Anne Perry - Highgate Rise

As it happened, Mrs. Clemency Shaw had probably been suffocated by smoke before she burned; and Dr. Stephen Shaw had been out on a medical emergency over a mile away. The servants had known nothing until the fire brigade bells had disturbed them and the firemen had set ladders at their windows to help them out.

It was nearly three o’clock and the rain had stopped when Pitt and Murdo knocked at the door of the neighbor immediately to the right of the burned house. It was opened less than a minute afterwards by the owner himself, a small man with a fine head of silver hair brushed back from his forehead in leonine waves. His expression was very earnest. There was a furrow of anxiety between his brows, and not a vestige of humor in the lines round his gentle, precise mouth.

“Good afternoon. Good afternoon,” he said hastily. “You are the police. Yes, of course you are.” Murdo’s uniform made the observation unnecessary, although the man looked askance at Pitt. One did not recall the faces of police, as one did not of bus conductors, or drain cleaners, but lack of uniform was unexplained. He stood back and aside to make way for them readily.

“Come in. You want to know if I saw anything. Naturally. I cannot think how it happened. A most careful woman. Quite dreadful. Gas, I suppose. I have often thought perhaps we should not have abandoned candles. So much more agreeable.” He turned around and led the way through the rather gloomy hall and into a large withdrawing room which over a space of years had been used more and more often as a study.

Pitt glanced around it with interest. It was highly individual and spoke much of the man. There were four large, very untidy bookshelves, obviously stocked for convenience and not ornament. There was no visual order, only that of frequent use. Paper folios were poked in next to leather-bound volumes, large books next to small. A gilt-framed and very romantic picture of Sir Galahad kneeling in holy vigil hung above the fireplace, and another opposite it of the Lady of Shallott drifting down the river with flowers in her hair. There was a fine model of a crusader on horseback on a round wooden table by the leather armchair, and open letters scattered on the desk. Three newspapers were piled precariously on the arm of the couch and clippings lay on the seats.

“Quinton Pascoe,” their host said, introducing himself hastily. “But of course you know that. Here.” He dived for the newspaper clippings and removed them to an open desk drawer, where they lay chaotically skewed. “Sit down, gentlemen. This is quite dreadful-quite dreadful. Mrs. Shaw was a very fine woman. A terrible loss. A tragedy.”

Pitt sat down gingerly on the couch and ignored a crackle of newspaper behind the cushion. Murdo remained on his feet.

“Inspector Pitt-and Constable Murdo,” he said, introducing them. “What time did you retire last night, Mr. Pascoe?”

Pascoe’s eyebrows shot up, then he realized the point of the question.

“Oh-I see. A little before midnight. I am afraid I neither saw nor heard anything until the fire brigade bells disturbed me. Then, of course, there was the noise of the burning. Dreadful!” He shook his head, regarding Pitt apologetically. “I am afraid I sleep rather heavily. I feel a fearful guilt. Oh dear.” He sniffed and blinked, turning his head towards the window and the wild, lush garden beyond, the tawny color of early autumn blooms still visible. “If I had retired a little later, even fifteen minutes, I might have seen the first flicker of flames, and raised the alarm.” He screwed up his face as the vision became sharp in his mind. “I am so very sorry. Not much use being sorry, is there? Not now.”

“Did you happen to look out at the street within the last half hour or so before you retired?” Pitt pressed him.

“I did not see the fire, Inspector,” Pascoe said a trifle more sharply. “And for the life of me I cannot see the purpose in your repeatedly asking me. I mourn poor Mrs. Shaw. She was a very fine woman. But there is nothing any of us can do now, except-” He sniffed again and puckered his lips. “Except do what we can for poor Dr. Shaw-I suppose.”

Murdo fidgeted almost imperceptibly and his eyes flickered to Pitt, and back again.

It would be common knowledge soon and Pitt could think of no advantage secrecy would give.

He leaned forward and the newspaper behind the cushion crackled again.

“The fire was not an accident, Mr. Pascoe. Of course the gas exploding will have made it worse, but it cannot have begun it. It started independently in several places at once. Apparently windows.”

“Windows? What on earth do you mean? Windows don’t burn, man! Just who are you?”

“Inspector Thomas Pitt, from the Bow Street station, sir.”

“Bow Street?” Pascoe’s white eyebrows rose in amazement. “But Bow Street is in London-miles from here. What is wrong with our local station?”

“Nothing,” Pitt said, keeping his temper with difficulty. It was going to be hard enough to preserve amicable relations without comments like this in Murdo’s hearing. “But the superintendent regards the matter as very grave, and wants to have it cleared up as rapidly as possible. The fire chief tells us that the fire started at the windows, as if the curtains were the first to catch alight, and heavy curtains burn very well, especially if soaked in candle oil or paraffin first.”

“Oh my God!” Pascoe’s face lost every shred of its color.

“Are you saying someone set it intentionally-to kill-No!” He shook his head fiercely. “Rubbish! Absolute tommyrot! No one would murder Clemency Shaw. It must have been Dr. Shaw they were after. Where was he anyway? Why wasn’t he at home? I could understand it if-” He stopped speaking and sat staring at the floor miserably.

“Did you see anyone, Mr. Pascoe?” Pitt repeated, watching his hunched figure. “A person walking, a coach or carriage, a light, anything at all.”

“I-” He sighed. “I went for a walk in my garden before going upstairs. I had been working on a paper which had given me some trouble.” He cleared his throat sharply, hesitated a moment, then his emotion got the better of him and the words poured out. “In rebuttal of a quite preposterous claim of Dalgetty’s about Richard Coeur de Leon.” His voice caressed the romance of the name. “You don’t know John Dalgetty-why should you? He is an utterly irresponsible person, quite without self-control or a proper sense of the decencies.” His expression crumpled with revulsion at such a thing. “Book reviewers have a duty, you know.” His eyes fixed Pitt’s. “We mold opinion. It matters what we sell to the public, and what we praise or condemn. But Dalgetty would rather allow all the values of chivalry and honor to be mocked or ignored, in the name of liberty, but in truth he means license.” He jerked up and waved his hands expansively, wrists limp, to emphasize the very slackness he described. “He supported that fearful monograph of Amos Lindsay’s on this new political philosophy. Fabians, they call themselves, but what he is writing amounts to anarchy-sheer chaos. Taking property away from the people who rightfully own it is theft, plain and simple, and people won’t stand for it. There’ll be blood in the streets if it gains any number of followers.” His jaw tightened with the effort of controlling his anguish. “We’ll see Englishmen fighting Englishmen on our own soil. But Lindsay wrote as if he thought there were some kind of natural justice in it: taking away people’s private property and sharing it out with everyone, regardless of their diligence or honesty-or even of their ability to value it or preserve it.” He stared at Pitt intensely. “Just think of the destruction. Think of the waste. And the monstrous injustice. Everything we’ve worked for and cherished-” His voice was high from the constriction of his throat by his emotions. “Everything we’ve inherited down the generations, all the beauty, the treasures of the past, and of course that fool Shaw was all for it too.”