Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 13]

by Farriers' Lane

  “Oh dear.” Drummond sounded weary. His face puckered with distaste. “Surely he was only trying to settle the matter once and for all. I looked into it myself. Godman was guilty, and you can’t do any good by raking it up again. Unfortunately poor Stafford was killed before he could show Miss Macaulay how mistaken she was, which is a tragedy, not only for her but for the reputation of the law in England.” He shifted in his chair a fraction and frowned at Pitt. “The woman is a little mad, which moves me to pity, but she is doing a considerable amount of damage. For heaven’s sake, Pitt, don’t, even inadvertently, give her the idea that there is the slightest chance that you will reopen the case.”

  “I am investigating the death of Samuel Stafford,” Pitt said very directly, meeting Drummond’s eyes. “I’ll go wherever that takes me, nowhere else. But I spoke to O’Neil, and his family, who are not suspect, of course; and to Charles Lambert, who conducted the original investigation. As far as I can see there is nothing which Stafford could have taken any further.” He shook his head a little. “Even if he found any of the missing physical evidence, which would be very unlikely after all these years, it still wouldn’t prove anything different. It was a sordid tragedy at the time, and an ugly part of history now. I suppose I could go and see the other appeal judges, in case Stafford confided anything in them …”

  “I wouldn’t,” Drummond said sharply. “Leave it alone, Pitt. There’s nothing in it but old pain, and new doubt which is totally unjustified. You will call into question the professional integrity and skill of good men, who don’t deserve that.”

  “I’ll just see one or two of the other judges, in case—”

  “No! I’m telling you, Pitt—leave it alone.”

  “Why?” Pitt said stubbornly. “Who wants us to leave it alone?”

  Drummond’s face tightened. “The Home Secretary,” he replied. “If it gets out you are looking into it again there’ll be a lot of stupid speculation. People will assume there is some doubt about the conviction—which is not true—and there will be another public outcry.” He leaned forward across the desk. “Feeling was very high indeed at the time. If it looks as though we are going to say we may have got the wrong man, or there could be some kind of a pardon, it will raise a storm of protest and a great deal of anti-Jewish feeling. And it’s not fair to Tamar Macaulay. You’ll give her hope which is completely unfounded. For heaven’s sake, let the wretched man remain buried in whatever obscurity he can find—and his family learn to live in peace!” Pitt said nothing.

  “Pitt?” Drummond said urgently. “Listen to me, man!”

  “I heard you, sir.” Pitt smiled bleakly.

  “I know you hear me. I want your word that you understand and will obey me.”

  “No, I’m not sure that I do understand,” Pitt said slowly. “Why would the Home Secretary mind my looking into the case, if that’s what Stafford was doing before he died? He must have had some reason—he wasn’t a whimsical or irresponsible man. I want to know what that reason was.”

  Drummond’s face darkened. “Well, I want you to find out who killed him. And that looks regrettably more and more like a personal matter. I have no idea who—or why—and you have no time to meddle in old cases when you should be out looking for some enmity that was deep enough to inspire murder. Perhaps he knew of some other crime, something he did not live to report to the authorities.” Drummond’s face brightened. “Maybe he learned of something, and as soon as he had proof he was going to tell us—but the criminal, whoever it was, realized he knew and killed him before he could speak to anyone?”

  Pitt made a polite face which was acutely expressive of his total disbelief.

  “Well, go out there and find out,” Drummond said tartly.

  Pitt stood up. He was not angry. He knew the pressures on Drummond, he knew the secret, iron-hard chain of the Inner Circle, and he both hated and feared it. He had felt its power before, and he knew Drummond rued the day he had joined, when innocence blinded him to even the possibility that men of his own class and breed would seek and use such power.

  “Yes sir,” he said quietly, turning and going towards the door.

  “Pitt?”

  Pitt smiled, and ignored him.

  5

  “IS IT the Inner Circle again?” Charlotte asked grimly, taking the pins out of her hair and running her fingers through it in relief at letting it down. She felt as if she had had half an ironmonger’s shop in it keeping its heavy coils in place.

  Pitt was standing behind her, debating whether to hang his jacket up or simply let it lie across the back of the chair.

  “Probably,” he replied. “Although I can’t blame Lambert for not wanting the whole thing raked up again. It’s a terrible feeling to have your cases reopened and questioned as to whether you were right—especially if the man was hanged. Worse if you are not absolutely sure you did all you could, and you doubt your own honesty at the time.” He opted for laying the jacket on the chair. “It is so easy to make mistakes when everyone is crying out for a solution, and you are afraid for your own reputation, of being thought not good enough, not equal to the task.” He sat on the edge of the bed and continued undressing. “And if your men are panicking because witnesses are lying, and frightened, and full of hate …”

  “Are they like that over Judge Stafford?” Charlotte asked, swiveling around on her dressing table stool to look at him.

  “No, I don’t think so.” He stood up, took his shirt off and put it onto the chair as well, and his undervest on top of it. He poured warm water from the pitcher into the bowl and washed his hands, face and neck, and reached for his nightshirt and put it on, pulling it over his head, then trying to find the armholes. “It begins to look as if it may be personal, and nothing to do with the Farriers’ Lane case at all,” he added when he finally got his head through.

  “You mean his wife?” Charlotte put her brush down, looked for a moment at the pile of clothes on the chair, and decided to leave them where they were and say nothing. It was not the occasion for fussing. “Juniper? Why would she kill him?”

  “Because she was in love with Adolphus Pryce,” he answered, climbing into bed. He was quite oblivious of the scattered things he had left around—at least she thought he was.

  “Was she?” she said doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

  “No—not yet. But I cannot think why Livesey should say so if it is not true. I’ll have to enquire into it.”

  “That seems a bit extreme.” She abandoned brushing her hair and rose to turn down the gas in the bracket on the far wall, then climbed into bed also. The clean sheets were cold, and she snuggled up to him comfortably. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I didn’t think you would.” He put his arm around her. “But there doesn’t seem to be anything in the Farriers’ Lane murder worth looking into, certainly nothing to kill Stafford for.”

  “But you don’t know what he found out,” she protested.

  “I know what I found out. Nothing at all. Godman was seen coming out of Farriers’ Lane with blood on his coat, and identified by a flower seller in Soho Square, two streets away. He didn’t even deny that, just the actual time, and that was proved to be a lie. Sorry, my love, but it looks incontestable that he did it. I know you would like him to be innocent, because of Tamar Macaulay, but it seems he can’t be.”

  “Then why are the Inner Circle telling you to leave it alone?” she demanded. “If there’s nothing to find out, why should they mind if you look?” She wriggled a little lower and knew Pitt was smiling in the darkness beside her. “In fact,” she added, “they should be very glad if you prove they were right!”

  He said nothing, but reached over with his arm and touched her hair gently.

  “Except perhaps they aren’t,” she went on. “Are you going to leave it?”

  “I am going to sleep,” he said comfortably.

  “But is the Farriers’ Lane case really closed, Thomas?” she persisted.

  “For tonight�
��yes!”

  “But tomorrow?”

  He pulled her closer, laughing, and she was obliged to leave the matter.

  In the morning Pitt ate a hurried breakfast, having woken late, and then kissed Charlotte long and gently, and left at a run to take an omnibus to see the medical examiner again.

  Charlotte set about the small chores of the day, beginning with a pile of ironing, while Gracie washed the breakfast dishes and then cleaned and blacked the grate in the parlor, laid the fire for the evening, swept the floor and dusted, and made the beds.

  At eleven o’clock they both stopped for a cup of tea and a chance to gossip.

  “Is the master still on the case o’ the man wot was crucified in the stable yard?” Gracie asked with an elaborately casual air, stirring her tea in apparent concentration.

  “I’m not really sure,” Charlotte replied without any pretense at all. “You haven’t any sugar!”

  Gracie grinned and stopped stirring. “Won’t ’e tell you nuffing?”

  “Oh yes—but the more he looks into it, the less it seems as if Judge Stafford could have found out anything new about it. And if he didn’t, then there isn’t any reason why anybody from that case should have killed him.”

  “Then ’oo did? ’Is wife?” Gracie was transparently disappointed. Domestic murder was so much less interesting, especially if it were simply a matter of an affair, and the other party involved was known to them, and not really scandalous.

  “I suppose so, or Mr. Pryce.”

  Gracie stared at her, ignoring her tea.

  “What’s wrong, ma’am? Don’t you think that’s ’oo did it?”

  Charlotte smiled. “I don’t know. I suppose they might. I just keep remembering how I felt when I watched her the evening her husband died. Maybe it’s vanity to think I could not be so wrong in my judgment.”

  “Maybe it was ’er lover, an’ she didn’t know nuffing about it?” Gracie suggested, trying to be helpful.

  “Maybe—but I rather liked him too.” Charlotte sipped her tea and caught Gracie’s eye over the top of the cup.

  “ ’Oo is it as you don’t like?” Gracie was ever practical.

  “No one yet. But I’ve liked people who were guilty before.”

  “ ’Ave yer? Really?” Gracie’s eyes were wide with interest and amazement.

  “It depends why.” Charlotte thought she ought to explain. She was about to elaborate, recalling some of Pitt’s cases in which she had been involved, when the doorbell rang, and Gracie, in a flurry of surprise, put down her cup, stood up, straightened her skirts and scampered down the corridor to answer it.

  She returned a moment later with Caroline, who was smartly dressed, but obviously she had dressed somewhat hurriedly, and without her usual attention to detail. After the greetings had been exchanged, and the answers that all were in good health, Caroline sat down at the kitchen table, accepted the tea Gracie gave her, and explained her reason for having come. She took a breath and plunged in.

  “How is Thomas progressing with the murder of poor Mr. Stafford? Has he learned anything yet?”

  “How devious and indirect you are, Mama,” Charlotte said with amusement.

  “What?”

  “You used to criticize me for being too blunt,” Charlotte replied cheerfully. “You said people did not like it, and that one should always approach things a little sideways, to give people a chance to avoid the subject if they wish.”

  “Nonsense!” Caroline expostulated, but there was a distinct pinkness in her cheeks. “Anyway, that was with strangers, and with gentlemen—and I am neither. And what I said was that it is indelicate to be too forthright—it is …”

  “I know—I know.” Charlotte waved her hand. “I am afraid he has discovered nothing new about the Farriers’ Lane murder. He has no idea why Judge Stafford should have been looking into it again. It seems quite beyond question that Aaron Godman was guilty.”

  “Oh—oh dear. Poor Miss Macaulay.” Caroline shook her head minutely, her face full of sorrow. “I think she really believed her brother was innocent. This will be very hard for her.”

  Charlotte put her hand on her mother’s. “I only said he had found nothing new, so far. I don’t think he will give up, unless it was Mrs. Stafford or Mr. Pryce, or both of them.”

  “And if it wasn’t?”

  “Then he will have to go back to the Farriers’ Lane case—unless there is something else.”

  “What?” Caroline’s face was creased with anxiety now and she leaned farther forward across the table, her tea forgotten. “What else?”

  “I don’t know—some other personal enmity. Something to do with money, perhaps, or another crime he knew about.”

  “Is there evidence of anything like that?”

  “No—I don’t think so. Not so far.”

  “It doesn’t sound …” Caroline smiled bleakly. “It doesn’t sound very likely, does it? He’s bound to go back to the Farriers’ Lane case. I would.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “It is what Mr. Stafford was doing the day he died. He must have had a reason. Even if all he intended was to prove forever that it was Aaron Godman, maybe someone else thought differently.”

  “That’s illogical, my dear,” Caroline pointed out ruefully. “If Aaron Godman was guilty, then no one now would kill Mr. Stafford to prevent him from proving that. Miss Macaulay might grieve that she could no longer hope to clear her brother’s name, but she would not kill Stafford because he believed him guilty. Apart from the fact that it would be ridiculous, everyone else believes him guilty. She cannot kill everyone. And why should she? It wasn’t Stafford’s fault.” She bit her lip. “No, Charlotte, if Godman was guilty, there was no reason to kill Judge Stafford. But if someone else was, then there was every reason, if he knew that—or they thought he did.”

  “Someone like whom, Mama? Joshua Fielding? Is that what you are afraid of?”

  “No! No.” She shook her head fiercely, her face pink. “It could be anyone.”

  “Now who is being illogical?” Charlotte said gently. “The only people the judge saw that day were his wife, Mr. Pryce, Judge Livesey, Devlin O’Neil, Miss Macaulay, and Joshua Fielding. Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Stafford and Judge Livesey had nothing to do with Kingsley Blaine. They only came into the case when it came to trial, and Judge Livesey only when it went to appeal. They couldn’t possibly be guilty of that crime.”

  Caroline looked very pale.

  “Then we’ve got to do something! I don’t believe it was Joshua, and we must prove it. Perhaps we can find out something before Thomas starts, while he is still investigating Mrs. Stafford and Mr. Pryce.”

  Charlotte felt a sudden, quick sympathy with her, but she could think of little that would be helpful. She knew the sense of fear that someone one liked could be implicated, hurt—even be guilty.

  “I don’t know what we could find out,” she said hesitantly, watching Caroline’s face and the anxiety in it, the awareness of her vulnerable situation. It was so easy to be foolish. “If Thomas has tried …” She shrugged. “I don’t know where to begin. We don’t know Mrs. Stafford—although of course I suppose I could call on her …” She knew her reluctance to do it was plain in her voice and in her expression. “It’s …” She struggled to find words that were not too abrupt. “She will know it is curiosity; she knows I am a policeman’s wife. And if she is innocent, and grieving, whatever she feels for Mr. Pryce—and we don’t know what her feelings are—it is only rumor—then it would be so offensive.”

  “But if innocent people were in jeopardy?” Caroline pressed, leaning forward across the table. “Surely that must be the most urgent thing, the most important.”

  “That is not yet the case, Mama, and it may never be.”

  “When it is, it will be too late,” Caroline said with rising anxiety. “It isn’t only charges and arrests, Charlotte—it is suspicion, and the ruin of reputations. That can be enough to destroy someone.”

  “I know.”<
br />
  “What did Lady Cumming-Gould say? You haven’t told me.”

  “Actually I don’t know. I haven’t been to see her since then, and she did not send a note, so I assume she did not learn anything she thought of value.” She smiled. “Perhaps the case really was decisive.”

  “Would you find out, please?”

  “Of course,” Charlotte said with relief. That would be easy to do.

  “You can take my carriage again, if you like,” Caroline offered, then blushed at her own forcefulness and the urgency with which she was pursuing the issue. “If that would help, of course,” she added.

  “Oh yes.” Charlotte accepted with only the faintest smile. “That would help a great deal.” She rose to her feet, the laughter in her eyes unmistakable now. “It is so much more elegant to roll up in a carriage than to walk from the omnibus stop.”

  Caroline opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind.

  Vespasia was out when Charlotte arrived at her house, but the parlormaid informed her she would be back in no more than half an hour, and if Charlotte cared to wait she could take tea in the withdrawing room. Lady Vespasia would be most disappointed to have missed her.

  Charlotte accepted, and sat in Vespasia’s elegant room sipping her tea and watching the flames leap in the fireplace. She had time to look around, which she had never had before, when it would have been obvious and seemed an intrusive curiosity. The room was stamped with Vespasia’s character. There were tall, slender candlesticks on the mantel shelf, not at either end, as one might have expected, but both of them a little to the left of the center, asymmetrically. They were Georgian silver, very cool and simple. On the Sheraton table by the window there was an arrangement of flowers in a Royal Worcester gravy boat, three pink chrysanthemums low down in the center, and a lot of coppery beech leaves, and some dark purple red buds of which she did not know the name.