Anne Perry: Resurrection Row

The footman was startled out of his funereal composure. “You-you had better come in!”

He stood back, and Pitt followed him, too oppressed by the interview ahead to be glad yet of the warmth. The footman led him to the morning room and left him there, possibly to report the shattering news to the butler and pass him the burden of the next decision.

Pitt had not long to wait. Lady Fitzroy-Hammond came in, white-faced, and stopped when she was barely through the door. Pitt had been expecting someone considerably older; the corpse from the cab had seemed at least sixty, perhaps more, but this woman could not possibly be past her twenties. Even the black of mourning could not hide the color or texture of her skin, or the suppleness of her movement.

“You say there has been an-outrage, Mr.-?” she said quietly.

“Inspector Pitt, ma’am. Yes. I’m very sorry. Someone has opened the grave.” There was no pleasant way of saying it, no gentility to cover the ugliness. “But we have found a body, and we would like you to tell us if it is that of your late husband.”

For a moment he thought she was going to faint. It was stupid of him; he should have waited until she was seated, perhaps even have sent for a maid to be with her. He stepped forward, thinking to catch her if she crumpled.

She looked at him with alarm, not understanding.

He stopped, aware of her physical fear.

“Can I call your maid for you?” he said quietly, putting his hands by his sides again.

“No.” She shook her head, then, controlling herself with an effort, she walked past him slowly to the sofa. “Thank you, I shall be perfectly all right.” She took a deep breath. “Is it really necessary that I should-?”

“Unless there is someone else of immediate family?” he replied, wishing he could have said otherwise. “Is there perhaps a brother or-” He nearly said “son,” then realized how tactless it would be. He did not know if she was a second wife. In fact, he had neglected to ask Gilthorpe the age of his lordship: Presumably Gilthorpe would not have brought the matter to him at all if he could not have been the man on the cab.

“No.” She shook her head. “There is only Verity-Lord Augustus’s daughter, and of course his mother, but she is elderly and something of an invalid. I must come. May I bring my maid with me?”

“Yes, of course; in fact, it might be best if you did.”

She stood up and pulled the bell cord. When the maid came, she sent the message for her personal maid to bring her cloak, and make herself ready for the street. The carriage was ordered. She turned back to Pitt.

“Where-where did you find him?”

There was no point in telling her the details. Whether she had loved him or it had been a marriage of arrangement, it was not necessary for her to know about the scene outside the theatre.

“In a hansom cab, ma’am.”

Her face wrinkled up. “In a hansom cab? But-why?”

“I don’t know.” He opened the door for her as he heard voices in the hallway, led her out, and handed her into the carriage. She did not ask again, and they rode in silence to the mortuary, the maid twisting her gloves in her hands, her eyes studiously avoiding even an accidental glimpse of Pitt.

The carriage stopped, and the footman helped Lady Fitzroy-Hammond to alight. The maid and Pitt came unassisted. The mortuary building was up a short path overhung by bare trees that dripped water, startling and icily cold, in incessant, random splatters as the wind caught them.

Pitt pulled the bell, and a young man with a pink face opened the door immediately.

“Inspector Pitt, with Lady Fitzroy-Hammond.” Pitt stood back for her to go in.

“Ah, good day, good day.” The young man ushered them in cheerfully and led them down the hallway into a room full of slabs, all discreetly covered with sheets. “You’ll be after number fourteen.” He glowed with cleanliness and professional pride. There was a basket-sided chair close to the slab, presumably in case the viewing relatives should be overcome, and a pitcher of water and three glasses stood on a table at the end of the room.

The maid took out her handkerchief in preparation.

Pitt stood ready to offer physical support should it be necessary.

“Right.” The young man pushed his spectacles more firmly on his nose and pulled back the sheet to expose the face. The cabby’s clothes were gone and they had combed the sparse hair neatly, but it was still a repellent sight. The skin was blotched and in places beginning to come away, and the smell was cloying sick.

Lady Fitzroy-Hammond barely looked at it before covering her face with her hands and stepping back, knocking the chair. Pitt righted it in a single movement, and the maid guided her into it. No one spoke.

The young man pulled the sheet up again and trotted down the room to fetch a glass of water. He did it as imperturbably as if it were his daily habit-as indeed it probably was. He returned and gave it to the maid, who held it for her mistress.

She took a gulp, then clutched onto it, her fingers white at the knuckles.

“Yes,” she said under her breath. “That is my husband.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Pitt replied soberly. It was not the end of the case, but it was very probably all he would ever know. Grave robbing was of course a crime, but he did not hold any real hope that he would discover who had made this obscene gesture or why.

“Do you feel well enough to leave now?” he asked. “I’m sure you would be more comfortable at home.”

“Yes, thank you.” She stood up, wavered for a moment, then, followed closely by the maid, walked rather unsteadily towards the outer door.

“That all?” the young man inquired, his voice a little lowered but still healthily cheerful. “Can I mark him as identified and release him for burial now?”

“Yes, you may. Lord Augustus Fitzroy-Hammond. No doubt the family will tell you what arrangements they wish,” Pitt answered. “Nothing odd about the body, I suppose?”

“Nothing at all,” the young man responded ebulliently, now that the women were beyond the door and out of earshot. “Except that he died at least three weeks ago and has already been buried once. But I suppose you knew that.” He shook his head and was obliged to resettle his glasses. “Can’t understand why anybody should do that-dig up a dead body, I mean. Not as if they’d dissected him or anything, like medical students used to-or black magicists. Quite untouched!”

“No mark on him?” Pitt did not know why he asked; he had not expected any. It was a pure case of desecration, nothing more. Some lunatic with a bizarre twist to his mind.

“None at all,” the young man agreed. “Elderly gentleman, well cared for, well nourished, a little corpulent, but not unusual at his age. Soft hands, very clean. Never seen a dead lord before, so far as I know, but that’s exactly what I would have expected one to look like.”

“Thank you,” Pitt said slowly. “In that case there is little more for me to do.”

Pitt attended the reinterment as a matter of course. It was just possible that whoever had committed the outrage might be there to see the result of his act on the family. Perhaps that was the motive, some festering hatred still not worked through, even with death.

It was naturally a quiet affair; one does not make much of burying a person a second time. However, there was a considerable group of people who had come to pay their respects, perhaps more out of sympathy for the widow than further regard for the dead. They were all dressed in black and had black ribbons on their carriages. They processed in silence to the grave and stood, heads bowed in the rain. Only one man had the temerity to turn up his collar in concession to comfort. Everyone else ignored the movement in pretense that it had not happened. What was the small displeasure of icy trickles down the neck when one was faced with the monumental solemnity of death?