Anne Perry - Traitors Gate

“Where did it happen?”

“Withdrawing room. Mr. Chancellor had sent for George to harness up the brougham and come and tell him when it was done. He wanted to know something about one o’ the horses, so he wanted George hisself, like, not just the message. He was having a mug o’ cocoa-”

“Warm weather for cocoa, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. I would sooner have had a lemonade, myself,” the footman agreed. His face was puzzled, but he still obediently answered every question.

“Is Mr. Chancellor fond of cocoa?”

“Never ’eard that he was. But he certainly had cocoa that evening. I’d swear to that. I’ve seen poor George. Anyway, seems Mr. Chancellor’s foot slipped, or summink, and George moved rather sudden like, and got himself scalded. Mr. Chancellor rang the bell immediately, and Mr. Richards came and saw what had happened. Then before you know what’s what, we’re all in the kitchen trying to help poor George, getting his coat off, ripping his shirtsleeves, putting this and that on his arm, Cook and the housekeeper arguing fit to bust whether butter’s best, or flour, maids shrieking and Mr. Richards saying as we should get a doctor. Housemaids is upstairs in bed, in the attic, so they didn’t know a thing, and nobody even thought of them to clean up. And with Mr. Chancellor needing to go out”

“So he drove himself?”

“That’s right.”

“What time did he get home?”

“Don’t know, sir. Late, because we went to bed just before midnight, poor George being in state, and the mistress not home yet….” His face fell as he remembered all that he had learned since the panic of that night.

“Where was Lily during this upheaval?”

“In the kitchen with the rest of us, till Mr. Chancellor sent her to the landing to tear up the old sheets to make bandages for George.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Shall I get Lily, sir?”

“Yes please.”

Pitt stood in the fine hallway, looking about him, not at the pictures and the sheen on the parquet flooring, but at the stairway and the landing across the top, and then at the chandelier hanging from the ceiling with its dozen or so lights.

Lily came through the green baize door looking anxious and still profoundly shaken.

“Y-you want to see me, sir? I didn’t know anything, I swear, or I’d have told you then. I don’t know where the mistress went. She never said a thing to me. I didn’t even know she was going out!”

“No, I know that, Lily,” he said as gently as he could. “I want you to think back very carefully. Can you remember where you were when you saw her leave? Tell me exactly what you saw … absolutely exactly.”

She stared at him. “I just came along the landing after turning down the beds an’ looked down to the hallway….”

“Why?”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Why did you look down?”

“Oh-I suppose ’cause I saw someone moving across towards the door….”

“Exactly what did you see?”

“Mrs. Chancellor going to the front door, sir, like I said.”

“Did she speak to you?”

“Oh no, she was on ’er way out.”

“She didn’t say good night, or tell you when she expected to come back? After all, you would have to wait up for her.”

“No sir, she didn’t see me ’cause she didn’t turn ’round. I just saw her back as she went out.”

“But you knew it was her?”

“O’ course I knew it was her. She was wearin’ her best cloak, dark blue velvet, it is, lined with white silk. It’s the most beautiful cloak….” She stopped, her eyes filling with tears. She sniffed hard. “Yer didn’t ever find it, did you, sir?”

“Yes, we found it,” Pitt said almost in a whisper. He had never before felt such a complex mixture of grief and anger about any case that he could recall.

She looked at him. “Where was it?”

“I don’t think you need to know that, Lily.” Why hurt her unnecessarily? She had loved her mistress, cared for her in her day-to-day life, been part of it in all its intimacies. Why tell her it had been pushed down into the sewers that wove and interwove under London?

She must have understood his reasons. She accepted the answer.

“You saw the back of Mrs. Chancellor’s head, the cloak, as she went across the hall towards the front door. Did you see her dinner gown beneath it?”

“No sir, it comes to the floor.”

“All you could see would be her face?”

“That’s right.”

“But she had her back to you?”

“If you’re going to say it weren’t her, sir, you’re wrong. There weren’t no other lady her height! Apart from that, there weren’t no other lady here, sir, then nor ever. Mr. Chancellor isn’t like that with other ladies. Devoted, he was, poor man.”

“No, I wasn’t thinking that, Lily.”

“I’m glad….” She looked uncomfortable. Presumably she was thinking of Peter Kreisler, and the ugly suspicions that had crossed their minds with regard to Susannah.

“Thank you, Lily, that’s all.”

“Yes sir.”

As soon as Lily had gone the footman appeared from the recess beyond the stairs. No doubt he had been waiting there in order to conduct Pitt to his master.

“Mr. Chancellor asked me to take you to the study, Superintendent,” he instructed Pitt, leading the way through a large oak door, along a passage into another wing of the house, and knocking on another door. As soon as it was answered, he opened it and stood back for Pitt to enter.

This was very different from the more formal reception rooms leading off the hall where Pitt had seen Chancellor before. The curtains were drawn closed over the deep windows. The room was decorated in yellows and creams, with touches of dark wood, and had an air of both graciousness and practicality. Three walls had bookcases against them, and there was a mahogany desk towards the center, with a large chair behind it. Pitt’s eyes went straight to the humidor on top.

Chancellor looked strained and tired. There were shadows around his eyes, and his hair was not quite as immaculate as when Pitt had first known him, but he was perfectly composed.

“Further news, Mr. Pitt?” he said with a lift of his eyebrows. He only glanced at Pitt’s grimy clothes and completely disregarded the odor. “Surely anything now is academic? Thorne has escaped, which may not be as bad as it first appears. It will save the government the difficulty of coming to a decision as to what to do about him.” He smiled with a slight twist to his mouth. “I hope there is no one else implicated? Apart from Soames, that is.”

“No, no one,” Pitt replied. He hated doing this. It was a cat-and-mouse game, and yet there was no other way of conducting it. But he had no taste for it, no sense of achievement.

“Then what is it, man?” Chancellor frowned. “Quite frankly, I am not in a frame of mind to indulge in lengthy conversation. I commend you for your diligence. Is there anything else?”

“Yes, Mr. Chancellor, there is. I have learned a great deal more about the death of your wife….”

Chancellor’s eyes did not waver. They were bluer than Pitt had remembered them.

“Indeed?” There was a very slight lift in his voice, an unsteadiness, but that was only natural.

Pitt took a deep breath. His own voice sounded strange in his ears when he spoke, almost unreal. The clock on the Pembroke table by the wall ticked so loudly it seemed to echo in the room. The drawn curtains muffled every sound from the garden or the street beyond.

“She was not thrown into the river and washed up by chance of tide at Traitors Gate….”

Chancellor said nothing, but his eyes did not leave Pitt’s.

“She was killed before, early in the evening,” Pitt went on, measuring what he was saying, choosing his words, the order in which he related the facts. “Then taken in a carriage across the river to a place just south of London Bridge, a place called Little Bridge Stairs.”