Bedford Square tp-19

by Anne Perry

  “I am sorry, my dear fellow. I must know the truth of this. You do indeed look as if you are suffering greatly, but you do not seem unwell, which is a different thing.”

  White made as if to protest, but he could not find the words.

  “If you have some ailment,” Theloneus went on, “then allow me to send for your physician. I know him well, and I have no doubt he will come to you within the hour.”

  “Really!” White protested. “I am perfectly able to … to send for him myself, should I require his assistance. You take too much …” He half turned away, moving his arm ineffectually. “Please accept my word, Quade, and my apologies, and let the matter be. I have said all I have to.”

  Theloneus remained where he was.

  “I think not,” he said very quietly. “Perhaps I wrong you, and if so I am in your debt, but I think you are not ill in any medical sense, and even the Lord Chancellor would understand if-”

  White wheeled around. “Are you threatening me?” he accused, his eyes hot and angry.

  Theloneus did not even look surprised.

  “Is somebody threatening you even though Cadell is dead?” he asked mildly.

  What shred of color there was left White’s face. For several moments he did not speak, and neither Theloneus nor Pitt broke the silence.

  “Are you sure Cadell was the blackmailer?” White said at last, his voice strained to cracking.

  “He confessed,” Pitt said, speaking for the first time. “His note was exactly the same as the blackmail letters, and on the same white notepaper.”

  “I want to believe that,” White said desperately. “Dear God, you don’t know how much I do ….”

  Theloneus frowned. “Why do you find it so hard? Have you received another letter? Were you told to drop the Leadbetter case?”

  White shook his head; there was a bitter laughter in him close to hysteria. “No … nothing to do with the Leadbetter case.” His voice cracked. “I simply can’t face it. I think I shall resign from the bench altogether. I cannot go on like this.” He held his hands out in front of him, palms down. They trembled very slightly. “But you are correct; I did receive another letter in the post this morning.”

  “May I see it?” Pitt requested.

  White gestured towards the fireplace. “I burnt it … in case Marguerite found it. But it was just the same as the others … threats … talks of ruin and pain, but nothing asked for.” Unconsciously, his hands clenched. “I cannot continue like this … I will not!” He looked from one to the other of them. “My wife is terrified. She has no idea what is wrong, but she cannot help but be aware that I am beside myself with worry. I have told her it is a case I am concerned with, but she will not believe that forever. She knows little of the ways of the world, but she is not a foolish woman, nor unobservant.” In spite of himself his voice softened. “And she cares for my welfare with the tenderest concern. The whole matter is beginning to affect her health also, and I cannot keep it from her indefinitely. She will begin to know I am lying, and that will make her even more afraid. She has always trusted me. It will destroy every shred of peace of mind she has.” He lifted his chin, and his shoulders stiffened. “You may enquire all you wish, Quade. I shall do whatever this blackguard asks of me. I will not subject Marguerite to scandal and ruin. I have told you this before, and I fail to see why you did not believe me then. I thought you knew me better.” He turned away, his back rigid, his jaw set.

  A dozen arguments rose to Pitt’s lips, but he knew Dunraithe White was not listening. Fear, exhaustion and the passionate desire to protect his wife had closed his mind to argument of any sort.

  Theloneus tried a last time.

  “My dear fellow, Cadell is dead. He cannot hurt you or your family. Please reconsider before you commit yourself to a course of action which will bring to an end a long and memorable career. I shall deem that I did not hear your last words …”

  White turned around, glaring at him.

  “… because if I had,” Theloneus continued, “I should have to inform the Lord Chancellor of their import. He might then find it most difficult to keep you in a position of high trust, knowing that you would place the love of your family before the duty of your calling.”

  White stared at him, ashen-faced, swaying a little on his feet.

  “You are very brutal, Quade. I had not seen it like that.” He swallowed with difficulty. “I suppose it may look like that to you.”

  “It would look like it to you, my dear fellow, were our places reversed,” Theloneus assured him. “And if you think of it for a moment, you know that. Would you prefer I told you only after you had made your decision?”

  White took several moments to answer.

  “No …” he said at last. “No, I should not. I have enjoyed my career. I shall be at a loss without it. But I can see that my present ill health must become a permanent thing. I shall write my resignation to the Lord Chancellor this morning.” There was a finality of despair in his voice. “It will be in the afternoon post. You have my word. Then I shall disregard this damnable letter, whoever it is from. I think that perhaps my wife and I should take a short holiday in the country, for recuperation. Perhaps a month or so.”

  Theloneus did not make any further attempt to dissuade White. He took his leave quietly, and he and Pitt went out into the sun and the noise and ordinariness of the street. Neither spoke of it, except on parting when Pitt thanked Theloneus for having come with him. There really was nothing that needed more words.

  Pitt’s mind was still troubled over the details of Cadell’s knowledge. How he had learned, and invented, sufficient detail with which to blackmail his fellow members of the Jessop Club was not difficult to imagine. But Pitt could still think of no answer to the question of how Cadell knew of Slingsby and Cole, not to mention Ernest Wallace and the murder in Shoreditch. Had it been simply money he was after, eventually? And if so, why? What was he spending it on that he needed more than his very ample salary and his inherited wealth?

  Or was it the sadistic power to hurt, to torment and to ruin? Such a thing was entirely outside anything Aunt Vespasia had observed in the man in over quarter of a century’s acquaintance.

  Or was it, as they had considered before, some mad African venture into speculation and empire building?

  Whatever it was, a more careful scrutiny of all his papers and a more thorough and directed questioning of his wife and his household staff should reveal a thread, a shadow, some indication of an answer.

  Accordingly, Pitt hailed the next cab which passed him and gave the driver directions to Cadell’s house.

  There was still straw muffling the street outside, and of course all the curtains were drawn, giving the windows a blind look, almost as if the house itself were dead.

  But when he pulled the bell he was let in immediately, and Theodosia herself came into the withdrawing room within minutes. She was dressed in black with no relief except a jet mourning brooch at the throat. Her eyes were hollow and her skin had no color at all. Anything artificial would have stood out like a clown’s makeup. Even so, she was a beautiful woman; her high cheekbones and long slender throat could not be affected by any grief, nor the thick, carefully dressed dark hair with its silver streaks. She reminded him of Vespasia.

  “Is there something further I can do for you, Superintendent?” she asked. “Or have you discovered …?” She tried with painful intensity to keep hope out of her voice, and almost succeeded.

  How could he answer without the cruelty of suggesting something only to snatch it away again?

  “Nothing new,” he said immediately, and saw the light fade from her eyes. “Just questions to which I can’t find any answers, and I must at least look.”

  She was too well-bred to be impolite, and perhaps she remembered he was a friend of Vespasia’s.

  “I assume that you wish to look here?”

  “Please. I would like to go through Mr. Cadell’s letters and papers once more, everything h
e kept at home, and speak to the staff again, in particular his valet and the coachman.”

  “Why?” she asked, then immediately comprehension flooded her face, and a darkness of misery. “You don’t believe he killed that wretched man who was found in Bedford Square, do you? You can’t! How would he even know him?”

  “No, I don’t believe he killed him,” he said quickly. “We know who did that. It was witnessed. We have the man arrested and charged. But he swears that he did not move the body from Shoreditch to Bedford Square. He simply fled. That was witnessed as well. I want to know how the body got to General Balantyne’s step and who put his snuffbox in the pocket and tried to have the body identified as Albert Cole.”

  “What snuffbox?” She was completely bemused.

  “General Balantyne had a highly unusual snuffbox,” he explained. “Like a reliquary, only made of pinchbeck. He gave it to the blackmailer”-he saw her wince at the word, but there was no other he could use-“as a token of surrender. It was found in the corpse’s pocket, along with a receipt for socks, from which we identified him-wrongly, as it turns out-as Albert Cole, a man who had served with Balantyne on the campaign where the incident occurred over which he was threatened.”

  “And you believe my husband found the body, wherever it was, and moved it, and put those things on it?” she asked with disbelief, but no strength to deny. She was dizzy with confusion and pain. “Do the details matter now, Mr. Pitt? Do you need to dot every i and cross every t?”

  “I need to understand more than I do now, Mrs. Cadell,” he replied. “There is still too much of it which seems inexplicable. I feel as if I have left something undone. And I want to know what happened to the real Albert Cole. If he is alive, where is he? And if he is dead, did he die naturally or was he also murdered?”

  She stood very still. “I suppose you must. I … I want to hope that you will find some other explanation, something that does not involve my husband. Every fact you have found so far makes that impossible, and yet I cannot believe it of the man I knew … and loved.” Her lip trembled a little, and she gestured impatiently. “You must mink me a fool. I imagine every woman whose husband has done something criminal says the same thing. You must expect it by now.”

  “If people were so easy to read, Mrs. Cadell, anyone could do my job, and far better than I do it,” he said softly. “It can take me weeks to solve a case, and too often I don’t succeed at all. Even when I do, I am frequently just as surprised as anyone else. Most of the time we see what we expect to see, and what we want to.”

  The ghost of a smile touched her face. “Where would you like to begin?”

  “With the valet, if you please.”

  But Didcott, the valet, proved of little use. He was obviously suffering from shock and bewilderment, and the very natural anxiety as to what his own future would be. He would have no employment once Cadell’s belongings were disposed of. He answered every question to the best of his ability, but he could shed no light on the subject of Cadell’s life outside what was generally known of his work at the Foreign Office and the social and diplomatic functions that one might have expected him to attend. If he owned any clothes suitable for venturing to the East End, or attending the rougher gambling houses, let alone such sports as bare-knuckle fighting or dog fights, he did not keep them in the house.

  Pitt went through all the cupboards and drawers himself. Cadell had been a fastidious man, well dressed, as Pitt would have expected, but considering his position and his income, certainly not extravagant. Almost all his suits were formal; there was little of a more casual nature.

  Didcott kept a diary of events Cadell attended in order that he might make sure every garment was ready, clean and pressed, when it should be required and that there were always sufficient clean shirts to hand. Pitt read it carefully, going back over the previous three months. If Cadell had kept every appointment, and Didcott assured Pitt that he had, then his schedule allowed very little time indeed for self-indulgence of any sort. It was difficult to see when he could have had time to go to Shoreditch, or anywhere else, to overspend money on private vices.

  It also appeared, incidentally, that he had very seldom been to the Jessop Club lately, not above three times in the previous eight weeks, at least according to Didcott’s diary. Perhaps Pitt should go to the club and ask there? Maybe it was irrelevant, but it was a silly little fact that did not fit the picture.

  He went downstairs and outside to the mews, where he found the coachman, but even with the most detailed questioning, he also could offer nothing of use. He had driven Cadell regularly over the previous eight years and had never taken him to Shoreditch, or anywhere like it. He looked at Pitt with wide, sad eyes, and seemed confused by almost everything Pitt said.

  It seemed that if Cadell had gone on any private journeys, he had done so by hansom or some other form of public transport, or less likely, with an associate.

  Was that the answer, a conspiracy?

  With whom?

  He should go through all the papers again. Reread everything to see if there was any indication of another person, another mind involved.

  He was offered luncheon, and accepted it, eating it in the servants’ hall. They treated him civilly enough, but their grief was very obvious, and they spoke little.

  He returned to his task, and it took him the rest of the afternoon, going through every drawer and cupboard. He even leafed through books from the shelves in the study, the only room in the house which was private to Cadell and not touched by any of the servants except in his presence. It was where he had kept certain of his work when he had brought it home.

  Pitt questioned all the servants about the posting of a letter on the day before Cadell’s death, or that morning, but no one knew of a letter, to Dunraithe White or anyone else.

  There was no glue in the study desk drawer. There was notepaper, but it was of a different texture and a slightly different size from that of the letters. It would seem Cadell had not written them at home. Could he really have done it at the Foreign Office? Or was there a third place, one they knew nothing of?

  The only other thing that caught Pitt’s attention was a note on the side of Cadell’s appointment diary: “Balantyne still worried about Kew He is not a fool. I should take it seriously.”

  He thanked Theodosia and left to go to Bedford Square. He had been to Kew himself. Charlotte had spoken to Balantyne also, but perhaps there was something Pitt could ask that would elicit an explanation as to why the General was concerned that made some kind of sense.

  He did not believe it, but he could not leave it undone.

  As he was shown in by the footman he was greeted with icy disdain by Augusta. She was dressed in a gray striped gown and looked magnificent. Pitt was jolted by memory of the past, her courage and resolution, her grief, and the loneliness that must haunt her solitary hours. There was no happiness in her, only cold strength. There was something admirable about her, something frightening, and not a little that evoked a sense of pity.

  “What tragedy is it this time, Mr. Pitt?” she enquired, coming towards him with a remarkably graceful step for a woman of her age. There was nothing whatever fragile in her, nothing that spoke of vulnerability. “And what makes you imagine that we can assist you in your confusion?”

  “The same tragedy, Lady Augusta,” he answered gravely, standing in the middle of the wide hall. “And I am not at all sure that General Balantyne can help, but I have to ask.”

  “Do you?” she said with faint sarcasm. “I find that difficult to understand, but I suppose you have to justify yourself somehow.”

  Pitt did not argue. He probably was wasting not only his own time but Balantyne’s. Nevertheless, he would still ask him about Kew.

  “The orphanage?” Balantyne said with surprise. He stood with his back to the oak fireplace in the morning room, staring at Pitt. “Yes, I did speak to Cadell about it. Twice, I think … possibly three times.” He was frowning slightly. “I don’t under
stand why you are concerned now. If they are incompetent, or short of funds, it is hardly a police matter.”

  “Incompetence? Is that what you were concerned about when you contacted Cadell two or three times?” Pitt asked with surprise. “Why Cadell? Did you speak to the committee in general?”

  “Yes, of course I did. No one else seemed to consider the matter of any substance.”

  “You thought the funds were insufficient,” Pitt said again. “You did not suspect that anyone was misusing them or diverting them to private profit?”

  “No,” Balantyne said. “I don’t know what I thought was happening, just that sufficient care was not being taken.”

  “So you spoke to Cadell? Why him?”

  “I believed he would listen and take the matter up with the man in charge … Horsfall.”

  “I went there myself,” Pitt confessed. “I looked through the financial books. They were faultless.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Balantyne said a little sharply. “I was not suspecting dishonesty … only a reluctance to demand more money, sufficient to care properly for the children there. I was concerned that they might be cold … or hungry.”

  “I saw the children,” Pitt replied. “They were clean and well clothed and looked in excellent health.”

  Balantyne was puzzled. “Then it would seem I was mistaken.” But there was disbelief in his voice. He was reluctant to let go of the conviction he had held.

  “What made you think there was something wrong?” Pitt was puzzled also, because he respected Balantyne and could not dismiss his ideas lightly, even if they appeared to have no foundation.

  Balantyne frowned. “I go to Kew every so often. I am familiar with the size of it, and how many children it could accommodate. I do not understand how they can manage adequately on the funds they have. It seems to me … far too little ….” He lifted one shoulder very slightly. “I don’t know why they didn’t press for more.”

  “Were you alone in this?” Pitt thought of the other members of the committee in the Jessop Club. Surely no stretch of the imagination could connect the orphanage with blackmail or death?