Bedford Square (45 page)

“You live in a dream, you do,” Gracie said, shaking her head. “Nobody places orphans that fast. “Oo wants extra mouths ter feed these days? ’Less they’re workin’.”

“They were little children,” Pitt put in. “Those ones I saw were as young as three or four years old, most of them.”

Gracie’s eyes were full of pity and anger. “Yer think kids o’ three or four can’t work? ’Course they can. Work ’ard, some o’ them poor little bleeders. An’ don’t answer back ner run away. Too scared. Nothin’ ter run ter. Work ’em till they either grow up or die.”

“They weren’t working,” Pitt said slowly. “They were happy, and healthy, playing.”

“Till they get placed,” Gracie answered him. “There’s good money in that. Sell an ’ealthy kid fer quite a bit … specially if yer got a reg’lar supply, like.”

Charlotte used a word that would have appalled her mother, breathing it out in a sigh of horror.

Tellman regarded Gracie with dismay.

“How do you know that?” he demanded.

“I know wot ’appens ter kids wot’s got no one ter take ’em in,” she said bleakly. “ ’ Appened ter one o’ me friends, down the street. ’Er ma got killed an’ ’er Pa got topped. ’Er an’ ’er bruvvers got sent ter an orphanage. I went ter see ’er, year arter. She were gorn ter pick oakum, an “er bruvvers gorn up north ter the mines.”

Charlotte put her hands up to her face. “Does Aunt Vespasia have to know, Thomas? She couldn’t bear it. It would break her heart to know that Cadell did such a thing.”

“I don’t even know if it’s true yet,” he answered. But it was a prevarication. In his heart he was certain. This was a secret worth committing blackmail to hide. This was why Brandon Balantyne had been singled out for the most powerful threat, even destruction, if possible. He had been asking too many questions. After the Devil’s Acre, he was one man who might be very difficult to silence. This was why all the members of
the orphanage committee were victims. There was nothing random or opportunistic about it.

Charlotte did not bother to argue; she knew Pitt too well. Tellman and Gracie both sat silently.

“Tomorrow,” Pitt said. “Tomorrow we’ll go out to Kew.”

Pitt and Tellman reached the orphanage at mid-morning. It was a hot, still day, already oppressive at ten o’clock as they climbed the slight hill towards the large house.

Tellman screwed up his face against the light and stared at it, unconsciously thinning his lips. Pitt knew Gracie’s words were sharp and hurting in the sergeant’s mind. He drew in his breath as if to speak, and then said nothing after all. They approached the front door in silence.

It was opened by a girl of about eleven, plain-faced and straight-haired.

“Yes sir?” she asked.

“We would like to see Mr. Horsfall,” Pitt said bluntly, allowing no opportunity for refusal.

A small boy ran down the hall, making a noise in imitation of a galloping horse, and another followed him, laughing. They both disappeared into a passageway at right angles to the one that led from the door, and there was a squeal from somewhere beyond.

Pitt felt the anger boil up inside him, perhaps pointlessly. Maybe Gracie was wrong? There was far too much money for the few children he had seen, but perhaps there were more somewhere else? Perhaps Horsfall really did find homes for them? Perhaps there was a dearth of orphans at the moment, and many childless families?

“Now, if you please,” he added as the girl looked doubtful.

“Yes sir,” she said obediently, and pulled the door wider. “If yer’ll wait in the sittin’ room I’ll fetch ’im for yer.” She showed them to the same homely room Pitt had seen before, and they heard her feet clatter along the wooden corridor as she went about her errand. They remained standing, too tense to sit.

“Don’t suppose he’ll run, do you?” Tellman said dubiously.

Pitt had thought of it, but Horsfall had no reason to fear anything now. “If he were going to, he’d have gone when Cadell shot himself,” he said aloud.

“Suppose he knows?” Tellman pursed his lips, frowning. “If he does, why is he still here? Does he inherit the orphanage? Where does the money go anyway? Why share it with Cadell in the first place? Do you suppose this is Cadell’s house?”

Those thoughts had occurred to Pitt also, and others that troubled him even more. At the back of his mind was the complacent expression in Wallace’s face when Pitt had told him Dunraithe White had resigned from the bench, and even when he had said that Cadell was dead.

Wallace’s impassivity about White could have either of two explanations. He did not know of White’s involvement, and therefore his resignation held no meaning for Wallace, or he knew the blackmailer would not allow White to resign. He would let him know that if he did, he would exercise his threat and ruin him anyway.

Then why had he not been shattered to learn of Cadell’s death? That removed every chance for him of escape from the noose.

There could be only one answer … it was not Cadell he was depending upon.

Either Cadell had an accomplice … which would explain why Horsfall was still there, or it was not Cadell who was the blackmailer, but someone else.

Tellman was watching Pitt, waiting for him to speak.

It could not be Guy Stanley. He would not have ruined himself, not so completely. Neither did Pitt believe it was Balantyne. He had never even considered that it could be Cornwallis. That left White and Tannifer.

He looked up at Tellman. “Where was Dunraithe White when Cadell was shot?”

“You mean, you don’t think he shot himself?” Tellman seized on the change of wording instantly.

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. He shoved his hands hard into
his pockets, leaning against the wall and staring back at Tellman.

“No one else was there,” Tellman pointed out. “You said so yourself.”

“Wallace believes the blackmailer is still alive, and he knows Cadell is dead,” Pitt argued. “What about Tannifer?”

“I don’t know.” Tellman shook his head. He moved restlessly about the room. “But he can’t have been at Cadell’s house, or he’d have been seen.”

There was no further time to pursue it because at that moment the door opened and Horsfall came in looking blankly from one to the other of them.

“Good morning, gentlemen. What can I do for you this time?”

His smug unconcern infuriated Pitt, the more so for his own inner confusion. Something essential was still eluding him, and he was bitterly aware of it.

“Good morning,” he said grimly, his body tight and his jaw clenched. “How many children have you here at present, Mr. Horsfall?”

Horsfall looked startled. “Why … about fifteen, I think.” He shot a look at Tellman, and then swallowed. “We have been very fortunate in placing several … lately.”

“Good!” Pitt said. “Where?”

“What?”

“Where?” Pitt repeated a little more loudly.

“I don’t understand ….” He was still only mildly uncomfortable.

“Where have you placed them, Mr. Horsfall?”

Tellman moved to the door, as if to cut off Horsfall’s retreat.

“Er … you mean the exact addresses? I should have to look it up. Is there something amiss? Has someone proved unsatisfactory?”

“Unsatisfactory? What an odd word to use of a child,” Pitt said coldly. “Sounds more like placing a servant.”

Horsfall swallowed again. He eased his shoulders up and down, as if to relax tense muscles.

“Yes … silly of me,” he agreed. “But I feel responsible
for our children. Sometimes people expect better behavior than … than young people are capable of. New surroundings … strange … new people … not all children respond well. They become used to us here, of course, used to our ways.” He was talking a little too quickly. “Don’t always understand change … even if it is change for their good ….”

“I know.” Pitt’s voice was like ice. “I have children myself, Mr. Horsfall.”

“Oh …” Horsfall paled. He licked his lips. Pitt had said nothing threatening, but the look in his eyes was enough to warn of savage dislike. “Well … what is the problem, Mr …. er …?”

“Where were these children placed?” Pitt repeated the original question.

Horsfall was clenching and unclenching his hands.

“I told you … I should have to look it up. I don’t have a good memory for the details of addresses … large numbers of … addresses.”

“Approximately …” Pitt insisted.

“Oh … well … Lincolnshire, yes; Spalding. And several … as far north as Durham … yes.”

“And Nottinghamshire?” Pitt suggested.

Horsfall’s eyebrows rose. “Why, yes. Nottinghamshire too.”

“How about Wales?” Pitt went on. “South Wales. Lot of mines in South Wales.”

Horsfall was white, a sheen of sweat on his face. “M-mines?”

“Yes. Children are useful in lots of places … in mines, up chimneys, in factories, cleaning out corners adults can’t get into, especially small children, young … thin. Even three- and four-year-olds can be taught to pick rags, pick oakum, send them out into the fields to work. All sorts of crops need taking up … by hand … little hands are as good as big ones and don’t need paying … not if you’ve bought them ….”

“That’s …” Horsfall swallowed and choked.

“Slavery,” Pitt finished for him.

“You can’t … you can’t prove that.…” Horsfall gasped. His face was running with sweat.

“Oh, I’m sure I can.” Pitt smiled, showing his teeth.

Horsfall ran his hands over his brow.

“Do you know a man named Ernest Wallace?” Pitt asked, changing the subject suddenly. “Small, wiry, very bad temper indeed.”

Horsfall’s deliberation was plain in his expression. He could not judge whether acknowledgment or denial was going to make his situation worse.

Pitt watched him without the slightest pity.

Tellman did not move.

“I … er …” Horsfall hesitated.

“You can’t afford to lie to me,” Pitt warned.

“Well …” Horsfall licked his lips. “He may have done the occasional odd job around the … garden … for us. Yes … yes, he did. Wallace … yes.” He stared at Pitt as at some dangerous animal.

“Where does the money go?” Pitt switched back to the original line of questioning.

“M-m-money?” Horsfall stammered.

Pitt moved forward half a step.

“I don’t know!” Horsfall’s voice rose as if he had been physically threatened. “I only take my pay. I don’t know where it goes.”

“You know where you send it,” Tellman said bitterly. He was shorter and narrower than Horsfall, but there was such a rage in his voice that the bigger man quailed.

“Show me!” Pitt commanded.

“I-I don’t have … books!” Horsfall protested, raising his hands as if to ward off a blow.

Pitt was unimpressed. “You have accounts of some kind. Either you have a master who takes the money from you one way or another, or else you haven’t, and you are responsible for it all ….” He did not need to continue. Horsfall was shaking his head and waving his hands in denial. “Is this house yours?” Pitt pressed.

“No. Of course not. It belongs to the orphanage.”

“And the profits from selling the children?”

“Well … I wouldn’t use terms like that ….” Horsfall sputtered.

“Slavery, Mr. Horsfall—the selling of human beings—is illegal in this country. You can be charged as an accomplice or all by yourself, as you like,” Pitt answered. “Where does the money go?”

“I’ll-I’ll show you.” Horsfall surrendered. “I only do what I’m told.”

Pitt looked at him with complete disgust and followed him out of the room to find the notes he kept of his transactions. He read them all and added them up. Over the space of eight years it amounted to tens of thousands of pounds. But there were no names to prove in whose pockets it had ended.

The local police arrested Horsfall and placed someone in temporary charge of the orphanage. Pitt and Tellman set out on their way back to London, traveling on the ferry, glad of the bright air and the sounds of the busy river.

“He should swing,” Tellman said between his teeth. “That blackmailing swine won’t get him off.”

“I’ll be damned if he’ll get Wallace off either,” Pitt retorted.

Tellman stared straight ahead of him up the river towards the Battersea Bridge. A pleasure boat passed them going the other way, people waving, ribbons and streamers bright in the wind. He did not seem to see it. “If it isn’t Cadell, then it’s got to be White or Tannifer.” He looked at Pitt’s bulging pockets. “We’ve got enough paper there to work out where the money went.”

It took them a day and a half of painstaking, minute unraveling of buying and selling, of finding the names behind the names, all accomplished with savage deliberation, but by four o’clock in the afternoon, two days after their return from the orphanage, they could prove that the trail led to Sigmund Tannifer.

Tellman stood with the last piece of paper in his hand and swore viciously. “What’ll he get?” he said fiercely. “He’s sold little children to labor in the mines like they were animals.
Some of them’ll never see the light of day again.” His voice caught with his emotion. “But we can’t prove he knew what Horsfall was doing. He’ll deny it. Say it was rents or something, surplus from other properties. He blackmailed innocent men and near drove them mad with fear … enough to make Cadell shoot himself and White resign … but we can’t prove that either. We’d have to show that he threatened to expose them, and that would only ruin them just like he said he would. We’d be doing it for him.” He swore again, his fists clenched white, his eyes blazing. He was demanding an answer from Pitt, expecting him to solve the injustice somehow.

“It wasn’t even blackmail,” Pitt said with a shrug. “He didn’t ask for anything. He would have … their silence over the orphanage, if they had ever found out … but it never came to that.”

“We’ve got to get him for something!” Tellman’s voice rose to a shout, his fist gripping the air.

“Let’s go and arrest him for taking the proceeds of Horsfall’s business,” Pitt answered. “No jury will believe he thought that it was profits from the kitchen garden.”

“That doesn’t matter a damn,” Tellman said bitterly.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Pitt pulled a face. “I think that officious little newspaper writer, Remus, could make a good story out of it.”