Anne Perry - Bedford Square

White turned around, glaring at him.

“… because if I had,” Theloneus continued, “I should have to inform the Lord Chancellor of their import. He might then find it most difficult to keep you in a position of high trust, knowing that you would place the love of your family before the duty of your calling.”

White stared at him, ashen-faced, swaying a little on his feet.

“You are very brutal, Quade. I had not seen it like that.” He swallowed with difficulty. “I suppose it may look like that to you.”

“It would look like it to you, my dear fellow, were our places reversed,” Theloneus assured him. “And if you think of it for a moment, you know that. Would you prefer I told you only after you had made your decision?”

White took several moments to answer.

“No …” he said at last. “No, I should not. I have enjoyed my career. I shall be at a loss without it. But I can see that my present ill health must become a permanent thing. I shall write my resignation to the Lord Chancellor this morning.” There was a finality of despair in his voice. “It will be in the afternoon post. You have my word. Then I shall disregard this damnable letter, whoever it is from. I think that perhaps my wife and I should take a short holiday in the country, for recuperation. Perhaps a month or so.”

Theloneus did not make any further attempt to dissuade White. He took his leave quietly, and he and Pitt went out into the sun and the noise and ordinariness of the street. Neither spoke of it, except on parting when Pitt thanked Theloneus for having come with him. There really was nothing that needed more words.

Pitt’s mind was still troubled over the details of Cadell’s knowledge. How he had learned, and invented, sufficient detail with which to blackmail his fellow members of the Jessop Club was not difficult to imagine. But Pitt could still think of no answer to the question of how Cadell knew of Slingsby and Cole, not to mention Ernest Wallace and the murder in Shoreditch. Had it been simply money he was after, eventually? And if so, why? What was he spending it on that he needed more than his very ample salary and his inherited wealth?

Or was it the sadistic power to hurt, to torment and to ruin? Such a thing was entirely outside anything Aunt Vespasia had observed in the man in over quarter of a century’s acquaintance.

Or was it, as they had considered before, some mad African venture into speculation and empire building?

Whatever it was, a more careful scrutiny of all his papers and a more thorough and directed questioning of his wife and his household staff should reveal a thread, a shadow, some indication of an answer.

Accordingly, Pitt hailed the next cab which passed him and gave the driver directions to Cadell’s house.

There was still straw muffling the street outside, and of course all the curtains were drawn, giving the windows a blind look, almost as if the house itself were dead.

But when he pulled the bell he was let in immediately, and Theodosia herself came into the withdrawing room within minutes. She was dressed in black with no relief except a jet mourning brooch at the throat. Her eyes were hollow and her skin had no color at all. Anything artificial would have stood out like a clown’s makeup. Even so, she was a beautiful woman; her high cheekbones and long slender throat could not be affected by any grief, nor the thick, carefully dressed dark hair with its silver streaks. She reminded him of Vespasia.

“Is there something further I can do for you, Superintendent?” she asked. “Or have you discovered …?” She tried with painful intensity to keep hope out of her voice, and almost succeeded.

How could he answer without the cruelty of suggesting something only to snatch it away again?

“Nothing new,” he said immediately, and saw the light fade from her eyes. “Just questions to which I can’t find any answers, and I must at least look.”

She was too well-bred to be impolite, and perhaps she remembered he was a friend of Vespasia’s.

“I assume that you wish to look here?”

“Please. I would like to go through Mr. Cadell’s letters and papers once more, everything he kept at home, and speak to the staff again, in particular his valet and the coachman.”

“Why?” she asked, then immediately comprehension flooded her face, and a darkness of misery. “You don’t believe he killed that wretched man who was found in Bedford Square, do you? You can’t! How would he even know him?”

“No, I don’t believe he killed him,” he said quickly. “We know who did that. It was witnessed. We have the man arrested and charged. But he swears that he did not move the body from Shoreditch to Bedford Square. He simply fled. That was witnessed as well. I want to know how the body got to General Balantyne’s step and who put his snuffbox in the pocket and tried to have the body identified as Albert Cole.”

“What snuffbox?” She was completely bemused.

“General Balantyne had a highly unusual snuffbox,” he explained. “Like a reliquary, only made of pinchbeck. He gave it to the blackmailer”-he saw her wince at the word, but there was no other he could use-“as a token of surrender. It was found in the corpse’s pocket, along with a receipt for socks, from which we identified him-wrongly, as it turns out-as Albert Cole, a man who had served with Balantyne on the campaign where the incident occurred over which he was threatened.”

“And you believe my husband found the body, wherever it was, and moved it, and put those things on it?” she asked with disbelief, but no strength to deny. She was dizzy with confusion and pain. “Do the details matter now, Mr. Pitt? Do you need to dot every i and cross every t?”

“I need to understand more than I do now, Mrs. Cadell,” he replied. “There is still too much of it which seems inexplicable. I feel as if I have left something undone. And I want to know what happened to the real Albert Cole. If he is alive, where is he? And if he is dead, did he die naturally or was he also murdered?”

She stood very still. “I suppose you must. I … I want to hope that you will find some other explanation, something that does not involve my husband. Every fact you have found so far makes that impossible, and yet I cannot believe it of the man I knew … and loved.” Her lip trembled a little, and she gestured impatiently. “You must mink me a fool. I imagine every woman whose husband has done something criminal says the same thing. You must expect it by now.”

“If people were so easy to read, Mrs. Cadell, anyone could do my job, and far better than I do it,” he said softly. “It can take me weeks to solve a case, and too often I don’t succeed at all. Even when I do, I am frequently just as surprised as anyone else. Most of the time we see what we expect to see, and what we want to.”

The ghost of a smile touched her face. “Where would you like to begin?”

“With the valet, if you please.”

But Didcott, the valet, proved of little use. He was obviously suffering from shock and bewilderment, and the very natural anxiety as to what his own future would be. He would have no employment once Cadell’s belongings were disposed of. He answered every question to the best of his ability, but he could shed no light on the subject of Cadell’s life outside what was generally known of his work at the Foreign Office and the social and diplomatic functions that one might have expected him to attend. If he owned any clothes suitable for venturing to the East End, or attending the rougher gambling houses, let alone such sports as bare-knuckle fighting or dog fights, he did not keep them in the house.

Pitt went through all the cupboards and drawers himself. Cadell had been a fastidious man, well dressed, as Pitt would have expected, but considering his position and his income, certainly not extravagant. Almost all his suits were formal; there was little of a more casual nature.