by Anne Perry
Pitt swore in weariness and exasperation.
The valet stared at him. He was too well trained for anything a man did to shake his composure, unless of course it was another servant, which was entirely a different matter.
“And his cigar case, where is that?” Pitt demanded.
“In ’is dresser, sir, as it ought. I took all ’is things out of ’is pockets, natural.”
“May I see the cigar case?”
The valet’s eyebrows rose. “Yes sir. O’ course you may.” He kept his voice civil, but his belief was plain that Pitt was eccentric at the very least. He went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. He took out a silver cigar case and passed it across.
Pitt opened it with shaking fingers. It was empty. It was foolish, but he was bitterly disappointed.
“What did you take out of this?” he said in a low, tight voice.
“Nothing, sir.” The man was aggrieved.
“Not the best cigars—to smoke yourself?” Pitt pressed, although if he had, it would disprove his theory. “Not a butt?”
“No sir. There weren’t nothing in it! I swear by God it was just like it is now. Empty.”
“The judge smoked half a cigar at the theater that night, and put the other half back in his pocket. What happened to it?”
“Oh, that.” Relief flooded the man’s face. “I threw it out, sir. Couldn’t bury the poor man with a cigar butt in his pocket. Messy thing, it was.”
“Messy? Coming to pieces?” Pitt asked.
“Yes sir.”
“And that suit is still on Mr. Stafford?”
“Yes sir.” The valet stared at him with growing alarm.
“Thank you. That’s all.” And without waiting any further he went downstairs, bade the footman in the hall thank Mrs. Stafford, and took his leave.
“You what?” Drummond demanded incredulously, his face dark.
“I want to exhume the body of Samuel Stafford,” Pitt repeated as calmly as he could, but still his voice shook. “I have to.”
“For the love of God—why? You know what he died of!” Drummond was appalled. He leaned across his desk, staring at Pitt in consternation. “Whatever purpose can it serve, apart from distressing everyone?” he demanded. “We’ve got enough public anger and blame over this already. Don’t make it immeasurably worse, Pitt.”
“It’s the only chance I have of solving it.”
“Chance?” Drummond’s voice rose in exasperation. “Chance is not sufficient. You must be sure, if I am going to ask the Home Office for permission to dig him up. Explain to me exactly what you will achieve.”
Still standing in front of the desk like a schoolboy, Pitt explained.
“On the cigar?” Drummond said with slowly widening eyes. “As well as in the flask? But why? That’s absurd.”
“Not as well as, sir,” Pitt said patiently. “Instead of. That would explain why the whiskey in the flask didn’t have any effect on the other man who drank it.”
“Aren’t you forgetting we found opium in the flask?” Drummond asked with only a slight edge of sarcasm. He was too worried to give it full rein. “And all this on the word of Oscar Wilde, of all people? I know you’re desperate, Pitt, but I think this is taking it too far. It isn’t sense. I don’t think I could get you an exhumation order on the evidence, even if I wanted to.”
“But if the opium was on the cigar butt, not the flask, it changes everything,” Pitt argued desperately. “Then there is only one conclusion.”
“It was in the flask, Pitt! The medical examiner found it there. That is a fact. And anyway, the cigar butt was thrown out, you told me that.”
“I know, but if it was in his pocket for several hours, and crumbling, as the valet said, there may be enough there for traces of opium to be found.”
Doubt clouded Drummond’s eyes.
“It’s the only explanation we’ve got,” Pitt said again. “There’s nothing else to pursue. Are you prepared to close the case unsolved? Someone killed Judge Stafford …”
Drummond took a deep breath. “And poor Paterson,” he added very softly. “I feel very badly about that. I don’t know whether the Home Office will grant it, but I’ll try. You’d better be right.”
Pitt said nothing, except to thank him. He had no certainty to reassure either of them.
Until Micah Drummond should tell him whether he had succeeded or not, there was nothing further for Pitt to do regarding the exhumation. But one thing was quite clear in his mind. The solution to Paterson’s death would not be answered by finding opium in Stafford’s pocket. That was still as big a mystery as it had been the very first morning when they found the body. Only one thing was beyond question. Harrimore had not killed him.
Without forming a conscious decision, Pitt found himself outside on the pavement in Bow Street looking for a hansom. When he stopped one, he gave the address of Paterson’s lodgings in Battersea, and sat uncomfortably as the vehicle lurched forward and clattered along the street.
When they arrived he climbed out, paid the driver and went to the door. It was opened by the same pale, grim woman as before. Her face darkened as soon as she recognized Pitt, and she made as if to close it.
He put his foot against the lintel. “I want to see Constable Paterson’s rooms again, if you please,” he asked.
“They ain’t Constable Paterson’s rooms,” she said coldly. “They’re mine, an’ I let ’em to a Mr. ’Obbs. I can’t go openin’ ’em up an’ disturbin’ ’im, for any ol’ p’lice as comes ’ere.”
“Why would you want to stop me from finding out who murdered Paterson?” he asked with a hard edge to his voice. “It would be most unpleasant for you if I were obliged to have police watching the house day and night, and question all your lodgers again. I’m surprised you don’t think it altogether a better thing to let me come in and look at one room.”
“Or’right,” she snapped. “Bleedin’ rozzers. I s’pose there in’t nuffin’ I can do ter stop yer. Bastard!”
He ignored her and went up the stairs to the door of what had been Paterson’s rooms, and were now presumably those of Mr. Hobbs. He knocked loudly.
There were several seconds of silence, then a scuffling of shoes on the far side, and the door opened about six inches. A face appeared a foot or so below him, pale, surrounded by gray whiskers. Anxious blue eyes looked up.
“Mr. Hobbs?” Pitt asked.
“Y-Yes, y-yes, that’s me. What can I do for you, sir?”
“I am Inspector Pitt of the metropolitan police …”
“Oh—oh dear!” Hobbs was filled with alarm. “I assure you, I know of no crime, sir, none at all! I am sure I regret, but I can offer you no assistance whatever.”
“On the contrary, Mr. Hobbs, you can allow me inside to look at your rooms, which as you are no doubt aware were the scene of a tragedy.”
“Oh, no sir, you are mistaken,” Hobbs said in considerable agitation. “That was next door, I assure you! Yes, yes, next door.”
“No, Mr. Hobbs, it was here.”
“Oh! But you must be mistaken. The landlady assured me …”
“Possibly. But I was among those who found the body. I remember quite clearly.” He felt sorry for the man’s distress. “It seems you have been lied to, possibly in order to secure your tenancy. But they are very agreeable rooms. I wouldn’t let it dissuade you.”
“But really—murder, sir. This is dreadful!” Hobbs moved from one foot to the other.
“May I come in?”
“Well—yes, I suppose so, if you must. I am a law-abiding man, sir. I have no right to stop you.”
“Yes, you have, until I obtain a warrant, but I shall certainly do so, if you make it necessary.”
“No! No, not at all. Please.” And he opened the door so far back it knocked against the stop and shuddered forward again.
Pitt went in, remembering sharply and with a peculiar jolt of sadness his first time here, Livesey sitting in the chair looking sick, and the
body of young Paterson still hanging by its rope in the bedroom.
“Thank you, Mr. Hobbs. If you don’t mind, it is the bedroom I wish to see.”
“The bedroom. Oh, my sainted aunt! The bedroom!” Hobbs’s hand flew to his face. “Oh dear—you don’t mean—not in the bedroom? The poor soul! I shall have to have the bed moved. I can’t sleep there now.”
“Why not? It is no different from last night,” Pitt said with less sympathy than he might have felt were there not so many other problems boiling in his mind.
“Oh, my dear sir—you jest at my expense.” Hobbs followed him anxiously to the bedroom door. “Or you are totally without sensitivity.”
Pitt had no time to be concerned about him. He knew he was being abrupt, but his mind was turning over every possibility, new ideas forming painfully. He looked at the room. It had not changed from his first visit except that of course the dreadful corpse of Paterson was no longer there, and the chandelier had been hung up again. Other than that it appeared totally untouched.
“What are you looking for?” Hobbs demanded from the doorway. “What is it? What do you think is here?”
Pitt stood motionless in the center of the floor, then began to turn very slowly, looking first at the bed, then the window.
“I’m not sure,” he replied absently. “I won’t know unless I see it—perhaps …”
Hobbs let out a gasp and fell silent.
Pitt turned towards the chest of drawers. It looked vaguely out of place, and yet he was sure it had been precisely there the first time.
“Have you moved that?” He looked around at Hobbs.
“The chest?” Hobbs was startled. “No sir. Most definitely not. I have moved nothing at all. Why should I?”
Pitt walked over to it. The picture on the wall was too close to it. But the picture had not been moved. He lifted it to make sure. There was no mark on the paper behind it, no pinhole. He ran his fingers over it to make doubly sure.
“What are you looking for, sir?” Hobbs said angrily, alarm making his voice rise in both pitch and volume.
Pitt bent down and looked very carefully at the floorboards, and at last he saw it, a very slight indentation about six inches from the front foot of the chest of drawers. There was a second indentation six inches from the back foot. That was where it had been accustomed to stand! It had been moved. And when he took off the cloth and looked at the polished surface there were scratch marks such as if someone had stood on it wearing boots, and slipped a little, losing his footing. He felt a little sick.
“You are sure you haven’t moved this?” He swung around to stare at Hobbs.
“I’ve told you, sir, I have not moved it,” Hobbs said furiously. “It is exactly where it was when I came here. Do you wish me to take my oath upon it? I will.”
Pitt rose to his feet. “No, thank you, I don’t think it will be necessary, but if it is, I shall call upon you to do so.”
“Why? What does it mean?” Hobbs was pale with agitation and mounting fear.
“It means, I think, that Constable Paterson moved this piece of furniture out of its place in order to climb up and take down the chandelier, then place his noose over the hook, and jump,” Pitt answered him.
“You mean his—murderer!” Hobbs gasped.
“No, Mr. Hobbs,” Pitt corrected. “I mean Paterson himself, when he realized what he had done to Aaron Godman; when he realized how he had allowed his horror and his rage at the time to blind him not only to the truth but to both honor and justice. He not only reached the wrong conclusion, he reached it by dishonest means. He did not listen to the flower seller; he made up his mind what had happened and coerced her into believing it. He was so sure he was right he forced the issue—and he was wrong.”
“Stop it,” Hobbs said in anguish. “I don’t want to hear it. It is quite terrible! I know what you are talking about—that murder in Farriers’ Lane. I remember when they hanged Godman. If what you are saying is true, then what hope is there for any of us? It can’t be! Godman was tried and found guilty, the judges all said so. You must be wrong.” He was wringing his hands in consternation. “They haven’t convicted Harrimore yet—and they won’t. You’ll see. British justice is the best in the world. I know that, even if you don’t.”
“I don’t know whether it is or not,” Pitt said evenly. “It doesn’t really matter.”
“How can you say that?” Hobbs was beside himself, his face white but for two hectic spots of color high in his cheeks. “That is monstrous. What matters on earth, if that doesn’t?”
“It doesn’t matter whether other people’s justice is better or worse,” Pitt explained with an effort at patience. “It matters that in this case we were wrong. You may find it painful. So will many others. That won’t change it. The only choice we have now is whether we will lie about it still and try to conceal it, condoning the act, becoming party to Godman’s death, or if we will uncover it and make damnably sure it doesn’t happen again—at least not easily. Which would you rather, Mr. Hobbs?”
“I—I, er …” Hobbs fell silent, staring at Pitt as if he had changed shape in front of him into something hideous. But he had neither spirit nor conviction to argue. Something in him knew Pitt was right.
Pitt said nothing more. He tipped his hat very slightly and went out past Hobbs, thanking him, and left.
“I haven’t got your exhumation order yet,” Drummond said quickly as soon as Pitt came into the office. “I’m still trying.”
Pitt threw himself down in the chair by the fire without waiting to be asked.
“Paterson committed suicide,” he said.
“You told me he couldn’t have,” Drummond replied. “And anyway, why on earth should he?”
“Wouldn’t it cross your mind, if you realized you had manufactured evidence that had hanged an innocent man?” Pitt demanded. He sank farther into the chair. “Paterson wasn’t a bad man. The Farriers’ Lane murder sickened him. He let his emotions govern his behavior. He was outraged, and frightened. He needed to find whoever was guilty, not just for the law but for himself, because he could not live with the idea that whoever it was was beyond the law to catch.”
“Not a weakness I fail to understand,” Drummond said quietly, standing looking down at Pitt. “I think a few of us suffer from that. It frightens me to think that such crimes can happen at all. We need to believe we can find the killers and prove their guilt. We need to believe in our own superiority, because the alternative is too dreadful.” He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. “Poor Paterson.”
Pitt said nothing. His mind was darkened by pity for him, imagining what he must have thought that last day of his life as he stood in his bedroom, bitterly alone, facing the ultimate failure. It was a knowledge he could never have denied, but he took a perverse satisfaction in turning the knife in himself, simply because it was truth, it was not escape, and he was sickened by escape. “He tore off his own stripes,” he said aloud. “It was a mark of dishonor, his own way of confessing.”
Drummond was silent for a long time.
“I still don’t see how you can be right,” he said at last, breaking into Pitt’s thoughts. “You said there was no way Paterson could have done it himself. There was nothing near for him to have climbed on. What are you saying happened?”
“That it was tidied up in order to look like murder,” Pitt replied quietly.
“For heaven’s sake, why? And by whom?”
“By Livesey, of course, when he found him, before he called us.”
“Livesey!” Drummond’s voice was high with disbelief. “Why? Why should he care if poor Paterson was condemned as a suicide? He may have pitied the man, but he is an appeal court judge. He wouldn’t tamper with evidence.”
Pitt rose to his feet. “Nothing to do with pity. That was before we knew Godman was innocent. Tell me when you have that exhumation order.”
“I don’t even know if I can get it. Pitt! Where are you going?”
“Home
,” Pitt said from the doorway. “There’s nothing more I can do now. I’d like to go home to something clean and innocent before I dig up Stafford. I shall go and tell my children some fairy story before they go to bed, something about good and evil, where it all ends happily.”
The exhumation order was granted late in the evening, but Micah Drummond kept it till the early morning, and collected Pitt at seven o’clock in the drizzling darkness before dawn. The streets were wet, lamplight gleaming on the pavements and the splash and hiss of wheels in the water mingled with the clatter of hooves and slam of doors.
There was nothing to say. They sat together huddled up in greatcoats in the back of the cab and journeyed through the streets to the graveyard where they got out still in silence. Side by side they walked through the squelching mud over to the little group of men in rough clothes leaning on their spades. There was already a deep hole in the cold earth, bull’s-eye lanterns glowing like angry flares, showing the dark soil where it was turned. Pitt could smell the wet earth and feel the rain running down the back of his neck. Two lengths of rope were in place.
“ ’Allo, Guv,” one of the men said to Drummond. “You want that there coffin lifted now?”
“Yes, please,” Drummond replied.
Pitt stood beside him, chilled through, the wind in his face. The lamp was held high, light gleaming on the wet handles of the spades.
Slowly the men hauled on the ropes and the coffin rose into sight, handles shining where they had been wiped by a rough hand. One man leaned forward and brushed the loose earth off the top, smearing it in the rain. With difficulty they pulled it sideways out of the hole and set it on the ground. One of the men slipped in the mud and sent a shower of pebbles rattling down into the hole. Someone swore and crossed himself.
“Open it,” Drummond ordered.
The man took a screwdriver out of his coat pocket and obeyed. One of the others held the lantern higher. It took him several moments before finally he had all the screws removed and he could lift the lid. He looked away as he did it, his face pale. One of the others shuddered and said a few words of prayer.
“Thank you.” Pitt stepped forward. He had requested this. He must be the one to look.
