Bedford Square (41 page)

“Everyone was mistaken in him,” Pitt replied, standing a little rigidly.

Cornwallis relaxed. “I am afraid so. Still, it’s over now.” He raised his eyebrows. “Have you something else on your mind?”

This was the moment to make his decision. There were too many questions. He thought of Vespasia.

“No … I’m afraid it is still the same case. I’m not satisfied yet ….”

Cornwallis looked startled, and dismay flashed in his eyes. “What? You can’t have any doubt that Cadell was guilty. For heaven’s sake, he confessed and shot himself. You can’t imagine he was doing it to protect someone else.” He spread his hands jerkily. “Who? If he wasn’t guilty, then he was as much a victim as the rest of us. Are you suggesting there was a conspiracy?”

“No!” Pitt was beginning to feel foolish. “Nothing like that. I just want to understand how he did it—”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Cornwallis interrupted, jamming his hands into his pockets and walking back towards his desk. “It seems fairly clear now we know who it was. He knew us all reasonably well—at least at the Jessop, if nowhere else.” He sat down and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. He looked up at Pitt earnestly. “I can remember dining with him. I don’t know now what we talked about, but different places we’d been. I could easily have mentioned which ships I’d served on. From there he could have looked up my naval record. As a member of the Foreign Office he wouldn’t need much of an excuse.” He smiled bleakly.

Pitt sat down as well, ready to argue when the time came.

“Similarly, he could have looked up Balantyne’s career,” Cornwallis went on. “It’s amazing how comfortable one can get over a good dinner at the club.” He smiled a little. “You reminisce, and with a fellow you like, who is a good listener, maybe tells a bit about himself as well, you find yourself talking into the small hours. No one disturbs you or tells you it’s time to leave. He could have learned all manner of things about any of us.” He looked at Pitt with a sudden bleakness. “If you think it’s worth going to the Jessop and asking the stewards if they remember Cadell sitting up late with anyone, do so. But it would prove nothing either way. They could have forgotten, or it could have been somewhere else. Most of us belong to more than one club.”

“I hadn’t doubted where he got the information,” Pitt replied. “A little conversation, some enquiries and then some imaginative guesses would be quite sufficient.”

“The snuffbox?” Cornwallis said quickly. “He may have visited Balantyne’s home, but even if he hadn’t, I can remember Balantyne having it at the club, because I’ve seen it myself, when I think back. Not closely. I wasn’t paying attention. It’s the sort of thing you see but don’t see. I daresay Guy Stanley used his flask the same way. Some people prefer their own particular whiskey or brandy. I have half a memory that he liked a single malt.”

“Yes, that’s all simple enough,” Pitt agreed again. “It wasn’t that I was thinking about.” How much should he say? Were Vespasia’s doubts anything more than the loyalty of a friend? “How did he know about Slingsby’s death in Shoreditch, and how did he get the body back to Bedford Square? More than that, how did he know Slingsby resembled Cole, and so would be any use to him? How did he get Cole’s receipt, and where is the real Cole?”

“I’ve no idea why he was in Shoreditch,” Cornwallis replied with a frown. “The man seems to have had a life we knew nothing about. Perhaps he gambled?” His face creased with distaste, and there was an edge of exasperation in his voice. “He could have had a liking for bare-knuckle fighting or any of a dozen other things. Some men do. A darker side to the character. You must know that even better than I do. Perhaps he was there when Slingsby was killed, and saw his chance.”

“To pass him off as Cole and leave him on Balantyne’s doorstep?” Pitt asked. “Why? Why take the risk of carrying him halfway through London in the middle of the night? And what happened to the real Albert Cole? Where is he?”

“Obviously, Cadell was a man who liked taking risks,” Cornwallis said a little sharply. “It would seem his respectable life as a diplomat, married to one woman all his adulthood and always behaving with the utmost correctness, oppressed some part of his nature. I’ve known it to happen before.” Unconsciously, his hand on the desk clenched and there was an increased edge to his voice. “For heaven’s sake, Pitt, plenty of men behave like fools. Women too, for all I know.” He leaned forward. “Why do we gamble, drive
carriages too fast, ride dangerous horses, fall in love with all the wrong women? Why do we even try to do something pointless and dangerous, climb mountains or pit ourselves against nature to test our strength? Nine times out of ten there’s nothing at the end of it except the knowledge that we succeeded. That’s all we want.”

“And you think Cadell was that sort of person?” Pitt could not keep the doubt from his face.

“I hadn’t thought so, no,” Cornwallis answered. “But I was obviously mistaken. I hadn’t thought he was a man to blackmail his friends for the sheer pleasure of exercising power over them and watching them suffer,” he added bitterly. “I can’t begin to understand why anyone should take delight in such a thing. I can only suppose he was in desperate need of money he’d lost gambling, and he intended to ask us all for everything we could afford when he was ready, when he was sure we would pay.”

Pitt chewed his lip. “And where is Albert Cole?”

Cornwallis stood up abruptly and walked over to the window. He stared out of it with his back to Pitt.

“I’ve no idea. It’s probably a coincidence; he went away or died. It had nothing to do with Cadell.”

“And the receipt?” Pitt could not give up, not only for Vespasia but because reason demanded better answers than he had.

Cornwallis remained staring at the street. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Perhaps it was a mistake. The man in the shop was in error. Does it matter now?”

Pitt looked at Cornwallis’s broad, straight shoulders. “Balantyne went to Cadell about the orphanage funds. He was worried they were insufficient.”

Cornwallis turned around, puzzled. “Why do you mention that? What has it to do with … anything?”

“It probably hasn’t,” Pitt confessed. “I went out to the orphanage. The books are perfect.”

“Why?”

“Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould still finds it very difficult to believe Cadell was guilty—”

“Of course she does!” Cornwallis came back across the
room, frowning with annoyance. “His widow is her goddaughter. It is difficult for anyone to believe someone they cared for could have been guilty of a wretched, vicious crime. I don’t find it easy myself. I liked the man.” He took a deep breath. “But the longer she resists it, the harder it will be to accept, and the more painful.”

Pitt spoke more from emotion than reason.

“If you think Aunt Vespasia is simply being an old lady who is refusing to accept an unpalatable truth, you know very little of her and underestimate her profoundly. She knew Leo Cadell since before his marriage, and she is a woman of considerable wisdom and experience. She has seen more of the world than either you or I, particularly of men like the ones we are concerned with.” He had spoken more sharply than he intended, but it was too late to moderate it.

Cornwallis blushed. For a moment Pitt thought it was from anger, then he realized it was from shame.

Cornwallis turned away. “I’m sorry. I have the greatest regard for Lady Vespasia. My own relief has … has blinded me for a moment to the reality of other people’s grief.” His voice thickened with tightly suppressed emotion. “I want this to be the end of it so fiercely I cannot bear to believe otherwise. It has obliged me to think about a great many things, events and people which I had taken for granted most of my life … other men’s opinions of me I assumed I knew. Even my career has … still, that is hardly important now.” He let out his breath in a soundless sigh and turned back to face Pitt. “You had better find Cole … or at least have Tellman look for him. There is nothing else pressing … is there?”

Before Pitt could answer that there was not, there was a sharp rap on the door.

“Come in,” Cornwallis replied, looking towards it.

The man who came in looked startled.

“Mr. Justice Quade is here to see you, sir,” he said to Cornwallis. “He is extremely perturbed and says the matter is urgent.”

“Send him in,” Cornwallis directed. “Pitt, you’d better stay.”

Theloneus Quade appeared the moment after, and indeed, the clerk had not exaggerated. Quade’s thin, gentle face wore an expression of deep concern.

“I apologize for intruding upon you, Mr. Cornwallis.” He glanced at Pitt. “Fortunate to find you also here, Thomas. I am afraid there has been a development I find disturbing—most disturbing—and I felt I should inform you of it in case it has meaning.” He looked abashed, and yet perfectly determined.

“What is it?” Pitt asked with sinking misgiving, though with less surprise than he should have felt.

Theloneus looked from one to the other of them. “Dunraithe White has just excused himself from a case he was scheduled to hear. It was rather an important one, involving a major fraud in one of the large investment trusts. His withdrawal will severely inconvenience everyone and delay the hearing until someone can be found to replace him.”

Cornwallis stood motionless. “Is he ill?” he said without hope.

“He has said so,” Theloneus replied, “but I saw him at the opera yesterday evening, and he was in excellent health then.” His lips tightened. “I happen to be acquainted with his doctor. I took the liberty of calling him when I heard. I am afraid I practiced an untruth. I asked if Dunraithe had been taken to a hospital, that I might send him a letter or attend to anything he might wish. His doctor quite obviously had no idea what I was talking about, and assumed I must be mistaken. He may, of course, be ill at home and not have found it necessary to send for any medical help, but that would be an unusual way to behave, and Dunraithe is a conventional man. Mrs. White would have sent for someone, even if he had not.”

Cornwallis opened his mouth to argue with some reasonable answer and then changed his mind. Without being aware of it, his body was tense again, the ease gone from his face.

“It occurs to me,” Theloneus said sadly, “that a letter has been overdue in the mail, and perhaps he received it only this morning. He may imagine that Cadell was not alone in his crime and that a threat still exists.” He looked from one to the other of them. “I don’t know if you know the answer to that,
but if you do, then you might persuade him of it. If not, then we had better continue our work. It would seem it is not entirely finished.”

Cornwallis glanced at Pitt, then back to Theloneus.

“We don’t know the answer,” he said frankly. “We were discussing it before you arrived. We don’t know exactly what Cadell wanted. We have assumed it was money, but it is only an assumption. We also assumed he was alone, and perhaps we should not have.” His voice was rough-edged. The weight of fear he had only just cast aside had descended upon him again. It seemed the heavier for the short respite. Quite suddenly he was once more haggard, the color gone from his skin. The one night’s untroubled sleep need never have been given him, or the few meals eaten with pleasure.

“I’ll go and see Mr. White,” Pitt said quietly. He looked at Theloneus. “Will you come with me? He may simply refuse to admit me. He could send his butler with a message that he is too ill. I can scarcely argue that I know he has not yet sent for a doctor.”

“Of course,” Theloneus agreed. “I had thought of it myself. I can persuade him, on judicial business, if nothing else. He cannot refuse to speak to me on that, whatever his state of health.” He gave a sad little grimace. “I do not know whether to wish he is telling the truth or not.”

It proved a wise decision. When the butler opened the door there was a cool refusal in his face prepared for whoever should consider disturbing his master’s peace. However, when Theloneus introduced himself and declared the nature of his business, the butler recognized that it was not within his jurisdiction to refuse, and he dutifully carried Theloneus’s card upstairs on his silver tray.

He returned several minutes later, his face grim.

“Mr. White is not well this morning, sir, as I explained. If the matter truly cannot wait, then of course he will see you. Perhaps you would not mind doing him the favor of allowing him a few minutes to compose himself and come downstairs.” It was not really a question.

“Of course,” Theloneus said sympathetically. He sat down in one of the large chairs in the study where they had been shown. Pitt could not help thinking that it was one of the few rooms in the house where Marguerite White would almost certainly not interrupt them. Dunraithe would not have to explain their presence to her.

Pitt and Theloneus sat in silence. Several times Pitt nearly spoke, then changed his mind. They had already said all there was until they knew whether White had indeed received a letter, or if perhaps he had some genuine illness. Perhaps he had, and the anxiety and distress of the past few weeks had so worn down his courage that he no longer had the strength to fight back.

The door opened and Dunraithe White came in, closing it behind him. He was dressed in trousers and a soft smoking jacket. He looked gray-faced, as if he had not slept for nights on end, and there was a dry, stiff texture to his skin. He had shaved, but poorly, as if his attention had not been upon the task. As well as a small missed patch on his chin, there were two tiny spots of blood where the blade had caught him. The butler had simply reported Pitt as “another gentleman,” and White was profoundly shaken to recognize him.

“Superintendent! Has something further happened?” He cleared his throat. “Stokes did not tell me you were here. Only you …” He turned to Theloneus. “I … I thought it was a judicial matter.”

“It is,” Theloneus replied, staring at him levelly and without the slightest evasion. “I am deeply concerned over your withdrawal from the Leadbetter case. As you must know, it will cause the deepest inconvenience to the court calendar, and a considerable cost due to the delay, which must necessarily follow, until someone else can be found to hear it. Is there any way whatsoever, with your physician’s assistance, that in a day or two you may be recovered sufficiently to resume your role?” He regarded White with innocent concern.