Belgrave Square

by Anne Perry

  Pitt did not bother to pursue it. They both understood the justice, and the account.

  Pitt found Urban in his office, and was angry because he liked the man, angry with the frailty that had made him sacrifice so much for a few pictures, no matter how lovely.

  “What is it now?” Urban’s face was shadowed. He knew Pitt would not have returned yet again unless there was some unavoidable need, and perhaps he saw the emotions in Pitt’s all too readable face.

  “Weems,” Pitt replied. “Still Weems. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where you were the night he died?”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference,” Urban answered slowly. “I can’t prove it, and you can’t accept my word without proof. But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even know him.”

  “If you were in Stepney you could prove it,” Pitt said quietly. “The management must keep records.”

  Urban’s cheeks paled, but his eyes remained on Pitt’s face.

  “You followed me? I didn’t see you, and I was prepared. I thought you might.”

  “No,” Pitt said, biting his lip. “I had someone else do it. I’d have been a fool to try myself. Of course you’d have seen me. Is that where you were?”

  “No.” Urban smiled, a sad, self-mocking expression. “I wish now I had been. I went to another hall, where I thought I might get a better rate, but I didn’t give my name. I didn’t want word out. I might lose what I had.”

  “Why?” Pitt said harshly. “You’re paid enough here. Are a few paintings worth it—really?”

  Urban shrugged. “I thought so at the time. Now perhaps not.”

  He faced Pitt squarely, his eyes full of something that was half a question, half an apology. “Tomorrow I don’t suppose I’ll think so at all. I like being a policeman. But I did not kill Weems—I’d never heard of him until you came in here and told me about my name being on his list. Perhaps he intended blackmailing me, and was killed before he could—” He stopped, and once again Pitt had the powerful impression he was lying by omission.

  “For God’s sake tell me!” Pitt said furiously, his voice husky. “It’s more than your career in jeopardy, man. It’s your life! You had the motive to kill Weems, you had the opportunity, and so far as we know, you had as much chance of the means as anyone. What is it? What is it you are hiding? You know something. Has it to do with Osmar and why Carswell let him off?”

  “Osmar,” Urban said slowly, his smile becoming softer as if in some way at last he had given in. “I suppose I have nothing left to lose now, except my neck.” He moved his head jerkily as he spoke as if freeing it from some grip. “The Circle may do me a great deal of harm, but it won’t be as bad as the hangman …”

  “Circle?” Pitt had no idea what he was talking about. “What circle?”

  Urban sat down behind his desk and echoing his movement Pitt sat down also.

  “The Inner Circle,” Urban said very quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper as if he was afraid even here of being overheard. “It is a secret society for mutual benefit, charitable work, and the righting of injustices.”

  “Whose injustices?” Pitt asked quickly. “Who decides what is just or unjust?”

  Urban’s face registered the difference with a flash of irony.

  “They do, of course.”

  “If its aims are so fine, why is it secret?”

  Urban sighed. “Some things are hard to accomplish, and those who resent it can be very obstructive, at times very powerful. Secrecy gives you some safety from them.”

  “I see. But what has this to do with you and Weems—and Osmar?” Pitt asked.

  “I am a member of the Inner Circle,” Urban explained. “I joined some time ago, when I was a young and rising man in Rotherhithe. An officer in power then thought I was a promising man, just the sort who would one day be a fine member of the Circle, a brother.” He looked self-conscious. “I was a lot younger then. He flattered me, told me all the good works and the power I might have to help people. Not the superintendent they have now. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

  He leaned still further forward. “I joined. To begin with it was all very simple stuff, a little gift to a good cause and a few hours of my time, nothing remarkable.”

  Pitt remained silent.

  “It was several years before I came up against anything that worried me,” Urban continued, “and even then nothing was said. I simply declined certain tasks I was asked to do. Six months ago the first real discipline came. I was asked to favor a man in a case. He was not accused, simply a witness, but he did not wish to testify, and I was supposed to overlook it, in the name of brotherhood. I refused. I had heard of other members of the Circle being disciplined for such acts, finding themselves suddenly unwelcome where they used to be respected, or unaccountably blackballed from clubs, when no charge had been made and no known offenses committed, criminal or social.”

  “The Inner Circle disciplining its errant members,” Pitt said slowly.

  “I think so. There wasn’t anything you could call proof, but the people concerned usually understood. And what may be more to the point, other members hovering on the brink of disobedience decided against it.”

  “Effective,” Pitt said. A mass of thoughts whirled in his mind, possibilities connecting Weems and Addison Carswell, and Horatio Osmar, explaining the dismissal of charges—brothers of the Inner Circle. And Urban—and presumably Latimer too? A web of tacit understandings, favors, obligations, unspoken threats, and for rebels a swift and effective discipline: a warning to others.

  Was that why Micah Drummond had been so willing to help Lord Byam, and why it made him so profoundly uncomfortable, and yet unable to explain? And of course that was why Byam had been told of Weems’s death in the first place, and why the Clerkenwell station had handed over the case when they were asked: all in the name of the Inner Circle, a secret brotherhood of power—used for what?

  Micah Drummond!

  How strong were the bonds of this brotherhood? Stronger than duty? Where did brotherhood end and corruption begin?

  “And you defied them?” he said, looking at Urban again.

  “I misbehaved,” Urban admitted. “I think my name on Weems’s list is a warning to others. But I can’t prove that.”

  “Then the question is,” Pitt said slowly, “did Weems’s murderer leave the second list there for us to find, and so embarrass you, and Carswell …” He deliberately left off Latimer’s name. “Or was it there anyway, a precaution to be used at another time, and Weems’s murder unforeseen?”

  “I don’t know,” Urban admitted. “I don’t even know beyond question that Carswell is a brother, but it would explain his dismissing the charge against Osmar. I know Osmar is. And Carswell’s name was also on your list.”

  Pitt said nothing. His mind had grasped what Urban had said, and he knew it was very possibly true, but crowding it out and hurting far more was the memory of Micah Drummond’s face as he told him of Weems’s murder, and how they were going to help Byam. There were all sorts of questions springing from that. Was that why Micah Drummond agreed, and had the power to do it so easily? Why was Byam’s name not there? Could he have left the second list, and then been caught by his own trap when someone else, some desperate debtor, had come later and murdered Weems? Was that why he was so afraid, not that his name was there, but that he had been there himself, and was afraid he had been seen?

  That made no sense. Why leave the list, unless he knew Weems would be murdered and the police find it?

  But ugliest of all was the question of Micah Drummond’s part. What was his role in the Inner Circle? Was he being disciplined in some way? Was he obedient, pliant to their will? Or worse, was he the discipliner, the one who placed the threats, and the punishment? Could he have been there after Weems’s death and before Pitt went and found the lists?

  Or for that matter, had Byam heard from the Clerkenwell station of Weems’s murder even before Drummond? Had he been to Cyrus Stree
t and placed the second list?

  Or was it someone in the Clerkenwell station whom he had not even considered yet—the unknown person who had first told Byam?

  It was a secret society—who knew who its members were, or their real purpose? Did even its own members know? How many were innocent pawns of a few?

  And how many of its tentacles grasped, twisted and corrupted the police?

  “No,” he said aloud, breaking the long silence. “I don’t know either.”

  7

  MICAH DRUMMOND found himself thinking of the Byam case more and more often, at times even when he would normally have left police matters far behind him and begun to enjoy the very considerable pleasures of life. He smiled to himself wryly now. In his mind it was the Byam case, but to Pitt it would almost certainly be the Weems case. After all it was Weems who was dead. Byam was only a possible suspect, Drummond profoundly hoped an “impossible” one. That thought had troubled him like an unacknowledged darkness at the edge of his mind, something he refused to look at but could forget only for short, deliberately engineered moments, always ending when its shadow crossed his thoughts again.

  Pitt had told him about the blunderbuss. That meant that in theory at least the means were there for anyone, even the poorest debtor from Clerkenwell. But did Weems leave gold coins lying around in such circumstances? Possibly. Maybe that kind of cruelty would appeal to him—have a desperate person, unable to make his repayments, into the office and face him across a pile of gold coins, then demand of him his last pence. Not only colorfully sadistic, but also surely dangerous? In his years of usury had not Weems learned to be a good enough judge of character to avoid such a thing?

  Come to think, why had he received a debtor alone in his office after dark? That could hardly be his practice. But had Pitt asked? He would have been concentrating on finding who killed him, not on exonerating Byam.

  Drummond stopped with a start of guilt. That was what he was doing: trying to exonerate Byam. He had given little thought to finding Weems’s murderer if it was someone else—once Byam was cleared. He felt the heat creep up his face at the consciousness of how his judgment had lapsed, his priorities become unbalanced.

  It was a summer evening, still broad daylight, and he was at home. It was not the large house in Kensington he had kept when his wife was alive and his daughters were growing up; he had sold that when the loneliness in it became overbearing and the upkeep quite unnecessary. Now he had a spacious flat off Piccadilly. He no longer had any need to keep a carriage. He could always obtain a hansom if he needed one, and one manservant and a woman to do the domestic chores and cook were all that was necessary to see to his comfort. If they employed anyone else from time to time he was only peripherally aware of it. The expense was negligible, and he trusted their judgment.

  This room still contained many of his old possessions: the embroidered fire screen with peacocks on it that his mother had given him the first year after he was married; the blue Meissen plates his wife had loved; the hideous brown elephant she had inherited, and they had both laughed over. And he had kept the Chippendale chairs, even though there were too many of them for this room. He had given several of the pictures to his daughters, but there was still the Land-seer and the small Bonnington seascape. He would never willingly part with them.

  Now he stood in his large bay window looking towards Green Park and tried to disentangle his thoughts.

  What about the other names on the list, the second list? From what Pitt had said, Addison Carswell was almost certainly being blackmailed. And he could not, or would not, account for his time the night Weems was killed. Was the wretched man really so besotted with the Hilliard girl he would rather risk everything he possessed—not just his home and his family, but his very life—by murdering Weems, rather than simply give her up? Thousands of men all over London had mistresses, all over England, for that matter. If one was discreet, it mattered little.

  What could Weems have done, at the very worst? Told Mrs. Carswell? What of it? If she did not know, or guess, and if this was the first time he had strayed, she might well be distressed. But if you keep a mistress, a wife’s distress is not an agony to you—certainly not worth risking the hangman’s rope for. His daughters? Grieved, angry perhaps; but they were old enough to have some awareness of the ways of the world, and hardly in a position to do anything worse than cool their affection for him, treat him to some isolation in his own house. That could certainly be unpleasant, but again, the smallest triviality compared with the unpleasantness of murder and its consequences. And as a magistrate, he would be acutely aware of just how fearful those consequences were. He, more than most, would know what a spell in Coldbath Fields or Newgate could do to a man, let alone the rope.

  And what had happened to Byam’s letter, and Weems’s record of his payments to him? Byam had been so sure they were there, he had actually called Drummond and confessed his connection with Weems, the blackmail and the death of Laura Anstiss and thus his motive for killing him. Without them he would never have been connected with it at all.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the manservant standing in the doorway, coughing discreetly.

  “Yes, Goodall, what is it?”

  Goodall’s thin face was very nearly expressionless.

  “There is a Lady Byam to see you, sir.”

  It was ridiculous. Drummond felt his breath catch in his throat and the color rush to his face.

  “Lady Byam?” he repeated pointlessly.

  “Yes sir.” Goodall’s eyebrows rose so minutely it might have been Drummond’s imagination.

  “Ask her to come in.” Drummond swallowed and turned away. What had happened? Why had Eleanor Byam come here to see him, to his house, and in the evening, though it was still daylight, and would be for another two hours. It was an extraordinary thing to do. Something must be wrong.

  Goodall opened the door again and Drummond swung around to see Eleanor just inside the room. She was wearing a dark dress of some color between navy and gray, or perhaps it was green. It looked like the sky a little after dusk, and there was a soft bloom to her skin, reminding him that for all the cool colors of her clothes she would be warm to the touch, and very alive.

  Of all the idiotic and wildly inappropriate thoughts! The heat he could feel in his face must make him look as if he were running a fever.

  “Good evening, Lady Byam,” he said hastily, moving forward to greet her.

  Goodall closed the door and they were alone.

  “Good evening, Mr. Drummond,” she replied a little hesitantly. “It is very kind of you to see me without notice like this, and at such an hour.” She touched her lips with her tongue, as though her mouth were dry and speech difficult for her. Obviously she too was aware that this was a circumstance requiring some explanation. Women of respectability, let alone quality, did not come alone to visit the houses of single gentlemen, uninvited and at such a time of day. She took a deep breath. He could see the rise of her breast and the tiny pulse beating in her throat. “I came because I felt I must talk to you about the case,” she hurried on, still standing just inside the door, the colors of the carpet between them bright with the low evening sunlight. “I know you promised to tell my husband if there were any new events that touched on us—but I find waiting more than I can bear.” She stopped abruptly and for the first time met his eyes.

  Her words were ordinary; the apology he would have expected, the reasons could be understood by anyone, but far more powerful than that he could see the fear in her. Her body was stiff under the soft muslin gown and the shawl around her shoulders, a matter of decorum rather than necessity in this warm evening.

  He forgot himself for a moment in his desire to make her feel at ease.

  “I understand,” he said quickly. “It is most natural.” He felt nothing ridiculous in saying this, although in all his years in the police force no other woman had called upon him in his house because she could not contain her anxiety. But then he had ne
ver been involved in a case like this. “Please don’t feel the need to apologize. I wish there had been more I could have told you so this would not have been necessary.” Then he heard his words in his own ears and was afraid she might think he meant to make her visit avoidable. He fumbled but could think of no way of undoing it without being overful-some, and that might be worse. He would appear such a fool.

  She swallowed and looked even more uncomfortable, aware that she was intruding in his home with a matter which was strictly professional. They had no acquaintance other than his attempt to help her husband, for reasons of which she knew nothing. The Inner Circle permitted no women—nor indeed did any secret society of which he had ever heard. Such organizations were a totally masculine preserve.

  She opened her mouth to make some apology, and looked as if she was even considering retreating.

  “Please,” he said hastily. “Please allow me to take your shawl.” He stepped forward and held his hand ready, thinking that to reach for it would be precipitate.

  She took it off slowly and handed it to him, a tiny smile on her lips. “You are very generous. I should not have intruded into your time this way, but I wanted to speak to you so much, and not at the police station …”

  For a ridiculous instant his heart leaped. Then he told himself furiously that her eagerness was born solely of her fear—fear for her husband—and was in no way personal.

  “What may I do to help you?” he said more stiffly than he had intended, placing the shawl clumsily over the back of the sofa.

  She looked down at the floor, still standing, just a few feet from him. He was aware of the very faint perfume of some flower he could not identify, and he knew it was she, her hair and her skin.

  “Inspector Pitt is doing all he can,” he began tentatively. “And he is making progress. He has discovered strong evidence against several other suspects.”

  She looked up quickly and met his eyes.

  “It seems terrible to say that I am glad, doesn’t it? Some other poor woman somewhere may be just as afraid as I am, only for her it will end in tragedy.”