Southampton Row (30 page)

“Bishop Underhill,” Cornwallis repeated thoughtfully. “Why? Why him?”

Pitt told him his line of reasoning based upon the assistance the Bishop had given Voisey.

Cornwallis frowned. “What would take him to a spirit medium?”

“I’ve no idea,” Pitt replied, too lost in his own unhappiness to catch the emotion in the other man’s voice.

Further discussion was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell again. Cornwallis stood up immediately and went to answer it without giving Pitt the opportunity. He returned a few moments later with Tellman behind him, looking like the chief mourner at a funeral.

Pitt waited for one of the other two to speak.

Tellman cleared his throat, then sank back into a wretched silence.

“What did you come for?” Pitt asked him. He heard his voice edgy and accusing, but it was beyond his control.

Tellman looked at him, glaring. “Where else would I be?” he challenged. “It was my fault! I told you to go to Teddington! You’d never have heard of Wray if it weren’t for me!” His face was filled with anguish, his body rigid, his eyes hot.

Pitt saw with a rush of surprise that Tellman really did blame himself for what had happened. He was scalded with a shame too deep to find words. At another time, if Pitt were hurting even a little less himself, he would have been moved by Tellman’s loyalty, but now his own fear was too deep. It all stemmed back to his evidence before Whitechapel. If only he hadn’t been so sure of himself, so pigheaded in giving evidence because he wanted his idea of justice served!

He had been right, of course, but that was not going to help now.

“Who told you about Francis Wray?” Cornwallis asked Tellman. “And for heaven’s sake sit down. We’re standing around as if we were at the graveside. The battle is not over yet.”

Pitt wanted to believe that, but there was no rational hope that he could grasp.

“Superintendent Wetron,” Tellman answered. He glanced at Pitt.

“Why?” Cornwallis persisted. “What reason did he give? Who suggested Wray to him? He didn’t know him himself, so who told him about Wray? Who made the connection between Wray and the unknown man who visited Maude Lamont?”

Absentmindedly, Pitt thought how Cornwallis had grown in his knowledge of detection. He looked at Tellman.

“He never said,” Tellman replied, his eyes widening. “I did ask him, but somehow he never really answered. Voisey? It must have been.” There was a thin thread of hope in his voice. “All the information about Wray came from Superintendent Wetron, so far as I know.” His mouth tightened. “But if he believes in Voisey, or . . . or maybe he is Inner Circle himself?” He said it with disbelief, as if even now the thought of his superior’s being one of that terrible society was too monstrous to be more than a bad idea, something to be said and discarded.

Pitt thought of Vespasia. “When we disgraced Voisey we may have fractured the Inner Circle,” he said, looking from Cornwallis to Tellman and back again. Tellman knew all about the Whitechapel matter; Cornwallis knew something, but there were still large gaps in his knowledge, although even as Pitt watched him he saw his understanding leap forward. He asked no questions.

“Fractured?” Tellman said slowly. “You mean like in two parts?”

“At least,” Pitt answered.

“Voisey and someone else?” Cornwallis’s eyebrows rose. Wetron?”

Tellman’s sense of decency was outraged. “Oh no! He’s a policeman!” But even as he protested he was entertaining the idea. He shook his head, pushing it away. “A small member, maybe. People do, to get on, but . . .”

Cornwallis chewed his lip. “It would make a lot of sense. Someone with a great deal of power, a very great deal, had you dismissed from Bow Street a second time,” he said to Pitt. “Perhaps it was Wetron? After all, he was the one who took charge from you. Superintendent of Bow Street is a very nice place for the head of the Inner Circle.” He looked rueful, even for an instant aware of fear. “There’ll be no end to his ambition.”

No one laughed, and no one denied it.

“He’s an ambitious man,” Tellman said very seriously.

Cornwallis leaned forward a little across the table. “Could they be rivals?”

Almost as if he had spoken it aloud, Pitt knew what he was thinking. It was the first spark of real hope, wild as it was. “Use it?” he asked, almost afraid to put words to it.

Cornwallis nodded very slowly.

Tellman stared at them, his face pale. “One against the other?”

“Can you think of anything else?” Cornwallis asked him. “Wetron is ambitious. If he thinks he can challenge Voisey for leadership of half the Inner Circle, and I think we can assume he is the one who led the breakaway, if not at first, then at least by the time it achieved its independence, then he is very ambitious indeed. And he cannot be fool enough to think Voisey will forgive him for it. He will have to live the rest of his life watching his back. If you know you have an enemy, better make a preemptive strike. If you believe you can do it effectively, finish your man.”

“How?” Pitt asked. “Tie Voisey in to the Southampton Row murder?” The idea strengthened as he was speaking. “There must be a continuous connection: Voisey goes to Maude Lamont with social connections, money, whatever it is she wants, and in return she blackmails certain of her clients to speak out against Voisey’s opponent in the election, Aubrey Serracold. Which in turn helps Voisey.”

“Ties up,” Tellman agreed. “Voisey to Maude Lamont to her clients, who do what she tells them, which helps Voisey. But we can’t prove it! Maude Lamont was the link, and she’s dead.” He took in a deep breath. “Just a minute! Did the blackmail stop? Did they stop helping Voisey?” That question was asked of Pitt.

“No,” he said. “No. So Maude didn’t do the blackmailing, she just provided the information as to where they were vulnerable.” Then the chill returned. “But we found no connection to Voisey. We searched all her papers, letters, diaries, banking accounts, everything. There is no trace of a link between them. But then he wouldn’t leave one. He’s far too clever for that. For a start, she could have used it herself!”

“You are looking at the wrong enemy,” Cornwallis said with a rising note of excitement in his voice. It was almost as if he was reliving one of his battles at sea, lining up the opposing ship to fire the broadside that would hole her below the waterline. “Wetron! We shouldn’t aim at either one, but make them attack each other.”

Tellman scowled. “How?”

Pitt felt a leap of triumph again and turned to stifle it in case it flared up out of control, and the darkness afterwards was too deep to bear.

“Wetron is an ambitious man,” Cornwallis said again, but this time with a new intensity. “If he could solve the Southampton Row murder in a spectacular way, personally taking the credit for it, it would enhance his position, make him strong enough no one could challenge him in Bow Street, and perhaps build a rung higher in the ladder.”

The next major step up would be Cornwallis’s own job. Pitt felt a tug of emotion that Cornwallis could not have been unaware of such a risk, and yet looking at him leaning his elbows on the kitchen table, there was not a shadow of hesitation in him.

“Find Cartouche!” Cornwallis said. “If it was Wetron who worked out who he was, and trapped him, and forced from him the secret of the blackmail, perhaps even to implicate Voisey—which might be possible with Rose Serracold being one of the other victims and Kingsley the third.”

“Dangerous . . .” Pitt warned, but the blood was beginning to beat in his pulses and he felt alive again, quickened inside, and something like hope at the edge of his mind.

Cornwallis smiled very slightly, more a baring of the teeth. “He used Wray. Let us use him again. The poor man is beyond being hurt anymore. Even his reputation is ruined if they bring in a verdict of suicide. His life will be rendered almost meaningless in the sense he valued.”

A black rage hardened in Pitt at that thought. “Yes, I should very much like to use Wray,” he said between clenched jaws. “No one knows what I said to him, or he to me. And since I cannot prove I did not threaten him, neither can they deny anything I say he told me!” He too leaned forward across the table. “He had no idea who Cartouche was, but no one else knows that. What if I say that he did, and he told me, and that it was Cartouche’s identity which so distressed him?” His mind was racing now. “And that Maude herself knew, in spite of all his precautions? And she left a note of it somewhere hidden in her papers? We searched the house, but we did not understand what we saw. Now, with Wray’s information, we will . . .”

“Then Cartouche will come to look for it and destroy it . . . if he knows!” Tellman finished. “Except how will we make sure he hears? Will Wetron tell him? Wetron doesn’t know who he is, or he’d . . .” He stopped, confused.

“Newspapers,” Cornwallis replied. “I’ll make sure the newspapers print it, tomorrow. The case is still headlines because of Wray’s death. I can make Cartouche think he has to get back Maude Lamont’s notes on him or he’ll be exposed. It doesn’t matter what his secret is.”

“What are you going to tell Wetron?” Tellman asked, frowning. He was puzzled, but the eagerness to act burned in him. His eyes were bright.

“You are,” Cornwallis corrected. “Report back to him, as you ordinarily would, that the circle is about to be completed: Voisey through money to Maude Lamont through blackmail to Kingsley and Cartouche, to destroy Voisey’s opponent, back to Voisey, and that you are about to get the proof. Then he will call the press. But he must believe it, or they won’t print it.”

Tellman swallowed, and nodded slowly.

“Wray will still be buried as a suicide,” Pitt said, and found even putting words to it painful. “I . . . I find it hard to believe that he would . . . not after he had endured his grief and . . .” But he could imagine it. No matter how brave one was, there were some pains that became unendurable in the darkest moments of the night. Maybe he could manage most of the time, when there were people around, something to do, even sunlight, the beauty of flowers, anyone else who cared. But alone in the dark, too tired to fight anymore . . .

“He was deeply loved and admired.” Cornwallis was struggling to find a better answer himself. “Perhaps he will have friends in the church who will use influence to see that he is never named as such.”

“But you didn’t hound him!” Tellman protested. “Why would he give in now? It’s against his faith!”

“It was some kind of poison,” Pitt told him. “How could he do that by accident? And it wasn’t natural causes.” But another thought was stirring in his mind, a wild possibility. “Perhaps Voisey wasn’t using a perfect chance given him? Perhaps he murdered Wray, or at least caused him to be murdered? His revenge was only complete if Wray was dead. With Wray miserable, haunted by gossip and fear, violated, I appear a villain. But if he is dead that is far better. Then I am irredeemable. Surely Voisey would not hesitate at the final act? He didn’t in Whitechapel.”

“His sister?” Cornwallis said with genuine horror. “He used her to poison Wray?”

“She may have had no idea what she was doing,” Pitt pointed out. “And there was virtually no chance of her getting caught. As far as she knew, she was no more than a witness to my cruelty to an old and vulnerable man.”

“How do we prove it?” Tellman said, thin-lipped. “Us knowing it is no good! It only adds to the flavor of his victory if we actually know what happened and still can’t do a damn thing about it!”

“An autopsy,” Pitt said. It was the only thing that seemed an answer.

“They’d never do it.” Cornwallis shook his head. “No one wants it. The church will be afraid it would prove suicide, which they’ll do all they can to protect him from, and Voisey will be afraid it will prove murder, or at least raise the question.”

Pitt stood up. “There’ll be a way. I’ll make one. I’ll go to see Lady Vespasia. If anyone can force the issue, she will know who it is and how to find him.” He looked at Cornwallis, then at Tellman. “Thank you,” he said with sudden overwhelming gratitude. “Thank you for . . . coming.”

Neither of them answered, each in his own way confused for words. They did not seek or want gratitude, only to help.

Tellman went straight back to Bow Street. It was a quarter past ten in the morning. The desk sergeant called out to him, but he barely heard. He went straight up the stairs to Wetron’s office, which had once been Pitt’s. It was extraordinary to think that had been only a few months ago. Now it was an alien place, the man in it an enemy. That idea had come easily. He was startled to realize that it had taken no effort of mind to accommodate it.

He knocked, and after a few moments heard Wetron’s voice telling him to come in.

“Good morning, sir,” he said when he was inside and the door closed behind him.

“Morning, Tellman.” Wetron looked up from his desk. At first sight he seemed an ordinary man, middle height, mousy coloring. Only when you looked at his eyes did you realize the strength in him, the undeviating will to succeed.

Tellman swallowed. He began the lie. “I saw Pitt this morning. He told me what he actually said to Mr. Wray, and why Wray was so distressed.”

Wetron looked up at him, his face bleak. “I think the sooner you dissociate yourself, and this police force, from Mr. Pitt, the better, Inspector. I shall issue a statement to the newspapers that he no longer has anything whatever to do with the Metropolitan Police, and we take no responsibility for his actions. He’s Special Branch’s problem. Let them get him out of this, if they can. The man’s a disaster.”

Tellman stood rigid, the fury inside him ready to explode, every injustice he’d ever seen like a red haze inside him. “I’m sure you’re right, sir, but I think you ought to know what he learned before you do that.” He ignored Wetron’s impatience, signaled in his flicking fingers and the crease between his brows. “It seems Mr. Wray knew who the third visitor was at Maude Lamont’s the night she was murdered.” He took a shaky breath. “Because it was someone of his acquaintance. Another churchman, I think.”

“What?” Now he had Wetron’s entire attention, even if not his belief.