Bedford Square

by Anne Perry

  He went downstairs and outside to the mews, where he found the coachman, but even with the most detailed questioning, he also could offer nothing of use. He had driven Cadell regularly over the previous eight years and had never taken him to Shoreditch, or anywhere like it. He looked at Pitt with wide, sad eyes, and seemed confused by almost everything Pitt said.

  It seemed that if Cadell had gone on any private journeys, he had done so by hansom or some other form of public transport, or less likely, with an associate.

  Was that the answer, a conspiracy?

  With whom?

  He should go through all the papers again. Reread everything to see if there was any indication of another person, another mind involved.

  He was offered luncheon, and accepted it, eating it in the servants’ hall. They treated him civilly enough, but their grief was very obvious, and they spoke little.

  He returned to his task, and it took him the rest of the afternoon, going through every drawer and cupboard. He even leafed through books from the shelves in the study, the only room in the house which was private to Cadell and not touched by any of the servants except in his presence. It was where he had kept certain of his work when he had brought it home.

  Pitt questioned all the servants about the posting of a letter on the day before Cadell’s death, or that morning, but no one knew of a letter, to Dunraithe White or anyone else.

  There was no glue in the study desk drawer. There was notepaper, but it was of a different texture and a slightly different size from that of the letters. It would seem Cadell had not written them at home. Could he really have done it at the Foreign Office? Or was there a third place, one they knew nothing of?

  The only other thing that caught Pitt’s attention was a note on the side of Cadell’s appointment diary: “Balantyne still worried about Kew He is not a fool. I should take it seriously.”

  He thanked Theodosia and left to go to Bedford Square. He had been to Kew himself. Charlotte had spoken to Balantyne also, but perhaps there was something Pitt could ask that would elicit an explanation as to why the General was concerned that made some kind of sense.

  He did not believe it, but he could not leave it undone.

  As he was shown in by the footman he was greeted with icy disdain by Augusta. She was dressed in a gray striped gown and looked magnificent. Pitt was jolted by memory of the past, her courage and resolution, her grief, and the loneliness that must haunt her solitary hours. There was no happiness in her, only cold strength. There was something admirable about her, something frightening, and not a little that evoked a sense of pity.

  “What tragedy is it this time, Mr. Pitt?” she enquired, coming towards him with a remarkably graceful step for a woman of her age. There was nothing whatever fragile in her, nothing that spoke of vulnerability. “And what makes you imagine that we can assist you in your confusion?”

  “The same tragedy, Lady Augusta,” he answered gravely, standing in the middle of the wide hall. “And I am not at all sure that General Balantyne can help, but I have to ask.”

  “Do you?” she said with faint sarcasm. “I find that difficult to understand, but I suppose you have to justify yourself somehow.”

  Pitt did not argue. He probably was wasting not only his own time but Balantyne’s. Nevertheless, he would still ask him about Kew.

  “The orphanage?” Balantyne said with surprise. He stood with his back to the oak fireplace in the morning room, staring at Pitt. “Yes, I did speak to Cadell about it. Twice, I think … possibly three times.” He was frowning slightly. “I don’t understand why you are concerned now. If they are incompetent, or short of funds, it is hardly a police matter.”

  “Incompetence? Is that what you were concerned about when you contacted Cadell two or three times?” Pitt asked with surprise. “Why Cadell? Did you speak to the committee in general?”

  “Yes, of course I did. No one else seemed to consider the matter of any substance.”

  “You thought the funds were insufficient,” Pitt said again. “You did not suspect that anyone was misusing them or diverting them to private profit?”

  “No,” Balantyne said. “I don’t know what I thought was happening, just that sufficient care was not being taken.”

  “So you spoke to Cadell? Why him?”

  “I believed he would listen and take the matter up with the man in charge … Horsfall.”

  “I went there myself,” Pitt confessed. “I looked through the financial books. They were faultless.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Balantyne said a little sharply. “I was not suspecting dishonesty … only a reluctance to demand more money, sufficient to care properly for the children there. I was concerned that they might be cold … or hungry.”

  “I saw the children,” Pitt replied. “They were clean and well clothed and looked in excellent health.”

  Balantyne was puzzled. “Then it would seem I was mistaken.” But there was disbelief in his voice. He was reluctant to let go of the conviction he had held.

  “What made you think there was something wrong?” Pitt was puzzled also, because he respected Balantyne and could not dismiss his ideas lightly, even if they appeared to have no foundation.

  Balantyne frowned. “I go to Kew every so often. I am familiar with the size of it, and how many children it could accommodate. I do not understand how they can manage adequately on the funds they have. It seems to me … far too little ….” He lifted one shoulder very slightly. “I don’t know why they didn’t press for more.”

  “Were you alone in this?” Pitt thought of the other members of the committee in the Jessop Club. Surely no stretch of the imagination could connect the orphanage with blackmail or death?

  “I don’t believe so” Balantyne answered a trifle ruefully. “I raised the subject when we all met. Cornwallis seemed to think I was mistaken. But then he is used to naval catering, which is hardly the same.” His lips tightened. “Nor is it ideal … especially for children. I thought Cadell at least considered the possibility of examining the situation.”

  “I see,” Pitt replied with a sudden and profound sense of disappointment. What had he hoped for? It was never going to be a motive for blackmail, far less murder. “Thank you for giving me your time, General. I really should let this subject go.”

  “The orphanage at Kew?” Balantyne asked.

  “No … no, I meant the possibility of it being connected with Cadell’s blackmail attempts or his death. Even if you are right, it is hardly a motive.”

  Balantyne’s surprise showed in his face. “Had you thought it was?”

  “I don’t know. It seemed to be the one thing you all had in common, but I realize now it was membership of the committee, not its purpose, that counted.”

  “What happened to the real Albert Cole?” Balantyne asked.

  “I don’t know. But we shall go on looking for him.” Pitt held out his hand. “Thank you. I hope I shall not need to disturb you again.”

  Balantyne clasped Pitt’s hand warmly, but he said nothing further.

  Pitt walked home in the warm twilight, still filled with unease, trivial questions unanswered, pricking his mind, leaving him no sense of completion.

  12

  FIND ALBERT COLE, Pitt had said to Tellman. Alive or dead. If he is alive, find out why he disappeared from his lodgings and from Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and if he is dead, find out how he died, naturally or otherwise. If he was killed, who killed him and why, and also when. And where.

  Tellman had made a sarcastic reply, wondering why Pitt had bothered to trail all the way out to Kew and what on earth an orphanage, very satisfactorily run, could have to do with any of it.

  Pitt had had no answer for that, and left Tellman to go about his search. He himself had begun with more about Cadell’s movements. Could he have transported Slingsby’s body from Shoreditch himself, and if not, which was probably the case, then who had? He had told Tellman of his intention to visit Cadell’s widow and enquire from t
he valet and coachman, and see if he could trace Cadell to Shoreditch from that end.

  Tellman acknowledged the instruction tersely, but if he were honest, he was not unwilling to obey. He thought that suicide was a frustrating way to conclude a case. Too much was unexplained. They would probably never learn what had made a man like Leo Cadell jeopardize everything he had, which was a vast amount, wealth and happiness beyond Tellman’s dreams … although his dreams had included some happiness lately, and he blushed hot at the thought.

  But he did not expect to understand the man, only the facts of the case, the logical, material details. And finding Albert Cole was part of that. He set out with a profound determination.

  Pitt addressed himself to the task of learning how Slingsby’s body had been moved from Shoreditch to Bedford Square, and more importantly, by whom. Naturally, he began with Cadell. Since he was dead, the Foreign Office would not protect him in the way it had previously.

  Pitt had little trouble in tracing Cadell’s movements on the day before the body had been found. He had worked either in his office or at various meetings with officials from the German embassy. At the time Slingsby and Wallace were fighting in Shoreditch, Cadell had actually been in negotiation with the German ambassador himself.

  Like almost anyone else, he could have gone to Shoreditch in the small hours of the morning, presuming someone had moved Slingsby’s body from the street where it had fallen, kept it in a safe place, and Cadell had known where that was. Which would be to assume a great deal, including that Slingsby had been murdered intentionally and that Wallace had conspired with Cadell to that end because Slingsby resembled Albert Cole.

  How did Cadell know a ruffian like Wallace?

  He quickened his pace, striding along the footpath between the crowds of shoppers, clerks and errand boys and sightseers. He must go and talk to Wallace again, before he stood trial and was in all probability executed. Why had he not said he had moved the body when Tellman questioned him before? It would hardly make any difference to his sentence to plead that it had been a fight rather than a deliberate attack. He would be hanged either way.

  Or did he expect to come up before Dunraithe White … and believe he would be acquitted? Was that why White was a victim?

  And why kill anyone to have Balantyne suspected? Why was the blackmail over the Abyssinian affair not enough? What extra was wanted from Balantyne more than the others?

  Pitt found himself almost running, and he hailed a cab with waving arms, shouting at the driver as he leapt in, “Newgate Prison!” He felt the cab thrust forward, throwing him against the seat.

  But by the time he reached Newgate he had changed his mind. He leaned forward and rapped on the cab wall, raising his voice.

  “Sorry! Forget about Newgate. Take me to Shoreditch.”

  The driver grunted something unintelligible, which, considering its nature, may have been as well, and changed direction abruptly.

  Pitt began in the public house where Tellman had said Wallace and Slingsby had started their quarrel, then progressed to the regular denizens of the immediate area. He had to part with a good few coins to assist memory and goodwill, and he ended the day with nothing which would have served as proof in a court, but he was quite certain in his own mind that Wallace could have come back within half an hour of the murder and taken the body of Slingsby. Certainly the body had disappeared within that time. There was no knowledge or indication that anyone else had moved it, and opinion seemed to be that it had been Wallace’s problem and he had dealt with it. They had supposed it would be into the river, but that was only because it was the most obvious thing to do. Taking a cart and carrying the body to Bedford Square would be too outlandish, and utterly pointless, to have occurred to them.

  The best and final thing to do was to see if anyone had lent, or had stolen from them, such a vehicle.

  With a little more generosity and a certain number of threats and promises, he succeeded in discovering that one Obadiah Smith had indeed had his vegetable cart removed without his permission, so he claimed, and to his great inconvenience. It had been returned in the morning.

  He left Shoreditch elated. It was hardly worth going to Newgate. Wallace would probably deny it, but Pitt was now convinced that Wallace had murdered Slingsby with the quite deliberate intention of moving his body and placing it on Balantyne’s doorstep, with the snuffbox in his pocket, and the receipt for the socks, perhaps obtained by Wallace himself, pretending to be Cole. And this had been done on Cadell’s instructions. It would be very satisfying to see Wallace’s face when he heard that Cadell was dead and could not possibly rescue him.

  But why Slingsby and not the real Cole? Where was Cole now? Was Tellman having any success in finding him?

  However, when Tellman reported to Pitt that evening, within twenty minutes of Pitt’s arriving home himself, he had nothing to offer at all. They sat around the kitchen table in deep gloom. Charlotte had made a large pot of tea, and Gracie had abandoned even pretending to be peeling potatoes or cutting the strings off the beans. She was not going to be occupied in such things when there were really important matters to talk about.

  “Nobody has any idea,” Tellman said defensively. “He could have gone anywhere. If he had any family, no one heard him mention them. They could be in Wales, for all anyone knew. Or Scotland.”

  “Army records would know where he came from,” Pitt pointed out.

  Tellman flushed. He was furious with himself because he had not thought of that.

  “Well, if someone were arter ’im, ’e wouldn’t go back there, would ’e?” Gracie said defensively. “If we can work that out, mebbe they could too … stands ter reason, don’t it?” She looked from Pitt to Tellman and back again. “ ’E’d a’ gorn somewhere as nob’dy knows ’im. I would.”

  “Why would anybody be after him?” Pitt asked. “He didn’t do anything, or know anything, so far as we can tell.”

  “Well, w’y else would ’e scarper?” she asked reasonably. “Goin’ by wot you said, ’e ’ad a decent job an’ a good place. Yer don’t jus’ up an’ leave things like that, less yer got summink better or there’s someb’dy arter yer.”

  “Bit chancy, wasn’t it?” Tellman said reluctantly, flashing Gracie a look of gratitude, and obviously unwilling to slight the favor by criticizing her logic, but driven to it by necessity. “Someone we don’t know of went after Cole, just the day before poor Slingsby gets done in by someone who wants to pretend he’s Cole?”

  “That’s it!” Pitt banged his fist on the table. Suddenly it was obvious. “They went after Cole first. They tried to kill him, but somehow they failed. He got away. Perhaps he was a better soldier than they realized, experienced in hand-to-hand fighting,” he said eagerly. “He escaped, but he knew they’d come after him again, perhaps a knife in the back next time, or a shot. So he took to his heels and disappeared … anywhere. It doesn’t matter where … just out of London, to a place they’d never think of looking.” He turned to Gracie. “As you said, they know his military record, that’s why they wanted him, so the last place he’d go would be back to anywhere he had a connection with.” He stared around the table. “That’s why we can’t find Cole … and I daresay we never will.”

  “So they found someone who looked like him,” Charlotte took up the train of reasoning. “They had the snuffbox anyway, and they either stole the sock receipt or had one made up.”

  “Had it made up,” Tellman put in. “Easy enough. Go and buy three pairs. Get yourself noticed. Say something about being a soldier, the importance of keeping your feet right. The shop clerk remembered all that, but not much about his face.”

  “Who is ’they’?” Charlotte asked with a little shake of her head, a sharp return from logic to emotion. “Cadell … if it has to be … and who else? Ernest Wallace? Why?” She bit her lip, and her expression betrayed her disbelief. “I still can’t accept that.” She looked from Pitt to Tellman. “You haven’t found any reason why he should sud
denly need money, or connected him to any plot to invest in Africa or anywhere else. Aunt Vespasia says he just wasn’t that sort of person.”

  Pitt sighed. He reached his hand across the table and put it over hers.

  “Of course she doesn’t want to think so, but what is the alternative?”

  “That someone else is guilty,” she answered, her voice without the certainty she would have liked. “And he killed himself … because … I don’t know. He was so worn down by the blackmail he hadn’t the strength to go on.”

  “And confessed,” Pitt said gently, “knowing what that would do to his family? To Theodosia? And they have grownup children, a son and two daughters. Have you seen what Lyndon Remus and the other newspapers have made of the scandal? Poor Gordon-Cumming pales beside it.”

  “Then he could never have done it,” she said desperately. “He must have been murdered.”

  “By whom?” he asked. “No one came or went but the family servants, and the entrances were observed all the time.”

  She took her hand away, fists clenched. “Well, I still refuse to believe it. There’s something we don’t know ….”

  “There’s a lot of things we don’t know,” he said dryly. He ticked them off on his fingers. “We don’t know why Cadell wanted or needed money, or even if that was the purpose of the blackmail. We don’t know why he chose specifically the other members of the orphanage committee of the Jessop Club. There must have been dozens of other men he knew as well, and could have created a web of fear around, built on imagination and misinterpretation. We certainly don’t know how he ever made the acquaintance of Ernest Wallace or why he trusted him.”

  “We don’t know why Wallace lied to protect him and is still lying,” Tellman added.

  “Yes, we do,” Pitt answered. “At least, we can deduce it. He is in Newgate and doesn’t know that Cadell is dead. He must be assuming that Cadell will twist the knife in Dunraithe White, and Wallace will be acquitted. He also doesn’t know that White has just resigned from the bench.”