Bedford Square (33 page)

She gave a very slight smile back, but was too tense to argue.

They parted from Theloneus, leaving him standing in the lighted doorway, and drove home in her carriage through
the lamplit streets, neither feeling it necessary to speak any further.

The following morning Pitt went to see Cornwallis. He was torn between the personal loyalties of friendship and the necessities of his duty to pursue knowledge to its end. Whether Cornwallis understood that or not, he could not deliberately fail in it and remain of use to either of them.

Cornwallis was pacing the floor again. He swung around and stopped as Pitt came in, almost as if he had been caught in some nefarious act. He looked as if he had not eaten properly or slept well in days. His eyes were sunken into his head, and for the first time since Pitt had known him, his jacket did not sit smoothly on his shoulders.

“I have had another letter,” he said baldly. “This morning.” He waited for Pitt to ask what was in it.

Pitt felt his stomach lurch and his body go cold. This was the demand at last. He could see it in Cornwallis’s eyes.

“What does he want?” He tried not to betray his knowledge.

Cornwallis’s voice was rough, as if his throat were sore, and he spoke with difficulty.

“That I should drop a case,” he replied. “If I don’t, then the H.M.S.
Venture
matter will be exposed in every newspaper in London. I could deny it all I wished, but there would always be those who believed, those who doubted my version of events. I … I should be blackballed from my clubs, perhaps even lose my naval rank and standing. Look what happened to Gordon-Cumming, and for far less!” His face was ashen, and he controlled his hands from trembling only by supreme effort of will.

“Which case?” Pitt asked, waiting for him to say the embezzlement that Springer commanded.

“This case!” Cornwallis frowned. “The blackmail investigation. The truth about Slingsby and the Bedford Square murder … who put the body on Balantyne’s steps. What in God’s name does the man want from us?” His voice was rising in spite of himself, a note of panic creeping in.

The room seemed to swim with the sunlight blazing in
through the open window, the noise of traffic in the street below rose like thunder.

“But you won’t …” Pitt said, forcing the words through stiff lips.

A faint patch of color blushed up Cornwallis’s haggard cheeks. Something in his mouth softened.

“No! Of course not,” he said with intense, choking emotion. It seemed to take him by surprise, as if he had not thought he could feel so passionately about anything. “No, Pitt, of course I won’t.” He seemed about to add something more, a word of thanks for having assumed so much, but at the last moment the words were too open, too intimate an acknowledgment of friendship, of vulnerability. It was all better understood, where it could be glossed over later. Men did not say such things to each other.

“Naturally.” Pitt shoved his hands down inside his pockets. “At least it gives us something further to look into, a better place to begin.” He must say something trivial and matter-of-fact. It did not really matter what. “I think I’ll go and see Cadell again.”

“Yes,” Cornwallis agreed. “Yes, of course. Let me know what you learn.”

Pitt went to the door. “I might see Balantyne too,” he added as he went out. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything.”

9

P
ITT HAD BEEN
late home the previous evening, but even so he had wanted to tell Charlotte what he had learned and the troubling thoughts he could not still in his mind. She had been more than willing to listen, not only in concern for his feelings but because she wished intensely to know for herself. They had sat talking long after midnight, unable to let go of the anxiety and the need to share it with each other.

This morning she was more than ever concerned for General Balantyne. It seemed he was targeted by the blackmailer in a more personal and specific way than any of the other victims. Pitt had very carefully refrained from saying that had the murder of Josiah Slingsby been blamed upon him, he would have been effectively removed from complying with the blackmailer’s demands, either for money or for the exercise of influence. Nevertheless, she had understood it perfectly clearly. Therefore it followed that what he wanted might not be anything Balantyne could give but rather his destruction, not an act but the inability to act. And either ruin or death would serve the same end. Pitt had skirted around it, being so careful, trying not to hurt her, but the thought was inevitable once the train of ideas was begun.

It was a brilliantly sunny day, but fortunately a little cooler. At last there was a breath of breeze to break the suffocation of the heat wave. It was too pleasant to be inside if one did not have to. She had agreed to meet Balantyne in the British Museum as before, but was delighted when a boy on a bicycle
brought a note to the door asking if she would find it acceptable to meet at the gate of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Regents Park instead.

She wrote a hasty answer that she would be happy to.

Accordingly, at eleven o’clock, dressed in deep pink and wearing one of Vespasia’s most extravagant hats, she was standing in the sun just inside the gates, watching the passers-by. It was an occupation which in small amounts she found most interesting. She imagined who they were and what sort of homes and lives they had left this morning, why they might have come here, whom to meet.

There were the obvious lovers, strolling arm in arm, whispering to each other and laughing, seeing no one else. There were those less open, pretending they were merely friends and had met by chance, being elaborately inconsequential. Several young girls in pastel dresses passed by, giggling, huddled close together, swinging their petticoats, eyeing the young men and trying to look as if they weren’t. Their muslin skirts drifted in the slightest breeze, their hair gleamed, the blood warm in their cheeks.

Two young soldiers paraded by in uniform, dashing and elegant. Charlotte could not help thinking that probably in ordinary browns and grays they would have looked like any other clerks or apprentices. The bravado made all the difference. She smiled as she watched them. They had a kind of brash innocence. Had Balantyne once been like that, thirty years ago?

It was impossible to imagine him so young, so callow and unaware.

An elderly lady came past dressed in lavender. Perhaps she was in half-mourning, or maybe she merely liked the color. She walked slowly, her entire attention upon the flowers, profuse and dazzling in their beauty.

Although Charlotte was waiting for Balantyne, she did not see him until he was at her elbow.

“Good morning,” he said, startling her. “They are beautiful, aren’t they?”

She realized he was speaking about the roses.

“Oh, yes. Marvelous.” She was suddenly completely uninterested in them. In the bright sunlight the weariness showed in his face, the network of fine lines about his eyes and mouth, the shadows from too little sleep.

“How are you?” he continued, looking at her as if the answer mattered to him greatly.

“Let us walk,” she suggested, reaching to take his arm.

He offered it unhesitatingly.

“I am very well,” she answered as they passed between the flower beds, just another two people among the many. “But the situation is hardly better; in fact, I am afraid it is worse.” She felt his arm tighten under her hand. “There have been very curious developments which have not been in the newspapers. It is proved beyond doubt that the body was not that of Albert Cole at all, but a petty thief from Shoreditch called Josiah Slingsby.”

He stopped and swung around to stare at her. “But that makes no sense!” he protested. “Did he steal the snuffbox? From whom? He cannot have been the blackmailer … I received another letter this morning!”

She had known more would come, and yet she still felt a shock as if someone had struck her. He had touched them again, closely, personally, had reminded them of his reality, his power to act, to hurt them.

“What did he say?” She found the words awkward, her lips dry.

“The same,” he answered, beginning to walk again. In the shelter they had lost the breeze, and the perfume of the roses was heavy, dizzying in the sun.

“Did he still not ask for anything?” she pressed. She wished he would. Waiting for the blow to fall was almost worse than facing it when it did. But then, that was presumably a large part of the plan, the weakening, the fear, the wearing down before the attack.

“No.” He faced straight ahead, avoiding looking at her. “There is still no request for money or anything else. I have lost count of the hours I have lain awake trying to imagine what he could wish of me. I have thought of every area in
which I could act, or have influence, of every person I know whose behavior I could affect, for good or ill, and I can think of nothing.”

She hated the thought, but it must be faced if it were to be fought against.

“Is there anyone in whose path of promotion or gain you are standing?”

“Militarily?” He laughed with a sharp, desperate sound. “Hardly. I am retired. I have no title or wealth that should pass to anyone but Brandy, and he could not be behind this. You know that as well as I.”

“Any other position, social or financial?” she pressed. “Any elected office?”

He smiled. “I am president of an explorers’ club which meets once a quarter and tells each other stories, greatly embellished by imagination and wishful thinking, entirely for entertainment. We are all of us over fifty, and many over sixty. We live in the glory and the color of our past exploits. We remember Africa when it truly was a dark continent, full of mystery and adventure. We traveled for love of the unknown, long before anyone thought of it in connection with investment and the extension of empire.”

“But you have knowledge of it, real knowledge, from having been there?” she pressed.

“Of course, but I cannot think it is of any use to present-day explorers and financiers.” He frowned. “Do you think this has anything to do with Africa?”

“Thomas does … at least he holds it as a possibility. Great-Aunt Vespasia believes it is a very powerful conspiracy, and great profit for someone lies at the root of it.”

They were passing other flower beds now which were brilliant with color and perfume. The drone of bees was audible above the swish of skirts and a faint murmur of conversation.

“That seems likely,” he answered.

“Any other offices?” she asked.

“I was president of a society promoting young artists, but my term finished last year.” His voice emphasized the triviality of it. “Other than that, newly being a member of a group
within the Jessop Club that raises finances for an orphanage. I cannot imagine anyone desiring to take my place in that. It is hardly exclusive anyway. I believe anyone who wished to join it would be welcomed.”

“It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing one would commit blackmail to achieve,” she agreed.

They walked in silence for a hundred yards or so, across the pathway which circled the gardens and out into the main part of Regents Park. The sun was growing hotter and the breeze had dropped. Somewhere in the distance a band was playing.

“I don’t think the fact that the body is that of Slingsby, and not Cole, has made any difference to the police’s believing I could have been responsible for his death,” he said at length. “I suppose he could have been running errands for the blackmailer as easily as anyone else. You say he was a thief?”

“Yes … from Shoreditch, nowhere near Bedford Square,” she said quickly “He was killed in Shoreditch, by his accomplice. Thomas knows it had nothing to do with you at all.”

“Then why is his sergeant still making enquiries about me?”

“To learn what the blackmailer wants,” she said with conviction. “It must be some influence you have, some power or information. What have you in common with the other victims?”

He smiled bleakly, a flash of hard humor. “Since I don’t know who they are, I cannot even guess.”

“Oh …” She was taken aback. “Yes … of course. They are a banker, a diplomat, Sir Guy Stanley of course you know …” She saw the wince of pity in his face but went on. “A judge …” Should she mention Cornwallis or not? Pitt might prefer she did not, but the situation was too serious for secrets that were largely a matter of saving embarrassment. “And an assistant commissioner of police.”