by Anne Perry
“Yes, Mr…. Mr. Pitt?” Carswell said curiously. “What can I do for you, sir? I have but little time, as I am sure you realize.”
“Yes sir,” Pitt said immediately. “Therefore I shall not waste it with a lengthy preamble. May I be blunt?”
Carswell winced very slightly. “I suppose it would be an advantage.”
“Thank you. Can you tell me where you were between eight o’clock in the evening and midnight of Tuesday last week?”
Carswell thought for a moment, then a faint pink tinge appeared in his cheeks. “Is there some reason why I should, sir?”
“It would help to clear up a matter in which certain parties may be lying,” Pitt said, evading the issue.
Carswell bit his lip. “I was in a hansom cab, traveling from one place to another. The places need not concern you. I witnessed nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Where did you pass, sir?”
“That is a private matter.”
“Are you acquainted with a Mr. William Weems?” Pitt watched Carswell’s face closely for the smallest change of color or expression, and saw nothing but an attempt at recollection.
“Not that I think of,” Carswell said after a moment. “Was he concerned in a case I tried?”
“I don’t believe so.” Pitt had no idea whether he was completely unaware of Weems’s identity, either as a usurer or the victim of a recent murder, or whether he was a superlative liar. “He lived in Clerkenwell.”
“I do not have occasion to visit Clerkenwell, Mr. Pitt.” Carswell frowned. “If you forgive me, sir, you seem to be somewhat less direct than you intimated to me. I do not know Mr. Weems. Who or what is he, and why did you suppose I might know him?”
“He was a usurer, sir, who had your name on his book as having owed him a considerable amount.”
Carswell’s amazement might have been comic in any other circumstances.
“Owed him money? That is preposterous! I owe no one money, Mr. Pitt. But were I to be in financial difficulties I should not go to a usurer in Clerkenwell, but to my bankers to tide me over until circumstances improved.” He frowned as the absurdity of the thought became even more apparent to him. “But anyway, should that occur, and I assure you it has not, I have many personal possessions which I would dispose of, and I would do, before falling into the clutches of such a person. I have had far too much experience of tragic cases of men in debt to usury through my court to allow myself into such a desperate pass.”
It did not seem to occur to him that Pitt would doubt him. Perhaps it was too easily proved for him to imagine anyone would tell anything but the truth. Of course he did not know that Pitt had been to his home and knew for himself that he had much he could have realized money on, had he the need, but his very lack of pressing the point made Pitt think it the more likely he felt no guilt in the matter. Even now he stared wide-eyed and amused more than angry at the suggestion, and there was no fear in him, no tension in his body, no shadow in his eyes.
“He must have had my name for some other reason,” Carswell went on with a shrug of his shoulders. “My calling means that my name is known to various people of unsavory character and dubious occupation. Perhaps one of his clients passed through my court?”
“Very possible,” Pitt agreed. “But his book stated quite specifically that you owed him a large amount of money. The sum was written out, and the date at which you borrowed it, at what rate of interest, and when the loan was due. It was not simply a casual reference.”
Carswell drew his brows down. “How very peculiar. I assure you, Mr. Pitt, it is quite untrue. I have never borrowed money in my life.” His otherwise pleasant voice grew a trifle sharper. “I have never required to. My situation is more than comfortable, which I could prove to you, had I the mind to, but I prefer to keep my financial affairs confidential, and I see no reason why I should break that custom because you have come across a moneylender with a malicious sense of amusement.”
He leaned back a little and looked very directly at Pitt.
“Go back and tell Mr. Weems that I do not appreciate having my name taken lightly, and that he would be well advised to be truthful in future, or it will go ill with him. One can be prosecuted for willfully making mischief with another man’s reputation.”
“You have never met Mr. Weems?”
“I have not, sir.” His tone grew sharper; his patience was thinning and he no longer felt anxious. “I thought I had made that plain! Now if that is all you have to say, I would ask you to allow me the remainder of my respite from court in peace so I may collect my thoughts and take some refreshment.”
Pitt looked at him carefully, but he could see nothing in Carswell’s face whatever but the good-natured irritation any man might feel at such a liberty both with his name and his time.
“Mr. Weems is dead,” he said quietly. “He was murdered a week ago.”
“Oh.” Carswell was obviously taken aback, but still there seemed no fear in him. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to speak lightly of any man in his extremity. But I am afraid I still cannot help you. I do not know him. Nor can I think of any reason why he should have my name in his papers. It seems to me extremely mischievous.” He frowned, a flicker of anxiety returning to his face. “Is there some conspiracy, Mr. Pitt? You mentioned that people may be lying. You asked me where I was, and now you say this man Weems has been murdered. Did your suspect claim to have been in my company at the time?”
Pitt smiled, a small, rather bleak gesture. “I too would prefer to reserve some of my information, sir,” he said as courteously as was possible with such a statement. “Thank you for sparing me your time in the middle of the day. I will find my own way out. Good day, Mr. Carswell.”
“Good day,” Carswell replied from behind, his voice subdued and thoughtful.
There was little purpose in seeking information from Carswell’s friends or colleagues. They would only infer that the police had been inquiring about him, and he would realize he was suspected of Weems’s murder. He was far too used to criminal procedure to imagine Pitt would waste his time otherwise. It would put him on his guard without offering any benefit, and the chance that any friend would betray anything of import was so remote as not to be worth pursuing.
All that was left now was the tedious and wearing task of following him for as many days as were necessary, either to establish that he had a pattern of spending, a debt that would tend to confirm his borrowing from Weems, or some secret that would make blackmail possible; or else find nothing, which would mean that he was aware of his danger and clever enough to conceal his weaknesses, or there were none, and Pitt would have to look further to find out why his name was on Weems’s list.
It was a morning and evening job through the week. Carswell was safe enough in the court through the days, except perhaps at midday when he might well take his luncheon out. Pitt could hardly stand around inside the court building to see who visited him, as he had done himself, through the day. He did not wish Carswell to be aware he was being observed—apart from warning him, it would make keeping him in sight so much more difficult.
Pitt hated having his hours and his whereabouts dictated in such a way; it was an oddly irritating limitation he had left behind with his first promotion. The freedom to act for himself without forever reporting and accounting to someone else was one of the things he liked best about being a detective rather than a uniformed officer. He smiled at his own frailty that such a small thing should feel so cramping, and resented it just as much.
But Carswell, Urban and Latimer were the best suspects, unless it was Byam after all, which was a thought he would avoid as long as possible. And he was deeply reluctant to find it was one of the ordinary borrowers, the small men and women driven to despair by cold, hunger and worry. If it was one of them he would feel an icy finger of temptation to call the case unsolved, and he did not want to face the moral dilemma of that. He might find his judgment confounded by emotions of pity and anger against the endless grin
d that allowed one man to bleed another into hopelessness and rob him of the dignity of a choice that was better than death by cold and hunger not only for himself but for his children—this terrible violence. If you drive a man to choose between death of his body or corruption of his soul, how much are you also to blame if his choice is the wrong one?
Such were Pitt’s thoughts as he stood, hands in his pockets, head down, as he waited for Carswell to leave the court at the end of the day. It was harder following people in the summer. The evenings were light until ten or later, the weather was warm, so there was no excuse for pulled-down hats, turned-lip collars, and no shadows to sink back into. Not often was there fog to blanket one, and little rain to hurry through with head down. And his height was against him; he stood half a head above the crowd. If Carswell once realized he was there, he would recognize him and pick him out easily enough again.
When Carswell emerged he had little difficulty in following him to Curzon Street, where he waited until well after the dinner hour, when he decided he was probably going to remain there all night. He gratefully gave up and, shivering a little from the long standing still, he turned and strode off to the main thoroughfare where he could find a hansom to take him back to Bloomsbury and his own home.
It was only when he was lying in bed listening to Charlotte’s quiet breathing and feeling her warmth beside him that he realized with a start of guilt that there was no real reason why Carswell could not have gone out again once his family was asleep. If he had any nefarious purpose to fulfill, it might very well be accomplished in the night, the one time he could best count on a measure of privacy, and not feel any call to explain his whereabouts. Perhaps that was when he had visited Weems—not in the evening but the middle of the night, the short summer night which would only amount to five or six hours of darkness.
It was too late now. But tomorrow he would have to go to Clerkenwell police station and request at least one other man to help him. Carswell must be watched all the time, day and night.
He turned and put his arms around Charlotte, touching her hair soft over her shoulder, heavy and warm, smelling faintly of the lavender water she liked. He smiled and put his guilt behind him. She stirred slightly and moved a little closer.
Innes continued to investigate the borrowers on Weems’s first list, and in the small room in the Clerkenwell station he told Pitt of seven who were in deep distress with nothing else to pawn, no food and owing rent, no clothes but those they stood in, hollow eyes filled one moment with resignation, the next with a sudden flame of anger and the will to fight. None of these few could find anyone to swear as to their presence somewhere else when Weems was killed. Innes told Pitt their names with a deep unhappiness. He made little effort to hide his own wish that it should be one of the “nobs” who was guilty. He stood in the Clerkenwell station in the room they had lent Pitt, his thin body stiff, his shoulders squared, looking at Pitt a little defiantly.
It would have been clumsy to express understanding in words. The feeling was both too profound and too delicate: a mixture of pity; guilt for not suffering with them, for seeing what should have been private; and fear that in the end they would have to arrest one of them and take him to be tried and hanged, exactly as if they had understood nothing.
“Then we’d better follow Mr. Carswell very thoroughly,” Pitt said with no particular expression in his voice, and looking a little beyond Innes’s stiff face. “We’ll need another man. Can you see to that?”
“Why would a magistrate borrer money from a swine like Weems, sir?” Innes said without relaxing in the slightest. “It don’t make no sense.”
“He probably didn’t,” Pitt agreed. “I expect it was blackmail.”
“Is that wot ’appened to your nob?” Innes asked baldly, his stare unwaveringly in front of him.
“Yes,” Pitt admitted equally baldly. “But there’s no crime involved, only a misjudgment of character. A woman became infatuated with him and took her own life. It would be a scandal, and unpleasant for his family.”
“ ’Ardly compares wiv what I’ve seen.” Innes was still grudging. He stood stiffly beside the table. Pitt was leaning on the only chair.
“No—which is why I don’t think he killed Weems. He didn’t have enough to lose. But maybe Carswell did.”
“I’ll see ter gettin’ ’im followed.” Innes relaxed a little at last. “What times do yer want ter do it yerself, sir? Or would yer like two men so they can do it all?”
“One will do,” Pitt conceded. “I’ll do it during the day. I’ve nothing better to do.”
Innes forgot himself for a moment.
“What about the nob o’ yours, sir? Even though ’e’s not afraid o’ scandal, if ’E were prepared to pay, maybe ’E got tired of it, and decided to get rid o’ Weems. ’Specially if Weems got greedier and upped ’is price?”
“I have thought of that,” Pitt said very levelly, his voice not exactly cold, but very precise. “I will pursue it if I exhaust the other possibilities.”
Innes opened his mouth, about to apologize, then some element of pride intruded—or perhaps it was a sense of dignity and a desire to maintain a certain relationship—and he remained silent.
“Then we’ll look at the other debtors on the second list,” Pitt went on. “Mr. Urban and Mr. Latimer.”
“I could start on them right away, sir,” Innes offered.
“No,” Pitt said rather too quickly, then seeing Innes’s face, felt obliged to explain. “We’ll leave them till we have to—Urban at least. He’s a colleague.”
“Whose colleague?” Innes did not yet understand.
“Ours, Innes,” Pitt said flatly. “He is police.”
Innes’s face would have been comical were the situation not so painful. All the ugly possibilities flickered through his mind and across his wildly expressive face, debt, gambling, blackmail and corruption.
“Ah,” he said at last. “I see. Yes sir. Let’s dispose o’ Mr. Carswell first then. I’ll see to it that ’e’s followed all night, every night, sir.” And with that he turned on his heel and went out, leaving Pitt alone in the small, cramped room.
During the next four days Pitt followed Addison Carswell from the Bow Street court to his home; to Kensington, Chelsea and Belgravia to dine with acquaintances; to his club, where he had to remain outside, unable to learn if he gambled, won or lost, whom he owed or with whom he spoke. It was almost a waste of time, since all he could learn of use was closed to him, but he had not yet any grounds to go in and demand information with any authority.
He followed Carswell to his tailor, who seemed to receive him without the rather stiff, hostile familiarity tailors employed if they were owed money. Indeed the man was all smiles when he came to the door to bid Carswell good-day.
It was not until the fifth day, when Pitt was losing heart, that Carswell finally went somewhere of interest. Shopping of itself held no particular meaning, nor even what he purchased. A pretty hat and a lace parasol, all wrapped in tissue and pink boxes, were not remarkable purchases for a man with a wife and four daughters, three of them unmarried. It was the fact that when he emerged from the shop, Pitt close behind him, he hurried along the footpath, head down, occasionally glancing sideways. Once when he saw ahead of him someone he seemed to know, he pulled his hat forward and leaped over the gutter to dart across the street in front of a brougham, almost under the horse’s hooves, startling the animal and causing the driver to jerk on the reins and swear violently, then draw up his vehicle, shaking with fear that he had so nearly killed a man.
Pitt had lost sight of Carswell and felt a twinge of uncertainty. The sweat broke out on his skin as he struggled to find a space between the broughams, barouches, landaus, phaetons and victorias to go over himself. He danced on the curb in impatience as a brewer’s dray went past him, with huge bay horses, flanks gleaming, manes braided and ribboned, hard followed by a hansom, then a clarence. At last he ran out into the street, defying an open landau with
two women taking the air, raced in front of a barouche going the other way, and reached the opposite side amid a group of fashionable idlers. Carswell was nowhere in sight. He brushed past three men talking, calling out apologies, and ran along the path, only catching up with Carswell as he was about to climb into a cab.
Pitt hailed a hansom immediately behind.
“Follow that cab that just pulled out!” he ordered.
“What?” The cabby was suspicious, turning on his box to stare at him.
“I’ma policeman,” Pitt said urgently. “A detective. Follow that cab!”
“A detective?” The man’s face brightened with sudden interest.
“Get on with it!” Pitt said exasperatedly. “You’ll lose him.”
“No I won’t!” The cabby caught the spirit of it. “I can follow anybody anywhere in London.” And with enthusiasm and some skill he urged his horse and turned into the traffic, butting ahead of a victoria and across the path of a berline. They were going westward towards Curzon Street, but south, which made Pitt at last feel that he was about to discover something of Carswell that was not utterly predictable and totally innocent.
He sat upright in the cab, wishing he could see forward as well as sideways as they went over the river at Westminster Bridge, then turned south into Lambeth.
They traveled up Westminster Bridge Road and Pitt could see couples out walking, the women in pastels and flowers and laces in the late afternoon sunshine. One or two carried parasols, more for elegance than to protect them from the soft light, and the heat was gone. He wondered who Carswell’s gifts were for. The married daughter in the pictures in Curzon Street? She might live south of the river. But it seemed more likely Carswell would visit her later, with his wife and in his own carriage, not alone in a hired vehicle.
They turned into Kennington Road. It was full of people taking the evening air, open carriages, street peddlers with all manner of food: pies, eels, peppermint water, fruit sherbets, cordials, sandwiches. Girls offered bunches of flowers, matches, packets of lavender, little dolls. An organ grinder played hurdy-gurdy music and in the summer street it sounded unexpectedly pleasing, all its harshness and tawdriness sweetened by the open air, the clopping of horses’ feet and the hiss of wheels.