Belgrave Square

by Anne Perry

  A rag and bone man pushed his cart past, his face turned towards her with interest.

  “Is your husband in work, Mrs. Colley?” Pitt went on.

  Her chin came up. “Yes ’E is. At Billingsgate, at the fish market. ’E don’t know nuffink about anyone bein’ dead.”

  Innes glared at the rag and bone man, who increased his pace and disappeared around the corner into an alley.

  “What did he do on Tuesday, Mrs. Colley?” Pitt pursued. “All day, please?”

  Haltingly she told him, the child at her knees catching the fear in her voice and in her body and beginning to cry.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “If that’s true then there’s no need to concern yourself. I shall not be back.” He wished he could tell her that Weems was dead, and perhaps her debts would be forgotten, but that would be precipitate, and only raise hopes that might not be realized.

  The next small, weary woman was different only in trivial ways; her eyes were brown, her hair grayer, her dress the same colorless cloth, washed and rewashed, patched in places, so thin it hung lank about her body. There was a dark bruise on her cheek. She did not know where her husband had been. His pleasures were few, and she thought he had been down the road at the Goat and Compasses public house. He had come home drunk and slept the night on the kitchen floor where he had fallen when he came home around midnight.

  And so it went on, the cycle of wretchedness, born in poverty where there was little food, crowded houses with no drains and no water except from a standpipe down the street, sickness, no education and so the meanest work, and more poverty. And for many the only escape was in alcohol, where present pain was drowned into oblivion. And in drunkenness came violence, loss of work, the pawnshop or moneylender, and another slow step downward.

  Pitt hated the men like Weems not because they could have changed it—no one knew how to do that—but because they made a profit out of it. He was going to find it very difficult to care who had killed him. Perhaps a few of his victims would find their cancerous debts wiped clean. There would be no one to claim them, to watch the interest accrue and collect someone’s last few pence every week to pay off a burden that never decreased.

  There was nothing to report to Micah Drummond, so Pitt went home to Charlotte and his clean, warm house where everything smelled sweet and he had no fear of the knock on the door. She would tell him all about the ball at Emily’s, the clothes, the food, the chatter. He could watch her face and hear the excitement in her voice, and imagine her playing the society hostess for one night and getting more pleasure out of it than all the duchesses put together, because it was a game, a fancy dress parade. She could come home to sanity at the end, to her children, comfort that had some sort of proportion with the lot of others, the ordinary, sane things like baking bread, mending the children’s clothes, taking the dead heads off the roses, sitting by the open window in the evening and watching the moths in the summer garden.

  The following day he and Innes resumed working their way through the list, this time with the genteel poor, those who struggled to maintain the appearance of respectability and would rather sit in the cold all winter than forgo having a maid because quality always had a maid; people who would eat bread and gravy when they were alone, so that when callers came they could present better fare. These were people who had only one outfit of clothes that were not threadbare, out of fashion, boots that leaked and no coat, but they walked to church every Sunday with heads high and polite smiles and nods to neighbors, and made fantastic excuses why they did not accept invitations, because they could not return the hospitality. He ached for them also, and knew why the doors were answered with fear, and why he was offered tea which was served with shaking hands. He felt a hard, compulsive satisfaction when they could prove where they were when William Weems was shot. It was one advantage the poor had over Lord Byam; privacy was a luxury they tasted very seldom indeed. Almost all of them were crowded with others at that time in the evening, and all night. Few had any space alone, even to wash or to sleep. Many of the very poor shared a single room and they would not do more than dream of a time when they could do otherwise. One loan piled upon another, and the interest swallowed all they had, the capital was never paid off. Debt was a way of life.

  Pitt heartily wished whoever had murdered Weems had destroyed all his records. Pitt hated him for that omission far more than for having blown the man’s brains out with half a dozen of his own gold coins.

  On the fifth day Pitt took a hansom back to Bow Street to tell Micah Drummond that he had learned nothing so far either to implicate Lord Byam or to exonerate him. It was a little after five in the afternoon and the sun was still high and warm. The trees in the square were in full leaf, and music floated across from the band in Lincoln Inn Fields as he peered out of his cab. Children in bright clothes played with hoops and sticks painted like horses’ heads, and a solemn man with his sleeves rolled up flew a red kite for a small boy whose upturned face was full of wonder. A courting couple strolled by arm in arm, the girl giggling with pleasure, the man swaggering very slightly as if he had something worth showing off to the world. A nursemaid passed going in the opposite direction, wheeling a perambulator, her head high, her starched apron dazzling white in the sun. Two old gentlemen sat on a wooden seat in the sun, looking faintly dusty in the bright light, their faces benign.

  By the time Pitt reached Bow Street he had almost forgotten the all-pervading want he had seen all day, tasting it in the air as if it were a kind of grit.

  He paid the cabby and went up the steps of the police station. He was barely inside when he heard a commotion outside. The door flew open again and a uniformed constable came in backwards, stumbling as he tried to restrain a portly gentleman with bristling whiskers and a scarlet face, who was obviously in a monumental rage and determined that no one should put a hand on him. He flung his body about like a fish on the end of a line, and the constable, with both his youth and length of reach on his side, was fast losing the battle.

  Pitt went to his assistance and between them they overcame the man when he realized the futility of fighting against such odds. Quite suddenly they all stopped, the constable with his jacket pulled crooked, two buttons missing, and his helmet over one ear. Pitt had a pocket torn and dust over his trousers where the man had scraped his boots in his efforts to get free. He himself was in worse condition yet; his fine head of hair was on end, his jacket was hitched up under his armpits and wildly crooked, his shirt was torn, his collar had sprung loose from its studs and his tie looked in danger of strangling him. His trousers were twisted around his body and torn open at the top button at his waist.

  “Are you all right, Constable?” Pitt asked as soberly as the ridiculousness of the situation allowed.

  The constable pulled his uniform back to position with one hand, keeping the other firmly on his prisoner.

  “Yes, thank you sir. I’m obliged to you.”

  “How dare you,” the prisoner demanded furiously. “I don’t think you know who I am, sir. I am Horatio Osmar!” This last was addressed to Pitt, whom he had realized to be the senior officer and thus worthy of his attention.

  It was a name Pitt recognized although it took him a moment to place it. Horatio Osmar had been a junior minister in the government until about two years before when he had retired.

  “Indeed sir?” Pitt said with some surprise, looking over Osmar’s head at the discomfited constable.

  “I am prepared to accept an apology and let the matter go,” Osmar said stiffly, adjusting his jacket to cover the disarray of clothes at his waist. His hands hesitated a moment as if to do up his trousers, then he changed his mind. His face was still very red from his exertion.

  “I can’t do that, sir,” the constable said before Pitt had time to ask him. “I’ve got to charge you.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Osmar exploded, yanking his arm away from the constable and glaring at Pitt. “You look like a reasonable fellow. For God’s s
ake explain to this—this overzealous young person who I am.”

  Pitt looked at the constable, who was now pink faced and unhappy, but standing stiffly to attention, his eyes unwavering.

  “What is the charge, Constable?”

  “Behavior likely to cause an affront to public decency, sir.”

  “Balderdash,” Osmar said loudly. “Complete balderdash. Nothing of the sort!”

  “Are you quite sure, Constable?” Pitt said dubiously.

  “Yes sir. Constable Crombie has the young lady.”

  “What young lady?”

  “The young lady with whom Mr. Osmar was—was sitting in the park, sir.” The constable looked straight ahead of him, his eyes unhappy, his face hot.

  “That’s it,” Osmar shouted. “Sitting!” He was quivering with indignation. “It is not an offense, sir, for a gentleman and a young lady to sit together on a seat in the park and enjoy a summer day.” He yanked his jacket straighter. “It is an outrage when they are disturbed and insulted in their pleasure by two young jackanapes policemen.”

  “Two?” Pitt raised his eyebrows.

  “Indeed. Two sir! The other one arrested my friend, Miss Giles. What a fearful experience for a young lady of gentle birth.” The man’s face was highly expressive with round eyes and shapeless nose. “I am mortified it should happen to her in my company, where she must surely have considered herself safe from such assault. I shall not forgive it!”

  “Where is Miss—Miss Giles, Constable?” Pitt said with some concern. This looked like being a serious mistake, and one which could become very ugly indeed if Horatio Osmar chose to press it.

  “Right be’ind me, sir.” The constable kept his eyes on Pitt’s and in spite of his embarrassment, there was no flinching in him.

  At that moment the door opened again and the second constable came in with a young woman held firmly by both hands. She was very handsome in a bold and buxom fashion. Her fair brown hair was falling forward uncoiled out if its pins and her dress was crooked and open at the top. It was not possible to tell if this had happened in her struggle with the constable, or whether he had found her in this disarray.

  “Constable Crombie, I presume?” Pitt said dryly.

  “Yes sir.” The constable was out of breath and out of countenance. He was not accustomed to having to struggle with young women of any birth or gentility, even of the most general sort, and the episode embarrassed him. It showed in his earnest young face.

  “Is the lady under arrest?” Pitt asked.

  “Yes sir. She was in the park with that gentleman.” He indicated Horatio Osmar, who was glaring ferociously at them and about to burst into indignant speech again. “They were be’aving in a manner likely to offend any decent people,” the constable went on suddenly. “Doin’ things best done in their own bedrooms, sir, or in their own sitting rooms at worst.”

  “How dare you.” Osmar could contain himself no longer. “That’s a scandalous slander, sir.” He struggled to free himself and failed. “We were nothing of the kind. You insult Miss Giles, and I will not stand for it—be warned!”

  “We saw what we saw, sir,” the constable said stolidly.

  “You saw what you imagine you saw, sir.” Osmar’s voice was raised very considerably and by now the nearer occupants of the station were also aware of the commotion. One of the inner doors opened and a uniformed inspector came out into the room. He was a tall man, almost as tall as Pitt, fair haired with a strong, blunt face.

  “What’s the problem, Constable?” He addressed Crombie directly, not immediately realizing that Pitt, not in uniform, was also an officer.

  Crombie was visibly relieved.

  “Oh Mr. Urban, sir; I’m glad as you’re ’ere. Allardyce and me arrested this lady and gentleman for improper be’avior in the park. They was bein’ indecently familiar with each other on one o’ the park benches, sir; disarrangin’ each other’s clothes, and ’ands where they shouldn’t ’a bin, ’cept in private.”

  “That is untrue,” Osmar said angrily. “Quite untrue. You are apparently unaware who I am, sir.” He jerked his jacket down with both hands, now suddenly free. “I am Horatio Osmar, late a minister in Her Majesty’s government.”

  Urban’s eyes opened only a fraction wider; the remainder of his expression did not change at all.

  “Indeed sir. And the lady?”

  The young woman opened her mouth to speak, but Osmar answered before she could.

  “Miss Beulah Giles, a totally respectable young acquaintance of mine. A lady of irreproachable reputation and unquestioned virtue.”

  Urban looked at Pitt. “And you, sir?”

  “Thomas Pitt, inspector of detectives; but this case is nothing to do with me. I came to report an entirely different matter to Mr. Drummond.”

  This time Urban’s expression did change. Politeness turned into undisguised interest. “So you’re Thomas Pitt. I’ve only just moved to Bow Street, but I’ve heard of you. Samuel Urban—” He held out his hand.

  Pitt took it and was held in a firm, warm grip.

  “I’ll leave you to sort this out,” he said with a smile. “It looks like a difficult affair.” And with that he turned and went past the duty desk and up the stairs to tell Drummond that he had still learned nothing to implicate, nor to clear, Lord Sholto Byam. It was not until he was at the top of the stairs that he stopped, almost tripping over the step, a cold chill inside him. Samuel Urban. That was the name on Weems’s list for a huge amount of money.

  He went on along the wide corridor towards Drummond’s room.

  * * *

  Horatio Osmar and Beulah Giles were kept in police cells overnight and the next day taken before the police court. Micah Drummond did not attend, but he told Urban that he wished to be kept informed at all points. It was not a light thing to charge an ex-minister of the government with indecent behavior in a public place.

  It was nearly noon when Urban knocked on his door.

  “Come in,” he said quickly, looking up from his desk. He half hoped it would be Pitt to say he had learned something in the Weems case, but perhaps that was too optimistic.

  When Urban came in it was a different anxiety that touched him, but he could not blame the man. It was in a way unfortunate the two constables had been at that precise spot at that time. But given that they were, he would not have had them ignore the matter simply because the man was a public figure.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Urban stood to attention, not obviously, but there was both formality and respect in his attitude.

  “Mr. Osmar was charged, sir, and pleaded not guilty, with some heat and indignation.”

  Drummond smiled ruefully. “I should have been amazed had he not.”

  “I thought a night in the cells might have cooled his temper a trifle,” Urban said regretfully. “And perhaps made him consider a plea of guilty would cause less publicity than fighting it.” He was standing in a broad splash of sunlight on the bright carpet and the radiance of it picked out the freckles on his skin and cast the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheek. “Miss Giles said very little. Seems to take her cue from him, which I suppose is natural.”

  “Any newspapermen here?” Drummond asked.

  “Not that I know, but I expect they’ll get hold of it pretty quickly.”

  “Not if Osmar’s lucky. They may have looked through the docket of crimes and found nothing worth their time. After all a trivial indecency is hardly worthy of comment in ordinary circumstances.”

  Urban pulled his mobile face into an expression of rueful contempt. “No sir, but Osmar hasn’t that much sense, it seems. He insisted on putting a personal call through to the home secretary.”

  “What?” Drummond nearly dropped his pen in disbelief. He stared at Urban. “What do you mean, a call? He found a messenger?”

  “No sir.” Urban’s eyes were bright with humor. “He used one of those new telephone instruments. That caused a stir in itself.”

  “A
nd he got through?” Drummond was not only amazed but beginning to feel some alarm. The story was getting uglier by the minute.

  Urban ironed all the amusement out of his face. “Yes sir, apparently he did. Although I’m not sure what difference it made to anything, except that it delayed proceedings for quite a while, and thus also his getting bail. Which considering the nature of the charge was bound to be granted.”

  “And the girl, Miss—?”

  “Miss Giles. She got bail also, both on their own recognizance.” He shrugged. “All of which we could have taken for granted, except his choosing to contact the home secretary. Maybe if we’d charged him with theft he’d have called the prime minister—and if it had been assault he’d have called the Queen.”

  “Don’t,” Drummond said grimly. “The man’s a menace. What on earth’s going to happen when he comes to trial?”

  “Heaven knows,” Urban confessed. “Perhaps he’ll have taken decent advice by then and have decided to keep quiet. Oh—we returned his case to him.”

  “His case?” Drummond had no idea what Urban was talking about.

  Urban relaxed a little, putting one hand in his pocket.

  “Yes sir. A man came to the station about half an hour after Crombie and Allardyce arrested Mr. Osmar, and said he had been in the park at the time, and Osmar had left a small attaché case on the seat where he and Miss Giles had been … sitting. He picked it up and brought it along. Apparently he had some appointment which he had to keep, someone he was waiting for, and he half expected the constables to come back for it anyway. But when no one did, and he had met his friend, he brought it to the station. At least Osmar cannot accuse us of having caused him to lose it.”

  “He got it back again?”

  “Yes sir. He had it in his hand when he left the police court.”

  “Well that’s something, I suppose.” Drummond sighed. “What a mess. Why couldn’t the old fool behave himself on a public bench?”

  Urban smiled, a bright, easy gesture full of humor.