Anne Perry - Bedford Square

The butler, Blisset, a middle-aged man of stiff-backed, military bearing, was standing at the foot of the stairs. Very probably he was an old soldier Balantyne had employed, knowing his service. Indeed, when he moved he did so with a pronounced limp, and Pitt guessed it was a battle injury which had caused it.

“If you will come with me, sir,” he said gravely, and as soon as he was sure Pitt was behind him, he went across the hallway to the baize door and through to the servants’ quarters.

Tellman was standing by the long table in the dining hall where the servants took their meals. It was laid for breakfast, but obviously no one had yet eaten. A housemaid was standing in a gray stuff dress, white apron crisp and clean, lace cap a trifle crooked on her head as if she had placed it there hastily. She was looking at Tellman with considerable dislike. A footman of about nineteen or twenty was standing by the door to the kitchen, and the bootboy was staring round-eyed at Pitt.

“Nothing so far,” Tellman said, biting his lip. He had a pencil and an open notebook in his hands, but there was very little written on the page. “Lot of very sound sleepers here.” His tone was bordering on the sarcastic.

Pitt thought that if he had to get up at five in the morning as a matter of habit, and work with little respite until nine or ten in the evening, he would probably be tired enough to sleep soundly too, but he did not bother to say so.

“I’d like to speak to the housemaids,” he said to Blisset. “May I use the housekeeper’s sitting room?”

The butler agreed reluctantly and insisted on remaining present, to protect his staff, as was his responsibility.

But two hours’ diligent enquiry and a thorough search of the main part of the house produced nothing of value. The housemaids had both seen the snuffbox but could not remember how recently. Nothing else was missing. There was quite definitely no sign whatever of a break-in or of any unauthorized person in any room upstairs or downstairs.

No one had heard anything in the street outside.

There had been no caller or tradesman other than those who had dealt with the household for years, no vagrants, no followers after the female servants that anyone would acknowledge, no beggars, peddlers or new deliverymen.

Pitt and Tellman left Bedford Square at half past nine and caught a hansom back towards the Bow Street Station, stopping just short of it to buy a hot cup of tea and a ham sandwich from a stall on the pavement.

“Separate bedrooms,” Tellman said with his mouth full.

“People of that social status usually have,” Pitt replied, sipping his tea and finding it too hot.

“Hardly seems worth it.” Tellman’s face was eloquent of his opinion of them. “But it means no one in the house is accounted for. Could have been any of them, if the fellow did get in and was caught stealing.” He took another mouthful of his sandwich. “One of the maids could have let him in. It happens. Anyone could have heard him and got into a fight … even the General himself, come to that.”

Pitt would have liked to dismiss that suggestion, but the expression in Balantyne’s eyes when he had seen the snuffbox was too sharp in his mind to allow it.

Tellman was watching him, waiting.

“Early to speculate,” Pitt answered. “Get a little more evidence first. Go ’round the rest of the square, see if any of the other houses were broken into, anything moved, any disturbance.”

“Why would he move something rather than take it?” Tellman argued.

“He wouldn’t.” Pitt looked at him coolly. “If he were caught in the act and killed, presumably whoever killed him would take back what belonged to that house, but not the snuffbox, because it wasn’t theirs and would require some explanation. And we’ll see what the surgeon can tell us when he’s looked more closely. And there’s the bill for the socks.” He sipped his tea now it was cooler. “Although putting a name to him may not help a great deal.”

But diligent enquiry all around Bedford Square and the immediate neighborhood elicited nothing whatever of use. No one had heard anything, nothing was moved or missing. Everyone claimed to have slept through the night.

In the late afternoon General Balantyne and his butler, Blisset, fulfilled their duty by going to the mortuary to look at the dead man, but neither knew him. Pitt watched Balantyne’s expression as the face was uncovered and saw the momentary flicker of surprise, almost as if Balantyne had expected to see someone else, possibly someone familiar.

“No,” he said quietly. “I have not seen him before.”

Pitt arrived home late, and a small domestic crisis kept Charlotte too occupied for there to be time to discuss the case with her more than briefly. He did not yet want to tell her of General Balantyne’s involvement. He remembered that she had liked him. She had actually spent some time in his house, helping him with something or other. Better to see if a simpler explanation appeared before he distressed her, perhaps unnecessarily. Last thing at night was not an appropriate time.

In the morning Pitt went to inform Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis of the case, simply because it had occurred in a part of the City where such an event was remarkable. The crime itself might not have concerned any of the residents or their households, but they would certainly be inconvenienced by it.

Cornwallis was fairly new to his position. He had spent most of his career in the navy and was well accustomed to command, but the natures of crime and of politics were both new to him, and politics in particular he found at times beyond his comprehension. There was no deviousness to his mind. He was unaccustomed to vanity and circular thinking. The sea did not permit such indulgences. It sorted the skilled from the clumsy, the coward from the brave, with a ruthlessness quite different from the impulses of ambition in the worlds of government and society.

Cornwallis was of no more than average height, lean, as if physical occupation were more natural to him than sitting behind a desk. When he moved it was with grace and control. He was not handsome-his nose was too long, too prominent-but there was balance in his face, and an honesty. The fact that he was entirely bald became him. Pitt found it difficult to think of him any other way.

“What is it?” He looked up from his desk as Pitt came into his room. It was a sultry day outside, and the windows were open, allowing in the noise of traffic from the street below, the rattle of carriage wheels, the occasional cry of a coachman or hansom driver, the heavy rumble of brewers’ drays, the sharper treble of crossing sweepers hoping for a penny, peddlers calling their wares: bootlaces, flowers, sandwaches, matches.

Pitt closed the door behind him.

“Found a body in Bedford Square early yesterday morning,” he answered. “Hoped it might be nothing to do with any of the houses there, but he had a snuffbox in his hand which belonged to General Brandon Balantyne, and it was actually on Balantyne’s doorstep that he was lying.”

“Burglary?” Cornwallis asked, the assumption in his voice. There was a slight pucker between his brows, as if he were waiting for Pitt to explain why he had bothered to mention it, let alone to come in person.

“Possibly he was burgling one of the houses and was caught in the act by a servant or the owner, there was a fight, and the thief was killed,” Pitt said. “Then, in fear of the consequences, they put him outside Balantyne’s door instead of leaving him where he was and sending for the police.”

“All right.” Cornwallis bit his lip. “I take your point, Pitt. Not the actions of innocent people, even in panic. How was he killed?”

“A blow to the head with a poker, or something like it, but there was a fight beforehand, to judge by his knuckles.” Pitt sat down in the chair opposite Cornwallis’s desk. He was comfortable in this room with its watercolor seascapes on the walls, the polished brass sextant on the shelf next to the books, not only on police matters but also a Jane Austen novel and a copy of the Bible, and several volumes of poetry: Shelley, Keats and Tennyson.