Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 24]

by Long Spoon Lane

  But Edward Denoon was different. He was powerful and unique, the strongest public supporter of the bill, with a newspaper read by most of the men of influence in the south of England.

  Who could threaten Denoon? Enemies of the bill. Voisey was obvious. And what would please Wetron more than to catch Voisey in a criminal act?

  Tellman got to his feet. He must find Pitt or Narraway, someone to help make it believable. Wetron had to accept the plan and feel compelled to help implement it himself.

  It worked. At least it seemed to. The weather was mild, a light wind rustling the leaves of the trees, the smell of chimney smoke in the air. A little after midnight Tellman stood by a hansom cab. It was drawn up twenty yards from Denoon’s house, and to a casual glance he was a driver waiting for a fare. Wetron was on the footpath talking to one of his men, as if they were two gentlemen having a late-night stroll and conversation. They had been waiting for over an hour, and were growing restive.

  Tellman kept glancing across at Denoon’s house, hoping for a sign that Pitt was keeping his word. He could not hope to coerce Wetron to remain much longer. And trying to explain this tomorrow morning could be uncomfortable, to say the very least.

  A dog started barking. Wetron stiffened. By the horse’s head, Tellman hoped profoundly that something was about to happen.

  Seconds went by. The horse stamped and let out its breath noisily.

  Wetron spun around as a figure crept along the far side of the street, silent as a shadow, and disappeared down the areaway steps of Denoon’s house. Five seconds went by, ten, then Wetron gave the signal to move.

  “Not yet!” Tellman said sharply, his voice high and tight in his throat. Had he overplayed his hand, telling Wetron that Voisey meant to have Denoon killed? Now he was terrified it was Pitt in the shadows and Wetron would arrest him.

  “We can’t wait,” Wetron argued furiously. “He might break in and set a bomb. We’ve only got minutes, maybe less. Come on!” He set off across the street, his footsteps sharp on the stones, the constable close behind him.

  Tellman abandoned the horse and chased the constable, catching up with him in four strides. “Go that way!” he hissed, pointing to the farther side of Denoon’s house. “If he went right around the back he’ll come out there.”

  The constable hesitated, his face startled and undecided in the ghostly light from the streetlamps.

  “We’ve got to get him,” Tellman insisted urgently. “If he’s put a bomb there, we have to know where it is.”

  “He won’t tell us!”

  “He bloody will if we take him back into the house!” Tellman swore. “Go now!” He gave the man a slight push.

  The constable saw it with a sudden blaze of understanding, and sprinted across the street to the far end of Denoon’s house.

  Tellman caught up with Wetron, who was at the entrance to the areaway and starting to go down the steps. Tellman went down after him.

  “There’s no one here!” Wetron spat. “He must be inside already, and closed the door behind him. We’re too slow, Tellman.”

  Pitt could never have picked a lock in those few moments, so he could not be inside. He must have gone on around the house. “Then we’ll catch him inside, sir,” he said aloud. “He can’t have set a bomb already. He’ll be red-handed. It’ll be the most powerful argument anyone could make for the sake of the bill in Parliament. It’s the worst outrage yet, far worse than Scarborough Street.”

  Wetron stared at him, his face for a moment gleaming with anticipation. Then it darkened, caution reasserting itself. They stood less than a yard from each other, the reflected streetlamp on the scullery windows making them seem even closer. Tellman felt his body shake as if his heartbeat were violent enough to choke him. Had Wetron seen through his trick? Was he even now having someone arrest Pricey in the act?

  Had he allowed Tellman to bring him here in a double bluff?

  “Yes, sir,” Tellman said hoarsely. “Do you want to go in here, or the front door?”

  “Front door,” Wetron answered. “We’ll take all night to rouse anyone here.” And he pushed past Tellman and went up the steps, almost stumbling in the shadows.

  The constable was in the lee of the house at the far end, almost invisible. If this was where Pitt emerged from the back, he might get caught, but there was no way to warn him. Tellman’s whole body ached with tension, fear knotting his stomach, making him gulp for breath.

  Wetron reached the front door and yanked the bell pull, waited a few moments, then yanked it again.

  It was nearly five minutes before anyone came, by which time he was pale with rage.

  “Yes, sir?” the footman said coldly.

  “Superintendent Wetron,” Wetron told him. “You have an intruder in the house who may have come to set a bomb. Go and call all the staff immediately, lock the doors, tell the women to stay together in the housekeeper’s room. Immediately, man! Don’t stand there like a fool! You could all be blown to smithereens.”

  The man went sheet-white, staring as if he barely comprehended the meaning of the words.

  Wetron pushed past him, Tellman immediately behind him. The hall was large and the gas lamps were all out except for the one the footman had probably lit in order to find his way to answer the door. Tellman could barely see where he was going and cracked his shins against a low, oriental table as he went to turn up the main lamps.

  Wetron turned around slowly, staring for any trace of disturbance. Everything was exactly as one would expect to find it: Chinese embroidered silk screen, pot of ornamental bamboo, long-case clock, chairs. Nothing moved. There was no sound anywhere. Tellman strained his ears, but heard not even the creak of wood settling. He prayed that Pitt was over the wall at the back, and far away by now.

  “Wake everyone!” Wetron ordered in a low, tense voice, speaking to the footman. “But lock the front door first. If this man has set a bomb, I’m going to make sure he stays here with us!”

  “Yes, s-sir,” the footman stammered, moving jerkily to obey.

  Wetron turned to Tellman. “You start over there!” he pointed to one of the large mahogany doors with a carved lintel. “Put all the lights on. We’re going to flush this man out.”

  “Gas, sir,” Tellman said, trying to sound afraid. “If there’s a blast…” He left the appalling thought unsaid.

  “If there’s a blast, Sergeant, the gas already in the pipes will be enough to blow us all to Kingdom Come,” Wetron replied. “Get in and find that man, before he can light a fuse to anything.”

  The next two hours were among the best and worst Tellman had ever spent. They woke all the servants, and of course Edward and Enid Denoon. Piers Denoon came blinking out of his bedroom, confused and obviously more than a little drunk. He seemed barely able to understand when Wetron told him that someone had broken into the house to plant dynamite.

  Everyone was frightened. Several of the younger maids were in tears, the cook was outraged, even the male servants were visibly alarmed. The butler was so jittery, he knocked over a vase of flowers that fell with a crash of splintered china that sounded like a shot. That set off the thirteen-yearold between-stairs maid screaming until she was sick.

  No intruder was found, nor any explosive device of any sort. By three o’clock in the morning, Wetron, white with fury and completely baffled, withdrew from the house, leaving Tellman and the constable on guard outside. He had some satisfaction climbing into the hansom as the rain started, and watching them begin to shiver with cold and exhaustion as he drew away, but it did not begin to compare with his embarrassment.

  When Tellman at last returned to his lodgings, he was so cold he could not feel his hands and feet. Light rain had made the footpaths slick and the gutters gleamed wet and black. He found Pricey waiting for him. He looked warm, pleased with himself, and only his shoulders and the top of his hat were damp.

  “I followed you,” he explained, seeing Tellman’s sodden appearance and dour expression. “You don’ lo
ok ’appy, Mr. Tellman. Didn’t catch anybody?”

  “I was busy making sure you weren’t caught!” Tellman said sharply. “Did you find anything?”

  “Oh yes, oh yes indeed.” Pricey rubbed his hands together. “A very valuable piece of information it is. Nice ’ouse, you might say. Bit new fer my taste. Like old stuff, got a bit of a story ter it.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Statements, Mr. Tellman. Confession ter rape of a young woman. Not a good girl, but not a bad one neither. All got a bit out of ’and like. Witnesses all tied up proper. Would ’a made a nasty scandal, that. But nobody did nuffin’. ’Ushed up, it were.”

  “By whom?”

  “That yer ’ave ter pay fer, Mr. Tellman. ’Oo done it, an’ ’oo knows ’e done it, an’ kept it ter their selves.”

  Tellman was shivering. “Come inside,” he ordered, and turned to the door. Upstairs in his room, he went to the drawer where he kept all the money he could spare. “That’s it, Pricey.” He held out ten gold coins. He hated to part with it; had there been any other way he would not have. But if what Pricey had found could finish Wetron, it was a small cost to pay. “Now let me see it first.”

  “Ten pounds, eh?” Pricey looked at it with enthusiasm. “That yer own money, then, Mr. Tellman? Yer must want it real bad.”

  “You’ll need a friend one day, Pricey, even if it’s me not coming after you when I’ve a fair idea who’s behind something. I’m a better friend than enemy, I can promise you.”

  “Are yer threatenin’ me, Mr. Tellman?” Pricey said indignantly.

  “This is too important for games,” Tellman answered gravely. “I can get this easy, or hard. Friends or enemies, Pricey?”

  Pricey shrugged. “I guess ten nicker clean is more’n twenty wi’ dirt in it. ’Ere y’are.” He handed over the papers. “ ’Oo’s ’ouse was it, then? Tell me that, eh?”

  “You don’t want to know that, Pricey. It’ll give you bad dreams.” Tellman looked at the papers Pricey had given him and unfolded them carefully. The top one was a witness’s account of a girl flirting with, and then being raped by a young man too drunk and too arrogant to believe that anyone as ordinary as he thought she was could refuse him. It was a stupid, violent, and ugly scene.

  The second paper was a confession to the rape, in detail, which made it obvious it was the crime described in the first paper. It was signed by Piers Denoon, and witnessed by Roger Simbister, superintendent at Cannon Street Police Station.

  “Thank you, Pricey,” Tellman said sincerely. “I’m warning you, for your own sake, you’d be better never to mention this to anyone at all, drunk or sober.”

  “I can keep a still tongue in me ’ead, Mr. Tellman.”

  “You’d better, Pricey. You stole this from Superintendent Wetron’s home. Remember that, and remember what it would be likely to cost you if he ever found out.”

  “Gawd Almighty! Wot yer let me in fer, Mr. Tellman?” Pricey looked distinctly pale.

  “Ten pounds, Pricey, and my gratitude. Now leave here, and go about your business. You were asleep in bed last night, and you know nothing about anything.”

  “On my life, I don’t!” Pricey swore. “Don’t take it personal, but I think mebbe I don’t never want ter see yer agin!”

  Pitt held it in his hand with a sense of blinding realization. He was in his own kitchen, where he had been all night since getting home from Denoon’s house. He had spent half the time at least pacing the floor back and forth, worried sick about Tellman.

  “Piers Denoon,” he said slowly. “Wetron almost certainly blackmailed him into providing funds for the anarchists, and reporting back to him all their doings. He couldn’t get Magnus Landsborough to bomb streets where people would be killed, so he got Piers to kill him, so a new man could take over, someone who would do as Wetron told him.” He looked up. “Thank you, Tellman. You’ve done superbly.”

  Tellman felt himself blush. Pitt did not give this much praise lightly, and in spite of a desire to be modest, he knew that he had indeed done well. He had been profoundly afraid. He was still queasy when he thought of Wetron spending all night chasing a phantom bomber, getting Edward Denoon and his entire household out of bed, for nothing. It was a pleasure for which he might yet pay very dearly. He had not told Pitt how it had been. Perhaps he should, while the pleasure of it was still unalloyed?

  Pitt saw him smiling. “What is it?” he said softly, although the humor in his eyes suggested he knew.

  Eventually and with too few words, Tellman described the night’s events.

  Pitt laughed. At first it was tense, a little high-pitched with nerves, then, as Tellman continued, with dour economy picturing the between-stairs maid’s screams, the cook’s fury, and the butler’s jittering clumsiness, Pitt started to laugh from deep inside himself. He did so freely and with such delight that neither of them were aware of making so much noise that they did not hear Gracie come to the doorway, her hair tied up in a clean cap and her apron on already to clean out the stove.

  They both apologized, like boys caught with their fingers in the jam pot, and sat obediently while she relit the stove and boiled the kettle to make tea.

  It was nearly half past eight when Tellman finally left to go to work, hollow-eyed with tiredness, but with a good breakfast inside him. Pitt pondered on how much to tell Charlotte, and what to do next with the day. One thing he had already decided, the proof must be taken immediately to Narraway. He would not let it remain in his house where his wife and children were for even one more hour. Then he would go to see Vespasia. There was much to ask her, some of it acutely painful.

  “Brilliant,” Narraway said with deep satisfaction as he looked up at Pitt after reading the papers. He was elegantly dressed, but his face was pale. “You did superbly. But now Wetron will be more dangerous than ever. He will know that Tellman caused these to be stolen, and he will not have found last night’s embarrassment amusing. He will never forgive either of you for that.”

  “I know,” Pitt acknowledged. He was afraid for Charlotte now, not from any threat from Voisey, but from Wetron. He was even more afraid for Tellman, who had caused Wetron’s discomfiture at Denoon’s house. The fact that he had also witnessed it would be like pouring oil on the flames. “We must destroy him quickly…” He felt the urgency twisting inside him. “Can’t we have him arrested today?”

  Narraway’s dark face was tight with emotion. “I’ll send one of my other men to your house, armed, just in case. There’s nothing I can do to protect Tellman. I assume Piers Denoon was the one who killed Magnus?” His mouth tightened. “His own cousin. I wonder if he hated him anyway, or if that was a further twist of the blackmail. This rape evidence connects Piers with Simbister, and Simbister with Wetron, but we need it all inextricably tied to the bombings before we arrest anyone. Or to put it more accurately, have the police arrest each other!”

  “This is enough,” Pitt insisted. “It damns both of them and Piers Denoon. It makes perfect sense.” Tellman’s danger weighed on his mind. Wetron would want him crucified! He would know the papers were gone by now, and he had to know Tellman was responsible, even though he had paid someone else to perform the actual theft. “Simbister owned the Josephine, where the dynamite was. Grover works for him. The circle of proof is complete.”

  Narraway looked tired and impatient. “This is a dangerous job, Pitt!” He said abrasively. “Ever hunted big game?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Narraway’s smile was sour. “There are some beasts you only get one shot at. You have to make sure that shot is fatal. Do no more than wound it, and it will turn and crush you, tear you apart, even if it dies afterwards. Wetron is an animal like that.”

  “You’ve been big-game hunting?”

  Narraway looked straight back at him. “Only for the most dangerous creature of all—man. I have nothing against animals, and no desire to put their heads on my walls.”

  Pitt liked him better for that.


  “Yes, sir!”

  He called on Vespasia briefly, only long enough to tell her about the night’s doings. She responded with a mixture of laughter and grief, and a deep and troubling fear that there might be further tragedy yet to happen. However, she would not tell him of what nature she thought it, nor whom it would involve, although he felt certain she knew.

  He left her house and went to St. Paul’s where, at noon, he met Voisey at the tomb of the great Elizabethan and Jacobean clergyman, lawyer, philosopher, adventurer, and poet, John Donne. For once Voisey had little to say about him. A glance at Pitt’s exhausted face, the haste of his step, and the fact that he was ten minutes early, took from him all desire to show off beyond the first remark.

  “He entered Oxford University at the age of eleven. Did you know that?” he said wryly. “You look awful. Did you go back to the bombing?”

  “No,” Pitt said quietly, keeping his voice low so an elderly couple, also paying a passing reverence to Donne, could not hear him. “I was up most of the night, creating a diversion while a certain burglar took from Wetron’s house a piece of crucial evidence, as you suggested.”

  Voisey’s face lit up, his eyes bright. And wide open. “What?”

  The eagerness in him had been so intense the elderly couple turned in surprise. The man had been in the middle of quoting perhaps Donne’s most famous words: “therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls…”

  “It tolls for thee.” The line finished in Pitt’s mind. “Exactly where you expected,” he said in little more than a whisper.

  “For God’s sake!” Voisey snarled. “Who?”

  “Piers Denoon. An old charge of rape.”

  Voisey let his breath out in a sigh as if a long-held knot had at last unloosed itself. “Is it enough?”

  “Almost. We need to be able to prove all the connections. We have the dynamite to Grover, Grover to Simbister, through that confession of Denoon’s, Simbister to Wetron, but Wetron could still deny it. He could say he had only just found that, and intended to act on it when he was certain. It would destroy Simbister, and Wetron would merely replace him with someone else.”