Bethlehem Road by Anne Perry Page A

family of its bereavement.
    It took him over five minutes of knocking at the door and waiting before a footman turned on the light in the hall and gingerly opened the door.
    “Inspector Thomas Pitt, Bow Street Station,” Pitt said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I have bad news for Mr. Etheridge’s family. May I come in?”
    “Yes—yes sir.” The footman stepped back and pulled the door wider. The hall was large and lined with oak. A single gaslight showed the dim outlines of portraits and the soft blues of a Venetian scene. A magnificent staircase curved up towards the shadows of the gallery landing and the one light glowing there.
    “Has there been an accident, sir?” the footman asked anxiously, his face puckered with doubt. “Was Mr. Etheridge taken ill?”
    “No, I am afraid he is dead. He was murdered—in the same way as Sir Lockwood Hamilton.”
    “Oh my Gawd!” The footman’s face blanched, leaving the freckles across his nose standing out sharply. For a moment Pitt was afraid he was going to faint. He put out his hand, and the gesture seemed to recall the man. He was probably no more than twenty at most.
    “Is there a butler?” Pitt asked him. The youth should not have to bear the burden of such news alone.
    “Yes sir.”
    “Perhaps you should waken him, and a lady’s maid, before we tell Mrs. Etheridge.”
    “Mrs. Etheridge? There in’t no Mrs. Etheridge, sir. ’E’s—’e were a widower. Long time now, before I come ’ere. There’s just Miss Helen—that’s ’is daughter; Mrs. Carfax, she is—and Mr. Carfax.”
    “Then call the butler, and a maid, and Mr. and Mrs. Carfax. I am sorry, but I shall need to speak to them.”
    Pitt was shown into the morning room, austere in dark green, with early spring flowers in a misty blue Lalique bowl and paintings on the wall, at least one of which Pitt believed to be an original Guardi. The late Vyvyan Etheridge had had not only fine taste, but a great deal of money with which to indulge it.
    It was nearly a quarter of an hour before James and Helen Carfax came in, pale-faced and dressed in nightclothes and robes. Etheridge’s daughter was in her late twenties and had his long, aristocratic face and good brow, but her mouth was softer, and there was a delicacy in her cheekbones and the line of her throat which, while it did not give her beauty, certainly spoke of an imagination and perhaps a sensitivity not apparent in her father. Her hair was thick but of no particular depth of shade, and disturbed from sleep and caught by tragedy, she was bereft of color or animation.
    James Carfax was far taller than she, lean and slenderly built. He had a magnificent head of dark hair and wide eyes. He would have been handsome had there been strength in his face instead of mere smoothness. There was in his mouth a mercurial quality; it was a mouth that would be as quick to smile as to sulk. He stood with his arm round his wife’s shoulder and stared defensively at Pitt.
    “I am extremely sorry, Mrs. Carfax,” Pitt said immediately. “If it is of any comfort to you, your father died within seconds of being attacked, and from the look of peace upon his face, I think he probably knew no fear, and barely a moment’s pain.”
    “Thank you,” she said with difficulty.
    “Perhaps if you were to sit down,” Pitt suggested, “and have your maid bring you some restorative?”
    “It is not necessary,” James Carfax snapped. “Now that you have told us the news, my wife will retire to her room.”
    “If you prefer that I return tomorrow morning,” Pitt said looking not at James but at Helen, “then of course I shall; However, the sooner you give us all the information possible, the better chance we have of apprehending whoever is responsible.”
    “Rubbish!” James said instantly. “There is nothing we can tell you that would help! Obviously whoever murdered Sir Lockwood Hamilton is still at large and murdered my father-in-law as well. You should be out in