Half Moon Street

by Anne Perry

“Yes, he is fond of . . . of . . . entertainment. Perhaps not always . . . what His Excellency the Ambassador would have best approved. Not that he is . . .”

  Pitt rescued him. “Did you hear that we found the body of a man in a boat in the river this morning, at Horseferry Stairs? He answers the description of Henri Bonnard. Monsieur Meissonier was good enough to come to look at it, and he said it was not he. He seemed quite certain. But he also said Monsieur Bonnard was on leave.”

  Villeroche looked wretched. “I had not heard it. I am most sorry. I do hope . . . I profoundly hope it is not Henri, but I am equally sure that he is not on leave.” His eyes were steady on Pitt’s face. “He had an invitation to attend a play by Oscar Wilde, and to dine with Monsieur Wilde and his friends afterwards. He did not go. That is not a thing he would do without the most abject apology and an explanation to satisfy an examining magistrate, let alone a playwright!”

  Pitt felt a sinking in his stomach.

  “Would you like to go to the morgue and see if this man is Bonnard, and be certain in your own mind?” he offered.

  “The morgue!”

  “Yes. It is the only way you will satisfy yourself.”

  “I . . . I suppose it is necessary?”

  “Not to me. Monsieur Meissonier has said Bonnard is not missing. I have to accept that. Therefore it cannot be him.”

  “Of course. I will come. How long will it take?”

  “In a hansom we can be there and back in less than an hour.”

  “Very well. Let us make haste.”

  Ashen-faced and deeply unhappy, Villeroche stared at the face of the dead man and said it was not Henri Bonnard.

  “It is most like him.” He coughed and held his handkerchief to his face. “But I do not know this man. I am sorry for having taken your time. You have been most civil. Please, in no circumstances mention to Monsieur Meissonier, or anyone else, that I came here.” He turned and all but ran out of the morgue and scrambled up into the hansom again, directing it back to the embassy so hastily Pitt had to jump after him not to be left on the pavement.

  “Where does he live?” he asked, flinging himself into the seat as the cab pulled away.

  “He has rooms in Portman Square,” Villeroche replied. “But he isn’t there. . . .”

  “More precisely?” Pitt persisted. “And names of one or two other friends or associates who might know more?”

  “Second floor of number fourteen. And I suppose you could ask Charles Renaud or Jean-Claud Aubusson. I’ll give you their addresses. They . . . they don’t work at the embassy. And of course there are Englishmen also. There is George Strickland, and Mr. O’Halloran.” He fumbled in his pocket and did not find what he wanted.

  Pitt habitually carried all sorts of things. It had been the despair of his superiors when they saw him more frequently, and even now Commissioner Cornwallis, who had been in the navy before taking up his present appointment, found Pitt’s untidiness hard to tolerate. Now he pulled out string, a pocketknife, sealing wax, a pencil, three shillings and sevenpence in coins, two used French postage stamps he was saving for Daniel, a receipt for a pair of socks, a note to remind himself to get his boots mended and buy some butter, two mint humbugs covered in fluff, and a small pad of paper. He handed the pencil and paper to Villeroche, and put the rest back.

  Villeroche wrote the names and addresses for him, and when they reached the corner nearest the embassy, he stopped the cab, said good-bye and then ran across the road and disappeared up the steps.

  Pitt called upon all of the men Villeroche had named. He found two of them at home and willing to talk to him.

  “Ah, but he’s a fine man,” O’Halloran said with a smile. “But I haven’t seen him in a week or more, which is surely a shame. I expected him at Wylie’s party last Saturday night, and I would have bet my shirt he’d have been at the theatre on Monday. Wilde was there himself, and what a night we had of it, for sure.” He shrugged. “Not that I’d swear I can remember everything of it myself, mind.”

  “But Henri Bonnard was not there?” Pitt pressed him.

  “That I do know,” O’Halloran said with certainty. He looked at Pitt narrowly out of vivid blue eyes. “Police, you said you are? Is there something wrong? Why are you asking about Bonnard?”

  “Because at least one of his other friends believes he is missing,” Pitt replied.

  “And they’re sending a superintendent to look for him?” O’Halloran asked wryly.

  “No. There was a body found in the Thames at Horseferry Stairs this morning. There was a question it might be him, but two men from the French Embassy have both said it is not.”

  “Thank God for that!” O’Halloran said with feeling. “Although it’s some poor devil. Surely you don’t think Bonnard is responsible? Can’t imagine it. Harmless sort of fellow, he is. A bit wild in his tastes, maybe, all for enjoying himself, but no malice in him, none at all.”

  “That was never in question,” Pitt assured him.

  O’Halloran relaxed, but he could say nothing more of use, and Pitt thanked him and left.

  The other person willing to see him was Charles Renaud.

  “Actually I rather assumed he’d gone to Paris,” he said with surprise. “I seem to remember him saying something about having to pack, and he mentioned the time the Dover train left. It was all rather in passing, you know? I made the assumption. I’m afraid I wasn’t especially interested. I’m sorry.”

  Tellman went to the river police eagerly, not because he had any great fondness for them, but questioning about tides and hours was infinitely preferable to trying to extract embarrassing truths from foreigners who were protected by diplomatic immunity. What the man in the punt had been doing that provoked his murder it was beyond Tellman’s power, or desire, even to guess. Tellman had seen a great deal of the sordid and tragic sides of life. He had grown up in extreme poverty and knew crime and both the need and the viciousness which drove it. But there were things some so-called gentlemen did, especially those connected with the theatre, which no decent person should have a guess at, far less observe.

  Men who wore green velvet dresses were among them. Tellman had been brought up to believe there were two sorts of women: good women, such as wives, mothers, and aunts, who did not show passions and probably did not have them; and the sort who did have them, and who showed them publicly and embarrassingly. A man who would dress up as the second was beyond his comprehension.

  Thinking of women, and love, brought Gracie to his mind. Without intending to, he could see her bright little face, the angle of her shoulders, the quick way she moved. She was tiny—all her dresses had to be taken up—and too thin for most men’s tastes, with not much shape to her, no more than a suggestion. He hadn’t thought he liked women like that himself. She was all spirit and mind, a sharp tongue, all courage and wit.

  Tellman had no idea what she really thought of him. He sat on the omnibus going along the embankment and remembered with curiously painful loneliness how her eyes had shone when she spoke of that Irish valet. He did not want to name the pain inside him. It was something he preferred not to recognize.

  He would point his mind to what he should ask the river police about tides and where the boat must have started in order to finish at Horseferry Stairs by dawn.

  He reported his findings to Pitt in the late afternoon, at Pitt’s home in Keppel Street. It was warm and clean, but it seemed very empty without the women in the kitchen or busying about upstairs. There were no children’s voices; no light, quick feet; no one singing. He even missed Gracie’s orders, telling him to watch his boots, not to bump anything or make a mess.

  He sat across the kitchen table from Pitt, sipping at his tea and feeling strangely empty.

  “Well?” Pitt prompted.

  “Not very helpful, actually,” Tellman answered. There was no homemade cake, only a tin of bought biscuits. It was not nearly the same. “Low water was at three minutes past five at London Bridge, and it gets later the
higher you go up the river. Like it would be near quarter past six up at Battersea.”

  “And high tide?” Pitt asked.

  “Quarter past eleven last night at London Bridge.”

  “And an hour and ten minutes later at Battersea . . .”

  “No . . . that’s the thing, only twenty minutes, more like twentyfive to midnight.”

  “And the rate of flow? How far would the punt have drifted?”

  “That’s the other thing,” Tellman explained. “The ebb tide takes six and three quarter hours, near enough. The flood tide takes only five and a quarter. He reckoned the punt could go as much as two and a half miles an hour, but on the other hand, on ebb tide there are mud shoals and sandbanks it could get stuck on . . .”

  “But it didn’t,” Pitt pointed out. “If it had, it wouldn’t have come off till the flood again.”

  “Or it could have got caught up by passing barges in the dark, or anything else,” Tellman went on. “Caught on the piles of a bridge and then loosed again if something bumped into it . . . a dozen things. All they can say for sure is that it most likely came from upriver, because no one’d carry that extra weight against the tide, and there’s no place likely anyone’d keep a boat like that, which is a private sort of pleasure boat, downriver from Horseferry Stairs. It’s all city, docks and the like.”

  Pitt remained silent for several minutes, thinking it over.

  “I see,” he said at length. “So time and tide don’t really help at all. It could have been as far as eleven or twelve miles, at the outside, and as close as one mile, or wherever the nearest house is with an edge on the water. Or even nearer, if anyone kept that punt moored in the open. It’ll just be a matter of questioning.”

  “It would help to find out who he is,” Tellman pointed out. “I still think it could be that French fellow and they’re embarrassed to say so. I’d disown him if any Englishman did that in France!”

  Pitt looked at him with a faint smile. “I found a friend of his who thought he had gone to Dover, on the way to Paris. I’d like to know if that’s true.”

  “Across the Channel?” Tellman said with mixed feelings. He was not very keen on the idea of foreign travel, but on the other hand it would be quite an adventure to go in a packet boat or a steamer over to Calais, and then perhaps even to Paris itself. That would be something to tell Gracie! “I’d better find out if he did,” he said hopefully. “If he isn’t the body, he might be the one who killed him.”

  “If it isn’t he, there’s no reason to suppose he has anything to do with it,” Pitt pointed out. “But you are right, we need to know whose body it is. We’ve got nothing else.”

  Tellman stood up. “So I’ll go to Dover, sir. Shipping company ought to know whether he went over to France or not. I’ll go and find out.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The last post arrived just as Tellman left, and Pitt felt a surge of excitement as he recognized Charlotte’s handwriting on a thick envelope addressed to him. He ignored the others and went back to the kitchen, tearing hers open and pulling out the sheets of notepaper as he went. He sat down at the table and read:

  My dearest Thomas,

  Paris is marvelous. What a beautiful city! I miss you, but I am enjoying myself. There is simply so much to see, to listen to, to learn. I have never been in a place so buzzing with life and ideas. Even the posters on the walls are by real artists, and quite different from anything in London. They have such a flair they invite interest straightaway—even if it might not be of a kind one would be willing to own.

  The streets, or should I say “boulevards,” for they are all relatively new and very wide and grand, are lined with oceans of trees. Light dances on fountains in all directions. “Or blew the silver down-baths of her dreams, to sow futurity with seeds of thought and count the passage of her festive hours.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning said it so well.

  Jack plans to take us to the theatre, but one hardly knows where to begin. There are over twenty in the city, so we are told, and of course that does not include the opera. I should love to see Sarah Bernhardt in something—anything at all. I hear she has even done Hamlet! Or intends to.

  Our host and hostess here are very charming and do everything to make us welcome. But I do miss my own house. Here they have no idea how to make a decent cup of tea, and chocolate first thing in the morning is horrible!

  There is great talk about a young man who is on trial for murder. He swears he was elsewhere at the time, and could prove it, if only the friend he was with would come forward. No one believes him. But the thing which is interesting is that he says he was at the Moulin Rouge. That is a famous, or perhaps notorious, dance hall. I asked Madame about it, but she seemed rather scandalized, so I did no pursue the matter. Jack says they dance the cancan there, and the girls wear no underclothes. A very strange artist called Henri Toulouse-Lautrec paints wonderful posters for it. I saw one when we were out on the street yesterday. It was rather vulgar, but so full of life I had to look. I felt as if I could hear the music just by seeing it.

  Tomorrow we go to see M. Eiffel’s tower, which is enormous. I believe there is a water closet at the very top, whose windows would have the very best view in Paris—could one see out of them!

  I miss you all, and realize how much I love you, because you are not here with me. When I come home I shall be so devoted, obedient and charming—for at least a week!

  Yours always,

  Charlotte

  Pitt sat with the paper in his hand, smiling. Reading her words, written enthusiastically, scrawled across the page, was almost like hearing her voice. Again he was reminded how right he had been to let her go gracefully rather than grudgingly. It was only for three weeks. Every day of it dragged, but it would come to an end. He realized with a start that the time was flying by on wings and he needed to prepare to go out to the theatre with Caroline. He folded up Charlotte’s letter and slid it back into the envelope, put it in his jacket pocket and went upstairs to wash and change into the only evening suit he possessed. It was something he had been obliged to purchase when going to stay, on police duty, at Emily’s country home.

  He worked hard at looking tidy and sufficiently respectable not to embarrass his mother-in-law. He was fond of Caroline quite apart from their family relationship. He admired her courage in seizing her happiness with Joshua regardless of the social risks involved. Charlotte had done the same in marrying him, and he did not delude himself that the costs were not real.

  He surveyed himself in the glass. The reflection he saw was not entirely satisfactory. His face was intelligent and individual rather than handsome. No matter what he did with his hair it was always unruly. Of course a good barber could have cut several inches off it and helped a lot, but short hair made him uncomfortable, and he somehow never remembered to make time. His shirt collar was straight, for a change, if a little high, and its dazzling white was becoming to him. It would have to do.

  He walked briskly to Bedford Square and caught a cab to the theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. The street was milling with people, the somber black and white of gentlemen, the brilliant colors of women, the glitter of jewels. Laughter mixed with the sound of hooves and the rattle of harness as carriages fought for room to move. The gaslight was bright and the theatre front had huge posters advertising the performance, the actress’s name above the title of the play. Neither meant anything to Pitt, but he could not help being infected by the excitement. It was sharp and brittle in the air, like moonlight on a frosty night.

  Everyone was surging forward, all pressing to get inside, to see and to be seen, call to people they knew, take their seats, anticipate the drama.

  Pitt found Caroline and Joshua in the foyer. They saw him, perhaps because of his height, before he saw them. He heard Joshua’s voice, clear and carrying, with the perfect diction of an actor.

  “Thomas! Over to your left, by the pillar.”

  Pitt turned and saw him immediately. Joshua Fielding had the sort of
face perfectly designed for conveying emotion: mobile features, heavy-lidded, dark eyes, a mouth quick to humor or as easily to tragedy. Now he was simply pleased to see a friend.

  Beside him, Caroline looked remarkably well. She had the same warm coloring as Charlotte, hair with auburn lights in it touched with gray, the proud carriage of her head. Time had dealt kindly with her, but the mark of pain was there for anyone perceptive enough to see. She had not been unscathed by life, as Pitt knew very well.

  He greeted them with real pleasure and then followed them up the steps and around the long, curving corridor to the box Joshua had reserved. It had an excellent view of the stage, quite uninterrupted by other people’s heads, and they were at a broad angle so they could see everyone except in the wings on their own side.

  Joshua held a chair for Caroline, then both men seated themselves.

  Pitt told them of Charlotte’s letter, omitting the part about the young man’s trial and the question of visiting places like the Moulin Rouge.

  “I hope she is not going to come home with radical ideas,” Caroline said with a smile.

  “The whole world is changing,” Joshua replied. “Ideas are in flux all the time. New generations want different things from life and expect happiness in new ways.”

  Caroline turned toward him, looking puzzled. “Why do you say that?” she asked. “You made odd remarks at breakfast also.”

  “I am wondering if I should have told you more about tonight’s play. Perhaps I should. It is very . . . avant-garde.” He looked a little rueful, his face gentle and apologetic in the shadows from the box curtains and the glare of the chandeliers.

  “It’s not by Mr. Ibsen, is it?” Caroline asked uncertainly.

  Joshua smiled widely. “No, my dear, but it’s just as controversial. Cecily Antrim would not play in something by an unknown author unless it was fairly radical and espoused views she shared.” There was a warmth in his voice as he spoke and a humor in his eyes.

  Pitt thought Caroline looked uncertain, but before either of them could pursue the subject their attention was caught by people they knew in one of the boxes opposite.