Bedford Square (36 page)

Still smiling to herself, Charlotte decided to leave them. Tellman could work through his awkwardness the best he was able. He gave her a quick, rather desperate look as she went to the door, but she pretended to have no idea of the emotion in the room, and excused herself to have a game of charades with Jemima and Daniel, leaving Gracie to finish the kipper.

Pitt was later than usual in to Bow Street the following morning; in fact, he had only just arrived when there was a sharp bang on his office door. Before he could answer, it
opened to admit a breathless sergeant, his face filled with consternation.

“Sir … Mr. Cadell has been found shot!” He swallowed hard, catching his breath. “Looks like suicide. He left a note”

Pitt was stunned. Even as he sat motionless with the sense of shock sinking into him like ice, his brain told him that he should have expected it. The signs had been there; he had simply refused to recognize them because of the pain it would cause Vespasia. He thought of her now, and of Theodosia Cadell. For her this would be almost unbearable, except that one had to bear it because there was no alternative.

Was he to blame? Had his visit to Cadell yesterday evening precipitated this? Would Vespasia hold him responsible for it?

No, of course not. It would be unjust. If Cadell were guilty, then it was his own doing.

“Sir!” The sergeant shifted from one foot to the other, his eyes wide and anxious.

“Yes.” Pitt stood up. “Yes. I’m coming. Is Tellman in?”

“Yes sir. Shall I get ’im?”

“Send him to the door. I’ll get a hansom.” He went straight past the sergeant, not even thinking to pick up his hat from the stand, only snatching his jacket off its hook.

Downstairs he met Tellman, coming from the back of the station, his face grave and pale. He did not say anything, and together they went out onto the pavement and walked in the sun smartly along to Drury Lane. Pitt stepped into the road waving his arms, startling a shire horse pulling a wagon full of furniture. He shouted at a hansom coming around the corner from Great Queen Street and started running towards it, holding up all the traffic and being very thoroughly sworn at.

He scrambled in, calling out instructions to the driver, and slid across the seat to make room for Tellman. Of course, it was pointless—a few minutes here or there in reaching Cadell’s house could make no difference now—but the urgency of action released some of the anger and misery inside him.

Two or three times as they rode, Tellman made as if to speak, then, seeing Pitt’s face, changed his mind.

When they arrived Pitt paid the driver and strode across the
pavement to the front door. There was a constable posted outside, his face stiff, his body at attention.

“Mornin’, sir,” he said quietly. “Sergeant Barstone’s inside. He’s expecting you.”

“Thank you.” Pitt brushed past him, opened the door and went in. It was absurdly like yesterday evening. The elaborate long case clock in the hall still ticked loudly, the hand moving from second to second with a little jerk each time. The brass edge of the umbrella stand still gleamed, but now from the sunlight streaming under the closed withdrawing room door. The bowl of roses had not shed any petals, or the maid had picked them up already.

All the doors were closed. He had not thought to ask where Cadell’s body was, and he had let himself in. There was no one else in the hall. He went back to the door again and rang the bell, then returned to wait.

“Do you want me to speak with the servants?” Tellman asked. “Don’t know what we could find. This looks like the end of it. Not really what I expected.”

“I suppose you might as well,” Pitt agreed. “Somebody might tell us some small thing which will explain how it all happened. Yes … yes, of course.” He straightened up. He was being careless. “We don’t know it was suicide yet. We are assuming.”

“Yes sir.” Tellman went willingly. Pitt knew why. He hated having to face the families of the dead. Corpses did not trouble him the same way—they were beyond their pain—but the living, the shocked, bewildered, grieving, were different. He felt helpless and intrusive, even though he could have justified his role to anyone. Pitt understood exactly; he felt the same.

The butler appeared from the green baize door into the servants’ quarters. He looked startled and angry to see Pitt already in the hall. In the distress of the morning he had apparently forgotten who Pitt was.

“Good morning, Woods,” Pitt said gravely. “I’m sorry for Mr. Cadell’s death. Is Mr. Barstone in the withdrawing room?”

Woods recollected himself. “Yes sir.” He swallowed, moving his neck as if his collar were too tight. “The … the study is locked, sir. I assume you will be needing to go in?”

“Is that where Mr. Cadell is?”

“Yes sir … I …”

Pitt waited.

Woods searched for words. He was obviously troubled by profound emotions.

“I don’t believe it, sir!” he said gruffly. “I’ve been with Mr. Cadell for nearly twenty years, and I don’t believe he’d take his own life. It has to be something else, some other answer.”

Pitt did not argue. Denial was the natural response to something so ugly, and from this man’s point of view, so utterly inexplicable. How could it make any sense to him?

“Of course we’ll investigate every possibility,” he said quietly. “Would you let me into the study; Sergeant Tellman has gone to speak with the rest of the staff. Who found Mr. Cadell this morning?”

“Polly, sir. She’s the downstairs maid. Went in to dust and make sure the room was clean and tidy. I’m afraid you can’t speak to her yet, sir. She’s taken it terribly hard. Awful thing for a young girl to find.” He blinked several times. “She’s usually very sensible, good worker, no trouble, but she just fainted clear away. She’s in the housekeeper’s sitting room, and you’ll just have to give her time. Can’t help that, sir.”

“Of course. Perhaps you can tell me most of what I need to know to begin with.”

“If I can, sir,” Woods conceded, perhaps helped in the immediate moment by the fact that he was able to be engaged in doing something. He fished in his pocket and produced a small brass key. He stood with it in his hand, waiting.

“What time was that?” Pitt asked him.

“Just after nine, sir.”

“Was that the usual time for Polly to go into the study?”

“Yes sir. Things sort of fall into a routine. Best way. Then nothing gets forgotten.”

“So everyone would know that Polly would go into the study at that time?”

“Yes sir.” Woods looked deeply troubled. It was easy to understand, and his thoughts were plain in his face. Cadell himself would have to have been aware of the almost certainty that a young maid would be the one to find him.

“And the door was unlocked ….” Pitt stated the obvious, but with surprise. People who intended killing themselves very often ascertained that they would have privacy.

“Yes sir.”

“Did anyone hear the shot? It must have made a considerable noise.”

“No sir, not that we realized, if you know what I mean?” Woods looked embarrassed, as if he had been at fault; if they had heard it they might have prevented the tragedy. It was irrational, but grief and incomprehension had numbed his faculties. “You must understand, sir, most of the staff were busy about their duties that hour of the day. The kitchen was full of comings and goings. There were tradesmen’s boys in the yard with deliveries and the like, wagons and carts and things clattering up and down the road, and with the windows open to air the house, there was a certain amount of noise anyway. I expect we heard it but never realized what it was.”

“Did Mr. Cadell have breakfast this morning?”

“No sir, just a cup of tea.”

“Wasn’t that unusual?”

“No sir, not lately. I’m afraid Mr. Cadell was not himself as far as his health was concerned.” He blinked again, stirring to govern his emotions. “He seemed very preoccupied, if you understand me. I daresay there is some foreign business that gives cause for concern. It is an extremely responsible …” He tailed off, suddenly remembering again that his master was dead. His eyes filled with tears and he turned away, embarrassed to lose such control of himself in front of a stranger.

Pitt was used to distress. He had been in situations like this countless times. He affected not to have noticed.

“Where did Mr. Cadell take his tea?”

It was a moment before Woods replied. “I believe Didcott the valet took it up to his dressing room, sir,” he said at last.

“And then he went down to the study?”

“I believe so. Didcott would know.”

“We’ll ask him. Thank you. Now I’ll go to the study, if you will let me in.”

“Yes sir, of course.” And with slightly shaky steps, Woods led the way across the hall and down a fairly long passage to an oak door which he opened with the key. He remained outside while Pitt went in.

Leo Cadell was slumped forward over the desk, his hands on top of it a trifle awkwardly, his head on one side. Blood from a wound to his right temple spilled out over the wooden surface of the writing top. A dueling pistol lay touching his right hand, two inches from a quill pen, the ink dried. There was also a cushion on the floor near the chair. Pitt bent and picked it up, putting it to his nose and sniffing. The smells of gunpowder and charring were plain. That explained why nobody had heard the sharp report of the shot.

It did not explain why Cadell had not locked the door from the inside, so people would know there was something wrong, and it would not be a young maid, or even his wife, who would be the first to find him.

But then a man capable of the kind of blackmail which had been practiced was hardly likely at this point to consider the feelings of a maid or of anyone else. How easy it is to be totally and disastrously mistaken in one’s judgment of people. Pitt still found it hard to accept, and Vespasia possibly never would. Apparently, even as wise and shrewd as she was, she could be utterly wrong.

He looked at the papers on the top of the desk. Half a dozen in a neat pile were letters and minutes from the Foreign Office; one, alone, to the left of the pile, was composed of pieces clipped from newspapers … probably the
Times
again, and pasted onto plain white paper. He read it.

It was terse; no regrets, no apologies. Perhaps there was another letter somewhere to Theodosia. Pitt could not believe she had known his guilt.

He looked closely at it again. It appeared exactly the same as the others he had seen. The spacing was a trifle different, less precise, but then in the circumstances that was unsurprising.

There were scissors along with a paper knife, a stick of sealing wax, a small ball of string and two pencils in a holder on the desk. He could not see any glue or paste. Perhaps it had been used up and the container thrown away.

Where was the newspaper from which the words and letters had been cut? It was not on the desk or on the floor. He looked in the wastepaper basket. It was there, folded neatly. He took it out. Yesterday’s copy of the
Times.
It was easy to see where the pieces had been cut.

He let it fall again. There seemed little more to say. Cadell was right; as far as the police were concerned, the case was complete. For the victims, most of all for Theodosia, it never would be.

The sharp morning sunlight fell through the clear glass of the French doors into the garden. The maid had been too distraught to think of closing the curtains. There was no one in sight. He moved across and did it now, closing the latch on the door and then drawing the heavy velvet across.

He went out and locked the hall door behind him. He must speak with Theodosia. Speaking to the family of the victim, and the ultimate arrest of someone, the shock and anguish of their family, were the two worst times in any investigation. In this one they were bound together in one occasion, and the grief in one person.

She was sitting in the withdrawing room, gray-faced, her body stiff, her hands clenched together in her lap so hard her knuckles shone where the skin was stretched tight. She stared
at him wordlessly out of eyes almost black. She was alone, no maid or footman with her.

He came in quietly and sat down opposite her. Not only had she lost her husband, a man Vespasia said she truly loved, and her future was gone, but—immeasurably more painful—her past was destroyed as well. The whole precious image of her world and all it had meant was shattered. The foundation upon which she had built her beliefs was gone. Everything about her husband that truly mattered, that formed the structure of her relationships, even of her understanding of herself and her own judgments, was proved a lie. She had been misled, deceived in everything. What was left?

How often do we perceive the world and those we love not as they are but only as we want them to be?

He wished he could offer her any comfort at all, but there was none.

“Would you like me to call Vespasia for you?” he asked her.

“What? Oh.” She remained silent for a few moments, struggling within herself. Then she seemed to reach some inner conviction. “No … thank you. Not yet. She will find this very difficult. She was—” Her voice cracked. “She was fond of Leo. She thought well of him. Please wait until I am more composed. Until I have a better idea of what happened so that I can tell her.”

“Would you like me to tell her?” he offered. “I can go to her home. Otherwise she will read it in the newspapers.”

The very last vestige of blood drained from her face, and for a moment he was afraid she was going to collapse. She struggled for breath.

Instinctively, ignoring conventions, he moved forward to kneel on the floor beside her, holding her hands where they were knotted iron hard on her lap. He put his other arm around her. “Slowly!” he commanded. “Breathe slowly. Don’t gasp.”

She obeyed, but even so it was several minutes before she regained physical control of herself.