by Anne Perry
Six o’clock in the evening found him on Vespasia’s doorstep.
“Have you news?” she asked him when he was shown into the withdrawing room where she was sitting in the late-afternoon sun reading the newspaper. She put the paper down immediately, not merely from good manners but from a very real concern. The small black-and-white dog at her feet opened one eye to make sure he was who she thought he was, then, satisfied, closed it again and went back to sleep.
“Not really,” he replied, glancing at the Times where she had let it fall. She had been following the Tranby Croft affair. Black letters proclaimed that the verdict had been brought in: guilty Pitt found it strangely chilling. He had no idea whether Sir William Gordon-Cumming had been guilty of cheating or not, but that a simple matter of dishonor at cards should have escalated into a formal court case involving so many people in conflicting testimony which had now laid bare hatred and national scandal was a tragedy. And it was one which need not have happened. There was too much that was beyond human ability to avoid; it was absurd that this should have reached such a stage.
“I suppose the Prince of Wales at least will be relieved it is over,” he said aloud.
Vespasia glanced at the paper, half on the floor. Her face was bleak with disgust.
“One presumes so,” she said coldly. “This is the first day of the Ascot races. He did not stay in court to hear the verdict. Lady Drury called by on her way home. She told me he drove to the royal box accompanied by Lady Brooke, which was tactless to say the least, and was met by boos and hisses from the crowd.”
Pitt remembered Vespasia’s dislike of craning her neck to look up at him, and accordingly sat down. “What will happen to Gordon-Cumming?” he asked.
She replied unhesitatingly. “He will be dismissed from the army, expelled from all his clubs and boycotted from society in general. He will be fortunate if anyone continues an acquaintance with him.” Her face was difficult to read. There was a sharp pity in it, but she could have considered him guilty and still felt that. Pitt knew her well enough to realize how complex were her emotions. She belonged to a generation to which honor was paramount, and the Prince of Wales’s own gambling and self-indulgent manner of life were not excused by his royal status. In fact, it made them the more reprehensible. She was of the same generation as Victoria herself, but from all he had heard, as unlike her in nature as possible, although they had lived through the same epoch of history.
“Do you think he was guilty?” he asked.
She opened her amazing silver-gray eyes wide, her perfectly arched brows barely moving.
“I have considered it carefully, for reasons relating to the problem facing us. It serves as something of a measure of public opinion, at least that part of it which would be of concern to men like Dunraithe White and Brandon Balantyne.” She frowned slightly, looking directly at Pitt. “It seems undeniable his method of placing his wager was ill advised, most particularly in the company in which he found himself.” The expression in her eyes was impossible to read. “No one comes out of this well, neither man nor woman. There has been a suggestion, not entirely absurd, that the whole matter was deliberately brought about in order to discredit Gordon-Cumming and thus disqualify him as a rival of the Prince’s for the affections of Frances Brooke.”
“The Lady Brooke with whom the Prince arrived at Ascot today?” Pitt asked, surprised. It seemed either extremely stupid or unnecessarily arrogant, and possibly both.
“The same,” she agreed dryly. “I have no idea whether it is true, but the fact that it can be suggested is indicative of opinion.”
“Innocent?” he said quietly.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “The jury apparently took only fifteen minutes to reach their decision. It was greeted by jeers and hisses also. But after the summation given by the judge little else was possible.”
“To save the Prince?” he asked.
She gave a very slight gesture of despair.
“That seems unarguable.”
“Then it has no bearing upon our situation ….”
She smiled very slightly. “Other things will have, my dear Thomas. Public opinion is a very fickle animal, and I fear our blackmailer has great skill. He has chosen his subjects far too well for us to delude ourselves that he is likely to make mistakes. To answer your question, yes, I think poor Gordon-Cumming may well have been innocent.”
“I have looked through all the possible cases where there might be a connection between Cornwallis and Dunraithe White,” he said thoughtfully, reverting back to the reason for which he had come. “A very ugly fear is in the back of my mind that the conspiracy may be a great deal more ambitious than I imagined to begin with. Nothing to do with simple payment of money, but the corruption of power …” He watched her face as he spoke, seeking to read whether she found his thought absurd. He saw only the greatest gravity. “To do with expansion in Africa, perhaps. That is the area involving all the people we know about which comes most easily to mind.”
“Indeed.” She nodded. “Of course, we do not know who else may be concerned. That is one of the most frightening aspects of this case. There may be other members of government or the judiciary, or any other area of power or influence. But I agree, Africa does seem likely. The amounts of money to be gained there at present are beyond the dreams of most of us. I think Mr. Rhodes may end up building little short of his own empire. And throughout history people have been dazzled by the prospects of gold. It seems to breed a kind of madness.”
He brought out the piece of paper on which he had written the names of the cases in which Cornwallis and Dunraithe White were both involved. There were only five. He showed it to her.
She picked up her lorgnette to read his handwriting.
“What do you need?” she asked when she had finished. “To know more about them?”
“Yes. White would not tell me, because he intends to yield to the blackmailer; you told me that yourself. I should prefer not to ask Cornwallis, because I believe he is politically naive, and I would also rather not compromise him, should we not be able to prevent the matter from becoming public.” He felt a weight inside himself, a heaviness of foreboding it was not easy to dispel, even here in this calm, sunlit room with which he had become so pleasantly familiar. “I must be able to help him … if it should come to that.”
“You do not need to explain it to me, Thomas,” she said quietly. “I understand the nature of suspicion, and of honor.” She met his gaze steadily. “I think perhaps that you should speak to Theloneus. What he does not know already, he will be able to learn. He is as deeply worried by this as we are. He also fears it may be a political plan of far-reaching nature, with high and irrevocable stakes involved. We shall call upon him … unless, of course, you feel it wiser to go alone?” There was no shadow of personal hurt or affront in her silver eyes.
He answered honestly. “I should value your judgment. You may think to ask him questions I would have missed.”
She nodded her assent. She was grateful; she loved to be involved. Her intellect and her curiosity were as sharp as ever, and the foibles of society had bored her for years. She knew them all so well she could predict them. Only the rarest, most genuine eccentric still awoke her interest or amusement. But of course she would not say so. She merely smiled, and asked Pitt if he would care for dinner first, which he accepted, asking permission to use the telephone to let Charlotte know that he would not be home.
“Of course, there are many possibilities,” Theloneus Quade said as they sat in the late-evening sun in his quiet library, the small summer garden beyond the window filled with the sounds of birdsong and of falling water from a stone fountain. The long light was apricot-gold on the full-blown roses, and a white clematis shone in a flash of silver.
“Tannifer may be pressured to grant a loan which he is aware cannot be satisfactorily guaranteed,” he continued earnestly. “Or indeed repaid. Or to overlook dealings which are fraudulent, not to investigate accou
nts when there has been embezzlement.”
“I know.” Pitt sat back in the comfortable chair. The room was quiet, charming, and full of individual touches. He had noticed books on a wide variety of subjects as he came in: the fall of Byzantium, Chinese porcelain, a history of the Tsars of Russia, the poetry of Dante and of William Blake and a dozen other unrelated subjects, and on the wall a watercolor of ships by Bonington which he thought was probably quite valuable. Certainly it was very lovely.
“It could also be someone who has already committed some act for which he will shortly be tried,” Theloneus went on. “And he hopes to subvert the cause of justice. Possibly, without being aware of it, the other victims may be in some way witnesses to it, and he believes they may be suborned by the threat of disclosure, or their testimony invalidated by their own ruin.” He looked at Pitt steadily, the question in his eyes. His features were mild, sensitive, but there was an acute intelligence in him which burned through, and only a foolish man would mistake his quiet voice, his outward gentleness, for any weakness of courage or intent.
“I’ve not found any connection between all the victims we know of,” Pitt explained. “They do not seem to have any common interest or background. They have only the slightest acquaintance, as all London of a certain social level has. There are a limited number of gentlemen’s clubs, the museum, the National Geographic Society, the theater, the opera, the races, the same round of social events. Even so, they do not have any interest in common I can find, or any specific acquaintance that does not equally include a thousand others.”
“And no one has yet been asked for money?” Theloneus said.
“I am not certain.” Pitt thought of Cadell. “It is possible Cadell of the Foreign Office may have.” He told him of Parthenope Tannifer’s information, and his own visit to Cadell, and his denial.
Theloneus remained silent for several moments, turning it over in his mind.
Outside the light was fading. The lawn was already in shadow, and there was a flush of gold across the sky.
“I cannot help feeling that it is more than money,” Vespasia interrupted the silence. “Money could more easily be extracted by slow and reasonable threats, and a means of payment made more obvious. The pattern does not seem to be right.”
Pitt turned in his chair to look at her. Her face was very grave in the slanting light, which was gentler than the white clarity of morning. It lent a glow to the beauty of her bones, still exquisite, untouched by the years. Her hair could almost have been gold rather than silver.
“I am inclined to agree with you,” Theloneus said at last. “The exercise of power is so deliberate I feel there will be something asked for which will be repugnant to each man we know of, but by the time the demand is made, he will be so weakened by the tension, the fear and the exhaustion that he will not be able to summon the strength to resist. He will be prepared to do almost whatever he is asked, even something he would normally refuse without consideration.”
“What concerns me,” Vespasia said with a frown, “is why Brandon Balantyne was the one chosen for the dramatic and rather extreme measure of having a corpse placed upon his doorstep.” She looked from Pitt to Theloneus, and back again. “That was bound to bring the police into this affair. Why did our blackmailer wish that? One would have thought it would be the last thing he desired.”
“That puzzles me also,” Pitt confessed. “Except it would seem that possibly some extreme pressure was desired upon Balantyne, but why, I have no idea.”
“I suppose it is not coincidental?” Theloneus asked. “Could it be merely fortuitous that poor Albert Cole died where he did?”
“No.” Pitt realized he had not told them about Tellman’s discovery. He saw their surprise at his certainty. “No, it’s not coincidence,” he said. “Tellman has been working on it. We assumed it was Albert Cole because of the bill for socks, which certainly seemed to be his. The lawyer from Lincoln’s Inn Fields identified him as Cole.” He had their total attention. They both leaned forward, eyes fixed upon his face. “But it turns out it was a petty thief by the name of Josiah Slingsby,” he continued, “who quarreled with his accomplice, Ernest Wallace, a man with a violent temper, and Wallace killed him ….”
“And left him in Bedford Square?” Vespasia said in amazement.
“They were burgling Bedford Square,” Theloneus concluded. “They stole the snuffbox from Balantyne? No … you said he admitted giving it to the blackmailer. Thomas, my dear friend, this makes no sense whatever. You had better explain yourself again. We have missed something. To begin with, where is the real Albert Cole?”
“No, Wallace did not kill Slingsby in Bedford Square,” Pitt answered. “Or anywhere near it. They quarreled in an alley in Shoreditch, and he left Slingsby exactly where he fell and ran away. He swears he never went anywhere near Bedford Square, and Tellman believed him. So do I.”
“And the receipt for socks?” Theloneus asked. “Did he know Albert Cole?”
“He says not, and there seems no reason to suppose he did.”
“And what does Cole say?”
“We haven’t found Cole. I have Tellman looking for him.”
“Then someone else took Slingsby’s body, placed Albert Cole’s receipt on it, and left it on Balantyne’s doorstep,” Vespasia said with a shiver she could not control. “Surely there can be no other conclusion than an intention to embarrass Brandon Balantyne, possibly even to have him arrested for murder?”
“You did not add, my dear, that it must be the blackmailer,” Theloneus reminded her. “Since he placed the pinchbeck snuffbox in the dead man’s pocket as well.”
She looked from Theloneus to Pitt. “Why? Under arrest Balantyne could neither pay money nor exert influence, corrupt or otherwise.”
“Then that brings to one’s mind the only other alternative,” Theloneus reasoned. “He may wish Balantyne removed so he cannot have an effect upon whatever it is he is planning to do. Perhaps he tried to corrupt him and failed, and this is his way of neutralizing his ability to affect the issue.”
“Which brings us back to the most urgent need to learn what the issue is,” Pitt said helplessly. “We don’t know! We have found nothing in common between them all, Mr. Quade.” He produced the list of cases and handed it to Theloneus. “Can you tell me anything about these? They are all the charges in which Cornwallis was concerned and are due to be heard before Dunraithe White. Is there anything in any of these which could involve the others, however indirectly?”
Theloneus studied the list very carefully, and Pitt and Vespasia remained silent while he did so. Outside the light was dying more swiftly. The roses were a pale blur. Only the tops of the trees were golden. A poplar looked like a shimmering spire as the sunset breeze caught and turned its leaves. A cloud of starlings whirled up into the air, black against the deep, soft blue of the sky. The hustle and squalor of the city was only a matter of yards away, the other side of a high stone wall, but it could have been another land.
The clock in the hall chimed the half hour.
“Some of these cases are merely sad,” Theloneus said at last. “People who have allowed shortsighted greed to sweep away their better judgment, individual crimes which will bring down the families of the men concerned, but no more. There is a sense in which it is already inevitable, and nothing Cornwallis or White will do can change that. An able barrister may mitigate the sentence by pleading the circumstances, showing the accused in a more human light, but the verdict will be the same.”
“And the others?” Pitt pressed.
“That is a domestic murder. It is unlikely to implicate anyone else, but not impossible. The woman was beautiful, and very liberal with her favors. Other men may be implicated, but I find it difficult to believe blackmail will help the accused husband. And since he is in prison awaiting trial, it would have to be accomplished for him by someone else. He does have two loyal and ambitious brothers. It is not impossible.”
“Could it involve all o
ur blackmail victims?” Pitt said dubiously.
“If you are referring to Laetitia Charles, then most certainly not!” Vespasia said tartly. “Certainly she was, at the very kindest, a woman of overgenerous affections. She was also earthy in her tastes, very frank to the point of vulgarity, and had an uproarious sense of the absurd, frequently at the cost of her admirers-and of her husband.” She shrugged her thin shoulders very slightly. In the shadows her face was unreadable. “She would have terrified the life from a man like Captain Cornwallis, and he would have bored her to weeping. Leo Cadell would have had more of a sense of self-preservation than to have had anything to do with her, even socially, and Dunraithe White has never looked at another woman in his life. Even if he had wanted to, and I concede that he may, his sense of honor would crucify him if he had, and I, at least, would know of it.”
Theloneus smiled bleakly. “You are probably right, my dear. That leaves two cases of fraud and embezzlement, both for very large sums of money. One involves international banking in Europe-Germany, to be precise-and the transfer of funds to a very questionable enterprise in South Africa. The other is an attempt to pass forged bonds and deeds to mines, again in Africa.”
“Could they be connected to each other?” Pitt asked quickly.
“Not on the surface, but it is possible.” Theloneus regarded the paper again. “One would have to know who purchased the bonds. It is conceivable that it may concern all our victims.”
“Where in Africa?” Pitt pressed.
“As I recall, several places.” Theloneus frowned. “I think it may bear further investigation. The case is not complete yet. The trial lies some time in the future.”
“Is it still under investigation?” Pitt asked with a sinking in his stomach. “By whom?”
“Superintendent Springer,” Theloneus replied. “Reporting to Cornwallis.” He regarded Pitt steadily, a sadness in his eyes and in the lines of his face, but he would not look away nor temper the perception that was all too plainly in his mind.