by Anne Perry
“Then tell him,” Charlotte retorted. “That may concentrate his mind wonderfully. Show him he is completely alone. He has been let down on every side. Cadell has escaped, in a fashion, and left him to hang … alone.”
“Don’t make no difference whether you ’ang alone or together,” Gracie said with disgust. “Don’t suppose it feels no different. ’e killed Slingsby, so ’e’ll ’ang any which way.”
Pitt rose to his feet. “I’ll still go and see him.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Now? It’s half past six.”
“I’ll be back by nine,” he promised, walking to the door. “I have to speak to him.”
Pitt hated visiting prisons. The walls closed in on him with the cold gray misery of countless angry and wasted lives. Hopelessness seemed to seep from the stones, and his footsteps echoed behind the warder’s like multiple treads, as if he were preceded and followed by unseen inmates, ghosts who would never escape.
Ernest Wallace would be tried in a week or two. He was brought into the small room where Pitt waited for him. He looked small and tight, and beneath his smug expression there remained a lifelong anger that was bone-deep. He glanced at Pitt, but there was no visible fear in his eyes. It seemed to amuse him that Pitt had come all the way to Newgate to see him. He sat down at the other side of the bare wooden table without being asked. The warder, a barrel-chested man with a disinterested face, stood by the door. Whatever these two were going to say, he had heard it all before.
“Where did you go after you had fought with Slingsby?” Pitt began, almost conversationally.
If Wallace was surprised he hid it well. “Don’ remember,” he answered. “Wot’s it matter nah?”
“What did you fight about?”
“I told yer, least I told the other rozzer, ’baht summink wot ’e took orff me as e’d no right ter. I tried ter get it back orff ’im, an ’e laid inter me. I fought ’im … natural. I’ve a right ter save me own life.” He said that with some satisfaction, meeting Pitt’s eyes squarely.
Pitt had thought he expected the blackmailer to influence the trial and get him acquitted, at least of murder. Now, in the fetid room with its smell of despair, he was certain of it.
“And when you saw that you had killed him, you just fled?” Pitt said aloud.
“Wot?”
“You ran away.”
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t think as any rozzer’d believe me. An’ I were right, weren’t I? Or I wouldn’t be here now, lookin’ at a charge o’ murder.” He said it with considerable self-justification. “Yer’d a’ seen as I were defendin’ meself from a geezer wot were bigger’n me, an’ got a right temper on ’im.” He almost smiled.
“Is Albert Cole dead too?” Pitt said suddenly.
Wallace kept his face straight, but he could not prevent the ebb of color from his skin, and his hands twitched involuntarily where he had laid them with a deliberate show of ease on the tabletop.
“Oo?”
“Albert Cole.” Pitt smiled. “The man Slingsby looked like and was mistaken for when we found him. He had a receipt belonging to Cole in his pocket.”
Wallace grinned. “Oh, yeah! Yer made a right mess o’ that, din’t yer.”
“It was the receipt that did it,” Pitt explained. “And the lawyer from Lincoln’s Inn who identified him. And of course Cole is missing.”
Wallace affected surprise. “Is ’e? Well, I never. Life’s full o’ funny little things like that … i’n’t it?” He was enjoying himself, and he wanted Pitt to know it.
Pitt waited patiently.
“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “You see, I think you can’t tell me where you went after you killed Slingsby because you came back, within minutes, and loaded his body into a vegetable cart you’d ’borrowed’ after dark. You took it to Bedford Square and left it on General Balantyne’s doorstep, exactly as you were told to do.”
Wallace was tense, his shoulder muscles locked, the sinews in his thin neck standing out, but his eyes did not waver from Pitt’s.
“Do yer? Well, yer can’t prove it, so it don’ make no difference. I says as I killed ’im ’cos ’e came at me, an’ scarpered arterwards ’cos I were scared as no rozzer’d believe me.” His voice descended into mockery. “An’ I’m real sorry abaht that, me lud. I won’t never make a mistake like that again.”
“Talking about judges,” Pitt observed steadily, “Mr. Dunraithe White has resigned from the bench.”
Wallace looked mystified.
“Am I supposed ter know wot yer talkin’ abaht?”
Pitt was shaken, but he concealed it. “Perhaps not. I thought you might come up before him.”
“Well if ’e i’n’t a judge no more, I won’t, will I? Stands ter reason.”
Pitt dropped the blow he had been waiting for.
“And another thing you might not have heard, being in here … Leo Cadell is dead.”
Wallace sat motionless.
“Committed suicide,” Pitt added, “after confessing to blackmail.”
Wallace’s eyes widened. “Blackmail?” he said with what Pitt would have sworn was surprise.
“Yes. He’s dead.”
“Yeah … yer said. So is that all?” He looked at Pitt with wide eyes, untroubled, his lips still smiling, not the fixed and awful grin of a man whose last hope has slipped away, but the satisfaction of someone supremely confident, even if he had heard some news which he did not completely understand.
It was Pitt who was thrown into confusion. Reason and hope disappeared from his grasp.
Wallace saw it, and his smile widened, reaching his eyes.
Pitt was suddenly furious, aching to be able to hit him. He rose to his feet and told the warder he was finished before he betrayed his defeat even more. He walked out of the gray suffocation of Newgate totally perplexed.
He arrived home in Keppel Street still just as confused, and if possible even angrier, but now with himself rather than only with Wallace.
“What’s wrong?” Charlotte demanded as soon as he was in the kitchen. They must all have heard his footsteps coming down the passage from the front door, and were sitting around the table staring at him expectantly. He had not even bothered to take his boots off. He sat down, and automatically Gracie poured him a mug of tea.
“I told him I believed he had come back and moved the body to Bedford Square,” he answered. “And I could see it shook him.”
Tellman nodded with satisfaction.
“And I told him Dunraithe White had resigned,” Pitt went on. “And it meant nothing to him at all.”
“I don’t suppose he knew his name,” Charlotte explained. “Just that there was a judge in the blackmailer’s power.”
“And then I told him Cadell was dead,” Pitt finished, looking at their expectant faces. “He didn’t give a damn.”
“What?” Tellman was incredulous, his jaw dropping.
“He must have,” Charlotte said abruptly. “He must have known Cadell. It can’t have been all done by letter.” Her eyes widened. “Or are you saying it wasn’t Cadell after all?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” he admitted. “Except that I still don’t understand it.”
There were several minutes of silence. The kettle whistled on the hob, gathering shrillness, and Gracie got up to move it over.
Pitt sipped his tea gratefully. He had not realized how thirsty he was, or how keen to get the taste of prison air out of his mouth.
Charlotte looked apologetic, and very faintly pink.
“General Balantyne was worried about the funds for the orphanage at Kew …” she said tentatively.
“I’ve been out there,” Pitt answered wearily. “I’ve been over the books with a fine-toothed comb. Every penny is accounted for, and I’ve seen the children. They are healthy, well clothed and well fed. Anyway, Balantyne thought there was too little money given them, not too much.”
“That’s a turn up,” Gracie said dryly. “I never ’eard of an orphanag
e afore wot ’ad enough money, let alone too much. An’ come ter that, I never ’eard o’ one wot fed an’ clothed its kids proper. Beggin’ yer pardon, Mr. Pitt, but I think you was took in. It were likely the master’s own kids as yer saw, not the orphans.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Pitt said wearily. “I saw upwards of twenty children.”
“Twenty?” Gracie was incredulous.
“At least. More like twenty-five,” he assured her.
“In an orphanage?”
“Yes.”
“ ’ow big’s this orphanage, then? Couple o’ cottages, is it?”
“No, of course not. It’s a very large house, dozen bedrooms or more, originally, I should think.”
Gracie looked at him with weary patience. “Then you was took proper. ’Ouse that size they’d ’ave an ’undred kids at least. Ten to a room, countin’ little ones. Big ones ter look arter ’em.”
“There were nothing like that many.” He thought back on the clear, light rooms he had seen, admittedly only two or three of them, but he had chosen them at random, and Horsfall had been willing enough to show him everywhere he wished to go.
“Then w’ere was the rest o’ them?” Gracie asked.
“There were no more,” Pitt replied, frowning. “And the money was about right for that number, to feed and clothe and pay for the fuel and keeping of the house.”
“Can’t a’ bin much, then,” Gracie said dismissively. “Yer can feed an orphan kid, fer a few pence a day, on bread an’ taters and gravy. Clothe ’em in ’and-me-downs and stuff wot’s bin unpicked an’ remade. Get a pile fer a shillin’ down Seven Dials way. Same wif boots. An’ w’en yer places kids, which in’t often, like as not they leave their clothes be’ind. An o’ course w’en they grows out o’ them, someone else grows inter ’em.”
“What are you suggesting?” Charlotte turned to her, her eyes wide and dark in the dying light. The gas was flickering yellow on the wall.
“Maybe they are good at placing children?” Tellman said. “If they give them a little education they could go into trades, be useful?”
“You live in a dream, you do,” Gracie said, shaking her head. “Nobody places orphans that fast. “Oo wants extra mouths ter feed these days? ’Less they’re workin’.”
“They were little children,” Pitt put in. “Those ones I saw were as young as three or four years old, most of them.”
Gracie’s eyes were full of pity and anger. “Yer think kids o’ three or four can’t work? ’Course they can. Work ’ard, some o’ them poor little bleeders. An’ don’t answer back ner run away. Too scared. Nothin’ ter run ter. Work ’em till they either grow up or die.”
“They weren’t working,” Pitt said slowly. “They were happy, and healthy, playing.”
“Till they get placed,” Gracie answered him. “There’s good money in that. Sell an ’ealthy kid fer quite a bit … specially if yer got a reg’lar supply, like.”
Charlotte used a word that would have appalled her mother, breathing it out in a sigh of horror.
Tellman regarded Gracie with dismay.
“How do you know that?” he demanded.
“I know wot ’appens ter kids wot’s got no one ter take ’em in,” she said bleakly. “ ’ Appened ter one o’ me friends, down the street. ’Er ma got killed an’ ’er Pa got topped. ’Er an’ ’er bruvvers got sent ter an orphanage. I went ter see ’er, year arter. She were gorn ter pick oakum, an “er bruvvers gorn up north ter the mines.”
Charlotte put her hands up to her face. “Does Aunt Vespasia have to know, Thomas? She couldn’t bear it. It would break her heart to know that Cadell did such a thing.”
“I don’t even know if it’s true yet,” he answered. But it was a prevarication. In his heart he was certain. This was a secret worth committing blackmail to hide. This was why Brandon Balantyne had been singled out for the most powerful threat, even destruction, if possible. He had been asking too many questions. After the Devil’s Acre, he was one man who might be very difficult to silence. This was why all the members of the orphanage committee were victims. There was nothing random or opportunistic about it.
Charlotte did not bother to argue; she knew Pitt too well. Tellman and Gracie both sat silently.
“Tomorrow,” Pitt said. “Tomorrow we’ll go out to Kew.”
Pitt and Tellman reached the orphanage at mid-morning. It was a hot, still day, already oppressive at ten o’clock as they climbed the slight hill towards the large house.
Tellman screwed up his face against the light and stared at it, unconsciously thinning his lips. Pitt knew Gracie’s words were sharp and hurting in the sergeant’s mind. He drew in his breath as if to speak, and then said nothing after all. They approached the front door in silence.
It was opened by a girl of about eleven, plain-faced and straight-haired.
“Yes sir?” she asked.
“We would like to see Mr. Horsfall,” Pitt said bluntly, allowing no opportunity for refusal.
A small boy ran down the hall, making a noise in imitation of a galloping horse, and another followed him, laughing. They both disappeared into a passageway at right angles to the one that led from the door, and there was a squeal from somewhere beyond.
Pitt felt the anger boil up inside him, perhaps pointlessly. Maybe Gracie was wrong? There was far too much money for the few children he had seen, but perhaps there were more somewhere else? Perhaps Horsfall really did find homes for them? Perhaps there was a dearth of orphans at the moment, and many childless families?
“Now, if you please,” he added as the girl looked doubtful.
“Yes sir,” she said obediently, and pulled the door wider. “If yer’ll wait in the sittin’ room I’ll fetch ’im for yer.” She showed them to the same homely room Pitt had seen before, and they heard her feet clatter along the wooden corridor as she went about her errand. They remained standing, too tense to sit.
“Don’t suppose he’ll run, do you?” Tellman said dubiously.
Pitt had thought of it, but Horsfall had no reason to fear anything now. “If he were going to, he’d have gone when Cadell shot himself,” he said aloud.
“Suppose he knows?” Tellman pursed his lips, frowning. “If he does, why is he still here? Does he inherit the orphanage? Where does the money go anyway? Why share it with Cadell in the first place? Do you suppose this is Cadell’s house?”
Those thoughts had occurred to Pitt also, and others that troubled him even more. At the back of his mind was the complacent expression in Wallace’s face when Pitt had told him Dunraithe White had resigned from the bench, and even when he had said that Cadell was dead.
Wallace’s impassivity about White could have either of two explanations. He did not know of White’s involvement, and therefore his resignation held no meaning for Wallace, or he knew the blackmailer would not allow White to resign. He would let him know that if he did, he would exercise his threat and ruin him anyway.
Then why had he not been shattered to learn of Cadell’s death? That removed every chance for him of escape from the noose.
There could be only one answer … it was not Cadell he was depending upon.
Either Cadell had an accomplice … which would explain why Horsfall was still there, or it was not Cadell who was the blackmailer, but someone else.
Tellman was watching Pitt, waiting for him to speak.
It could not be Guy Stanley. He would not have ruined himself, not so completely. Neither did Pitt believe it was Balantyne. He had never even considered that it could be Cornwallis. That left White and Tannifer.
He looked up at Tellman. “Where was Dunraithe White when Cadell was shot?”
“You mean, you don’t think he shot himself?” Tellman seized on the change of wording instantly.
“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. He shoved his hands hard into his pockets, leaning against the wall and staring back at Tellman.
“No one else was there,” Tellman pointed out. “You said so yourself.”
“Wallace believes the blackmailer is still alive, and he knows Cadell is dead,” Pitt argued. “What about Tannifer?”
“I don’t know.” Tellman shook his head. He moved restlessly about the room. “But he can’t have been at Cadell’s house, or he’d have been seen.”
There was no further time to pursue it because at that moment the door opened and Horsfall came in looking blankly from one to the other of them.
“Good morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you this time?”
His smug unconcern infuriated Pitt, the more so for his own inner confusion. Something essential was still eluding him, and he was bitterly aware of it.
“Good morning,” he said grimly, his body tight and his jaw clenched. “How many children have you here at present, Mr. Horsfall?”
Horsfall looked startled. “Why … about fifteen, I think.” He shot a look at Tellman, and then swallowed. “We have been very fortunate in placing several … lately.”
“Good!” Pitt said. “Where?”
“What?”
“Where?” Pitt repeated a little more loudly.
“I don’t understand ….” He was still only mildly uncomfortable.
“Where have you placed them, Mr. Horsfall?”
Tellman moved to the door, as if to cut off Horsfall’s retreat.
“Er … you mean the exact addresses? I should have to look it up. Is there something amiss? Has someone proved unsatisfactory?”
“Unsatisfactory? What an odd word to use of a child,” Pitt said coldly. “Sounds more like placing a servant.”
Horsfall swallowed again. He eased his shoulders up and down, as if to relax tense muscles.
“Yes … silly of me,” he agreed. “But I feel responsible for our children. Sometimes people expect better behavior than … than young people are capable of. New surroundings … strange … new people … not all children respond well. They become used to us here, of course, used to our ways.” He was talking a little too quickly. “Don’t always understand change … even if it is change for their good ….”
“I know.” Pitt’s voice was like ice. “I have children myself, Mr. Horsfall.”
