Clare spun around on her stool, so that she was facing him, and ran her fingers through her short, fluffy hair. ‘That’ll have to do, I suppose.’
‘But I stand by the general sentiment. And I was still hoping you might ask a few well-placed but discreet questions.’
‘I’ve done so already. What master wants, master gets.’ She folded her arms and waited.
‘Are you going to make me beg?’
‘A nice idea but I haven’t got anything to tell you.’
Pyke waited for her to continue.
‘I mentioned it to someone. They’ll remain anonymous. I was told if I valued my life, I wouldn’t bring it up again. The last person who did, the mother of one of the boys, ended up dead. Strangled and dumped in the river. I’m told the body was never recovered.’ The strain on her face was visible.
‘I was under the impression both boys were orphans.’
‘They are now.’
‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think Georgie had done something to those boys himself. Or at least he knows what happened to them.’
Clare fiddled with the brooch attached to her blouse. She may not have remembered but Pyke was the one who’d bought it for her. ‘You should have seen him after you left the other day. He beat the lad who was guarding the door, the one you walked past, within an inch of his life. All that was left was a quivering mass. He made us all watch, too.’
‘At least now you know who you’re dealing with.’
Clare looked at him and shook her head slightly. ‘You think I don’t know Georgie is an animal?’
‘Then why are you still working for him?’
‘I don’t have a choice. Morals are a luxury of the wealthy. Maybe you’ve forgotten that.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything that puts you or anyone you know in danger,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’
‘But if you were to hear something about those boys . . . or why Georgie is interested in the family of a dead man called Morris Keate . . . I’d like to think you’d come and find me.’
‘Keate?’
‘He was the one who was executed for killing the boys.’ Pyke looked searchingly into her face. ‘Have you heard the name?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Clare turned around and glanced at her reflection in the looking glass.
‘But you’re not sure?’ He had seen the look on her face and heard the hesitation in her voice.
Clare picked up her quill and dipped it in the pot of ink. ‘Goodbye, Pyke. I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure.’
Pyke had to wait for over half an hour in the marble-floored entrance hall of Sir St John Palmer’s enormous neoclassical house before the butler returned and said that Palmer would see him in the drawing room. During this time he’d noted the three men guarding the gates at the front of the property, all armed with pistols, and, after a brief excursion to the back of the house, a similar presence in the rear garden.
As he followed the butler to the drawing room, their footsteps echoed through the building. Palmer was standing in the bay window overlooking the front lawn. Even after he’d been introduced, Palmer’s attention remained fixed on something outside, and it was only after the butler had retreated, closing the door behind him, that Palmer finally turned around.
He looked older and frailer than Pyke remembered, his silver hair not quite as neat as it had been, his face thinner and his shoulders slightly hunched. But he moved across the room with a surprising grace and took Pyke’s hand, giving it a firm squeeze.
‘To what do I owe this pleasure, Detective Inspector?’ He smiled easily, as though he and Pyke were old friends.
‘I was hoping you could tell me about your relationship with Charles Harcourt Hogarth.’ Pyke looked into Palmer’s face. ‘He died a few weeks ago.’
Palmer’s expression didn’t change. ‘Do you mind telling me why you’d like to know this, Detective Inspector?’
‘We’re currently investigating a possible link between his death and the murder of Isaac Guppy.’
‘And what does this have to do with me?’ Palmer asked.
‘Well, for a start, I am right in thinking you knew Hogarth, aren’t I, sir?’
‘Hogarth was an alderman in the City Corporation. Inevitably our paths crossed from time to time.’
Pyke looked around the sparsely furnished, high-ceilinged room. ‘Was he involved with the London Churches Fund?’
‘No, he wasn’t,’ Palmer said, without having to think about it. ‘Why would you ask that, Detective Inspector?’
‘Guppy was, though, wasn’t he? I believe he held a relatively minor administrative role,’ Pyke said, remembering the words of the bishop.
‘I’m afraid I never met this man Guppy. I knew Hogarth slightly, although I still don’t understand why you felt it necessary to come to my house to ask me these questions.’
‘I’m told that you’re one of the leading figures in the London Churches Fund. Is that correct?’
‘I’ve played my own small part in bringing religious education to the darker quarters of the capital.’ Palmer gave a bright smile. ‘You still haven’t answered my question, Detective Inspector. I wouldn’t like to think I’m a suspect in some matter or another. For your sake as much as mine.’
Pyke frowned. ‘Why for my sake?’
Palmer went back to the window and almost put his face against the glass pane. ‘I’ve made it my business to amass a good number of friends in the New Police - an organisation for which I have a great deal of admiration. If I felt my reputation was being unfairly maligned, I would have to let one of my friends know, and I’m guessing they could make life very difficult for the person involved.’
Pyke looked down at the polished marble floor; he could almost see his reflection in it. Sensing he had to tread more carefully, he adopted an abject tone. ‘I didn’t mean to imply anything, Sir St John. I’m just making it my business to talk, discreetly and of course confidentially, to anyone who knew both Hogarth and Guppy.’
Palmer nodded firmly. ‘Just doing your job, eh? Well, I suppose I can’t object to that.’
Pyke took a few steps towards Palmer. Through the window, he could see the men patrolling the back of the house. ‘I’ve never heard of a building contractor having to be guarded by men armed with pistols. Tell me, is that normal in the circles you move in?’
For the first time, Pyke saw the faintest of cracks in Palmer’s façade. ‘What I do, sir, in the privacy of my own home, is none of your business.’
‘Perhaps you’re worried that someone might be intending to cause you harm. In which case, maybe we, as the Metropolitan Police, could be of some assistance?’ Pyke looked at the contractor and smiled.
Palmer’s response was interrupted as the butler opened the door and cleared his throat. ‘You wanted something, Sir St John?’
Palmer turned around and looked out on to his perfectly manicured lawn. ‘Please show the detective inspector to the front door.’
It was difficult to tell whether anything had been gained from the exchange with Palmer, and as Pyke travelled back into London, he thought about the older man’s threat to go over his head and wondered how Sir Richard Mayne would react to such an overture.
Turning his thoughts to Ebenezer Druitt, Pyke pondered something the felon had said during their last encounter, and he realised it needed further clarification. But when, about an hour later, he presented himself at the gates of the Model Prison, instead of leading him directly to the cells, the warder took him to the governor’s office and left him there without further explanation.
‘Ah, yes, this was highly unusual, highly unusual indeed,’ the governor said, once they were alone in his office. ‘The prisoner you wish to speak to has been transferred by order of the Home Office.’
‘Transferred where?’
‘I don’t know. The order didn’t say. The documentation was in order and I couldn’t very well say no. A carriage arrived for him yesterday. The documentation stated it was, and I quote, “in defence of the realm”.’
Pyke tried to swallow but his throat was suddenly bone dry. ‘You’ll have to take it up with the Home Office, Detective Inspector.’
‘I will,’ Pyke said, already halfway across the room. ‘Believe me, sir, I’ll do just that.’
‘Druitt’s been transferred to another location, on the orders of someone in the Home Office.’ Pyke had gone directly to Scotland Yard and found Walter Wells sitting alone in his office.
‘Really?’ Wells looked up at him and put down his pen. ‘Why?’
‘Someone suspects Druitt knows who our killer is and is using his political connections to try to force this information from him.’
‘But that kind of request would have to come from a fairly senior figure.’
‘I know.’ Pyke thought again about Palmer and his association with Mayne. ‘I’d like you to try to find out who gave it - and where Druitt has been taken.’
Wells drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘I’ll do what I can, old man. But I’m afraid my reach extends only so far.’
‘My guess is that someone in the Detective Branch passed this information about Druitt to Pierce, who went directly to the Home Office.’
That seemed to strike a chord. ‘I think I might have some information for you on that front. I was going to sit on it for a day, check it out for myself, but in the circumstances . . .’
Pyke felt his stomach tightening. ‘Sit on what?’
‘I have men loyal to me in Holborn Division; policemen who are close to Pierce. From time to time they hear things and pass them back to me.’
‘Go on.’
‘I had a visit from one such man earlier this afternoon. He told me the identity of Pierce’s source of information in the Branch.’
‘And?’
Wells shook his head and offered Pyke an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry, Pyke. I know how much you like the man . . .’
Pyke followed Jack Whicher into the privy at the back of the station house and before the younger man had even realised there was someone behind him, Pyke had shoved him into the hut and bolted the door. It was damp and fetid and the stench rising up from the cesspit turned his stomach. As soon as Whicher turned around and saw him, saw the expression on his face, he knew. He didn’t even try to hide it. His shoulders slumped forward and his head fell, as though the scaffold that had been holding him up until this point had suddenly disintegrated.
‘I knew you’d find out sooner or later. If you can believe it, I
wanted
you to find out. At least now I don’t have to lie.’
Pyke swung his fist, felt it connect with the side of Whicher’s head. Whicher stumbled but didn’t fall.
‘Why, Jack?’
‘I could make it easy and say I despise you and the way you work.’ Whicher must have seen the hurt register in Pyke’s eyes because instinctively he flinched.
‘I just want to know, Jack. Is that the truth?’ Pyke was surprised at how badly he was taking the news, how much he’d come to like and respect Whicher.
‘Do you really want the truth?’ Whicher exhaled loudly, trying to pull himself together. ‘Do you want to know how my son died of cholera? How my wife went insane from the grief? Do you
really
want to know how this grief led her back to the work she’d once done? How she turned her back on me and started to sleep with men for money? How a man, one of her customers, hit her in the face and how she retaliated with a pair of scissors? The madam sent for me, and in my panic, and because I trusted him at the time, I sent for Pierce. And he was brilliant. You should know that, too. Pierce took care of it: he paid off the madam, disposed of the body and had my wife admitted to a sanatorium.’
Pyke stood there, not sure what to say. What Whicher had told him had stripped him of his anger but it didn’t diminish the betrayal. ‘So you did what you did because you felt you owed him?’