by Anne Perry
The door was opened by a small woman in a gray stuff dress and a plain white apron. Her thick reddish hair was tied back in a knot and there was a white cap balanced precariously, and crookedly, on top of her head. She reminded him of the woman who came to do the heavy scrubbing for Charlotte, and whom Gracie bossed around mercilessly, now that she considered herself a senior servant.
“Yes?” the woman said impatiently. Obviously he had interrupted her in her work and she did not appreciate it.
“Good morning,” he said quickly. “I am conducting a police investigation and I need to examine some papers of Inspector Urban’s. My name is Pitt. May I come in?”
She looked doubtful. “ ’Ow do I know you’re tellin’ me the truth? You could be anyone.”
“I could,” he agreed, and produced his police identification.
She looked at the card carefully. Her eyes did not move along the line, and Pitt guessed she could not read. She looked up at him again, studying his face, and he waited for her to make her judgment.
“All right,” she said at last. “If it’s police yer’d better come in. But ’E in’t done nuffink wrong.”
“It’s information I need,” he said, somewhat begging the question, and followed her into the narrow hallway where she opened one of the doors into the front parlor. “That’s where ’E keeps ’is papers,” she said stiffly. “Anyfink yer wantin’ll be in there. If it in’t, then it in’t ’ere at all.” It was a definite statement he was not going to be allowed anywhere else.
“Thank you,” he accepted. She remained standing rooted to the spot, her eyes hard and bright. Obviously she was not going to leave him alone, policeman or not. He smiled to himself, then began to look around. It was not a large room, and the space was further crowded by at least a dozen paintings on the walls. They were not at all what he would have expected, family portraits, sentimental pastoral scenes or sporting prints. Rather they were very modern impressions of sunlit landscapes: bars of light, blurs of water lilies all blues and greens with flashes of pink; a dazzle of shades and points of vivid color which conjured peasant women lying under the trees by the side of a cornfield. They were highly individual experiments in art, the selection of a man who had very definite opinions and was prepared to spend a good deal of money investing in what he believed to be good. There was no need to look any further for the part of Urban’s lifestyle that would run him into debt. It was here on his walls for any caller to observe.
He stayed a few minutes longer, examining the pictures more closely, seeing the brushwork, the imagination and the skill that had gone into them. Then he went over to the desk and opened it in order to satisfy the waiting housekeeper that he was indeed looking for information of a sort she could understand. He shuffled through a couple of papers, read one, and closed the drawer. Then he swung around to face her. She looked faintly surprised that he should be finished so soon.
“You all done then?” she said with a frown.
“Yes thank you. It was only a small thing, and easily found.”
“Oh—well then you’d best be gone. I got work to do. Mr. Urban’s not the only gennelman as I see after. Mind my step as you go out. Don’t go dragging your feet over it. I just done that, I did.”
Pitt stepped over it carefully and went on down the path and out of the gate. The beauty of the pictures, the courage to back such individual and daring taste should have pleased him. Ordinarily it would have; but this time, knowing Urban’s salary, and that he was lying over something, he found it deeply depressing. Was Urban so wooed by loveliness, so caught by the collector’s fever, that he had borrowed from Weems, and then realized he could never hope to repay? Or was there something even uglier: had he obtained the money in some other way, dishonest, even corrupt, and Weems had learned of it and blackmailed him?
Pitt lengthened his stride along the hot, dusty street, passing an errand boy whistling between his teeth, swinging a bag, then two old women standing in the middle of the footpath, heads together, gossiping. At the end of the street he came into the main thoroughfare and stood waiting for the omnibus, his mind moving from one unhappy thought to another.
He knew what he must do next, and he chose a series of omnibuses because he was in no hurry to get there. Before coming to Bow Street, Urban had worked in Rotherhithe, south of the river. Now Pitt must go to his old station and ask his colleagues about him, what manner of man he was, and try to read between the loyalty of their answers the truth of what they knew, or suspected. He would have to look through his previous cases, such as were distinctly his. It was not so clear-cut with uniformed men. And lastly he would have to find the people on the edge of the criminal underworld who had most dealings with the police and ask them, learn what Urban’s reputation had been, see if he could find there the ends of the threads which would lead him to the money that had bought those wild and lovely pictures.
He stopped and had a brief luncheon at a public house, but his thoughts were too much engrossed in Urban to enjoy it. By two o’clock he was in the Rotherhithe police station, explaining his inquiries to the superintendent, a large man with a lugubrious smile and a hot untidy office full of piles of paper. In a patch of sun on the floor a small ginger-and-white kitten lay stretched out asleep on a cushion, every now and then its body twitching in some ecstatic dream.
The superintendent’s eyes followed Pitt’s.
“Found ’im in the alley,” he said with a smile. “Poor little beggar was starvin’ an’ sickly. Don’t think ’e’d ’ave lasted more’n another day or two. ’ad ter take ’im in. Need a mouser anyway. Can’t ’ave the station overrun wi’ the little beggars. ’e’ll be good fer that when ’e’s a bit bigger. Thinks about it already, by the looks of ’im.”
The kitten gave another twitch and made a little sound in its sleep.
“What can I do for yer?” the superintendent said in a businesslike manner, pushing a pile of papers off a chair to make a place for Pitt to sit down. The cushion remained for the kitten. Pitt had no objection.
“Samuel Urban,” Pitt replied, looking at the little animal.
“Engagin’ little beggar, in’t ’e?” the superintendent said mildly.
“What did you think of him?”
“Sam Urban? Liked ’im. Good policeman.” His face puckered with anxiety. “Not in trouble, is ’e?”
“Don’t know,” Pitt admitted, looking at the kitten stretching out and curling its claws into the cushion, pulling the threads.
“Hector!” the superintendent said amiably. “Don’t do that.” The kitten disregarded him totally and kept on kneading the cushion. “Taken from ’is mother too early, poor little devil,” the superintendent continued. “Suckles on my shirts till I’m wet through. What’s ’E supposed to ’ave done, Urban, or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Borrowed money from a usurer, maybe,” Pitt replied.
The superintendent pushed out his lip. “Not like ’im,” he said thoughtfully. “Always careful with ’is money, that I know of. Never threw it around. In fact I sometimes wondered what ’E did wif it. Never drank nor spent it on women, like some. Didn’t gamble, so far as I ’eard. What’s ’E got in debt for? Inherited an ’Ouse from ’is uncle, so it in’t that. In fact that’s why ’E moved to Bow Street—’ouse is in Bloomsbury. Are you sure about this debt?”
“No,” Pitt admitted. “His name was on the usurer’s books for a very considerable sum. Urban denies it.”
“I don’t like the way you say ‘was.’ You mean the usurer is dead?”
“Yes.” There was no use trying to deceive the big, good-natured man. He might take in stray kittens, but he was far from naive when it came to judging men. Pitt had seen the clear, clever eyes under the lazy stare.
“Murdered?”
“Yes. I’m following up all the debtors—or those that the lists say are debtors. So far all of them on the first list admit to owing very small amounts. Those on the second list deny it. But he was known to be a blackmailer �
��” He left the question open, an unfinished sentence.
“And you think he may have been blackmailing Urban?”
“I don’t know—but I need to.”
The kitten stretched, rolled over and curled up in a ball, purring gently.
“Can’t ’elp you,” the superintendent said with a little shake of his head. “ ’E weren’t always a popular man. Too free with ’is opinions, even when they wasn’t asked for, an’ got some airy-fairy tastes what in’t always appreciated by all. But that’s by the way. It’s no crime.”
“May I see the records of his main cases, and speak to a few of his colleagues?”
“O’ course. But I know what goes on in my station. You won’t find anything.”
And so it proved. Pitt spoke to several of the men who had worked with Urban in the six years he had been in Rotherhithe, and found a variety of opinions from affection to outright dislike, but none of them saw in him either dishonesty or any failure of prosecution that was not easily accounted for by the circumstances. Some considered him arrogant and were not afraid to say so, but gave not the slightest indication they thought him corrupt.
Pitt left in the warm, still early evening and came back over the river north again on the long journey home. He felt tired and discouraged, and underneath was a growing unease. The Rotherhithe station had offered nothing about Urban that suggested he was dishonest. Everything Pitt learned created the outline of a diligent, ambitious, somewhat eccentric man respected by his colleagues but not often liked, a man whom no one knew closely, and whom a few conservative, small-visioned men were tacitly pleased to see apparently in trouble.
And Pitt was sure in his own mind that Urban was concealing something to do with Weems’s death, and it was something Pitt had said which had made the connection in his mind. But was it the questions about Weems and his debtors, or could it be as it appeared, the extraordinary case of Horatio Osmar and his unaccountable release by Carswell?
He was obliged to travel on several omnibuses, changing at intervals as each one turned from his route back to Bloomsbury. At one change he saw a tired, grubby-faced little girl selling violets, and on impulse he stopped and bought four bunches, dark purple, nestling in their leaves, damp and sweet smelling.
He strode along his own street rapidly, but with an unfamiliar mixture of emotions. It was habit steeped in years that his home was the sweetest place he knew. All warmth and certainty was there, love that did not depend upon gifts or obedience, did not matter whether he was clever, amusing or elegant. It was the place where he gave the best of himself, and yet was not afraid he would be rejected for the worst; where he strove to be wise, to blend honesty with kindness, to make patience natural, to protect without domineering.
Nothing had changed in the deep core of it, but perhaps his perception had deluded him into believing Charlotte was happier than was true. Some of the bright peace of it was dulled.
He opened the door and as soon as he was inside took off his boots and hung up his jacket on the coat hook. Then he went with a nervousness that startled him, stocking footed, along to the kitchen.
It was bright and sweet smelling as always, clean linen on the airing rack suspended from the ceiling, wooden table scrubbed bone pale, blue-and-white china on the dresser and the faint aroma of fresh bread in the air. Jemima was sitting at the table solemnly buttering bread for Daniel. He was watching her and holding on to the jar of raspberry jam, prepared to give it to her only when she had met his exacting standards and there was butter right to every corner.
Charlotte was dressed in floral muslin with a long lace-edged apron on, her sleeves rolled up and her hands in the sink preparing fresh vegetables. There was a pile of shelled peas in a dish on the table near Jemima, and a little heap of empty pods on a newspaper ready to be thrown out.
Charlotte smiled at him, took out the last of the carrots and dried her hands.
“Hello Papa,” Jemima said cheerfully without stopping her task.
“Hello Papa,” Daniel echoed, still holding on to the jam jar.
Pitt touched them both gently but his eyes never left Charlotte. He held up the violets.
“They’re not an apology,” he said guardedly.
She looked totally innocent, mystified. “For what?” she asked with wide eyes, then betrayed herself by a quiver of laughter at the corners of her mouth. She buried her nose in their damp fragrance and breathed in with a sigh. “Thank you. They smell wonderful.”
He passed her the small blue-and-white cup she usually put short-stemmed flowers in.
“Thank you,” she repeated, and filled the cup with water, all the time meeting his eyes. She put the cup in the middle of the table and Jemima immediately smelled the flowers too, holding them up to her nose and breathing in, eyes closed, with exactly the same expression.
“Let me!” Daniel reached for it and reluctantly she passed it over. He breathed in, then breathed in again, not sure what he was doing it for. Then he set the cup down, satisfied, and took up the jam jar again, and Jemima resumed her buttering.
Supper was conducted with the greatest good manners, but not with heads bent and eyes downcast as the previous evening, and intense concentration on the most trivial occupations as if it mattered enormously that every last pea should be chased into a corner and speared with the fork, every crumb of bread picked up. Now the food was barely glanced at. It could have been anything, and all the care that went into preparing it was wasted, but their eyes met and though nothing was said, everything was understood.
Pitt continued to investigate Urban without success for another two days, going through the cases on which he had worked in Bow Street and finding nothing untoward, no pattern that spoke of anything other than hard work and intelligence, sometimes intuition beyond the normal skills, but no questionable judgments, no hint of dishonesty. He kept his private life very much to himself, he mixed little with his colleagues, which earned him their respect but not their affection. No one knew what he did with his spare time and amiable inquiries had met with equally amiable rebuffs.
Finally Pitt decided to confront Urban with the frank question as to where he was on the night of Weems’s death. That at least would give him the opportunity to prove himself elsewhere, and make further pursuit unnecessary, at least as far as the murder was concerned. There was still the question of debt, and in Pitt’s own mind, the conviction that Urban was lying about something.
He arrived at Bow Street station later in the morning than usual to find an atmosphere of uncharacteristic tension. The desk sergeant looked harassed, his face was pink and he kept moving papers from one place to another without adding anything to them, or apparently reading them. His top tunic button was undone but still he looked as if the neck were too tight. Two constables glanced at each other nervously and shifted from one foot to another, until the sergeant barked at them to get out and find something to do. An errand boy came in with a newspaper and as soon as he was paid, fled out past Pitt, bumping into him and forgetting to apologize.
“What is it?” Pitt said curiously. “What’s happened?”
“Questions in the ’Ouse,” the desk sergeant replied with a tight lip. “ ’E’s ’oppin’ mad.”
“Who’s hopping mad?” Pitt asked, still with more curiosity than apprehension. “What’s happened, Dilkes?”
“Mr. Urban called the solicitors to bring up the case against Mr. Osmar again, and ’E got wind of it and complained to ’is friends in the ’Ouse o’ Commons.” Awe mixed with disgust in his face. “Now they’re askin’ questions about it, and some of ’em is sayin’ as Crombie and Allardyce lied ’emselves sick in court, an’ the police is corrupt.” He shook his head and his voice became anxious. “There’s some awful things being said, Mr. Pitt. There’s enough folk undecided as to if we’re a good thing or not as it is. an’ then all that bad business in Whitechapel last autumn, an’ we never got the madman what done it, an’ folks sayin’ as if we were any good we’d ’ave got �
�im. an’ all the trouble over the commissioner too. an’ now this. We don’t need trouble like this, Mr. Pitt.” He screwed up his face. “What I don’t understand is how it all came up over summat so, beggin’ yer pardon, damn silly.”
“Neither do I,” Pitt agreed.
“So ’E was ’avin’ a bit o’ ’anky-panky in the park. ’E should ’a known better than to do it in public, like. But ’e’s a gennelman, and gennelmen is like that. Who cares, if ’e’d just said yes, ’E was a bit naughty, sorry, an’ it won’t ’appen again, me lud. Only now we got questions asked in the ’ouses o’ Parliament, an’ next thing the ’ome secretary ’isself will want ter know wot we bin doing.”
“I don’t understand it myself,” Pitt agreed. But he was thinking more of Addison Carswell, and becoming uncomfortably aware of the general feeling against the police, especially as the desk sergeant had said, since the riots in Trafalgar Square known as Bloody Sunday, and then last autumn the failure to catch the Whitechapel murderer, followed almost immediately by the hasty resignation of the commissioner of police after a very short term of office and amid some unpleasantness. The thought kept intruding into his mind that Carswell and Urban were both on Weems’s list for very good reasons, which only too probably spoke of blackmail. And he still had to find Latimer, the third name.
“Is Mr. Urban in?” he asked aloud.
“Yessir, but—”
Before the desk sergeant could add his caveat, Pitt thanked him and strode along the passage to Urban’s door and knocked.
“Come!” Urban said absently.
Pitt went in and found him sitting behind his desk staring at the polished and empty surface. He was surprised to see Pitt.
