Death in the Devil's Acre Read Online Free PDF Page A

people herself. All the adjective really meant was that they were either clever enough or fortunate enough to have maintained an excellent façade. Behind it there might be anything at all.
    Pitt smiled, his eyes uncomfortably clear. “Thank you, my dear, but you have no need to be anxious for me. I don’t expect to prowl the Acre alone. I shall be in no danger from madmen.”
    She debated whether to be hurt and pretend he had misunderstood her, but decided rapidly that it would not work. “Of course not,” she said. “Perhaps I was being silly. I dare say Dr. Pinchin was not nearly as respectable as the newspapers suggested. After all, they would have to be very careful of what they said, and the poor man is only just dead.” She looked up, wide-eyed and totally candid. “Did he have a family?”
    “Charlotte!”
    “Yes, Thomas?”
    He let out his breath in a sigh. “This is not a case you can involve yourself in. Dr. Pinchin was not the only victim—he was the second that we know of, and whatever is going on, it has its cause in the Devil’s Acre. The other body was found there, too. It is not a domestic crime, Charlotte. It does not involve the sort of motives you are good at.”
    She ignored the compliment. “Another one? I didn’t know that! The newspapers didn’t say anything. Are you keeping it secret? Who was it?”
    There was a momentary flash of irritation in his face. Charlotte was not sure whether it was directed at her or at circumstances.
    Pitt waited several seconds before he answered, and when he did there was resignation in his voice. “Actually, it was someone you have already met.”
    Shock tingled through her, not unmixed with a sense of excitement that she was ashamed of the instant after she felt it.
    “I’ve met?” she repeated incredulously.
    “Do you remember General Balantyne—in Callander Square?”
    The excitement turned to horror so intense it almost made her sick. The room swam and she thought she was going to faint. To imagine the general, with his fierce, inarticulate pride, his loneliness, his veneration of duty—how could he have descended to the Devil’s Acre to die not in service or battle but exposed in such a horrible manner.
    “Charlotte!”
    Surely there must be some way it could be kept quiet? It was the last way on earth such a man deserved to die!
    “Charlotte!” Pitt’s voice cut through her thoughts.
    She looked up.
    “It wasn’t Balantyne!” he said sharply. “It was his old footman, Max—do you remember Max?”
    Of course! How could she have been so ridiculous? She took a deep gulp of air. “Max—yes, of course I remember Max. Perfectly odious. He always gave me the feeling that when he looked at me he could see through my clothes.”
    Pitt’s face dropped in alarm, then changed to a wide-eyed amusement. “How graphic! I had no idea you were so perceptive.”
    She felt herself coloring. She had not meant to let him know she understood that look so well, especially in the eyes of a footman. She ought not have!
    “Well ...” She attempted an explanation, and gave it up.
    He waited, but Charlotte refused to dig herself in any more deeply. “What was Max doing in the Devil’s Acre?” she asked. “I didn’t think people in that sort of area had footmen.”
    “They don’t. He was keeping a brothel—in fact, more than one.”
    She maintained her composure. Over the years Charlotte had had cause, one way or another, to learn quite a lot about poverty and the prostitution of both adults and children.
    “Oh.” She remembered Max’s dark face, with its hooded eyelids and heavy, sensuous mouth. He had always given her an acute consciousness of physical power, of an appetite that was his servant as well as his master. “I should imagine he would do that sort of thing rather well.”
    Pitt looked at her with surprise.
    “I mean—” she started, then changed her mind. Why should she explain? She may not know as much as he did, but she was not