts of things. Although quite honestly, she isn't really a gossip. Not enough malice in her. She used to like to shock people occasionally when she was younger. Got bored with everyone repeating the same rubbish evening after evening at the same parties-just different dresses and different houses, but all the same con shy;versations. Bit like Tillie."