Anne Perry - Silence in Hanover Close

“I’d put it in the stove now,” he said, biting his lip. “There’s nothing in it you want to read. He went into Seven Dials to find the woman in cerise. He said he was told where she was by a running patterer-a man who sells news stories-and when he went into the house he was shown upstairs to her room. He says he found her dead, neck broken, and the people in the house say she was all right when they last saw her, and no one else went up except regulars, and they are all accounted for.”

“That can’t be true!”

“Of course it can’t! They’re lying, and I daresay well paid for it. But for the time being, they won’t be shaken. It’s going to take some work-but we’ll do it. Only this time we don’t have Pitt to help us.”

She sat down again on one of the kitchen chairs, and he took Gracie’s.

“Jack, I don’t know where to begin! I went to see Mr. Ballarat. I was sure he would be moving heaven and earth to find the truth, and all he did was talk to me as if I were a child, and tell me to go home and leave everything to him. Only I’d swear he isn’t going to do anything at all. Jack-” She hesitated, wondering if what she was thinking would sound hysterical to him, but what alternative did she have? “Jack, I think he wants Thomas to stay in prison. He’s afraid of him!” She expected disbelief and hurried on to explain herself. “He’s afraid of what Thomas will uncover that’s embarrassing to people who matter, the Yorks and the Danvers, or the people in the Home Office. Ballarat wants to sweep the whole lot under the carpet. He hopes if he says nothing it will all go away, and he’d rather that, and that someone should get away with treason and murder, than be the one who has to expose what everyone will hate! People can be very unjust, they can hate the person who makes them see what they would prefer not to, who topples idols and shows their clay feet. They blame them for the truth, and the responsibility it leaves us. We don’t often forgive those who destroy our illusions. Ballarat doesn’t want to be that person, and he will be, by implication, if Thomas discovers what Cerise knew. That’s why they killed her-it has to be!”

“Of course it has,” he agreed. He reached out across the table and took her hands, quite gently. It was in no way a familiarity, just friendship, and she found herself gripping him back, hard, hanging on. “Do you want me to fetch Emily?” he asked.

“Yes-please do. I don’t trust myself to go to the Yorks’.” She searched for an excuse. “You’ll have to tell her it’s family illness or something. I don’t know how you’ll explain knowing her, but you can scrape up a good lie before you get there.” The thought of seeing Emily was such a relief, almost like someone lighting a fire in a cold room. Perhaps she would even come and stay with Charlotte. They could work together, as they had done in the past on other cases, ones that mattered infinitely less than this.

“Then what would you like me to do?” he asked. “I’ve never tried detecting before, and this is a damn sight too important for amateurs, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I don’t know where to begin,” she said, her misery returning. “Cerise is dead. Apart from the murderer she may be the only one who knew the truth.”

“Well, at least we know she wasn’t the murderer herself,” he pointed out. “Someone killed her, and it would be too much to assume it’s coincidence, just as Thomas found her. And we must suppose someone, almost certainly the same person, killed poor Dulcie.”

She stared at him. “That means someone in the York house, or one of the Danvers, or Felix or Sonia Asherson.”

“That’s right.”

“But what would any of them be doing in a place like Seven Dials?”

“Murdering Cerise to keep her silent,” he answered very quietly, his face more somber than she had ever seen it. There was an anger in him, a weight she had not found before. “I think that means they knew where she was all the time,” he went on. “They could hardly have run into her by chance.”

“One of the Yorks, the Danvers, or the Ashersons,” she said again. “Emily-” She stopped. Emily was alone in the York house, unable to defend herself except by a disguise of ignorance, and Pitt was imprisoned in Coldbath Fields awaiting trial for murder. Both could end in death.

But Emily was free; at least she could fight for herself!

But surely justice-! The truth? Ballarat would-

She must stop behaving like a child, deceiving herself into comfort, finding excuses to avoid the painful. Ballarat would do nothing.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said quietly. “Don’t ask Emily to come home. The only way she can help Thomas is by staying where she is. Whoever murdered Cerise, and Robert York and Dulcie, is in Hanover Close, and the only way we are going to find that person is by watching them so closely we see what emotions lie behind the facades, who is frightened, who is lying.”

He sat still. For a moment she was afraid he was going to argue, point out the dangers to Emily, perhaps even tell her all the accidents that could be made to happen; but he said nothing.

“You and I can keep going as often as possible,” she went on. “But we can never see them in their unguarded moments as she can. Have you any idea how much a woman trusts her lady’s maid?”

For the first time he smiled. “I imagine about as much as a man trusts his valet,” he answered. “Or perhaps a trifle more: women spend more time at home, and on the whole give more attention to appearance.”

There was another aspect that needed explaining, Charlotte realized.

“Jack, she probably won’t see a newspaper. Maids don’t, especially if there is something sensational in it. The butler will keep it from them.” She saw the surprise in his face. “Of course he will! He won’t want all his maids swapping horror stories under the stairs, and up half the night with nightmares.” It was plain from Jack’s face that he had never thought of that, and she realized with a brief shadow of pity that he had very few roots. He was an eternal guest, never a host, too well-bred to be poor, but without the means to keep up with his peers. But there was no time for such issues now. Then she remembered that already one of her own servants had left, and if Pitt was not cleared very soon there would be pressure on Gracie too. Her mother would try to persuade her to find a better place. And come to think of it, Charlotte had no money and she would not be able to keep Gracie anyway, or anyone else. She had enough of her allowance from her own inheritance to eat, at least for a few weeks-The fear loomed up again. She was not only afraid of isolation and insufficient means, but worst of all, life without Pitt. There was not even time to make up for the stupid arguments, to be to him all the things she wanted to be.

She must not think of it, it would destroy her. She took a long breath, her lungs hurting as if the air were sharp. She must fight-anybody and everybody if necessary.

“Please ask Emily to stay there,” she repeated.

“I will.” Jack hesitated, and for the first time he looked awkward, his eyes avoiding hers, scanning the tabletop, the row of blue-ringed dishes on the dresser beyond. “Charlotte-have you any money?”

She swallowed. “For a while.”

“It’s going to be hard.”

“I know.”

He colored faintly. “I can give you a little.”

She shook her head. “No. Thank you, Jack.”

He searched for words. “Don’t-don’t let pride-”

“It’s not pride,” she assured him. “I’m all right for now. And when I’m not …” Please God she would have found the murderer by then, and Pitt would be free! “When I’m not, Emily will help.”