Pitt had been waiting for the hurt to show. He felt the stab of it, yet it was almost a relief to have it open between them at last.
“Possibly, but I doubt it,” he said bluntly. “At least not that I know. I haven’t any idea why Special Branch is involved, but as far as I am aware, Mrs. Serracold is my only interest. And if she turns out to have killed Maude Lamont then I shall have to pursue her as I would anyone else.”
Tellman relaxed a trifle, but he did his best to hide the fact from Pitt. He straightened his shoulders a little. “What are we trying to protect Mrs. Serracold from?” If he was aware of having used the plural to include himself he gave no sign of it.
“Political betrayal,” Pitt replied. “Her husband is standing for Parliament. His opponent may use corrupt or illegal means to discredit him.”
“You mean through his wife?” Tellman looked startled. “Is that what this is . . . a political ambush?”
“Probably not. I expect it has nothing to do with her, except chance.”
Tellman did not believe him, and it showed in his face. Actually, Pitt did not really believe it himself. He had tasted Voisey’s power too fully to credit any stroke in his favor to luck.
“What is she like, this Mrs. Serracold?” Tellman asked, a slight furrow between his brows.
“I’ve no idea,” Pitt admitted. “I am only just beginning to learn something about her husband, and more importantly, his opponent. Serracold is very well off, second son of an old family. He studied art and history at Cambridge, traveled considerably. He has great interest in reform and is a member of the Liberal Party, standing for the seat in South Lambeth.”
Tellman’s face mirrored all his emotions, although he would have been furious to know it. “He’s privileged, rich, never worked a day in his life, and now thinks he’d like to get into government and tell the rest of us what to do and how to do it. Or more likely, what not to do,” he retaliated.
Pitt did not bother to argue. From Tellman’s point of view that was probably close enough to the truth. “More or less.”
Tellman breathed out slowly; not having got the argument he had hoped for, he felt no sense of triumph. “What kind of a person comes to see a woman who says she speaks to ghosts?” he demanded. “Don’t they know it’s all rubbish?”
“People looking for something,” Pitt replied. “Vulnerable, lonely, left behind in the past because the future is unbearable for them without whomever they loved. I don’t know . . . people who can be used and exploited by those who think they have power, or know how to create a good illusion . . . or both.”
Tellman’s face was a mask of disgust, pity struggling inside him. “It ought to be illegal!” he said between stiff lips. “It’s like a mixture of prostitution and the tricks of a fairground shark, but at least they don’t use your griefs to get rich on!”
“We can’t stop people believing whatever they want to, or need to,” Pitt replied. “Or exploring whatever truth they like.”
“Truth?” Tellman said derisively. “Why can’t they just go to the chapel on Sundays?” But it was a question to which he did not expect an answer. He knew there was none; he had none himself. He chose not to ask questions where answers lay in the very private realms of belief. “Well, we’ve got to find out who did it!” he said sharply. “I suppose she’s got a right not to be murdered, just like anyone else, even if maybe she looked into things she’d no business to. I wouldn’t want my dead disturbed!” He looked away from Pitt.
“How do they do the tricks?” Tellman asked. “I searched that room from floor to ceiling and I didn’t find anything, no levers or pedals or wires, anything. And the maid swears she had nothing to do with it . . . but then I suppose she would!” Tellman paused. “How do you make people think you are rising up into the air, for heaven’s sake? Or stretching out and getting longer and longer?”
Pitt chewed his lip. “More important to us, how do you know what they want to hear, so you can tell it to them?”
Tellman stared at him, wonder in his face, then slowly comprehension. “You find out about them,” he breathed. “The maid told us that this morning. Said she was very choosy about her clients. You only accept those you can learn about. You pick someone you know, then you listen, you ask questions, you add up what you hear, maybe you have someone go through their pockets or their bags.” He warmed to the subject and his eyes glittered with anger. “Maybe you have someone talk to their servants. Maybe you burgle their houses and read letters, papers, look at their clothes! Ask around the tradespeople, see what they spend, who they owe.”
Pitt sighed. “And when you have enough about one or two, perhaps try a little carefully chosen blackmail,” he added. “We might have a very ugly case here, Tellman, very ugly indeed.”
A flicker of pity softened Tellman’s mouth and deliberately he pulled his lips tight to hide it. “Which of those three people did she push too far?” he said quietly. “And over what? I hope it isn’t your Mrs. Serracold. . . .” He lifted his chin a trifle, as if his collar were too tight. “But if it is, I’m not looking the other way to please Special Branch!”
“It wouldn’t make any difference if you did,” Pitt replied. “Because I won’t.”
Very slowly Tellman relaxed. He nodded fractionally, and for the first time he smiled.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Isadora Underhill sat at the opulently laid out dinner table and toyed with her food, pushing it around her plate with practiced elegance, occasionally eating a mouthful. It was not that it was unpleasant, simply bland, and almost exactly what she had eaten the last time she had been here in this magnificent, mirrored chamber with its Louis Quinze sideboards and enormous gilded chandeliers. Indeed, as far as she could recall it was also the same people, as nearly as made no difference. At the head of the table was her husband, the Bishop. He looked slightly dyspeptic, she thought, a little puffy around the eyes, pale, as if he had slept badly and eaten too much. And yet she saw his plate was still largely untouched. Perhaps he was convinced he was unwell again, or more likely he was, as usual, too busy talking.
He and the archdeacon were extolling the virtues of some long-dead saint she had never heard of. How could anyone speak of true goodness, even holiness, the conquering of fear, and of excuses for the petty vanities and deceits of daily life, the generosity of spirit to forgive the offenses of spite and judgment, kindly laughter and the love of all things living, and yet still manage to make it sound so dull? It should have been wonderful!
“Did she ever laugh?” she said suddenly.
There was silence around the table. Everyone, all fifteen of them, turned and stared at her as if she had knocked over her wineglass or made a rude noise.
“Did she?” she repeated.
“She was a saint,” the archdeacon’s wife said patiently.
“How can you possibly manage to be a saint with no sense of humor?” Isadora asked.
“Sanctity is a very serious matter,” the archdeacon tried to explain, staring at her earnestly. He was a large man with a very pink face. “She was a woman close to God.”
“One cannot be close to God without loving one’s fellow men,” Isadora said stubbornly, her eyes wide. “And how could one possibly love other people without an acute sense of the absurd?”
The archdeacon blinked. “I don’t know what you mean.”
She looked at his small brown eyes and careful mouth. “No,” she agreed, quite sure that he knew very little. But then she was far from holy, by her own estimation. She could not imagine how anyone, even a saint, could love the archdeacon. She wondered, absently, what his wife really felt. Why had she married him? Had he been different then? Or was it a matter of convenience, or even desperation?