Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 13]

by Farriers' Lane

  “For God’s sake, man!” Moorgate exploded furiously. “Have you no decency at all?”

  “Calls for a great degree of premeditation and cold-blooded planning,” Pitt finished relentlessly.

  “Then it was some other motive,” Moorgate snapped. “Regardless, it was nothing to do with any case of mine, and I cannot help you.” He put his ale down at last, slopping on the table to his intense annoyance. “I should advise you to look very closely into the wretched man’s personal life, if I were you. Perhaps he owed money. Usurers can be violent if they are cheated. I really have no notion, but it is your task, not mine, to discover the truth. Now, if there is nothing further, I must return to my chambers. I shall shortly have clients awaiting me.” And without concerning himself with whether Pitt had any further questions or not, he rose to his feet, knocking the table and slopping the ale mug still further. He inclined his head stiffly, and took his leave.

  Barton James, the barrister for the defense, was a very different man, taller, leaner, of a more distinguished and assured appearance. He received Pitt in his chambers and enquired courteously for his health, then invited him to be seated.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Pitt?” he said with interest. “Does it concern the death of poor Samuel Stafford?”

  “Indirectly, yes.” Pitt had decided to be more circumspect this time, at least to begin with.

  “Indeed?” James raised his eyebrows. “In what way can I assist? I knew him, of course, but only very slightly. He was an appeal judge; it is some time since he sat at trial. I have not pleaded before him for fifteen or sixteen years.”

  “But you took one of your most celebrated cases to appeal before him.”

  “Several,” James agreed. “That does not constitute a relationship. I am not aware of knowing anything at all which has relevance to his death. But by all means, ask me what you wish.” He sat back, smiling agreeably. His manner was assured, his voice excellent. Pitt could imagine him commanding a courtroom, holding a jury with the power of his personality. How hard had he pleaded for Aaron Godman? What passion or conviction had he used on his behalf?

  With an effort he brought his mind back to the present, and the slow building up to the questions that mattered.

  “Thank you, Mr. James. You see, it is not only the murder of Mr. Stafford I am investigating, but there seems to be another murder linked to it.” He saw James’s eyes widen. “That of Constable Paterson.”

  “Paterson? Is that the young officer who was on the Farriers’ Lane case?” James asked, a tiny muscle flicking on his brow.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh dear. Are you quite sure it is connected? Policework can be very dangerous, as I am sure you do not need me to tell you. Might it not be a coincidence? The Farriers’ Lane case was closed some five years ago. Oh, I know Miss Macaulay keeps trying to arouse interest in it again, but I am afraid she is in a hopeless cause. It is only her devotion to her brother which drives her. She has no hope of success.”

  “You are quite certain he was guilty?”

  James shifted minutely in his seat. “Oh indeed, quite certain. I am afraid there was no doubt.”

  “Did you think so at the time?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you think so at the time?” Pitt repeated, watching James’s face, the long patrician nose, the mouth on the verge of humor, the careful eyes.

  James pushed out his lower lip in a rueful expression.

  “I would like to have thought him innocent, of course, but I confess, as the case proceeded it became more and more difficult.”

  “You believed the verdict a true one?”

  “I did. So would you, had you been there, Mr. Pitt.”

  “But you lodged an appeal.”

  “Naturally. It was what Godman wished, and his family. It is natural to try every possible step, however slight the chance of success, when a man is to be hanged. I warned them of the unlikelihood of its being granted. I held out no false hopes, but nevertheless, of course I did my best. As you know, it was refused.”

  “The grounds were insufficient?”

  James shrugged. “The medical examiner, Humbert Yardley—a very reliable man, no doubt you know him?—did seem to change his mind about the weapon. It is not like him to do that. Possibly with the horror of the whole affair—it was a spectacularly gruesome crime, as you must know—he may temporarily have lost his customary cool-headedness.” He leaned back in his chair again, his face a trifle puckered. “It was an outrage in a very extraordinary sense, you know. The man was not only murdered, but crucified. The newspapers made banner headlines. All sorts of very deep and violent emotions were roused. In some quarters there were anti-Jewish riots. Pawnshops were broken into and vandalized. Men who were known to be Jewish were attacked in the streets. It was all extremely ugly.”

  He smiled with bitter humor. “I was even subjected to considerable abuse myself for defending him. I had the expensive and embarrassing experience of being pelted with rotten fruit and eggs when passing through Covent Garden. Thank God it wasn’t Billingsgate!”

  Pitt hid a smile. He had walked by the fish market on a warm day. “Did you ever think him innocent, Mr. James?”

  “I assumed him innocent, Mr. Pitt. That is my duty. Not the same thing. But my own thoughts are irrelevant.” He looked at Pitt gravely. “I did the best for him I could. And I do not believe any barrister in the land would have obtained an acquittal. The evidence was overwhelming. He was actually seen not half a mile from the spot, at the relevant time, and quite clearly, by someone who knew him by sight. Then there was the evidence of the street urchin who delivered the message for him which brought Blaine through Farriers’ Lane, and of the idlers who saw him leave the lane, covered with blood.”

  “Did the urchin identify him?” Pitt said quickly. “I thought he was uncertain.”

  James pushed out his lips thoughtfully. “Yes—I suppose stretching a point, he was. And if you stretch the point even further, so were the idlers. And quite literally, they may have exaggerated the blood. It is hard to know what a man sees at the time, and what his imagination paints in afterwards, with the knowledge of hindsight.” He shook his head, smiling again. “But the flower seller knew him by sight, and had no doubt at all. He actually stopped and spoke to her, which shows either an extraordinary cool head or an arrogance that amounts to the insane.”

  “And you have no doubt as to his guilt,” Pitt pressed.

  James frowned. “You speak as if you do. Have you discovered something not available to us at the time?”

  It was an interesting choice of words. He had taken care to guard against the implication that he could have been remiss. Discreetly, by implication rather than openly, he was defending himself.

  “No,” Pitt replied cautiously. “Not that I am certain of. But it seems an unavoidable conclusion that Paterson may have reconsidered his investigation, after I questioned him about it, and in doing so discovered something, or realized a different interpretation for it. His letter to Livesey spoke—”

  “Letter to Livesey?” James was startled and suddenly alarmed, his body stiff, his voice tight. “Judge Ignatius Livesey?”

  “Yes—did I not mention it?” Pitt affected a blindness he did not feel. “I apologize. Yes, before Paterson was murdered—incidentally, he was hanged, with a noose, from the chandelier hook in the middle of the ceiling of his room.” James’s face was pinched with disgust and increasing distress. “Before he was murdered,” Pitt went on, “he wrote a letter to Judge Livesey, saying that he had discovered something appalling and must tell him as soon as possible. It was poor Livesey who found him, the morning after. Unfortunately he could not get there that evening.”

  James remained silent for several moments, his face grave. Eventually he came to some decision.

  “You did not tell me that. It puts a very different and very ugly complexion upon things.” He shook his head slightly. “I am afraid I can think of nothing wha
tever that might be of use to you, indeed, nothing even remotely relevant.”

  “Neither Paterson nor Judge Stafford communicated with you in the matter?”

  “Paterson certainly did not. I have not spoken to him since the trial.” He shifted very slightly in his chair. “Stafford did call on me, some weeks ago. Miss Macaulay had been writing to him, as she did to numerous people, attempting to generate interest in the case. She still hopes to clear Godman’s name, which of course is quite impossible, but she will not accept that.” His voice was growing more rapid. “She had progressed beyond reason on the subject. But I did not take any of it seriously. I was already aware of her … obsession. It was to be expected she might harass Stafford. I am surprised he took any notice, but she is a most … eloquent woman, and has a type of appeal which is difficult for some men to resist.”

  “What did Judge Stafford wish you to do, Mr. James? Forgive me for asking, but he cannot tell me, and it may help to learn who killed him.”

  “Much the same as you are asking, Inspector. And I regret I can help neither of you. I know nothing I did not know, and say, at the time.”

  “Is that all? Are you certain?”

  “Well.” James was still uncomfortable, but he did not evade the question. “He asked about Moorgate, the instructing solicitor, his reputation and so on.” He looked embarrassed. “Poor Moorgate has declined more than a little since then. I have no idea why. But he is still perfectly adequate, and at that time he was an excellent professional man.”

  “But like you, he believed Godman guilty,” Pitt added.

  James’s face darkened. “On the evidence in hand—still uncontested—there was no other reasonable conclusion to draw, Mr. Pitt. And you yourself have not produced anything yet to refute it. I have no idea who murdered Stafford, or Paterson; and I agree it does suggest itself that their connection with the Farriers’ Lane case has some part in it. But I have no idea what. Have you?”

  It was a challenge.

  “No,” Pitt said quietly. “Not yet.” He pushed his chair a fraction backwards. “But I intend to. Paterson was only thirty-two. I mean to know who hanged him by the neck—and why.” He rose to his feet.

  James rose also, still courteous. He held out his hand.

  “I wish you good fortune, Mr. Pitt. I look forward to hearing of your success. Good day to you.”

  “Just one other thing.” Pitt hesitated. “Godman was severely beaten while he was in custody. Do you know how that happened?”

  A spasm of acute distaste passed over James’s features.

  “He said that one of the police beat him,” he replied. “I have no proof whatsoever, but I believed him.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you.” It was a challenge, and there was definite anger in it. “I did not mention it at the time because I could not prove it, and it would only have alienated the jury even further that he seemed to be maligning the forces of order, and thus indirectly the public in general. Besides which, it was irrelevant to the fact.” There were two spots of pink in James’s cheeks. “It would not have altered the verdict.”

  “I know that,” Pitt said honestly. “I just wanted to know, for myself. It explains a little of Paterson’s attitude.”

  “It was Paterson?” James demanded.

  “I think so.”

  “How very ugly. I presume you have automatically thought of revenge?”

  “Not Tamar Macaulay. Not the way Paterson was killed. It had to have been a man of considerable strength.”

  “With Fielding’s help? No? Well, it is a possibility you must consider. Thank you for your candor, Inspector Pitt. Good day to you.”

  “Good day, Mr. James.”

  Pitt reported to Micah Drummond, not because he expected any comment from him, and certainly not any specific help, but because his duty required it.

  “Whatever you think appropriate,” Drummond said absently, staring at the rain lashing against the window. “Is Lambert being difficult?”

  “No,” Pitt replied honestly. “The poor devil was extremely shaken by Paterson’s death.”

  “It is a dreadful thing to have a junior killed,” Drummond said with tight lips. “That is an experience you have not yet faced, Pitt. If you do, you will have more sympathy for Lambert, I promise you.” He kept his face to the streaming glass. “You will feel just the same grief, self-doubt, even guilt. You will reexamine everything you said or did to find some fault in your orders, some oversight, anything that you could have done differently, and avoided it. You will lie awake and agonize, feel sick about it, even wonder if you are fit to have command.”

  “I don’t have command,” Pitt said with a thin smile, not because he cared about it but because he could hear the weariness in Drummond’s voice, and the knowledge of Lambert’s pain.

  “What did the medical examiner say?” Drummond asked. “Hanging, just as it seemed?”

  “Yes,” Pitt replied carefully. “That’s all, just hanging. That is what killed him.”

  Drummond turned around at last, frowning. “What do you mean, just hanging? That’s enough to kill anyone. What more did you expect?”

  “Poison, strangling, a blow to the head …”

  “Whatever for, for heaven’s sake? You hardly need to poison a man and then hang him.”

  “Would you stand still while someone put a noose around your neck, threw it over the chandelier hook and hauled you up by it?” Pitt asked.

  Several expressions flashed across Drummond’s face: comprehension, anger, impatience with himself, and then curiosity.

  “Binding on his wrists?” he asked. “Ankles?”

  “No—nothing. It requires some explanation, doesn’t it?”

  Drummond’s frown deepened. “Where are you going next? You had better do something. I’ve had the assistant commissioner down here again. Nobody wants this thing dragged on any longer.”

  “You mean they don’t want the Farriers’ Lane case opened up any further,” Pitt said bitterly.

  Drummond’s face tightened. “Of course not. It’s extremely sensitive.”

  “I’ll follow Paterson’s last few days, from the time I spoke to him until he died,” Pitt answered the urgent question.

  “Let me know what you find.”

  “Yes sir, of course.”

  Lambert was little use. As Drummond had expected, he was still deeply shocked at the death in such a manner of one of his own men. He had questioned everyone in the lodging house, everyone in the street, all the men who had worked with Paterson or known him personally. He was no nearer finding who killed him.

  But he did report to Pitt the record of Paterson’s police duties for the last week of his life, and after tedious piecing together of testimony, times, places, Pitt realized there were considerable gaps in the account of his days when no one knew where he had been.

  Pitt guessed he had gone to retrace his entire original investigation of the Farriers’ Lane murder.

  He began his own pursuit of Paterson by going back to the theater doorman. It was curiously dead at this time of the day; no color, only the gray daylight, no laughter and the shiver of expectancy before a performance, no actors or musicians entertaining the crowds, just women with mops sitting on the steps with the dregs of a cup of tea, reading the leaves.

  Pitt found Wimbush in his small room just inside the stage door entrance.

  “Yes sir. Mr. Paterson came back again.” Wimbush screwed up his eyes in thought. “That’d be about six days ago, or maybe five.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “All about the murder o’ Mr. Blaine, sir. Jus’ like you did. An’ I told ’im just the same as I told you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothin’. ’e just thanked me, and then went orf.”

  “Where to, do you know?”

  “No sir, ’e din’t say.”

  But Pitt did not need the doorman to tell him. He spoke to Tamar Macaulay’s dresser, who told him the
same. Paterson had seen her, and asked all the old questions. She had given him the same replies.

  Pitt left the theater and turned north, towards Farriers’ Lane. It was late afternoon on a cold, gray day with the pavements gleaming wet from the rain and the wind chasing rubbish along the gutters.

  He passed beggars, street traders, peddlers and those with nothing to do but stand around huddled against the cold, looking for a place to shelter for the night, doorways to sleep in. A brazier with a one-armed man selling roasted chestnuts was a welcome glow in the gloom, and a small island of warmth. There were a dozen men standing around it.

  It reminded Pitt of the men who had been idling near Farriers’ Lane on the night Kingsley Blaine was murdered. He knew their names. They were there on the original records he had read in the beginning. He had read it again, to remind himself.

  There was little chance of finding any of them now. They could have moved to other areas, found a better way of life, or a worse one. They could be ill, or dead, or in prison. Mortality was high, and five years a long time.

  Had Paterson bothered to look for them? Or for the urchin, Joe Slater?

  Surely he would have gone to the flower seller first? If she was still there.

  And yet as he was within a few hundred yards, Pitt found himself drawn to Farriers’ Lane.

  He quickened his pace, striding over the wet cobbles with urgency, as though he might miss something if he hesitated. He turned the last corner and saw ahead of him, far on the left side, the narrow opening of Farriers’ Lane, a black slit in the wall. He slowed his step. He wanted to see it, and at the same time it repelled him. His stomach clenched, his feet were numb.

  He stopped opposite it. As Paterson had said, the street lamp was about twenty yards away. The wind was whining in the eaves of the roofs above him and rattling an old newspaper along the road. The half-light was dimming and the gas in the lamps had already been lit. Still Farriers’ Lane was a dark gulf, impenetrable.