Farrier's Lane (14 page)

The swiftness and the belligerence of his response betrayed a sensitivity that took Drummond by surprise. Justification he had expected, but not such a leap to defend. Obviously Winton still felt a guilt, or at least a sense of accusation.

Drummond kept his temper with an effort. “I have the murder of a judge to investigate,” he said in a hard, careful voice. “If you were in my position, and heard that he had been planning to reopen an old case, and was interviewing the chief witnesses again on the very day he was murdered, and they were among the few people who had the opportunity to have killed him, would you not look into the evidence of the case yourself?”

Winton took a deep breath and his face relaxed a little,
as though he realized his reaction had been excessive, exposing his own vulnerability.

“Yes—yes, I suppose I would, however pointless it proved to be. Well, what can I tell you?” He colored faintly. “The investigation was very thorough. It had to be. It was an appalling crime; the whole country was watching us, from the Home Secretary down.”

Drummond did not make the polite assurances the remark invited. The very fact that Winton had defended himself so sharply indicated he doubted it.

Winton shifted his position again.

“The officer in charge was Charles Lambert, an excellent man, the best,” he began. “Of course the public outcry was immense. The newspapers were headlining it in every issue, and the Home Secretary was calling us regularly, putting tremendous pressure on us to find the killer within a week at the outside. I don’t know if you have ever handled such a case yourself.” His eyes searched Drummond’s face for understanding. “Have you experienced the pressure, the outcry, everyone angry, frightened, anxious to prove themselves? The Home Secretary actually came down here to the station himself, all frock coat, pinstripe trousers and white spats.” His expression hardened at the recollection, and Drummond could imagine the scene: the Home Secretary irate, nervous, pacing the floor and giving impossible commands, not thinking how they might be obeyed, only of the pressure on him from the House of Commons and the public. If the murder were not solved and the man tried and hanged quickly, his own political reputation would be in danger. Home Secretaries had fallen before, and no man was secure if the outcry were sufficient. The Prime Minister would sacrifice him to the wolves of fear.

“We put every man on it we could,” Winton continued, his voice sharp with memory. “And the best!” He grunted. “But in the event it turned out not to be particularly difficult. It was not a random lunatic; the motive was plain enough and he was not very clever. He was seen actually leaving Farriers’ Lane at the time, with blood on his clothes.”

“Seen leaving Farriers’ Lane?” Drummond interrupted incredulously. If that were true, how could Tamar Macaulay possibly doubt his guilt? Surely even family love could not be so blind? “By whom?”

“A group of men lounging around,” Winton replied.

Drummond caught some inflection in his voice, some lack of force which made him uncertain.

“Saw Godman—or saw someone?” he asked.

Winton looked fractionally less confident. “They did not identify him with any surety,” he replied. “But the flower seller did. That was a couple of streets away, but she had no doubt whatever. There was no shadow there, and he actually stopped and spoke to her just after the clock had struck, joked with her, she said! So she not only saw his face and heard his voice, she also knew the time.”

“Going away from Farriers’ Lane or towards it?” Drummond asked.

“Away.”

“So it was after the murder. And he stopped to talk to a flower seller? How extraordinary! Didn’t she notice the blood on him? If it was visible to the layabouts in the street, it must have been very obvious to her.”

Winton hesitated, anger flickering in his expressive eyes. “Well—no, she didn’t see it. But that is easily explainable. When he came out of Farriers’ Lane he was wearing an overcoat. He had disposed of it by the time he reached the flower seller. Which is natural! He could not afford to be seen in a coat covered with blood. And there must have been a hell of a lot of it from a murder like that.”

“Why did he not leave it in Farriers’ Lane, rather than come out still wearing it and risk being seen at all?” Drummond asked the obvious question.

“God knows!” Winton said savagely. “Perhaps it was being seen by the layabouts that made him aware of it. He may not even have noticed it himself until then. He was a man in an insane rage, demented enough to kill a man and crucify him, for God’s sake! Don’t expect logical thought from him.”

“And yet he behaved like a perfectly normal man a couple
of streets away, joking with a flower seller. Did you find the coat? There cannot have been much ground to look.”

“No, we didn’t!” Winton snapped. “But then that’s hardly surprising, is it! A good winter coat doesn’t lie around long, bloodstained or not, on a cold evening on the London streets. Wouldn’t expect to find it, days after the event.”

“Where did he go after the flower seller saw him?”

“Home. We got the cabby who took him. Picked him up in Soho Square and set him down in Pimlico. Not that it makes much difference. The murder was already committed by then.”

There was little more for Drummond to say. He could sympathize with Winton and indeed with all the men who worked on the case. The pressures must have been constant and intense, newspapers screaming headlines of horror and outrage, the public in the street full of criticism and demand that the police do the job for which they were paid, grudgingly, and from taxes. And certainly the hardest to resist, the most powerful and most uncomfortable, would be from their own superiors, giving orders, demanding that solutions be found and proved within days, even hours.

And then there was the other pressure, which was between them in a silent understanding, not needing speech, certainly not explanation. Drummond was a member of the Inner Circle, that secret brotherhood dedicated to works of beneficence, discreet gifts to help charitable organizations, and the furtherance of the careers of individual members so that they should gain influence—and power. Membership was secret. Any given man might know a few by name, or by sign and word, but not all. Allegiance to the Circle was paramount; it overrode all other loves and loyalties, all other calls upon honor.

Drummond had no idea whether Aubrey Winton was a member of the Inner Circle or not, but he thought it extremely likely. And that pressure would be the greatest of all, because it would be hidden; there would be no appeal and no help.

His sympathy for Winton was sharpened. It was not an enviable position, then or now, except that it seemed he had done all that anyone could, and his behavior was beyond exception.

“I cannot think what Stafford was following,” he said aloud. “Even had there been some irregularity in the trial—or in the appeal—it seems beyond question Aaron Godman was guilty. Nothing can be served by raking it up again. I begin to think the answer lies elsewhere.”

Winton smiled for the first time.

“Not an appealing thought,” he agreed. “I understand why you sought to find another answer, but I am afraid it doesn’t lie with the Blaine/Godman case. Sorry.”

“Indeed,” Drummond said. “Thank you for your time.” He rose to his feet. “I’ll tell my man all you told me.”

“Not at all. Very delicate,” Winton said with understatement. “Sometimes our position is not easy.”

Drummond smiled sourly and bade him good-day.

    The afternoon was fine, with a brisk wind blowing away the clouds and allowing brilliant shafts of autumn sunlight into the streets. Trees along the pavement and in the squares and parks were shedding their last leaves and there was a sharpness in the air that made Drummond think of woodsmoke, ripening berries in the hedges, and gardeners turning the damp earth and lifting and breaking the clumps of perennial flowers ready to replant for the spring. In the past when his wife had been alive and his daughters young, before he sold the house and took a flat in Piccadilly, there would have been chrysanthemums blooming in the borders, great shaggy, tawny-headed things that smelled like loam and rain on leaves.

He ached to share such thoughts. As always lately, his mind turned to Eleanor Byam. He had seen her very little since the scandal. Many times he had wished to go to her, but then he had remembered how he and Pitt—no, that was untrue, it had been Pitt with Charlotte who had done it; but it was their investigation, their persistence and intelligence which had uncovered the truth, and that truth had ruined
Eleanor, made her a widow and an outcast where before her husband had been honored and she had been respected and liked.

Now she had sold their big house in Belgravia and retired to a small set of rooms in Marylebone, her income gone and her name only whispered in society, with awe and pity. There were no invitations, and precious few calls. Drummond was not responsible. No part of the crime or the tragedy which had overcome Sholto Byam had been his doing, and yet he felt the very sight of him must bring back to her only painful thoughts and comparisons.

Yet he found himself walking towards Milton Street, and unconsciously lengthening his stride.

It was late afternoon and the lamplighters were lifting their long poles to turn on the gas and bring the sudden glow of warmth along the darkening street when he came to Eleanor’s rooms. If he stopped to think now his courage would fail him. He walked straight up to the door and pulled the bell. It was a very ordinary house, curtains drawn in grim respectability, small garden neat, bright with a few late daisies and golden leaves.

A middle-aged maid with a suspicious face opened the door.

“Yes sir?” The “sir” was an afterthought on seeing the quality of his coat and the silver head to his stick.

“Good evening,” he said, lifting his hat a fraction. “I would like to see Mrs. Byam, if she is at home.” He fished in his pocket and brought out a card. “My name is Drummond—Micah Drummond.”

“Is she expecting yer, Mr. Drummond?”

“No. But”—he stretched the truth a little—“we are old friends and I was in the neighborhood. Will you please ask her if she will see me?”

“I’ll take the message,” she said less than generously. “But I can’t do no more’n that. I work for Mrs. Stokes as owns the ’ouse, not for the ladies wot ’as the rooms.” And without waiting for a reply she left Drummond on the step and went to discharge her errand.

Drummond looked around him, oppressed by the change
from the old circumstances. Such a short while ago, Eleanor had been mistress of a rich and spacious house in the best part of London, with a full staff of servants. Now she had a few rooms in someone else’s building, and her door was answered by someone else’s servant who it seemed owed her no allegiance, and precious little courtesy. What permanent staff she had he did not know. He had only seen one ladies’ maid on his previous visit shortly after she had come.

The maid returned, her face pinched with disapproval.

“Mrs. Byam will see you, sir, if you come this way.” And without waiting to see if he followed, she turned on her heel and marched along the passage towards the back of the house. She knocked sharply on a glass partition door.

It was opened by Eleanor herself. She looked very different from her days in Belgravia. Her hair was still dressed in the same manner, sweeping back from her forehead, jet-black with a peppering of gray which was broader now at the temples, almost a streak. Her face was still the same with olive skin and wide gray eyes. But there was a tiredness in it; the certainty and the composure had slipped away, leaving her vulnerable. She wore no jewelry at all, and her gown was very simple dark blue. It was well cut, but devoid of lace or embroidery. To Drummond she looked younger than before and, in spite of all that lay between them, more immediate, more warmly real.

“Good evening, Micah,” she said, pulling the door wide. “How pleasant of you to call. Please come in. You look well.” She turned to the maid, who was standing in the center of the hallway and was filled with curiosity. “Thank you, Myrtle, that will be all.”

With a sniff Myrtle retreated.

Eleanor smiled as Drummond came in. “Not the most appealing creature,” she said wryly, taking his hat and stick and setting them in the stand. “Please come into the sitting room.” She led the way, offering him a seat in the small, modestly furnished parlor. He had never been farther than this, and guessed there was probably no more than a bedroom,
maid’s room, kitchen and possibly a bathroom or dressing room of some sort beyond.

She did not ask him why he had come, but he had to offer some sort of explanation. One did not simply arrive on people’s doorsteps. And he could hardly tell her the truth—that he desired above all things merely to see her again, to be near her.

“I was—” He nearly said “passing.” That was absurd, an insult she did not deserve. It would be idiotic to pretend the visit was chance. They both knew better than that. He should have thought what to say before he came this far. But then he would not have come at all had he stopped and weighed it. He tried again. “I have had a long and trying day.” He smiled and saw the color creep up her cheeks. “I wanted to do something totally pleasing. I thought of chrysanthemums in the rain, and the smell of wet earth, and leaves and blue woodsmoke, and I knew of no one else I could share them with.”

She looked away and blinked several times. It was a moment before he realized there were tears in her eyes. He had no idea whether he should apologize or be tactful and pretend not to have noticed. Or if he did that, would she find him unbearably cold? Or if he remarked it, would that be offensively intrusive? He was in an agony of indecision and felt his face burn.

“You could not have said anything kinder.” Her voice was gentle and a little husky. She swallowed hard, and then again. “I am sorry your day was trying. Have you a difficult case? I suppose it is confidential?”

“No—not really, but it is most unpleasant.”

“I’m sorry. I imagine most of them are.”

He wanted to ask her about herself, how she felt, what she did with her days, if she was all right, if there was anything he could do for her. But it would unquestionably have been intrusive, and worse than that, it might seem as if it were based in pity, as if his entire visit were one of a sense of obligation and compassion, and she would hate that.