Seven Dials Read Online Free PDF Page A

“The alarm was raised by someone who heard the shots, and the police arrived in time to catch her in the back garden with the corpse in a wheelbarrow.”
    She stared at him in a moment’s disbelief, then saw from his eyes that he was not joking.
    “Must be a bleedin’ idjut!” Gracie said candidly. “I ’ope ’e in’t in charge o’ summink wot matters in the gov’ment, or we’ll all be in the muck!”
    “Yes,” Pitt agreed with feeling. The cat leapt up onto his knee and he stroked it absently, fingers gentle in the deep fur. “I’m afraid we will.”
    Gracie sighed and started to sort out the dishes he would need for breakfast, and to make him a cup of tea first. Charlotte went to the stove to begin cooking, her face eloquent of the trouble she could foresee.

CHAPTER TWO
    THE EVENING NEWSPAPERS had carried a brief account of the finding of Edwin Lovat’s body at Eden Lodge; however, the following morning they were full of the murder in detail.
    “There you are!” Gracie said, presenting the
Times
and the
London Illustrated News
to Pitt at the breakfast table. “All over the place, it is. Says the foreign woman did it, an’ the man wot’s dead was real respectable, like, an’ all.” Charlotte had taught her to read, and it was an accomplishment of which the maid was extremely proud. A door had been opened into new worlds previously beyond even her imagination, but more important than that, she felt she could face anyone at all on an intellectually, even if not socially, equal footing. What she did not know, she would find out. She could read, therefore she could learn. “Doesn’t say nothin’ ’bout the gov’ment man at all!” she added.
    Pitt took both papers from her and looked at them for himself, spreading the pages wide over half the table. Charlotte was still upstairs. Jemima came in looking very grown up with her hair in pigtails and her school pinafore on over her dress. She was ten years old, and very self-possessed, at least on the surface. She was growing tall, and the slight heels on her buttoned-up boots added to her height.
    “Morning, Papa,” she said demurely, standing in front of him and waiting for his reply.
    He looked up, ignoring the newspaper, aware that she required his attention, more especially lately, since their adventure in Dartmoor, when their lives had been in danger and for the first time he had been unable to protect them himself. His sergeant, Tellman, had done an excellent job, at considerable risk to his own career. He was still at the Bow Street station, now under a new superintendent, a man named Wetron. Wetron was cold and ambitious, and with good cause; they believed him to be a senior member of the Inner Circle, possibly even with eyes on the leadership.
    “Good morning,” he replied gravely, looking up at her.
    “Is there something important in there?” she asked, glancing for a moment at the paper spread across the table.
    He hesitated only a moment. His instinct was always to protect both his children, but especially Jemima, perhaps because she was a girl. But Charlotte had told him that evasion and mystery were far more frightening than all but the very worst facts, and being excluded, even for the best of reasons, hurt. And Jemima especially nearly always understood if she were being shut out. Daniel was two years younger, and far more self-contained, happier to go about his own affairs, less reflective of Pitt’s mood. He watched and listened, but not as she did.
    “I don’t think it will be,” he said frankly.
    “Is it your case?” she pressed, watching him solemnly.
    “It’s not a dangerous one,” he assured her, smiling as he said it. “A lady seems to have shot someone, and an important man might have been there at the time. We have to do what we can to see that he doesn’t get into trouble.”
    “Why?” she asked.
    “That is a good question,” he agreed. “Because he is in the government, and it would be