Southampton Row by Anne Perry Page A

her . . . whatever you call it?” He frowned, searching Pitt’s face. “What is it?” He had steadfastly refused to call him “sir” right from the first difficult days when Pitt himself was newly promoted. Tellman had resented him because he considered him, as a gamekeeper’s son, not to be suitable for command of a station. That was for gentlemen, or returned military or naval men, such as Cornwallis. “What do you call it—a skill, an act, a trick?”
    “Probably all three,” Pitt replied. Then he went on thinking aloud. “I suppose if it’s for entertainment it’s harmless enough. But how do you know if someone takes it seriously, whether you mean them to or not?”
    “You don’t!” Tellman snorted. “I like my conjuring to be strictly a deck of cards or rabbits out of a hat. That way nobody gets taken in.”
    “Do you know who yesterday evening’s clients were, and if they came one at a time or all together?”
    “The maid doesn’t know,” Tellman answered. “Or at least that’s what she says, and I’ve no reason to disbelieve her.”
    “Where is she? Is she in a fit state to answer questions?”
    “Oh yes,” Tellman said with assurance. “A little shaken, of course, but seems like a sensible woman. I don’t suppose she’s realized yet what it will mean for her. But once we’ve searched the house completely, and maybe locked off this room, there’s no reason why she can’t stay here for a while, is there? Till she finds another position, anyway.”
    “No,” Pitt agreed. “Better she does. We’ll know where to find her if we have more to ask. I’ll go and see her in the kitchen. Can’t expect her to come in here.” He glanced at the corpse as he crossed the room to the door. Tellman did not follow him. He would have his own men to send on errands, searches, perhaps questions of people in the neighborhood, although it was reasonable to suppose that the crime would have taken place after dark and the chances that anyone had observed anything of use were slight.
    Pitt followed the passage towards the back of the house, past several other doors, to the one at the end which was open, with a pattern of sunlight on a scrubbed wooden floor. He stopped in the entrance. It was a well-kept kitchen, clean and warm. There was a kettle steaming very slightly on the black cooking stove. A tall woman, a little thin, stood at the sink with her sleeves rolled up above her elbows and her hands in soapy water. She was motionless, as if she had forgotten what she was there for.
    “Miss Forrest?” Pitt asked.
    She turned slowly. She seemed in her late forties; her brown hair, graying at the temples, was pinned back off her brow. Her face was unusual, with beautiful bones around her eyes and cheeks, her nose straight but not quite prominent enough, her mouth wide and well-shaped. She was not beautiful; in fact, in a way she was almost ugly.
    “Yes. Are you another policeman?” She spoke with a very slight lisp, although it was not quite an impediment. Slowly she lifted her hands out of the water.
    “Yes, I am,” Pitt replied. “I’m sorry to ask you more questions when you must be distressed, but we cannot afford to wait for a better time.” He felt a trifle foolish as he said it. She looked completely in control of herself, but he knew that shock affected people in different ways. Sometimes when it was very profound, there were no outward signs at all. “My name is Pitt. Would you sit down please, Miss Forrest.”
    Slowly she obeyed, automatically drying her hands on a towel left over a brass rail in front of the stove. She sat down on one of the hard-backed chairs near the table, and he sat on one of the others.
    “What is it you want to know?” she asked, staring not at him but at some space over his right shoulder. The kitchen was orderly: there was clean, plain china stacked on the dresser, and a pile of ironed linen on one of the broad sills, no doubt waiting to be put away. More hung