Long Spoon Lane: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel

by Anne Perry

  Forty minutes later he was rewarded by seeing Piers Denoon come up the steps again, this time looking clean, shaved, and dressed in fresh clothes. He walked briskly westward towards Cavendish Square. Tellman had to break into a run to catch up with him just as he stepped off the footpath into a hansom cab.

  Tellman swore, and looked around for another. It was late and cold and the square was almost deserted. He sprinted along the footpath towards Regent Street, and was intensely relieved to see another hansom twenty yards away, ambling in the opposite direction. He ran after it. He did not dare call out until he was level with it, in case he drew attention to himself. He scrambled up, telling the driver to turn quickly and follow the first.

  It was a hectic journey. Twice he lost Piers Denoon, but caught up with him eventually. He arrived twenty yards behind him when he alighted halfway along Great Sutton Street in Clerkenwell. Denoon paid the driver and after looking both ways along the footpath, rang the doorbell at number twenty-seven.

  Tellman shouted to his driver to take him to Keppel Street, and found his voice was hoarse and his mouth dry. The sweat was running down his body and chilling, as if the air froze.

  It was just after one o’clock in the morning.

  7

  PITT WOKE TO hear Charlotte speaking urgently to him, her voice low and sharp with alarm.

  “Thomas, there’s someone outside the front door.”

  He struggled to escape the clouds of sleep. The room was dark, he could barely even make out her shadow, it was more a sense of the warmth of her near him. But he could hear the low, insistent knocking on the door below.

  “I’ll go,” he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder and feeling the soft skin for a moment. Then he climbed out of bed and fumbled for the candle and struck a match. The flame burned up at least sufficiently to find his jacket and trousers. He would have to come back up and dress properly if he had to go out. He looked at his pocket watch sitting on the dresser. It was just after quarter past one.

  The knocking had stopped. Whoever it was must have seen the glow through the chink in the curtains and realized they would soon be answered.

  Pitt turned up the gas on the landing lamp then ran downstairs in bare feet and went to the front door. He unlocked it, and pulled it open to find Tellman on the step. In what light there was from the hall, he looked pale and exhausted.

  “Come in,” Pitt said quietly. “What’s happened?”

  Tellman did as he was told and Pitt closed the door. Inside, Tellman looked even worse. His skin was pasty, his lean cheeks covered with faint stubble, and his eyes were hollow.

  “What is it?” Pitt repeated. “Do I have to get dressed, or have we time for a cup of tea?”

  Tellman was shivering slightly. “There’s nowhere to go,” he answered. “At least not now.”

  Without comment, Pitt turned and led the way along the passage to the kitchen. His feet were cold, but at least the wooden floor there would be warmer, and since it was relatively early in the night, he might be able to get the stove back to life without having to rake it all out and start again.

  He lit the gas in the kitchen. “Sit down,” he ordered Tellman. “I’ll go up and tell Charlotte it’s just you, then I’ll make a cup of tea.”

  Tellman obeyed.

  Pitt was back in a few minutes with a shirt and socks on as well. He riddled out the dead ash from the stove, put kindling on top of the warm embers, and watched till they caught. Then he added coal and closed up the front so it would draw. He filled the kettle and put it on the hob. In the basket by the stove the cats Archie and Angus stirred and stretched, rearranged themselves and went back to sleep.

  “What is it?” Pitt asked, sitting down opposite Tellman. It would be several minutes before the water boiled.

  Tellman seemed to relax a little. Perhaps this kitchen where Gracie worked, and where he and Pitt had sat so often, was as much home to him as anywhere since his childhood. However a deep misery haunted his face.

  “I don’t know how long they’ll hold Jones the Pocket.” He chewed his lip. “If it’s as bad as we fear, they could lose the evidence against him. You’d better move quickly.” He looked at Pitt with steady, miserable eyes.

  “What’s the charge?” Pitt asked, curious to know how Tellman had accomplished it. “And the evidence?”

  “Passing forged money,” Tellman replied, the very smallest lift of pride in his voice. “Which he did,” he added. “With a little help. I took a constable along, so someone knows apart from me, but of course I don’t know if I can trust him. He might develop a sudden blindness. Or worse, he might say I put the money there.”

  “Could you have?” Pitt was worried for him.

  “No. I was careful not to go anywhere near his pockets. I held him, and had Stubbs search.”

  “How did the forged money get there?” Pitt asked.

  “I gave it to one of the people he was going to collect from. He owed me a favor and was glad enough to earn a contribution to its repayment.”

  “Good. So what is it?” It was on the edge of Pitt’s tongue to ask why Tellman was here at half past one in the morning, but he looked so wretched he forbore.

  “Wetron called me into his office about it,” Tellman replied quietly, staring at his hands on the kitchen table. “He was bound to hear, but it was quick! I don’t know whether it was Stubbs who reported to him, or Grover from Cannon Street, who was with Jones when I arrested him.” He raised his eyes to Pitt’s. “Wetron crowed a bit, but he told me that the money from the anarchists is raised by Piers Denoon, Magnus Landsborough’s cousin. He said everyone knows that, and Special Branch is pretty poor not to have found out. He’s setting me up to see if I’ll tell you.”

  “Yes…” Pitt agreed. He could hear the kettle begin to hiss. “Of course he is. You—”

  “It’s true,” Tellman cut across him. “I found out for myself. I asked about him, and I got him at home and told him the police knew what he was doing. He went straight to report to his leader.” His face was now almost gray, and behind Pitt the kettle was beginning to whistle.

  Pitt ignored it. “Who?”

  “Simbister.”

  Pitt felt the cold bite into him, and a faint sickness in his stomach. It should not have surprised him. It was what Welling and Carmody had implied. He tried once to evade it. “Of Cannon Street? Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “At his home? Are you certain?”

  “Yes. Are you going to see Jones?” Tellman asked.

  “No. I can’t do it without running the risk that Wetron will hear of it. I doubt he’d tell me anything.”

  Tellman nodded unhappily.

  “Thank you.”

  He stood up to take the kettle off the hob before it woke the rest of the house. “What do you know about Piers Denoon?” he asked, reaching for the tea caddy.

  Quietly, Tellman told him.

  First thing in the morning Pitt sent a message to Voisey, and at noon once again he walked down the steps to the crypt of St. Paul’s, and along the same arched aisle as before. This time he went past Nelson’s tomb to that of the great Duke of Wellington, successful against the Maratha Confederacy in India, commander of the campaign in the Peninsular War, and finally, of course, victor at Waterloo.

  Voisey was standing at the far end of the tomb, moving his weight from one foot to the other. He turned as he heard the sound of Pitt’s steps. A flush of irritation crossed his face at his own predictability. “I assume you have a damned good reason for this!” he said in a low voice as soon as Pitt was beside him. “I was about to have a meeting with the home secretary.”

  “Of course I have,” Pitt replied tersely, glancing at the magnificent tomb. It was solemn and imposing as befitted the greatest military leader in British history, and yet still less ornate or individual than Nelson’s. It spoke of glory and admiration, but not love. “Do you think I would send for you for anything less?”

  Voisey ignored th
e “send for you” with difficulty and it showed on his face. “Well, what is it?” he demanded.

  Pitt was certainly not going to tell him about the arrest of Jones the Pocket, or his plans to take his place. It was dangerous enough as it was, with little he could do to protect himself. Nor was he going to mention Tellman, for the same reasons.

  “The anarchists are getting their funds through Piers Denoon, only son of Edward Denoon,” he told Voisey. “He is an erratic, nervy young man, but apparently brilliant at raising money.” He saw Voisey’s face light with an interest too vivid for him to conceal. “When frightened into believing the police were aware of it,” Pitt continued, “he reported immediately, at one in the morning, to Simbister, head of Cannon Street police.”

  Voisey swore, and let out his breath slowly. This time he did not bother to hide his emotion. His cheeks were flushed, almost hiding the blotchy freckles. “I knew it!” he said between clenched teeth. “The corruption goes all the way! Who told you about Piers Denoon? Wetron?”

  “Indirectly,” Pitt said.

  Very deliberately Voisey glanced at Wellington’s tomb. “Great tactician,” he said, his expression now impossible to read; there was irony in it, amusement, anger. “Do you know about his ‘scorched earth’ policy? I don’t think you would approve of it.” The inflection in his voice suggested that his own opinion was different, and that the disagreement in Pitt was based on some kind of weakness, a failure of courage.

  He looked again at the huge, imposing tomb.

  Pitt was at a disadvantage, as was undoubtedly Voisey’s intention. “I assume this scorched-earth policy has some relevance to Wetron, or Denoon, or you would not bother mentioning it now?”

  “Of course it has, but he’s not a lovable hero, is he!” That was a remark almost thrown away. “I imagine you prefer Nelson. They all adored him. And of course he had the exquisite good taste to die on deck at the height of his greatest victory. Who could question him after that? It seems like blasphemy. Whereas Wellington, stupid sod, had the poor judgment to come home safe and sound, and go on to be prime minister. Unforgivable.”

  Voisey flashed a brief smile. “He won in Vimiero early in the Peninsular War, then the year after chased the French army all the way to Madrid. But when they forced him to retreat, in 1810, he laid waste to the land behind him as he moved on. Ugly, but very effective.”

  “You admire it?” Pitt asked, then realized how he had betrayed his own revulsion.

  Voisey savored the moment. “Do you want to separate the man from the campaign?” he asked with a lift in his voice. “Without Wellington, Napoleon might have won. Almost certainly he would have. He was a genius. Or don’t you think so?” There was a challenge in his voice, undisguised.

  “Of course he was,” Pitt agreed. “A little ill-considered to attack Moscow! A wiser man might have learned from the scorched-earth policy in Spain. Maybe he didn’t appreciate that scorched and frozen are essentially the same when it comes to feeding an army.”

  Voisey’s eyes widened, a flash of humor in them. “You know, Pitt, I could almost forget myself and like you! Just when I think you are utterly predictable, you surprise me.”

  “Very arrogant to think you can predict someone,” Pitt observed. “And arrogance is stupid, sometimes fatally so. We can’t afford that.”

  “One moment you are pedestrian,” Voisey went on as if Pitt had not spoken, but the sharp angle of his body betrayed his tension. “The next acutely perceptive, then complacent to the point of idiocy! Perhaps it comes from being half gamekeeper, half would-be gentleman.”

  Pitt forced himself to smile. The slur on his heritage stung. Why did Voisey feel a need to attack him so sharply that he could not govern it? What was it in Pitt that disturbed him so much that he did not hide it? “Does Wellington’s scorched-earth policy in the Peninsular War have anything at all to do with Wetron and the anarchist bombs, or Simbister and Denoon?” he asked curiously. “Or did you just want to see if I knew as much military history as you did?”

  Quite suddenly Voisey started laughing, openly and with apparently quite genuine humor.

  Pitt had to remind himself that Voisey hated him. Voisey had caused the death of the Reverend Rae, a good and innocent old man, and he had killed Mario Corena himself, even if he had been forced into it. He was behind scores of other acts of greed and destruction. His wit and essential humanity, his power to laugh or to be hurt were irrelevant. His hate was all that mattered, and Pitt must never forget it. If he did, it could cost him all he had.

  “Do you think Wetron is planning to scorch the earth if he’s forced to retreat?” Pitt asked aloud.

  “I think he’ll burn it to a cinder,” Voisey replied. “Don’t you?”

  “Only if he is sure he’s lost. He is a long way from losing now.”

  Voisey was still watching him intently. If anyone else passed by the tombs of the famous, neither of them saw or heard. “I think he’ll be happy to cast Sergeant Tellman into the flames,” Voisey said softly. “And he could most certainly do it.”

  “Of course,” Pitt agreed. “But he won’t destroy a tool he believes he can use.”

  “Against whom?” Voisey raised his eyebrows. “He would hurt you far more by destroying Tellman than anything else he could do.” There was a sharp, satisfied glitter in his eye. “You would miss him, but the guilt for using him, and putting him in the path of such danger, would corrode inside you forever.” He stared at Pitt, trying to read his mind and touch the soft, vulnerable passions inside, to see where the center of pain lay. Was he speaking of Wetron? Or reminding Pitt that he too could do that if he chose?

  Pitt looked away from Voisey and regarded the monument to Wellington. “He was a great soldier,” he remarked almost casually. “I suppose victors have certain things in common. One is that they don’t go chasing personal vanities, petty issues of vengeance or justification, instead of the main cause.” His eyes followed the name on the marble facade. “He would never have left the field of Waterloo to fight a duel with one man, whoever he was. He would have chosen his lieutenants for their ability, not because he liked or disliked them, or for favors owed or expected. He never lost sight of the real goal.” He looked back at Voisey. “That’s a rare quality, the ability to concentrate. I think Wetron has that, don’t you?”

  A flush of fury washed up Voisey’s cheeks. They both knew Wetron had beaten Voisey to take over the leadership of the Inner Circle. It was the last thing he wanted to be reminded of.

  “It isn’t over yet,” he said in a thin, hard voice. “Don’t they say ‘he laughs best who laughs last’? Don’t be arrogant, Pitt.” There was an edge of spite to that, a warning of how thin the veneer of wit or alliance was. “If you imagine because you beat him once that you can do it every time, you’re more of a fool than I took you to be, and you’re no use to me as an ally, except as cannon fodder!” He said the last words with immeasurable contempt.

  “A soldier who won’t face the cannons is not much use to anyone,” Pitt pointed out. “So far the best attack from our side has come through Tellman. It is in both our interests to do what we can to keep him alive. If that means letting Wetron imagine he can feed information both ways, I’ll do that. However, it seems that Piers Denoon is definitely linked to the anarchists, by providing money to them. When he felt threatened, he went straight to Simbister, at one o’clock in the morning. And he was admitted.”

  “The question,” Voisey said slowly, “is how much is Edward Denoon behind the anarchists? And can we prove it? Or for that matter, how much did Sheridan Landsborough know about his son’s activities?”

  “It could be anything, or nothing,” Pitt answered. “And while it is interesting, it doesn’t help us fight against the bill. All it will tell us, at best, is which side they ally with. So far we know from his newspaper that Denoon is for the bill, and Landsborough has said nothing at all.”

  “What will he say?” Voisey asked softly.

  “I
don’t know. He’s lost his only son. I daresay he doesn’t know either. But this new side of the bill may be a step too far. It could be a blackmailer’s charter.”

  “The right to question servants without the master knowing?” Voisey said bitterly, his face tight with anger. “Of course it’s a blackmailer’s charter, for God’s sake! Wetron could have the leaders of the nation in his hands. Is there any man in England whose valet doesn’t know something about him that he would rather were not repeated? Even if it is only that he wears a corset to hold his belly in, or that his wife would rather sleep with the footman—although with luck she has more sense than actually to do it.”

  “Probably not,” Pitt agreed. “But that is its weakness, not its strength. It means that no one will feel secure enough to vote for it.”

  Voisey closed his eyes. “You are beautifully naive! At least it would be beautiful, if it weren’t so damn dangerous.” His eyes opened wide. “They won’t phrase it like that, you fool! There’ll be all kinds of promises that it won’t apply to the innocent. They’ll swear it will only be used on those suspected of anarchist conspiracies. Every man in Parliament will know that he is either guiltless in that, or else he is already allied with Wetron, and imagines that protects him. And if he is in the Inner Circle, he is probably right. ‘The guilty flee where no man pursueth,’” he quoted. “And all too often the innocent stand rooted to the spot imagining their innocence will save them. Until it is too late to run.”

  “Surely you have the skill, and either have or can acquire the knowledge to suggest to a few of your more articulate friends that there are issues in their private lives they would prefer no servant were pressured to speak of?” Pitt asked.

  Voisey stood still for several seconds, a wry slow smile curving his lips. “Why, Pitt! You have quite a flair for blackmail yourself! How very interesting. I confess, I never suspected it of you.”