Southampton Row

by Anne Perry

  The next major step up would be Cornwallis’s own job. Pitt felt a tug of emotion that Cornwallis could not have been unaware of such a risk, and yet looking at him leaning his elbows on the kitchen table, there was not a shadow of hesitation in him.

  “Find Cartouche!” Cornwallis said. “If it was Wetron who worked out who he was, and trapped him, and forced from him the secret of the blackmail, perhaps even to implicate Voisey—which might be possible with Rose Serracold being one of the other victims and Kingsley the third.”

  “Dangerous . . .” Pitt warned, but the blood was beginning to beat in his pulses and he felt alive again, quickened inside, and something like hope at the edge of his mind.

  Cornwallis smiled very slightly, more a baring of the teeth. “He used Wray. Let us use him again. The poor man is beyond being hurt anymore. Even his reputation is ruined if they bring in a verdict of suicide. His life will be rendered almost meaningless in the sense he valued.”

  A black rage hardened in Pitt at that thought. “Yes, I should very much like to use Wray,” he said between clenched jaws. “No one knows what I said to him, or he to me. And since I cannot prove I did not threaten him, neither can they deny anything I say he told me!” He too leaned forward across the table. “He had no idea who Cartouche was, but no one else knows that. What if I say that he did, and he told me, and that it was Cartouche’s identity which so distressed him?” His mind was racing now. “And that Maude herself knew, in spite of all his precautions? And she left a note of it somewhere hidden in her papers? We searched the house, but we did not understand what we saw. Now, with Wray’s information, we will . . .”

  “Then Cartouche will come to look for it and destroy it . . . if he knows!” Tellman finished. “Except how will we make sure he hears? Will Wetron tell him? Wetron doesn’t know who he is, or he’d . . .” He stopped, confused.

  “Newspapers,” Cornwallis replied. “I’ll make sure the newspapers print it, tomorrow. The case is still headlines because of Wray’s death. I can make Cartouche think he has to get back Maude Lamont’s notes on him or he’ll be exposed. It doesn’t matter what his secret is.”

  “What are you going to tell Wetron?” Tellman asked, frowning. He was puzzled, but the eagerness to act burned in him. His eyes were bright.

  “You are,” Cornwallis corrected. “Report back to him, as you ordinarily would, that the circle is about to be completed: Voisey through money to Maude Lamont through blackmail to Kingsley and Cartouche, to destroy Voisey’s opponent, back to Voisey, and that you are about to get the proof. Then he will call the press. But he must believe it, or they won’t print it.”

  Tellman swallowed, and nodded slowly.

  “Wray will still be buried as a suicide,” Pitt said, and found even putting words to it painful. “I . . . I find it hard to believe that he would . . . not after he had endured his grief and . . .” But he could imagine it. No matter how brave one was, there were some pains that became unendurable in the darkest moments of the night. Maybe he could manage most of the time, when there were people around, something to do, even sunlight, the beauty of flowers, anyone else who cared. But alone in the dark, too tired to fight anymore . . .

  “He was deeply loved and admired.” Cornwallis was struggling to find a better answer himself. “Perhaps he will have friends in the church who will use influence to see that he is never named as such.”

  “But you didn’t hound him!” Tellman protested. “Why would he give in now? It’s against his faith!”

  “It was some kind of poison,” Pitt told him. “How could he do that by accident? And it wasn’t natural causes.” But another thought was stirring in his mind, a wild possibility. “Perhaps Voisey wasn’t using a perfect chance given him? Perhaps he murdered Wray, or at least caused him to be murdered? His revenge was only complete if Wray was dead. With Wray miserable, haunted by gossip and fear, violated, I appear a villain. But if he is dead that is far better. Then I am irredeemable. Surely Voisey would not hesitate at the final act? He didn’t in Whitechapel.”

  “His sister?” Cornwallis said with genuine horror. “He used her to poison Wray?”

  “She may have had no idea what she was doing,” Pitt pointed out. “And there was virtually no chance of her getting caught. As far as she knew, she was no more than a witness to my cruelty to an old and vulnerable man.”

  “How do we prove it?” Tellman said, thin-lipped. “Us knowing it is no good! It only adds to the flavor of his victory if we actually know what happened and still can’t do a damn thing about it!”

  “An autopsy,” Pitt said. It was the only thing that seemed an answer.

  “They’d never do it.” Cornwallis shook his head. “No one wants it. The church will be afraid it would prove suicide, which they’ll do all they can to protect him from, and Voisey will be afraid it will prove murder, or at least raise the question.”

  Pitt stood up. “There’ll be a way. I’ll make one. I’ll go to see Lady Vespasia. If anyone can force the issue, she will know who it is and how to find him.” He looked at Cornwallis, then at Tellman. “Thank you,” he said with sudden overwhelming gratitude. “Thank you for . . . coming.”

  Neither of them answered, each in his own way confused for words. They did not seek or want gratitude, only to help.

  Tellman went straight back to Bow Street. It was a quarter past ten in the morning. The desk sergeant called out to him, but he barely heard. He went straight up the stairs to Wetron’s office, which had once been Pitt’s. It was extraordinary to think that had been only a few months ago. Now it was an alien place, the man in it an enemy. That idea had come easily. He was startled to realize that it had taken no effort of mind to accommodate it.

  He knocked, and after a few moments heard Wetron’s voice telling him to come in.

  “Good morning, sir,” he said when he was inside and the door closed behind him.

  “Morning, Tellman.” Wetron looked up from his desk. At first sight he seemed an ordinary man, middle height, mousy coloring. Only when you looked at his eyes did you realize the strength in him, the undeviating will to succeed.

  Tellman swallowed. He began the lie. “I saw Pitt this morning. He told me what he actually said to Mr. Wray, and why Wray was so distressed.”

  Wetron looked up at him, his face bleak. “I think the sooner you dissociate yourself, and this police force, from Mr. Pitt, the better, Inspector. I shall issue a statement to the newspapers that he no longer has anything whatever to do with the Metropolitan Police, and we take no responsibility for his actions. He’s Special Branch’s problem. Let them get him out of this, if they can. The man’s a disaster.”

  Tellman stood rigid, the fury inside him ready to explode, every injustice he’d ever seen like a red haze inside him. “I’m sure you’re right, sir, but I think you ought to know what he learned before you do that.” He ignored Wetron’s impatience, signaled in his flicking fingers and the crease between his brows. “It seems Mr. Wray knew who the third visitor was at Maude Lamont’s the night she was murdered.” He took a shaky breath. “Because it was someone of his acquaintance. Another churchman, I think.”

  “What?” Now he had Wetron’s entire attention, even if not his belief.

  Tellman met his eyes without flinching. “Yes sir. Apparently, there’s something in the woman’s notes, Miss Lamont I mean, which could prove it, now we know who she meant.”

  “What is it, man?” Wetron demanded. “Don’t stand there talking in riddles!”

  “That’s it, sir. Mr. Pitt can’t be sure until he sees the papers in Miss Lamont’s home.” He hurried on before Wetron could interrupt him again, forcing his voice to rise as if in excitement. “It’ll still be hard to prove it. But if we were to tell the newspapers that we have the information . . . of course, we don’t need to mention Mr. Pitt, if you don’t think it’s a good idea . . . then whoever this man is, and he is probably the one who killed her, then he may very well betray himself by going to Southamp
ton Row.”

  “Yes, yes, Tellman, you don’t need to spell it out for me!” Wetron said sharply. “I understand what you are suggesting. Let me give it some thought.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “We’ll keep Pitt out of it, I think. You should go to Southampton Row. After all, it’s your case.” He made the point deliberately, watching Tellman’s face.

  Tellman made himself smile. “Yes sir. I don’t know why Special Branch got involved with it at all. Unless, of course, it was because of Sir Charles Voisey?”

  Wetron sat very still. “What has it to do with Voisey? You’re not imagining the man implicated by the cartouche was Voisey, are you?” There was heavy ridicule in his tone, and the curl of his smile was bitter, tinged with mockery and regret.

  “Oh no, sir,” Tellman said quickly. “We’re pretty sure that Maude Lamont was blackmailing at least some of her clients, certainly the three that were there the night she was killed.”

  “Over what?” Wetron asked carefully.

  “Different things, but not for money, for certain behavior in the present political campaign that was helpful to Sir Charles Voisey.”

  Wetron’s eyes widened.

  “Indeed? That’s a rather odd accusation, Tellman. I suppose you are aware of exactly who Sir Charles is?”

  “Yes sir! He’s a most distinguished appeal court judge who is now standing for a seat in Parliament. He was recently knighted by Her Majesty, but I don’t know exactly what for, except word has it that it was something remarkably brave.” He said it with reverence, and watched Wetron’s lips tighten and the muscles stand out cord-hard on his neck. Perhaps Lady Vespasia was right?

  “And has Pitt got some reason to believe all this?” Wetron asked.

  “Yes sir.” Tellman kept his voice perfectly level, not too assured. “There is some very definite connecting link. It all makes a lot of sense. We’re that far from it!” He held up his finger and thumb about an inch apart. “We just need to flush this man out, and then we can prove it. Murder’s a very nasty crime indeed, any way you want to look at it, and this one especially. Choked the woman. Looks like he put his knee in her chest and forced this stuff down her throat until she died.”

  “Yes, you don’t need to be graphic, Inspector,” Wetron said tartly. “I’ll call the press and tell them. You get on with finding the proof you need.” He bent to the paper he had been reading before he was interrupted. It was dismissal.

  “Yes sir.” Tellman stood to attention, then turned on his heel. He did not breathe a sigh of relief, or allow his body to let go of the tension and shiver until he was halfway down the stairs again.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  Pitt returned immediately to Vespasia, this time writing a note which he handed to the maid, then he waited in the morning room. He believed Vespasia was one person who would refrain from judging his part in Wray’s death, but he could not bring himself to assume it before he had seen her. He waited, pacing the floor, his hands sweating, his breath ragged.

  He spun around when the morning room door opened, expecting the maid to tell him either that Lady Vespasia would see him or that she would not. But it was Vespasia herself who was there. She came in and closed the door behind her, shutting out the servants and, from the look on her face, the rest of the world.

  “Good morning, Thomas. I assume you have come because you have some plan of battle, and a part in it for me? You had better tell me what it is. Are we to fight alone, or do we have allies?”

  Her use of the plural was the most heartening thing she could have said. He should never have doubted her, regardless of what the press wrote or what the odds against them might be. It was not modesty on his part, it was lack of faith.

  “Yes, Captain Cornwallis and Inspector Tellman.”

  “Good, and what are we to do?” She sat down in one of the large rose-pink morning room chairs and indicated another for him.

  He told her the plan, such as it was, which they had formulated around his kitchen table. She listened in silence until he had finished.

  “An autopsy,” she said at last. “That will not be easy. He was a man not only revered but actually loved. No one, apart from Voisey, will wish to see him named a suicide, even though that is already the assumption. I imagine the church will endeavor to leave the exact verdict open, and at least tacitly assume some kind of misadventure, in the belief that the less that is said the sooner it will be forgotten. And there is considerable discretion and kindness in that.” She looked at him very steadily. “Are you prepared for the discovery that he did, in fact, take his own life, Thomas?”

  “No,” he said honestly. “But nothing I feel about it is going to alter the truth, and I think I need to know it. I really don’t believe he took his own life, but I admit it is possible. I think Voisey contrived his death, using his sister, almost certainly without her knowledge.”

  “And you believe an autopsy will indicate that? You may be right. Anyway, as you will no doubt agree, we have little else.” She rose to her feet stiffly. “I do not have the influence to force such a thing myself, but I believe Somerset Carlisle does.” The faintest smile flickered over her face and lit her silver-gray eyes. “You no doubt remember him from that farcical tragedy in Resurrection Row among the thugs.” She did not go on to mention his bizarre part in it. It was something neither of them would forget. If any man on earth would be willing to risk his reputation for a cause in which he believed, it was Carlisle.

  Pitt smiled back, for a moment memory erasing the present. Time had bleached the horror from those events and left only the black humor, and the passion which had compelled that extraordinary man to act as he had.

  “Yes,” he agreed with fervor. “Yes, we’ll ask him.”

  Vespasia rather liked the telephone. It was one of several inventions to have become generally available to those with the means to afford it, and it was reasonably useful. In a mere quarter of an hour she was able to ascertain that Carlisle was at his club in Pall Mall—where, of course, ladies were not admitted—but that he would leave forthwith and go to the Savoy Hotel, where he would receive them as soon as they arrived.

  Actually, with the state of the traffic as it was, and the time of the day, it was almost an hour later when Pitt and Vespasia were shown into the private sitting room that Carlisle had engaged for the purpose. He rose to his feet the instant they were shown in, elegant, a little gaunt now, his unusual eyebrows still giving his face a faintly quizzical look.

  As soon as they were seated and appropriate refreshments had been ordered, Vespasia came straight to the point.

  “No doubt you have read the newspapers and are aware of Thomas’s situation. You may not be aware that it has been carefully and extremely cleverly arranged by a man whose intense desire is to be revenged for a recent very grave defeat. I cannot tell you what it was, only that he is powerful and dangerous, and has managed to salvage from the wreck of his previous ambition a new one only slightly less ruinous to the country.”

  Carlisle asked no questions as to what it might be. He was well acquainted with the need for absolute discretion. He regarded Pitt levelly for several moments, perhaps seeing the weariness in him and the marks of the despair so close under the surface. “What is it you want from me?” he asked very seriously.

  It was Vespasia who answered. “An autopsy of the body of the Reverend Francis Wray.”

  Carlisle gulped. For an instant he was thrown off balance.

  Vespasia gave a tiny smile. “If it were easy, my dear, I should not have needed to ask for your assistance. The poor man is going to be regarded as a suicide, although of course the church will never permit it to be said in so many words. They will speak of unfortunate accidents, and bury him properly. But people will still believe he took his own life, and that is necessary to the plan of our enemy, otherwise his revenge upon Thomas fails to have effect.”

  “Yes, I see that,” Carlisle agreed. “No one can have driven him to sui
cide unless there is believed to have been one. People will assume the church is concealing it as a matter of loyalty, which will probably be the truth.” He turned to Pitt. “What do you believe happened?”

  “I think he was murdered,” Pitt replied. “I doubt there was an accident which timed itself to the hour to suit their purposes. I don’t know if an autopsy will prove that, but it is the only chance we have.”

  Carlisle thought in silence for several minutes, and neither Pitt nor Vespasia interrupted him. They glanced at each other, and then away again, and waited.

  Carlisle looked up. “If you are prepared to abide by the result, whatever it is, I believe I know a way to persuade the local coroner that it must be done.” He smiled a little sourly. “It will entail a certain elasticity of the truth, but I have shown a skill in that area before. I think the less you know about it, Thomas, the better. You never had any talent in that direction at all. In fact, it worries me more than a little that Special Branch is desperate enough to employ you. You are the last man cut out to succeed in this kind of work. I heard you may have been drafted merely to give them a more respectable face.”

  “In that case they have failed spectacularly,” Pitt replied with a considerable edge to his voice.

  “Nonsense!” Vespasia snapped. “He was dismissed out of Bow Street because the Inner Circle wanted one of their own men there. There is nothing subtle or devious about it at all. Special Branch was simply available, and not in a position to refuse.” She rose to her feet. “Thank you, Somerset. I assume that as well as the necessity for this autopsy, you are also aware of the urgency? Tomorrow would be good. The longer this slander against Thomas is around, the more people will hear it and the work of undoing it will become a great deal more difficult. Also, of course, there is the matter of the election. Once the polls close there are certain things it becomes very difficult to abrogate.”