“Is this the home of Mr. Francis Wray?” Pitt enquired.
“Yes sir.” She was obviously concerned because he was someone she did not know. Perhaps Wray was usually visited only by fellow clergymen or members of the local community. “Sir . . . if you’d wait there, I’ll go an’ see if ’e’s at ’ome.” She stepped back, then did not know whether to ask him in, leave him on the step, or even close the door in case he might have designs on the gleaming horse brasses hanging behind her in the hall.
“May I wait in the garden?” he asked, glancing back at the flowers.
Her face flooded with relief. “Yes sir. ’Course yer can. ’E keeps it a real treat, don’t ’e?” She blinked suddenly as tears came to her eyes. Pitt gathered that Wray had thrown himself into its care since his bereavement. Perhaps it was a physical labor that eased some of the emotion inside. Flowers were a kind of company that absorbed all your ministrations, yet gave back only beauty, asking no questions and intruding nowhere.
He had not long to stand in the sun watching the tortoiseshell cat before Wray himself came out of the front door and along the short path. He was of average height, at least four inches shorter than Pitt, although in his youth he might have been less so. Now his shoulders sank, his back was a little bent, but it was his face that carried the indelible marks of inner pain. There were shadows around his eyes, deep lines from nose to mouth and more than one razor nick on his papery skin.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said quietly in a voice of remarkable beauty. “Mary Ann tells me you wish to see me. I am Francis Wray. What may I do for you?”
For a moment Pitt even thought of lying. What he was about to do could only be painful and grossly intrusive. The thought vanished again. This man could be “Cartouche,” and if nothing more, he could supply another recollection not only of the evening, but of the other occasions on which he had been at Maude Lamont’s with Rose Serracold and General Kingsley. With a lifetime spent in the church, surely he was a profound observer of human nature?
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wray,” he replied. “My name is Thomas Pitt.” He hated approaching the subject of Maude Lamont’s death, but he had no other reason for taking Wray’s time or intruding into his home. But not all the truth was necessary yet. “I am endeavoring to be of some assistance in a recent tragedy which has occurred in the city, a death in most unpleasant circumstances.”
Wray’s face tightened momentarily, but the sympathy in his eyes was unfeigned. “Then you had better come in, Mr. Pitt. If you have come from London, perhaps you have not had luncheon yet? I’m sure Mary Ann could find enough for both of us, if simple fare would suffice for you?”
Pitt had no choice but to accept. He needed to speak with Wray. To have gone in but refused the hospitality would have been churlish and hurt the man’s feelings for no reason but to ease his own conscience, and quite artificially. Putting distance between them would not make his act any less intrusive or his suspicions less ugly. “Thank you,” he accepted, following Wray back up the path and in through the front door, hoping he would not be placing more pressure on young Mary Ann.
He glanced at the hall as he passed through it towards the study, waiting a moment while Wray spoke to Mary Ann. Other than the horse brasses there was an elaborate brass stick and umbrella stand, a carved wooden settle that looked at a glance to be Tudor, and several very lovely drawings of bare trees.
Mary Ann scurried off to the kitchen and Wray returned, seeing the direction Pitt was looking.
“You like them?” he said gently, his voice charged with emotion.
“Yes, very much,” Pitt answered. “The beauty of a bare trunk is quite as great as that of a tree in full leaf.”
“You can see that?” For an instant Wray’s face lit with a smile, like a shaft of sunlight on a spring day. Then it vanished again. “My late wife did them. She had a gift for seeing a thing as it really is.”
“And a gift to translate that beauty for others,” Pitt responded, then wished he had not. He was here to find out if this man had gone to a spirit medium in a bid to recapture something of those he had loved, but in contradiction of all that his life and faith had taught him. Pitt might even have to entertain the idea that Wray had murdered the confidence artist who had betrayed that trust.
“Thank you,” Wray murmured, turning quickly aside to give himself a moment’s privacy as he led the way to his study, a small room with too many books, a plaster bust of Dante on a plinth, a watercolor painting of a young woman with brown hair smiling out shyly at the viewer. There was a silver vase of roses of all colors mingled together balanced on the desk, rather too near the edge. Pitt would have liked to read the titles of a score or so of the books to see what they were, but he had time to notice only three: Flavius Josephus’s Histories, Thomas à Kempis, and a commentary on Saint Augustine.
“Please sit down and tell me how I can help,” Wray offered. “I have plenty of time, and nothing in the world more useful to do with it.” He attempted a smile, but it was more of warmth than any happiness within him.
It was no longer possible to evade the issue entirely. “Are you by any chance acquainted with Major General Roland Kingsley?” Pitt began.
Wray thought for a moment. “I seem to recall the name.”
“A tall gentleman, returned from military service largely in Africa,” Pitt elaborated.
Wray relaxed. “Ah yes, of course. Zulu Wars, wasn’t it? Served with great distinction, as I recall. No, I’ve never met him, but I have heard him referred to. I am very sorry to hear he has had another tragedy. He lost his only son, I do know that.” His eyes were bright and seemed almost blind for a moment, but he controlled his voice, and his attention was set entirely upon what he could do to assist Pitt.
“This is not about his bereavement,” Pitt said quickly, before thinking as to whether he was contradicting himself or not. “He was present shortly before someone died . . . someone to whom he had been going in an effort to find solace for his son’s death . . . or the manner of it.” He swallowed, watching Wray’s face. “A spirit medium.” Had he read of it in the newspapers? They were mostly overrun by coverage of the election.
Wray frowned, his expression darkening. “You mean one of those people who claim to be in touch with the spirits of the dead, and take money from the vulnerable in order to produce voices and signs?”
He could hardly have more clearly worded his contempt for them. Did it spring from his religious views or his own betrayal? There was real anger in his eyes; the gentle, courteous man of a few moments ago was temporarily gone. Perhaps noticing Pitt’s attention, he went on. “It is a very dangerous thing to do, Mr. Pitt. I would wish no one harm, but it is better that such activities cease, although I would not have had it by violent means.”
Pitt was puzzled. “Dangerous, Mr. Wray? Perhaps I misled you. She was killed by entirely human means, there was nothing occult about it. It was your possible knowledge of the other people who were present that I wanted, not of the divine.”
Wray sighed. “You are a man of your time, Mr. Pitt. Science is the idol we worship now, and Mr. Darwin, not God, the begetter of our race. But the power of good and evil is still there, whatever the mask of the day we set over them. You assume that this medium had no powers to touch beyond the grave, and you are probably right, but that does not mean to say that they do not exist.”
Pitt felt a chill in the warmth of the room and knew it was inside himself. He had been too quick to like Wray. He was old, charming, gentle and generous in manner, and he was lonely and he had invited Pitt in to luncheon. He loved his garden and his cats. He also believed in the possibilities of calling up the spirits of the dead, and was deeply and profoundly angry with those who attempted to do so. Pitt must at the very least find out why.