Anne Perry - Death in the Devil's Acre

What man? The general looked up at the face. Pitt, watching him carefully, saw the start of recognition.

“General?” He lifted his voice only a little.

Balantyne looked up slowly. Pitt could not read the emotions in his eyes. Balantyne was an exceedingly private man, unused to the comforts of fellow sympathy. Pitt could never really understand him; their backgrounds were worlds apart. Balantyne was the last of generations of soldiers who had served monarch and country with unquestioning sacrifice in every foreign war since the days of Agincourt, whereas Pitt was the son of a country gamekeeper convicted unjustly of some petty offense. Pitt had grown up on the estate of his master and been educated to his excellent, almost beautiful diction, to provide companionship to the son of the house and to encourage the boy in his studies. Pitt’s hunger had been a challenge, and not infrequently a reproach to spur the boy out of indolence.

Yet he liked Balantyne, even admired him. He was a man who lived as strictly by the code he believed in as had any ancient knight or monk.

“Do you know him?” he prompted, although the question was now no more than academic; the answer was in the general’s face.

“Of course,” Balantyne replied quietly. “It is Max Burton, who used to be my footman.”

Gracie came rushing into the parlor with the early editions of the afternoon newspapers. Her face was suffused with color, her eyes as round as gooseberries. “Oh, ma’am! There’s been an ’orrible murder-most terrible in London’s ’istory o’ crime, it says ’ere. Doin’s as’d make a strong man go white to ’is knees!”

“Indeed?” Charlotte did not stop her sewing. Newspapers always dealt in hyperbole-who stops in a January street to buy a paper that tells of the ordinary?

Gracie was horrified at her indifference. “No, ma’am-I really means it! It was dreadful! ’E was all ’acked to pieces, in a place as wot a lady wouldn’t even know of! Leastways not as she’d put words to and still call ’erself a lady. The papers is right, ma’am. There’s a terrible maniac loose in the Devil’s Acre-and maybe them preachers is right and the Last Days is come, and it’s Satan ’isself!” Gracie’s face went pale as the apparition formed in her mind.

“Nonsense!” Charlotte said sharply. She could see that if she was not careful she would have a case of hysterics on her hands. “Here, give me the papers, and go and get on with the vegetables or we shall have no dinner. If the master comes home out of this weather and there is nothing hot for him, he will be most displeased.”

It was an idle threat. Gracie held Pitt in immense respect; he was the master, after all. And beyond that he was a policeman and therefore represented the Law. And then there were the fascinating and dangerous things he must know! Shocking things! Worse than in the papers! But she was not in the least afraid of him. He was not the sort of person to put a servant out on the street for one neglected meal, and she knew it.

“It’s ’orrible, ma’am,” she repeated, wagging her head to prove she had been right from the beginning. “Do you want as I should use that cabbage tonight, or the turnips?”

“Both,” Charlotte replied absently, already absorbed in the newspapers herself.

Gracie accepted the dismissal and went back to the kitchen, turning the morning’s events over in her mind. It was a source of great satisfaction to her that she worked for a lady-a real lady-not one of your jumped-up social climbers as fancied theirselves better than they was, but one as was born into the Quality, and grew up in a house with real servants, a Staff, a butler as had a pantry of his own, and a separate cook and kitchenmaids and parlormaids and upstairs maids and the like-and footmen! None of Gracie’s sisters or friends had a mistress like that! Gracie enjoyed considerable distinction because of it, and was able to tell other girls what was what and how things should be done proper.

Of course Charlotte had come down in the world a bit since then; a policeman was not a gentleman-everyone knew that. But still there were times when it was very exciting! The tales she could tell-if she chose! But of course such things were far better hinted at than recounted in detail. She had her loyalties.

And, to tell the truth, she did not entirely approve of the way her mistress sometimes got herself involved in police goings-on. More than once she had actually had some face-to-face contact with people as had done murders. Looking for people like that, even if they turned out to be from the Quality, was no thing for a lady to do.

Gracie shook her head and tipped the turnips out into the sink and began to wash and peel them. Unless she was very mistaken in her judgment, her mistress was shaping up nicely to start meddling into something again. She had that restless look about her, fiddling with things and putting them down half done, writing letters to her sister Emily as was now Viscountess Ashworth. Married above herself, that one. Not that she wasn’t very nice, the few times that Gracie had seen her. More often Charlotte went to visit her at her grand house in Paragon Walk. And who could blame her for that?

Gracie drifted into a pleasant dream of what a Viscountess’s house might be like. No doubt she would have beautiful footmen, all tall and handsome, and wearing livery, too! A man did look good in livery, no matter what anyone said!

In the evening when Pitt came home, Charlotte was waiting for him. She had read the newspapers thoroughly because the appalling corpse had been discovered in Pitt’s area; she knew it was quite likely that the call he had received before dawn that morning had to do with the murder.

Of course the case was not one in which she would be able to give any help, unfortunately. She was ready for the challenge, even the danger of another investigation, but the man had been found in a location she knew nothing whatsoever about, except by repute. And Lambert Gardens, where apparently he had lived, was not part of her family’s social circle, so she could offer no assistance there either.

Still, perhaps if he was prepared to discuss it with her, she could at least use her wits. She had not been unskilled at divining motives in the past, and the nature of human beings had much in common whatever the circumstances.

She hurried to meet her husband as soon as she heard the front door close, even before Gracie could get there. She took his coat, hung it up to dry, and then turned immediately to kiss him. His face felt cold. She knew he must be tired; it was over twelve hours since he had left, without breakfast. Her senses told her to restrain her curiosity at least until he had finished supper. She led the way into the parlor and talked about nothing of consequence while Pitt thawed out in front of the fire until Gracie served the meal.

By nine o’clock she considered that tact had been paid more than its due. “The constable who came for you this morning,” she began. “Was that because of the corpse in the Devil’s Acre?”

A trace of bleak humor flickered across his face. When Charlotte tried being subtle with him, he usually saw through it, so she had abandoned the effort. Anyhow, she had not had time to prepare and approach the whole subject in a more devious fashion.

“Yes,” he said guardedly. “But Lambert Gardens, which is where he lived, is not your family’s social circle. There is nothing you can do to help.”

She was not tactically inept. “No, of course not,” she said. “But it is impossible not to be interested. The newspapers are full of it this evening.”

He pulled a face.

She changed her line of attack. “Do be careful, Thomas. It sounds as if there is some dreadful madman loose. I mean, it isn’t a sane sort of crime, is it? What do you suppose a man like Dr. Pinchin was doing in the Devil’s Acre anyway? Did he have a practice there? The newspapers said he was a very respectable man.” She was not entirely convinced; she had known plenty of “respectable” people herself. All the adjective really meant was that they were either clever enough or fortunate enough to have maintained an excellent facade. Behind it there might be anything at all.