Bedford Square

by Anne Perry

  The butler appeared from the green baize door into the servants’ quarters. He looked startled and angry to see Pitt already in the hall. In the distress of the morning he had apparently forgotten who Pitt was.

  “Good morning, Woods,” Pitt said gravely. “I’m sorry for Mr. Cadell’s death. Is Mr. Barstone in the withdrawing room?”

  Woods recollected himself. “Yes sir.” He swallowed, moving his neck as if his collar were too tight. “The … the study is locked, sir. I assume you will be needing to go in?”

  “Is that where Mr. Cadell is?”

  “Yes sir … I …”

  Pitt waited.

  Woods searched for words. He was obviously troubled by profound emotions.

  “I don’t believe it, sir!” he said gruffly. “I’ve been with Mr. Cadell for nearly twenty years, and I don’t believe he’d take his own life. It has to be something else, some other answer.”

  Pitt did not argue. Denial was the natural response to something so ugly, and from this man’s point of view, so utterly inexplicable. How could it make any sense to him?

  “Of course we’ll investigate every possibility,” he said quietly. “Would you let me into the study; Sergeant Tellman has gone to speak with the rest of the staff. Who found Mr. Cadell this morning?”

  “Polly, sir. She’s the downstairs maid. Went in to dust and make sure the room was clean and tidy. I’m afraid you can’t speak to her yet, sir. She’s taken it terribly hard. Awful thing for a young girl to find.” He blinked several times. “She’s usually very sensible, good worker, no trouble, but she just fainted clear away. She’s in the housekeeper’s sitting room, and you’ll just have to give her time. Can’t help that, sir.”

  “Of course. Perhaps you can tell me most of what I need to know to begin with.”

  “If I can, sir,” Woods conceded, perhaps helped in the immediate moment by the fact that he was able to be engaged in doing something. He fished in his pocket and produced a small brass key. He stood with it in his hand, waiting.

  “What time was that?” Pitt asked him.

  “Just after nine, sir.”

  “Was that the usual time for Polly to go into the study?”

  “Yes sir. Things sort of fall into a routine. Best way. Then nothing gets forgotten.”

  “So everyone would know that Polly would go into the study at that time?”

  “Yes sir.” Woods looked deeply troubled. It was easy to understand, and his thoughts were plain in his face. Cadell himself would have to have been aware of the almost certainty that a young maid would be the one to find him.

  “And the door was unlocked ….” Pitt stated the obvious, but with surprise. People who intended killing themselves very often ascertained that they would have privacy.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Did anyone hear the shot? It must have made a considerable noise.”

  “No sir, not that we realized, if you know what I mean?” Woods looked embarrassed, as if he had been at fault; if they had heard it they might have prevented the tragedy. It was irrational, but grief and incomprehension had numbed his faculties. “You must understand, sir, most of the staff were busy about their duties that hour of the day. The kitchen was full of comings and goings. There were tradesmen’s boys in the yard with deliveries and the like, wagons and carts and things clattering up and down the road, and with the windows open to air the house, there was a certain amount of noise anyway. I expect we heard it but never realized what it was.”

  “Did Mr. Cadell have breakfast this morning?”

  “No sir, just a cup of tea.”

  “Wasn’t that unusual?”

  “No sir, not lately. I’m afraid Mr. Cadell was not himself as far as his health was concerned.” He blinked again, stirring to govern his emotions. “He seemed very preoccupied, if you understand me. I daresay there is some foreign business that gives cause for concern. It is an extremely responsible …” He tailed off, suddenly remembering again that his master was dead. His eyes filled with tears and he turned away, embarrassed to lose such control of himself in front of a stranger.

  Pitt was used to distress. He had been in situations like this countless times. He affected not to have noticed.

  “Where did Mr. Cadell take his tea?”

  It was a moment before Woods replied. “I believe Didcott the valet took it up to his dressing room, sir,” he said at last.

  “And then he went down to the study?”

  “I believe so. Didcott would know.”

  “We’ll ask him. Thank you. Now I’ll go to the study, if you will let me in.”

  “Yes sir, of course.” And with slightly shaky steps, Woods led the way across the hall and down a fairly long passage to an oak door which he opened with the key. He remained outside while Pitt went in.

  Leo Cadell was slumped forward over the desk, his hands on top of it a trifle awkwardly, his head on one side. Blood from a wound to his right temple spilled out over the wooden surface of the writing top. A dueling pistol lay touching his right hand, two inches from a quill pen, the ink dried. There was also a cushion on the floor near the chair. Pitt bent and picked it up, putting it to his nose and sniffing. The smells of gunpowder and charring were plain. That explained why nobody had heard the sharp report of the shot.

  It did not explain why Cadell had not locked the door from the inside, so people would know there was something wrong, and it would not be a young maid, or even his wife, who would be the first to find him.

  But then a man capable of the kind of blackmail which had been practiced was hardly likely at this point to consider the feelings of a maid or of anyone else. How easy it is to be totally and disastrously mistaken in one’s judgment of people. Pitt still found it hard to accept, and Vespasia possibly never would. Apparently, even as wise and shrewd as she was, she could be utterly wrong.

  He looked at the papers on the top of the desk. Half a dozen in a neat pile were letters and minutes from the Foreign Office; one, alone, to the left of the pile, was composed of pieces clipped from newspapers … probably the Times again, and pasted onto plain white paper. He read it.

  I know the police are close behind me now. I cannot succeed, and I will not wait for them to arrest me. I could not face that.

  This is a quick, clean end, and I shall not be aware of what happens after I am gone, except that the case is ended. It is all over.

  Leo Cadell

  It was terse; no regrets, no apologies. Perhaps there was another letter somewhere to Theodosia. Pitt could not believe she had known his guilt.

  He looked closely at it again. It appeared exactly the same as the others he had seen. The spacing was a trifle different, less precise, but then in the circumstances that was unsurprising.

  There were scissors along with a paper knife, a stick of sealing wax, a small ball of string and two pencils in a holder on the desk. He could not see any glue or paste. Perhaps it had been used up and the container thrown away.

  Where was the newspaper from which the words and letters had been cut? It was not on the desk or on the floor. He looked in the wastepaper basket. It was there, folded neatly. He took it out. Yesterday’s copy of the Times. It was easy to see where the pieces had been cut.

  He let it fall again. There seemed little more to say. Cadell was right; as far as the police were concerned, the case was complete. For the victims, most of all for Theodosia, it never would be.

  The sharp morning sunlight fell through the clear glass of the French doors into the garden. The maid had been too distraught to think of closing the curtains. There was no one in sight. He moved across and did it now, closing the latch on the door and then drawing the heavy velvet across.

  He went out and locked the hall door behind him. He must speak with Theodosia. Speaking to the family of the victim, and the ultimate arrest of someone, the shock and anguish of their family, were the two worst times in any investigation. In this one they were bound together in one occasion, and the grief in one pers
on.

  She was sitting in the withdrawing room, gray-faced, her body stiff, her hands clenched together in her lap so hard her knuckles shone where the skin was stretched tight. She stared at him wordlessly out of eyes almost black. She was alone, no maid or footman with her.

  He came in quietly and sat down opposite her. Not only had she lost her husband, a man Vespasia said she truly loved, and her future was gone, but—immeasurably more painful—her past was destroyed as well. The whole precious image of her world and all it had meant was shattered. The foundation upon which she had built her beliefs was gone. Everything about her husband that truly mattered, that formed the structure of her relationships, even of her understanding of herself and her own judgments, was proved a lie. She had been misled, deceived in everything. What was left?

  How often do we perceive the world and those we love not as they are but only as we want them to be?

  He wished he could offer her any comfort at all, but there was none.

  “Would you like me to call Vespasia for you?” he asked her.

  “What? Oh.” She remained silent for a few moments, struggling within herself. Then she seemed to reach some inner conviction. “No … thank you. Not yet. She will find this very difficult. She was—” Her voice cracked. “She was fond of Leo. She thought well of him. Please wait until I am more composed. Until I have a better idea of what happened so that I can tell her.”

  “Would you like me to tell her?” he offered. “I can go to her home. Otherwise she will read it in the newspapers.”

  The very last vestige of blood drained from her face, and for a moment he was afraid she was going to collapse. She struggled for breath.

  Instinctively, ignoring conventions, he moved forward to kneel on the floor beside her, holding her hands where they were knotted iron hard on her lap. He put his other arm around her. “Slowly!” he commanded. “Breathe slowly. Don’t gasp.”

  She obeyed, but even so it was several minutes before she regained physical control of herself.

  “I am sorry,” she apologized. “I beg your pardon. I had barely thought of the newspapers.”

  “I’ll call on Vespasia as I leave here,” he said decisively. “I am sure she will wish to be with you. It will be easier for her to face this if she is not alone.”

  She looked at him, and there was a warmth of gratitude momentarily in her eyes. She did not question his decision. Perhaps she was glad to have any step taken for her, anything that relieved a bit of the weight she must bear alone from now on.

  “Thank you,” she accepted.

  There was nothing else to ask her. He rose to his feet. She could summon the maid if she wished. She might prefer just at the moment to be alone, perhaps to weep, although that would probably come later.

  He was at the door when she spoke.

  “Mr. Pitt … my husband did not kill himself … he was murdered. I don’t know how, or by whom, except that I have to presume it was the blackmailer. If you stop now, he will get away with it.” The last sentence was said with sudden, choking anger, and her eyes blazed a challenge to him, on the brink of blame.

  He did not know what to say. There were no grounds for her charge except loyalty, pain and despair.

  “I won’t take anything for granted, Mrs. Cadell,” he promised. “I shall look for proof of every detail before I accept it.”

  He and Tellman questioned all the household staff, but there had been no break-in; no strangers had been seen. The delivery boys at the back door had not gone through the wooden gate in the wall to the garden; indeed, they had been too busy flirting with the scullery maid and the lady’s maid, respectively, to leave the step at all. They had barely succeeded in doing the duty they were employed for.

  No one had come through the house, and the only person to go through the garden door was the gardener’s boy delivering ties and doing a little work on the old white climbing rose which was in bloom and in need of holding up.

  No one knew anything about the gun. Cadell must have had it for some time. There were a pair of pistols in a case locked into the corner cupboard in the study, but this was not one of them. Theodosia said she had never seen it before, but admitted that she hated guns and would not recognize one from another.

  The staff were not permitted to touch them or have anything to do with them, so they could offer no information at all. It seemed that where Cadell had obtained it or how long he had owned it would remain a mystery, like much else to do with his whole blackmail scheme.

  Pitt called at Vespasia’s house before returning to Bow Street. She, too, was shocked by the news of Leo Cadell’s death, and found it almost impossible to believe that he was responsible for the blackmail, but she did not deny it as Theodosia had done. She thanked Pitt for coming to tell her personally rather than allowing her to read of it in the newspapers, then she called for her carriage and her lady’s maid, and prepared to go and offer whatever comfort she could to her goddaughter.

  Pitt decided then to tell Cornwallis. He also should not learn it from the evening editions of the newspapers.

  “Cadell?” he said in amazement. He was standing in the middle of his office as if he had been pacing the floor. His face was haggard. He had neither eaten nor slept well in weeks. There was a very slight nervous tic in his left temple. “I … I presume you must be sure?”

  “Can you think of another explanation?” Pitt asked unhappily.

  Cornwallis hesitated. He looked profoundly miserable, but even as they spoke, some of the agonized tension had eased out of his body, and his shoulders were lowering into a more natural position. Whatever the surprise or the understanding of grief, his own ordeal was over, and even if he despised himself for it, he could not help but be aware of that.

  “No …” he said at last. “No. From what you say, that must be the answer. What a damned tragedy. I’m sorry. I could have wished it were … someone I didn’t know. I suppose that’s idiotic. It had to be someone I knew …. It had to be someone we all knew. Well done, Pitt … and …” He wanted to thank Pitt for his loyalty, it was there in his eyes, but he did not know how to word it.

  “I’ll go back to Bow Street,” Pitt said briefly, “and tidy up the details.”

  “Yes.” Cornwallis nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

  10

  VESPASIA WENT immediately to Theodosia, taking her lady’s maid with her, and such necessities as she would require to remain overnight, or longer. She had no intention of allowing Theodosia to remain alone in the grief, confusion and despair which must follow upon such an appalling loss. In her long life she had encountered suicide before. It was in many ways the hardest of all to endure, and the loneliness and the guilt which invariably followed all but doubled the pain.

  There was nothing to do that first afternoon and evening but to survive them, to be there and allow Theodosia to begin to realize that Leo was truly dead. Of course, tomorrow morning would be worse. Sleep, however little of it, would bring respite, then with waking there would be a few moments before memory returned. That would be like hearing it all over again, only without the numbing mercy of shock.

  They sat up and talked in Theodosia’s boudoir. She seemed to need to speak of Leo, most particularly of the kind of man he had been when they first met. With a rising tone of desperation she recalled dozens of good things he had done, brave or kind or wise, acts of honesty where less would have passed uncriticized, even unnoticed, but he had silently done his best.

  Vespasia listened, and indeed she could remember a great many of them herself. It was only too easy to recall all that was likable in him, all she had admired over the years.

  A little before midnight Theodosia suddenly found she was able to weep, and the release of tears exhausted her. After that Vespasia’s maid brewed her a sleeping draft and she went to bed. Vespasia took a draft herself and retired fifteen minutes later.

  The morning was even worse than she had expected, then she was angry with herself for not having foreseen it.
She met Woods in the hallway as she was crossing to the breakfast room. He looked pale and red-eyed.

  “Good morning, your ladyship,” he said hoarsely, and cleared his throat. “How is Mrs. Cadell?”

  “Asleep,” Vespasia answered. “I shall not disturb her. Will you be good enough to bring me the newspapers.”

  “The newspapers, your ladyship?” His eyebrows rose.

  “Yes, please.”

  He stood unmoving. “Did you mean the whole newspaper, your ladyship?”

  “Of course, the whole newspaper, Woods. Am I not making myself plain?” It would have been pleasanter to have them burnt. It was her first instinct, but she needed to know what they said. There were truths that could not be avoided. “I shall be in the breakfast room. I shall have tea and toast. No more will be necessary.”

  “Yes, your ladyship,” Woods said hastily. “I’ll … I’ll have them ironed ….”

  “Don’t bother.” She realized that with the master dead the usual duties in this respect had been abandoned. “I’ll look at them as they are.” And without waiting for argument, she passed him and went to the breakfast room.

  He brought them on a tray, smoothed but unironed, and she took them from him. They were uniformly dreadful. One of them summed up everything that was worst in all three and added a great deal of speculation that was both cruel and destructive. It was written by Lyndon Remus. He had done his own investigation into the corpse found in Bedford Square and its possible connection with General Balantyne. He must have followed Pitt because he also was aware of his visits to Dunraithe White, Tannifer and Sir Guy Stanley.

  In his article on Cadell’s suicide he suggested a conspiracy that Pitt had discovered and that he had been on the brink of arresting Cadell.

  Superintendent Thomas Pitt refused to comment, but Bow Street police station did not deny that Mr. Cadell was being investigated in connection with a very serious matter involving extortion and murder, and figures in the establishment, both financial and military, as well as in the government.