Southampton Row (31 page)

Tellman met his eyes without flinching. “Yes sir. Apparently, there’s something in the woman’s notes, Miss Lamont I mean, which could prove it, now we know who she meant.”

“What is it, man?” Wetron demanded. “Don’t stand there talking in riddles!”

“That’s it, sir. Mr. Pitt can’t be sure until he sees the papers in Miss Lamont’s home.” He hurried on before Wetron could interrupt him again, forcing his voice to rise as if in excitement. “It’ll still be hard to prove it. But if we were to tell the newspapers that we have the information . . . of course, we don’t need to mention Mr. Pitt, if you don’t think it’s a good idea . . . then whoever this man is, and he is probably the one who killed her, then he may very well betray himself by going to Southampton Row.”

“Yes, yes, Tellman, you don’t need to spell it out for me!” Wetron said sharply. “I understand what you are suggesting. Let me give it some thought.”

“Yes sir.”

“We’ll keep Pitt out of it, I think. You should go to Southampton Row. After all, it’s your case.” He made the point deliberately, watching Tellman’s face.

Tellman made himself smile. “Yes sir. I don’t know why Special Branch got involved with it at all. Unless, of course, it was because of Sir Charles Voisey?”

Wetron sat very still. “What has it to do with Voisey? You’re not imagining the man implicated by the cartouche was Voisey, are you?” There was heavy ridicule in his tone, and the curl of his smile was bitter, tinged with mockery and regret.

“Oh no, sir,” Tellman said quickly. “We’re pretty sure that Maude Lamont was blackmailing at least some of her clients, certainly the three that were there the night she was killed.”

“Over what?” Wetron asked carefully.

“Different things, but not for money, for certain behavior in the present political campaign that was helpful to Sir Charles Voisey.”

Wetron’s eyes widened.

“Indeed? That’s a rather odd accusation, Tellman. I suppose you are aware of exactly who Sir Charles is?”

“Yes sir! He’s a most distinguished appeal court judge who is now standing for a seat in Parliament. He was recently knighted by Her Majesty, but I don’t know exactly what for, except word has it that it was something remarkably brave.” He said it with reverence, and watched Wetron’s lips tighten and the muscles stand out cord-hard on his neck. Perhaps Lady Vespasia was right?

“And has Pitt got some reason to believe all this?” Wetron asked.

“Yes sir.” Tellman kept his voice perfectly level, not too assured. “There is some very definite connecting link. It all makes a lot of sense. We’re that far from it!” He held up his finger and thumb about an inch apart. “We just need to flush this man out, and then we can prove it. Murder’s a very nasty crime indeed, any way you want to look at it, and this one especially. Choked the woman. Looks like he put his knee in her chest and forced this stuff down her throat until she died.”

“Yes, you don’t need to be graphic, Inspector,” Wetron said tartly. “I’ll call the press and tell them. You get on with finding the proof you need.” He bent to the paper he had been reading before he was interrupted. It was dismissal.

“Yes sir.” Tellman stood to attention, then turned on his heel. He did not breathe a sigh of relief, or allow his body to let go of the tension and shiver until he was halfway down the stairs again.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Pitt returned immediately to Vespasia, this time writing a note which he handed to the maid, then he waited in the morning room. He believed Vespasia was one person who would refrain from judging his part in Wray’s death, but he could not bring himself to assume it before he had seen her. He waited, pacing the floor, his hands sweating, his breath ragged.

He spun around when the morning room door opened, expecting the maid to tell him either that Lady Vespasia would see him or that she would not. But it was Vespasia herself who was there. She came in and closed the door behind her, shutting out the servants and, from the look on her face, the rest of the world.

“Good morning, Thomas. I assume you have come because you have some plan of battle, and a part in it for me? You had better tell me what it is. Are we to fight alone, or do we have allies?”

Her use of the plural was the most heartening thing she could have said. He should never have doubted her, regardless of what the press wrote or what the odds against them might be. It was not modesty on his part, it was lack of faith.

“Yes, Captain Cornwallis and Inspector Tellman.”

“Good, and what are we to do?” She sat down in one of the large rose-pink morning room chairs and indicated another for him.

He told her the plan, such as it was, which they had formulated around his kitchen table. She listened in silence until he had finished.

“An autopsy,” she said at last. “That will not be easy. He was a man not only revered but actually loved. No one, apart from Voisey, will wish to see him named a suicide, even though that is already the assumption. I imagine the church will endeavor to leave the exact verdict open, and at least tacitly assume some kind of misadventure, in the belief that the less that is said the sooner it will be forgotten. And there is considerable discretion and kindness in that.” She looked at him very steadily. “Are you prepared for the discovery that he did, in fact, take his own life, Thomas?”

“No,” he said honestly. “But nothing I feel about it is going to alter the truth, and I think I need to know it. I really don’t believe he took his own life, but I admit it is possible. I think Voisey contrived his death, using his sister, almost certainly without her knowledge.”

“And you believe an autopsy will indicate that? You may be right. Anyway, as you will no doubt agree, we have little else.” She rose to her feet stiffly. “I do not have the influence to force such a thing myself, but I believe Somerset Carlisle does.” The faintest smile flickered over her face and lit her silver-gray eyes. “You no doubt remember him from that farcical tragedy in Resurrection Row among the thugs.” She did not go on to mention his bizarre part in it. It was something neither of them would forget. If any man on earth would be willing to risk his reputation for a cause in which he believed, it was Carlisle.

Pitt smiled back, for a moment memory erasing the present. Time had bleached the horror from those events and left only the black humor, and the passion which had compelled that extraordinary man to act as he had.

“Yes,” he agreed with fervor. “Yes, we’ll ask him.”

Vespasia rather liked the telephone. It was one of several inventions to have become generally available to those with the means to afford it, and it was reasonably useful. In a mere quarter of an hour she was able to ascertain that Carlisle was at his club in Pall Mall—where, of course, ladies were not admitted—but that he would leave forthwith and go to the Savoy Hotel, where he would receive them as soon as they arrived.

Actually, with the state of the traffic as it was, and the time of the day, it was almost an hour later when Pitt and Vespasia were shown into the private sitting room that Carlisle had engaged for the purpose. He rose to his feet the instant they were shown in, elegant, a little gaunt now, his unusual eyebrows still giving his face a faintly quizzical look.

As soon as they were seated and appropriate refreshments had been ordered, Vespasia came straight to the point.

“No doubt you have read the newspapers and are aware of Thomas’s situation. You may not be aware that it has been carefully and extremely cleverly arranged by a man whose intense desire is to be revenged for a recent very grave defeat. I cannot tell you what it was, only that he is powerful and dangerous, and has managed to salvage from the wreck of his previous ambition a new one only slightly less ruinous to the country.”

Carlisle asked no questions as to what it might be. He was well acquainted with the need for absolute discretion. He regarded Pitt levelly for several moments, perhaps seeing the weariness in him and the marks of the despair so close under the surface. “What is it you want from me?” he asked very seriously.

It was Vespasia who answered. “An autopsy of the body of the Reverend Francis Wray.”

Carlisle gulped. For an instant he was thrown off balance.

Vespasia gave a tiny smile. “If it were easy, my dear, I should not have needed to ask for your assistance. The poor man is going to be regarded as a suicide, although of course the church will never permit it to be said in so many words. They will speak of unfortunate accidents, and bury him properly. But people will still believe he took his own life, and that is necessary to the plan of our enemy, otherwise his revenge upon Thomas fails to have effect.”

“Yes, I see that,” Carlisle agreed. “No one can have driven him to suicide unless there is believed to have been one. People will assume the church is concealing it as a matter of loyalty, which will probably be the truth.” He turned to Pitt. “What do you believe happened?”

“I think he was murdered,” Pitt replied. “I doubt there was an accident which timed itself to the hour to suit their purposes. I don’t know if an autopsy will prove that, but it is the only chance we have.”

Carlisle thought in silence for several minutes, and neither Pitt nor Vespasia interrupted him. They glanced at each other, and then away again, and waited.

Carlisle looked up. “If you are prepared to abide by the result, whatever it is, I believe I know a way to persuade the local coroner that it must be done.” He smiled a little sourly. “It will entail a certain elasticity of the truth, but I have shown a skill in that area before. I think the less you know about it, Thomas, the better. You never had any talent in that direction at all. In fact, it worries me more than a little that Special Branch is desperate enough to employ you. You are the last man cut out to succeed in this kind of work. I heard you may have been drafted merely to give them a more respectable face.”

“In that case they have failed spectacularly,” Pitt replied with a considerable edge to his voice.

“Nonsense!” Vespasia snapped. “He was dismissed out of Bow Street because the Inner Circle wanted one of their own men there. There is nothing subtle or devious about it at all. Special Branch was simply available, and not in a position to refuse.” She rose to her feet. “Thank you, Somerset. I assume that as well as the necessity for this autopsy, you are also aware of the urgency? Tomorrow would be good. The longer this slander against Thomas is around, the more people will hear it and the work of undoing it will become a great deal more difficult. Also, of course, there is the matter of the election. Once the polls close there are certain things it becomes very difficult to abrogate.”

Carlisle opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “You are utterly reliable, Lady Vespasia,” he said, rising also. “I swear you are the only person since I was twenty who can totally wrong-foot me, and you never fail to do it. I have always admired you, but it completely escapes me why I also like you.”

“Because you have no desire to be comfortable, my dear,” she replied without hesitation. “More than a month or two and you become bored.” She smiled at him, utterly charmingly, as if she had given him a great compliment, and extended her hand for him to kiss, which he did with grace. Then she took Pitt’s arm and, with head high, walked out into the corridor and the main foyer.

They were about halfway across when Pitt quite clearly saw Voisey excuse himself from a group of passersby and walk towards them. He was half smiling, supremely confident. Pitt knew from his face that he had come to taste victory, to savor it and roll it around his tongue. He had very possibly arranged to be here precisely for that purpose. What was revenge worth if you did not see your enemy’s pain? And in this instance he not only had Pitt, he had Vespasia as well.

Voisey could never have forgiven her for the crucial part she had played, not only in the Whitechapel defeat, but in using all her influence to gain him his knighthood. Perhaps ruining Pitt was as much to hurt her as it was to hurt him? And now he could watch them both.

“Lady Vespasia,” he said with extreme courtesy. “What a pleasure to see you. How loyal of you to take Mr. Pitt to luncheon so publicly at this unfortunate time. I do admire loyalty, and the more expensive it is, the more valuable.” Without waiting for her to reply, he turned to Pitt. “Perhaps you will be able to find a position away from London. I would advise it after your recent unfortunate behavior with poor Francis Wray. Somewhere in the country? If your wife and family have taken a liking to Dartmoor, perhaps that would do? Although Harford is much too small to require a policeman. It is barely a village, more of a hamlet, a mere two or three streets, and very isolated up there on the edge of Ugborough Moor. I doubt they have ever seen a crime, let alone a murder. It was murder you specialized in, wasn’t it? Still, I suppose that might change.” He smiled, turned to Vespasia, and then continued on his way.

Pitt stood frozen, the cold running through him like a tide, drowning from the inside. He was barely aware of the room around him, even of Vespasia’s hand on his arm. Voisey knew where Charlotte was! He could reach out at any time and destroy her. Pitt’s heart contracted inside him. He could barely breathe. He heard Vespasia’s voice from a long way off, her words indistinct.

“Thomas!”

Time had no meaning.

“Thomas!” The grip tightened on his arm, fingers digging into him. She spoke his name for the third time.

“Yes . . .”

“We must leave here,” she said firmly. “We are beginning to draw attention to ourselves.”

“He knows where Charlotte is!” He turned to look at her. “I’ve got to get her away! I’ve got to—”

“No, my dear.” Her hand held on to him with all her strength. “You have got to stay here and fight Charles Voisey. If you are here then his attention will remain here. Send that young man, Tellman, to take Charlotte and your family somewhere else, as discreetly as possible. Voisey needs to win the election, and he also needs to guard himself against your effort to find out the truth of Francis Wray’s death, and to watch and see what you learn about the man you have named as Cartouche. If Voisey is indeed connected with Maude Lamont’s death, he cannot afford to delegate that to someone else. You already know that he does not trust anyone to hold that power over him of having known the ultimate secret.”

She was right, and when Pitt’s mind cleared again and he faced reality, he knew it also. But there was no time to waste. He must find Tellman immediately and be sure that he would go to Devon. Even as the thoughts were in his mind he put his hand into his pocket to see what money he had. Tellman would need his rail fare to Devon and back again, certainly. And he would need money to move the family also, and to find a new and safer place for them. They could not come back to London yet. He had no idea when that would be. It was impossible to plan that far ahead, or to see how he could even make it safe for them.

Vespasia understood the gesture, and the need. She opened her reticule and took out all the money she had. He was startled how much it was, nearly twenty pounds. With the four pounds, seventeen shillings he had, plus a few odd pennies, it would be enough.

Wordlessly, she passed it to him.

“Thank you,” he accepted. This was no time for pride or burden of gratitude. She must know that he felt it more profoundly than could be conveyed.

“My carriage,” she directed. “We must find Tellman.”

“We?”

“My dear Thomas, you are not leaving me in the Savoy penniless to find my own way home while you go pursuing the cause!”

“Oh, no. Do you . . .”

“No, I do not,” she said decisively. “You may require every penny. Let us proceed. We also should use every minute. Where will he be? What is his most urgent task? We have not time to search half of London for him.”

Pitt disciplined his mind to remember exactly what Tellman had been sent to do. First he would have gone to Bow Street to speak with Wetron. That might have taken no more than an hour, at the most, unless Wetron were not there. Then, since ostensibly his greatest concern was the identity of Cartouche, he would have done something to appear to be following that. Pitt had not mentioned Bishop Underhill to Tellman. It was only a deduction based upon the Bishop’s attacks against Aubrey Serracold.

“Where to?” Vespasia enquired as he handed her up into her carriage and then climbed in after her and sat down.

He must answer with something. Would Tellman have told anyone in Bow Street where he was going? Perhaps not, but it was a chance he should not overlook. “Bow Street,” he replied.

When they got there he excused himself and went straight to the desk sergeant. “Do you know where Inspector Tellman is?” he asked, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“Yes sir,” the man replied immediately. It was clear in his face that he had seen the newspapers and his concern was genuine, and more than that, sympathetic. He had known Pitt many years, and he believed what he knew, not what he read. “’E said as ’e were goin’ ter see some o’ that spirit medium’s other clients. ’E said as if yer was ter come by for any reason an’ ask, sir, as I was ter tell yer where ’e wos.” He regarded Pitt anxiously and produced a list of addresses written on a sheet torn from a notebook.

Pitt gave a prayer of thanks for Tellman’s intelligence, then thanked the desk sergeant so sincerely the man colored with pleasure.

Back in the carriage, weak with mounting relief, he showed the paper to Vespasia and asked her if she would rather be taken home before he began to follow the trail.