by Anne Perry
The Staffords’ house was easy to find. There were dark wreaths hung on the door and black crepes over the drawn curtains on the windows. A pale-faced maid in a hat and coat came up the areaway steps and set out along the footpath on some task, and a footman with a black armband carried a coal scuttle inside and closed the door. It was a house conspicuously in mourning.
Pitt alighted, paid the cabby, and went to the front door.
“Yes sir?” the answering parlormaid asked dubiously. She regarded Pitt with disfavor. He looked like a peddler at first glance, except that he carried nothing to sell. But there was a confidence in his manner, even an arrogance, which belied any attempt to ingratiate. She was flustered and overwhelmed with the drama of events. The housemaids were all in tears, the cook had fainted twice, the butler was more than a trifle maudlin, after a long time in his own pantry with the cellar keys, and Mr. Stafford’s valet looked as if he had seen a ghost.
“I am sorry to disturb Mrs. Stafford at such a time,” Pitt said with all the charm he could muster, which was considerable. “But I require to ask her a few questions about events last night, in order that everything may be settled as quickly and decently as possible. Will you please ask her if she will see me.” He fished in his pocket and presented her with one of his cards, an indulgence which had rewarded him many times.
The maid took it, reading it for his occupation and not finding it. She put it on the silver tray used for such purposes and told him to wait while she delivered his enquiry.
He was not long in the dim hallway with its hastily placed crepes before the maid returned to conduct him to the room towards the back of the house where Juniper Stafford received him. It was expensively decorated in warm colors, with stenciled patterns around the doors lending an individual touch. A carved chaise longue had a woven rug draped on it in reds and plums, and no one had changed the bowl of late chrysanthemums on the polished table.
Juniper looked very tired this morning, and shocked, as if the realization of her husband’s death was beginning to come to her, with all the changes in her life that it would mean. In the harsher daylight her skin looked papery and the tiny natural blemishes more pronounced, but she was still a handsome woman with excellent features and very fine dark eyes. Today she was dressed in unrelieved black, but the excellence of the cut, the perfect drape of the fabrics across the hips and the swath of the bustle made it a garment of fashion, and most becoming.
“Good morning, Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said formally. “I am truly sorry to disturb you again so soon, but there were questions I could not ask you last night.”
“Of course,” she said quickly. “I understand, Mr. Pitt. You do not need to explain to me. I have been a judge’s wife long enough to appreciate the necessities of the law. Surely they have not done the …” She hesitated to use the word, it was so ugly.
“No, not yet.” He saved her from having to say “autopsy.” “I hope for it this evening. But in the meantime I should like to confirm for myself what Mr. Stafford’s purpose was in going to see Mr. O’Neil and Mr. Fielding.” He pulled a rueful face. “I am in some confusion as to whether he did intend to reopen the Blaine/Godman case, or simply to find further evidence to convince Miss Macaulay of the futility of her crusade.”
“You are in charge of the matter, after all?” she asked, still standing, one hand resting on the back of the tapestried chair.
“I was given it this morning.”
“I am glad. It would have been harder to face someone I did not know.”
It was a delicate compliment and he accepted it as such, thanking her by expression rather than words.
She walked over towards the fire and the mantel shelf, above which was a particularly fine Dutch oil painting of cows in an autumn field, the sky warm with golden light behind them. She looked at it for a moment or two before turning to face him.
“What can I tell you, Mr. Pitt? He did not confide his intentions to me, but I assumed from what he did say that he had found some grounds on which to re-enquire into the case. If indeed he was … killed”—she swallowed, finding the word difficult—“then I have to assume it had some connection with that. It was a hideous case—bestial—blasphemous. There was terrible public outcry at the time.” She shivered and her lips tightened at the memory. “You must remember it. It was in all the newspapers, I am told.”
“Who was Kingsley Blaine?” he asked. He could still recall the sense of horror he had felt when she had spoken of Farriers’ Lane, but very little else came back to him, no details, no people behind the names.
“A fairly ordinary young man of good enough family,” she replied, standing close to the mantel and staring beyond Pitt towards the window. The curtains were drawn closed now because of the mourning of the house. “Money, of course, but not of the aristocracy. He and his friend, Devlin O’Neil, went to the theater that night. Some say they had a difference of opinion, but it proved later to be of no importance. It was only money, a small debt or something. Nothing very large.” She looked at the garnet ring on her finger and turned it slowly in the light.
“But Mr. O’Neil was suspected for a while?” Pitt asked.
“Only as a matter of course, I think,” she replied.
“But Mr. Stafford went to see him yesterday?”
“Yes. I don’t know why. Perhaps he thought he might know something. After all, he was there that evening.”
“How did Aaron Godman come into the story?”
She let her hands fall and stared towards the window again, as if she could see through the curtains to the garden and the street beyond.
“He was an actor. He was playing in the theater that night. They say he was gifted.” Her voice altered very slightly but it was an expression he could not gauge. “Blaine was having an affaire with Tamar Macaulay, and he stayed late backstage. As he was leaving someone handed him a note asking him to go and meet O’Neil at some gambling club. He never got there, because as he was passing through Farriers’ Lane, on the way, he was murdered, and crucified to the door in the stable yard—with farrier’s nails.” She shuddered and swallowed as though there were an obstruction in her throat. “They said he was pierced in the side, as Our Lord was,” she went on very quietly indeed. “One of the newspapers said that they had made a crown of old nails and placed it on his head.”
“I recall it now,” Pitt confessed. “But I had forgotten that particular horror.”
She spoke very quietly, her voice subdued, full of fear, and close, with a drawing in of her body as if the emotion were still as sharp in her as it must have been five years ago.
“It was very ugly, Mr. Pitt. It was as if something had come out of a nightmare and taken living form. Everyone I know was just as appalled as we were.” Unconsciously she included her husband. “Until Godman was hanged, we could think of little else. It intruded into everything like a darkness, as if it could come out of Farriers’ Lane and that hideous yard, and slash and crucify us all!” She shuddered as though even this room were somehow not safe.
“It is finished, Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said gently. “There is no need to be concerned anymore, or to let it disturb you.”
“Is it?” She swung around, facing him. Her dark eyes were wide, still full of fear, and her voice had a hard, frightened edge to it. “Do you think so? Isn’t that why Samuel was killed?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Mr. Livesey seems to think that Mr. Stafford was quite satisfied that the verdict was correct. He simply wanted to find further proof of it so even Tamar Macaulay would be convinced and let it rest. In the public good.”
She stood very still, her body stiff under its black gown.
“Then who killed Samuel?” she said quietly. “And for heaven’s sake, why? Nothing else makes any sense. And it was immediately after that woman came here, and he went to speak to O’Neil and Joshua Fielding about the evidence. Do you—do you think maybe one of them really killed Kingsley Blaine, and they are afraid Samuel knew s
omething about it—and that he was going to prove it?”
“It is possible,” he conceded. “Mrs. Stafford, can you think of anything he may have said which would help us to find out what he knew? Even what he intended, would help.”
She was silent for several moments, her face heavy with concentration.
Pitt waited.
“He seemed to feel it was extremely urgent,” she said finally, a deep line of anxiety between her brows. “He would not have gone to Devlin O’Neil again, someone so close to the murdered man’s family, and a personal friend, unless he felt he had new information or evidence. I—I just know, from his manner, that he had learned something.” She stared at him with fierce concentration. “It is only natural that he did not discuss it with me. It would have been improper. And of course I did not know the details anyway. All I knew was what was public knowledge. Everyone was talking about it. One could not bump into a friend or acquaintance anywhere, even at the opera or the dinner table, without it creeping into the conversation after a few moments. There was terrible anger everywhere, Mr. Pitt. It was not an ordinary crime.”
“No.” Pitt thought of the dark air of fear and prejudice which would blow from the bloodstained Farriers’ Lane, even into the withdrawing rooms of London and the discreet, plush lined gentlemen’s clubs with a clink of crystal and the aroma of cigar smoke.
“It wasn’t, I assure you!” There was an urgency in her now, as if she thought he doubted her. “I have never known such a public fury over a crime—other than the Whitechapel murders, of course. And even so, there was an element of blasphemy in this which outraged people in quite a different way. Even gentle and pious people could not wait for him to be hanged.”
“Except Tamar Macaulay,” he observed.
She winced. “It is an abominable thought that she may have been right, is it not?”
“Indeed!” he said with a sudden surge of feeling. “In many ways far worse than the original crime.”
She looked uncomprehending.
“The murder of Kingsley Blaine was the murder of one man,” he explained with a bitter smile. “The murder, if you like, of Aaron Godman was the slow, judicial passion incurred by the fear and rage, and misjudgment, of a nation and what purports to be the justice system it practices. To have criminals is a sad fact of humanity. To have laws which, when tested to their limit, exact an irretrievable punishment from an innocent person, in order to assuage our own fears, is a tragedy of a far greater order. We all consented to it; we are all tainted.”
She looked very pale, her eyes hollow, skin tight on her throat.
“Mr. Pitt, that is—that is simply dreadful! Poor Samuel; if he feared that, no wonder he was so disturbed.”
“He was disturbed?”
“Oh yes, he has been anxious about the case for some time.” She looked down at the rich carpet. “Of course I was not sure to begin with whether it was simply that he was afraid Miss Macaulay was going to revive the subject in the public mind again and try to bring the law into disrepute. And of course that would have caused him great concern.” She met Pitt’s eyes. “He loved the law. He had given most of his life to it, and he held it in reverence above all things. It was like a religion to him.”
He hesitated; the next thought that came to the edge of his mind was difficult to put to her without being offensive.
She was staring at him, waiting for his response, her eyes still haunted by fear.
“Mrs. Stafford,” he began awkwardly, “I hardly know how to ask you, and I do not wish to be insulting, but—but is it possible he—he intended to protect the reputation of the law—in people’s eyes …” He stopped.
“No, Mr. Pitt,” she said quietly. “You did not know Samuel, or you would not need to ask. He was a man of total integrity. If he had further evidence that convinced him Aaron Godman might not have been guilty, he would have made it public, whatever the risk to the reputation of the law, or of any individual barrister or the original trial judge, or indeed to himself. But if he had such evidence, he would surely already have made it known. I think perhaps he had only a suspicion, and now he is—gone—we may never know what it was.”
“Except by retracing his steps,” Pitt replied. “And if it is necessary, then I shall do that.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pitt.” She forced herself to smile. “You have been most considerate, and I have every faith you will handle the whole matter in the best way possible.”
“I will certainly try,” he replied, conscious already that his findings might be far from what she could wish or foresee, it would not be easy to learn what Samuel Stafford had discovered so long after the event, and which had caused someone such terror they had again resorted to murder. He looked at her handsome face with its dark brows and well-proportioned bones, and saw the calmness in her eyes for the first time since he had seen her in her theater box watching the stage, before Stafford was taken ill. He felt guilty, because she placed a trust in him he doubted he would be able to honor.
He bade her good-bye with haste, because it embarrassed him, and after a brisk walk, took a hansom cab east again to the chambers of Adolphus Pryce, Q.C. They were in one of the larger Inns of Court, close by the Old Bailey, and the oak-paneled office was bustling with clerks and juniors with inky fingers and grave expressions. An elderly gentleman with white whiskers and a portentous air came up to him, peering at him over the top of his gold-rimmed pince-nez.
“And what may we do for you, sir?” he enquired. “Mr. er …?”
“Pitt—Inspector Thomas Pitt, of the Bow Street station,” Pitt supplied. “I am here in connection with the death last night of Mr. Justice Stafford.”
“Terrible news.” The clerk shook his head. “Very sudden indeed. We had not even heard the poor gentleman was ailing. Such a shock! And in the theater. Not the most salubrious place from which to depart this vale of tears, dear me, no. Still, what cannot be changed must be endured the best we can. Most unfortunate. But …” He coughed dryly. “In what way does that involve these chambers? Mr. Stafford was an appeal court judge, not a barrister. And we have no case presently before him, of that I am quite sure; it is my business to know.”
Pitt changed his mind about his approach.
“But you have had in the past, sir?”
The clerk’s white eyebrows rose. “But of course. We have tried cases before most of the justices of the bench, both in the Old Bailey and in appeal. So, I imagine, has every other reputable chambers in London.”
“I have in mind the case of Aaron Godman.”
Suddenly there was a hush as a dozen quill pens stopped moving and a junior with a ledger in his hands stood motionless.
“Aaron Godman?” The clerk repeated the name. “Aaron Godman! Oh dear, that is some time ago now, at least five years. But you are perfectly correct, of course. Our Mr. Pryce prosecuted that one, and secured a conviction. It went to appeal, I believe before Mr. Stafford, among others. There are usually five judges of appeal, but you will know that.”
The junior with the ledger continued his journey and the pens began to move again, but there was a curious air of listening in the room although no one turned or looked at Pitt.
“Do you by any chance recall who they were?” he asked.
“Not by chance, sir, by memory,” the clerk replied. “Mr. Stafford himself, Mr. Ignatius Livesey, Mr. Morley Sadler, Mr. Edgar Boothroyd and Mr. Granville Oswyn. Yes, that is correct. I believe Mr. Sadler has retired from the bench now, and I heard Mr. Boothroyd had moved to the Chancery division. Surely the case is no longer of any interest? As I recall, it was denied at appeal. There really were no grounds for opening up the matter again, none at all. Dear me, no. The trial was conducted with perfect propriety, and there was most certainly no new evidence.”
“You are speaking of the appeal?”
“Of course. What else?”
“I had heard that Mr. Stafford was still interested in the matter, and had interviewed several of the principal wit
nesses again in the last few days.”
Again the writing stopped and there was a prickly silence.
“Indeed? I had not heard that!” The clerk looked quite taken aback. “I cannot imagine what that would mean. However, it did not concern these chambers, Mr.—er … Mr. Pitt, you say? Quite so—Mr. Pitt. We prosecuted the case, we did not defend. That, as I recall, was Mr. Barton James, of Finnegan, James and Mulhare, of Fetter Lane.” He frowned. “Although it is most odd that Mr. Stafford should be enquiring in the matter. If indeed there is some new evidence come to light, I would have thought Mr. James should take it up—if it is of any importance?”
“Miss Macaulay, Godman’s sister, appealed personally to Mr. Stafford,” Pitt explained.
“Oh dear, yes indeed. A most tenacious young woman-most misguided.” The clerk shook his head. “Unfortunate. An actress person, I believe. Most unfortunate. Well, sir, what is it that we may do for you?”
“May I see Mr. Pryce, if he is available? He was at the theater yesterday evening, and Mr. Stafford also called upon him earlier in the day. He may be able to give us some information which will throw further light upon Mr. Stafford’s death.”
“Indeed. He was a personal friend of Mr. and Mrs. Stafford; possibly Mr. Stafford confided some concern for his health. He has a client with him at the moment, but I do not believe he will be long. If you care to take a seat, sir, I will inform him that you are here.” And with that he bowed very slightly, a stiff gesture, rather like a black crow that was about to peck and changed its mind. Pitt watched him walk away between the desks and files and high-backed stools where young men sat bent over books, scribbling industriously. Not one of them looked up as he passed.
It was over a quarter of an hour before the clerk returned to say that Mr. Pryce was free now, and conducted Pitt to his heavily ornate office, where carved oak chests and bookcases held a library of law books, and the mellow gleam of polished wood reflected the warmth of the fire. Two well-curtained windows looked out onto a small shaded courtyard. The single tree was already bright with autumn colors and the grass was sorely in need of clipping.