4

SINCE THE FIRST LIST had yielded nothing, Pitt was faced with the necessity of pursuing the names on Weems’s second list. He wanted to put off as long as possible the burden of investigating his fellow police officer, therefore he began with Addison Carswell. He already had his address so beginning was not difficult; it was merely a matter of choosing which aspect of his life to examine first.

The sensible place seemed to be his home. One may learn a great deal about a man by seeing how he lives, what his domestic tastes are, how much money he appears to have at his disposal, and upon what he chooses to spend it. Perhaps even more may be learned about his financial circumstances by meeting his wife and estimating his family responsibilities.

Accordingly Pitt set off for Mayfair. The hansom sped through warm, busy streets, passing broughams, landaus and carriages with ladies about errands. It was far too early for morning calls, which anyway were paid in the afternoon; this was the hour for visiting dressmakers and the like. There were delivery carts with all manner of goods, other hansoms with gentlemen beginning the business day, and here and there the occasional public omnibus, packed with men, women and children sitting upright or squeezed together, scrupulously ignoring each other and waiting for their own stop at which to dismount.

At Curzon Street, Pitt paid the cabby and alighted. It was a gracious way, and looking up and down it, he judged it to have been expensive and discreet for most of its history. If Addison Carswell was in financial difficulty he would find it a serious drain on his resources to maintain a residence here for long.

He went to the front door, hesitated a moment, rearranging in his mind what he planned to say, then pulled the bell, a fine brass affair with engraved numbers beneath it.

The door was opened by a parlormaid in a dark dress and crisp, lace-edged cap and apron. She was a handsome girl, tall and with a clear, country complexion, shining hair—everything a parlormaid should be. Addison Carswell would seem to pay attention to appearances—or perhaps it was Mrs. Carswell who cared. Very often it was women to whom such things mattered most.

“Yes sir?” she said with well-concealed surprise. Whoever she had expected, it was not Pitt.

He smiled with as much charm as he could, which was considerable, more than he was aware.

“Good morning. Mrs. Carswell is not expecting me, but I have a rather delicate errand with which she may be able to assist me. I would be most obliged if you would ask her if she would receive me.” With a feeling of considerable satisfaction he pulled his card out of his inner pocket and presented it to her. It stated his name but not his police rank. It was an extravagance he had indulged in a few years ago, and it still gave him inordinate pleasure.

The parlormaid looked at it doubtfully, but in spite of his less than elegant appearance, his voice was beautiful, well modulated, and his diction excellent. She made a rapid judgment of her own, and smiled back.

“Certainly sir. If you will wait in the morning room I will inform Mrs. Carswell you are here.”

“Thank you.” Pitt had no time to look around the entrance hallway, but when he was left in the morning room he spent the ten minutes she kept him waiting in close scrutiny of everything in the room. This was his primary purpose in coming, and if she refused to see him, might well be all he would achieve.

The furniture was very traditional, showing far more comfort than imagination in its style. It was mostly of heavy oak, overornamented for Pitt’s taste, but of good quality. Nothing was scratched or marred as if it had been carelessly used, or cheaply purchased. The sofa and chairs had been recently upholstered, there were no worn patches, and the antimacassars were embroidered and without blemish.

The photographs on the mantel were framed in silver, polished and gleaming. He looked at them closely. The largest in the center was a family group: a man in formal pose, stiff collar and fixed expression; a handsome woman beside him, full bosomed, smooth throated, richly gowned; and around and behind them a young man, whose features closely resembled the woman, and three girls, all fair haired and wide-eyed, who seemed so alike it was difficult to tell them apart. A fourth girl with darker hair sat on the ground in front, making a charming and almost symmetrical picture. It was stiff in composition, and yet the naturalness of the resemblance and the affection between them gave it a warmth that no photographer could destroy.

The other frames held portraits of the same people individually, several taken some years earlier at different stages of youth. There was also a rather awkward picture of a nervous older couple, afraid of the camera and holding the pose so carefully their lips were pressed together and their eyes staring. Perhaps they were the parents of either Mr. or Mrs. Carswell.

He walked over to the window and looked into the sunlit garden full of flowers, early roses and late lupins making splashes and spires of pink. The curtains were respectably heavy, and draped across the floor at the bottom. He had learned to know that for the display of wealth it was intended. He smiled to himself, and turned back to the room to look at the pictures on the walls.

Here he was surprised to see they were of excellent quality. His work with art theft and fraud had taught him a great deal about paintings and their value, and he recognized a number of artists with ease. He especially liked watercolors for their delicacy and subtle use of light, and he knew as soon as he saw these that they were recent artists and of high quality. Someone in the Carswell house either had excellent taste or was prepared to spend liberally, even on so little used a room as this; or else Mr. Carswell chose to spend his money on art, and was very well advised in the matter.

It would be very interesting to see what he had chosen for the more frequently used rooms, such as the withdrawing room.

He was still looking at a soft landscape, a view of a shaded walk under trees, when Regina Carswell came in. She was obviously the woman at the center of the large photograph, dark haired and broad browed. There were several lines in her face, but they were all comfortable and gave her expression an air of calm.

“Mr. Pitt? My parlormaid tells me you believe I may be of assistance to you. Pray, in what way?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Carswell. It is very gracious of you to give up your time,” he said quickly. “I hope I do not inconvenience you. I am from the metropolitan police. I am inquiring into several recent art thefts, perpetrated in a particularly ingenious manner. The thieves present themselves as gentlemen who are lovers of fine paintings and are here on behalf of certain small museums, both in England and abroad.” He saw the polite interest in her face, and continued. “They say they have heard you have some excellent and little-known works and they would be interested in borrowing them for exhibition, for which of course they would reimburse you accordingly. It would only be for a matter of two or three months, then your paintings would be returned to you—”

“That doesn’t sound dishonest to me,” she said frankly.

He smiled. “It is not, to this point,” he agreed. “Except that there is no museum. They take the paintings—and in three months’ time return to you not your own painting, but an excellent forgery. Unless you examine it closely you would not know. And since it is in your frame, and you believe them to be reputable people, there is no reason why you should look at it more than cursorily, as you replace it on the wall.”

Her face pinched very slightly.

“We have had no such gentlemen here, Mr. Pitt. I’m sorry I cannot be of any assistance to you at all.”

It was what he had expected. “At least, Mrs. Carswell, be prepared,” he said easily. “And if anyone does call with such an offer, refuse it, and inform me at the Bow Street police station, at your earliest opportunity.” He glanced at the walls. “I see in the room here you have some delightful work which such thieves would love to obtain. I hope your locks on the windows and doors are all in good condition? Perhaps I might look at them and advise you?”

“If you wish, but I assure you my husband is most careful about such things. He is a magistrate, you know, and quite aware of both the nature and the frequency of crime.”

“Indeed, ma’am. If you would prefer …” He left it hanging in the air, hoping she would not accept his withdrawal. He needed to see as much of the house as possible.

“Not at all,” she said graciously. “I shall have Gibson show you all the downstairs doors and windows.” And so saying she rang the bell to summon the butler. When he came, a small man with abundant whiskers, she explained to him Pitt’s office and his purpose.

“Certainly, ma’am.” He turned to Pitt. “If you will come this way, sir,” he said with chill civility. He did not approve of police persons inside the house, and he wished Pitt to realize he was doing this under sufferance.

Pitt thanked Mrs. Carswell again, and followed Gibson’s retreating figure to examine the security of the house.

As he had supposed, the window latches and door locks were all in excellent repair, and he was assured they were checked every night before the last servant retired. Not that he would have expected Gibson to admit to less. What was far more interesting to him was the furnishing and the decor.

The withdrawing room was large, but lacked a look of spaciousness because the walls were covered in patterned paper, and the furniture was of the most modern design, clean lined, but engraved and inlaid so the impression was still of complicated surfaces. The curtains were heavy velvet, tied back with gilded, embossed and fringed sashes.

Pitt felt overpowered with opulence, and yet he knew it was no more than he would have found in most homes of men similarly situated both as to wealth and social rank. He had seen many such fireplaces with marble pilasters up the sides and ornate carving over the top, other gilt and ormolu clocks, other surfaces covered with china. In this case it was a top-heavy, elaborately scrolled Minton potpourri vase of neo-rococo design: blue, gold and white with lush flowers. He thought it hideous, but knew it was well thought of by many, and certainly valuable.

More to his taste in its simple lines was a Bohemian-red etched glass goblet, a souvenir of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Another memento was a painted and gilded lacquer box with pictures of the Crystal Palace.

He inspected the windows to satisfy the story he had told, watched by Gibson, as was his job. At least the man seemed sensible to the fact that callers such as Pitt could be just as dishonest as the thieves they were detailed to prevent. He watched Pitt with eyes like a hunting cat, not missing a gesture. Pitt smiled to himself and inwardly praised the man.

The dining room was equally splendid, and the porcelain in evidence was of excellent quality. There was a certain amount of Chinoiserie, as was popular, but these examples were blue and white and one at least, Pitt thought, was quite old—either Ming or a very good copy. Certainly if Addison Carswell wished to sell something and raise a little money, he could have found many times the amount Weems’s books had him owing.

The ladies’ sitting room, known as the boudoir, was quite different, perhaps decorated according to Mrs. Carswell’s taste rather than her parents-in-law, from whom she had possibly inherited the house. Here were pre-Raphaelite paintings, all brooding and passionate faces, clean lines of design and dark, burning colors. Figures of legend and dream were depicted in noble poses. All sorts of ancient stories were brought to memory and their effect was curiously pleasing. The furniture was William Morris, simple lines and excellent workmanship; perhaps some were even genuine rather than imitations.

Here there were more pictures of the daughters, the three fair-haired girls in carefully decorous poses, features stylized to show large eyes and small, delicate mouths, the passion carefully ironed out—or perhaps it had never been there, but Pitt doubted that. Few young women were as childishly pure as this artist had drawn. These were pictures designed to portray them as the marriage market wished them to be seen.

A fourth girl, dark haired, looked much more natural. There was a streak of individuality in her face as if the artist had not felt the pressure to convey a message. Pitt looked down and saw she had a wedding ring on her slender hand. He smiled to himself, and moved on to the next room.

The remainder of the house was as he would have expected, well furnished in traditional style, unimaginative, comfortable, full of ornaments, paintings, tapestries and mementos of this and past generations, small signs of family life, pride in the only son, gifts from parents, old samplers stitched by the daughters as young girls, a variety of books.

By the time he had seen the kitchen as well, and the servants’ quarters that were on the ground floor, Pitt had a very clear idea of a close, busy, rather bourgeois family, undisturbed by scandal. The tragedies and triumphs were largely of a domestic sort: the dinner party that succeeds; the invitations extended and accepted; the suitor who calls, or does not call; the dress which is a disaster; the awaited letter which never arrives.

From the servants he picked up small remarks about callers when he asked about outsiders with entry to the house. He was told of dressmakers, milliners, women friends coming to tea or leaving cards. And of course the family entertained. There were parties of many sorts. Right now there were invitations to a ball in return to one they had only recently given.

Pitt left Addison Carswell’s house feeling really very little wiser with regard to the death of William Weems. He had a strong sense of an agreeable upper-middle-class family: affectionate, pleasantly domestic, no more obtuse than was normal in wishing their daughters to marry well both socially and financially. That much he had gathered quite easily. He smiled and thought how much more Charlotte would have read into it, the subtleties and refinements he could only guess at vaguely. But none of this led him any further towards knowing if Carswell was in heavy debt to Weems, or whether the issue might be one of blackmail, as it was with Byam. The household was not on the surface any more extravagant than he would have expected for a man in Carswell’s position. And it was always possible Mrs. Carswell had a little money of her own to contribute, which might account for the very excellent pictures.

He walked along Curzon Street in the sun, his hands in his pockets, his mind deep in thought, scarcely noticing the carriages with their liveried footmen passing him by. He could go to Cars well’s associates and ask them certain trivial questions, on some pretext or other, but even so, what would the answers tell him? That he played cards, perhaps? If he did, what of it? They would not admit if he had lost heavily lately. That was the sort of thing one gentleman did not reveal about another.

He turned the corner into South Audley Street then left along Great Stanhope Street into Park Lane.

Was Carswell worried or anxious lately? If he had confided in anyone, the confidant would not betray him by repeating the matter, least of all to a stranger he would recognize instantly as not one of their own, even if Pitt did not identify himself as a policeman. And worry indicated nothing. It could be about any number of things that had nothing whatever to do with William Weems. It could be a matter of health, or a Carswell daughter being courted by someone unsuitable, or, perhaps as bad, being courted by no one at all. It could be a complicated case he had been required to judge, a decision he was unhappy over, a friend in difficulties, or simply indigestion.

Beautiful carriages were passing him, their passengers ladies taking the air, faces sheltered from the sun by huge hats, nodding to friends on the footpath. Beyond them the trees in Hyde Park barely moved in the breeze.

Had Carswell developed erratic habits of late? If he had any ability at all he would conceal such a thing.

It was time he met Carswell himself, and asked him outright if he were in debt to Weems, and gave the man an opportunity to prove he had been elsewhere at the time of Weems’s death, and eliminate himself from inquiry.

Pitt hailed a cab and asked the driver to take him to the police court in Bow Street, where Carswell would be sitting. It took him half an hour traveling east through heavy traffic and by the time he arrived and paid the driver he was impatient. But one could not simply walk in and see an official of the court. The place was grim, busy and extremely formal, everyone consumed in their own importance, hurrying along corridors with sheaves of paper.

Pitt attempted to straighten his tie, and loosened it, ending up with it worse than before. He pulled his jacket down a little and moved some of the extraneous articles from one pocket to the other, trying to attain a little more balance. Then he presented himself to the clerk of the court and requested to see Mr. Addison Carswell when he had the opportunity between cases.

He filled in the waiting time by overhearing as much as possible of snatches of conversation between police on duty and witnesses waiting to give evidence. He hoped to gather some other opinions of Carswell, and was surprisingly successful.

“Yer got a fair chance,” one sharp-faced little man observed, sucking at his teeth with a hissing sound. “ ’E in’t too bad, Carswell. ’E in’t vindictive, like.”

“All beaks is vindictive,” his friend replied gloomily. “ ’E in’t never goin’ ter believe I got it fair and square. ’e’s goin’ ter say I nicked it. I can see it comin’.”

“Well keep yer yap shut an’ ’E won’t know,” the other said sharply. “Don’ offer ’im nuffin’ ’as ’E don’ ask yer.”

“I should ’a paid old Skinjiggs ter give me summat—”

“No yer shouldn’t. I tol’ jer, there’s some as yer can be friends wiv an’ they take it badly, an’ Carswell in’t one of ’em. Jus’ keep yer lip buttoned an’ don’ say nuffin’ as yer don’t ’ave ter.”

Then the conversation degenerated into speculation as to what sentence their mutual friend would receive. They had no doubt he would be found guilty.

Further along a pale young woman in gray was being comforted by her lawyer, a sandy little man with a white wig on a trifle crooked over his right ear and an earnest expression of entreaty.

“Please, Mrs. Wilby, don’t agitate yourself so. Mr. Carswell is extremely consistent. He does not give exemplary sentences. He is a very predictable judge. I have never known him to step outside the average.”

She sniffed and dabbed her nose with a scrap of handkerchief, and continued staring at the floor.

Were they simply the words of a nervous young man trying to comfort his client, or was Carswell really a man whose career showed no erratic decisions, no questionable behavior?

Pitt approached another lawyer who seemed to be standing around in hope of finding a little business, and asked him a few pertinent questions, as if he had a friend presently awaiting trial.

“Excuse me,” he began tentatively.

The lawyer looked at him dubiously. “Yes?”

“I have a friend up on a charge before Mr. Carswell,” Pitt said, watching the man’s face in case his expression betrayed more than his words. “I wonder, can you tell me what sort of chance he has?”

The lawyer pulled a face. “Depends what he’s up for. But he’s a pretty fair chap on the whole, no better than most, no worse. He has his dislikes—is your friend a pimp, by any chance?”

“Why?” Pitt tried to look anxious.

“Hates pimps,” the lawyer said expressively. “And pornographers—and anyone who abuses women. Has a soft spot for women, it seems.”

“Thieving,” Pitt amended quickly.

“He’ll be all right. Inclined to be lenient to a bit of simple thieving. Unless, of course, he was violent? No? Or robbed the old or the very poor? No—then don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”

“Thank you sir,” Pitt said enthusiastically, finding himself wishing more and more strongly that he would find Addison Carswell was not guilty of having murdered Weems.

Eventually the clerk came scurrying along to him, the tails of his gown flying, his face furrowed with agitation.

“Mr. Pitt, Mr. Carswell will see you now. I do hope you won’t keep him long, we have a great deal to get through and it would really be most inconvenient if he were to be delayed. You assured me it was urgent police business, and I have taken you at your word, sir.” His wispy eyebrows rose and he desired to reconsider that he had understood correctly and it truly justified his extraordinary intrusion.

“Indeed it is,” Pitt said, hiding a slight smile and reminding himself of Weems’s disfigured corpse in the mortuary, to force his priorities back to where his brain told him they should be. “You may be easy in your mind that I am not wasting Mr. Carswell’s time.”

“Ah—indeed. Then will you come this way, quickly now.” And so saying he turned and walked away so rapidly it was all but a trot.

Pitt strode after him and only two minutes later was shown into the chambers where Addison Carswell took short respites between one batch of cases and another. He had no time to look at it beyond noticing the walls were lined with bookshelves, presumably law tomes by their leather covers and great size. The single window overlooked a quiet courtyard and he could see the sunlight on an old stone wall at the far side. A single large desk was empty but for a silver salver with a bottle of Madeira and two glasses.

Carswell was standing with his back to the bookshelves. He was imposing now in his robes of office and with the weight of his calling so sharp in his mind. In the courtroom only a few yards away his power over his fellow beings was enormous. But stripped of these things Pitt judged he would be a very ordinary man, like thousands of others in London. He was well-to-do but not beyond the reach of anxiety; comfortable in his home and family of conforming disposition in both religion and political views; socially popular, accepted, but not a leader, still aspiring to climb considerably higher. In fact he was a man of very ordinary ambition and perhaps a few private dreams a little more individual, which would probably always remain just that: private—and only dreams.

“Yes, Mr…. Mr. Pitt?” Carswell said curiously. “What can I do for you, sir? I have but little time, as I am sure you realize.”

“Yes sir,” Pitt said immediately. “Therefore I shall not waste it with a lengthy preamble. May I be blunt?”

Carswell winced very slightly. “I suppose it would be an advantage.”

“Thank you. Can you tell me where you were between eight o’clock in the evening and midnight of Tuesday last week?”

Carswell thought for a moment, then a faint pink tinge appeared in his cheeks. “Is there some reason why I should, sir?”

“It would help to clear up a matter in which certain parties may be lying,” Pitt said, evading the issue.

Carswell bit his lip. “I was in a hansom cab, traveling from one place to another. The places need not concern you. I witnessed nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Where did you pass, sir?”

“That is a private matter.”

“Are you acquainted with a Mr. William Weems?” Pitt watched Carswell’s face closely for the smallest change of color or expression, and saw nothing but an attempt at recollection.

“Not that I think of,” Carswell said after a moment. “Was he concerned in a case I tried?”

“I don’t believe so.” Pitt had no idea whether he was completely unaware of Weems’s identity, either as a usurer or the victim of a recent murder, or whether he was a superlative liar. “He lived in Clerkenwell.”

“I do not have occasion to visit Clerkenwell, Mr. Pitt.” Carswell frowned. “If you forgive me, sir, you seem to be somewhat less direct than you intimated to me. I do not know Mr. Weems. Who or what is he, and why did you suppose I might know him?”

“He was a usurer, sir, who had your name on his book as having owed him a considerable amount.”

Carswell’s amazement might have been comic in any other circumstances.

“Owed him money? That is preposterous! I owe no one money, Mr. Pitt. But were I to be in financial difficulties I should not go to a usurer in Clerkenwell, but to my bankers to tide me over until circumstances improved.” He frowned as the absurdity of the thought became even more apparent to him. “But anyway, should that occur, and I assure you it has not, I have many personal possessions which I would dispose of, and I would do, before falling into the clutches of such a person. I have had far too much experience of tragic cases of men in debt to usury through my court to allow myself into such a desperate pass.”

It did not seem to occur to him that Pitt would doubt him. Perhaps it was too easily proved for him to imagine anyone would tell anything but the truth. Of course he did not know that Pitt had been to his home and knew for himself that he had much he could have realized money on, had he the need, but his very lack of pressing the point made Pitt think it the more likely he felt no guilt in the matter. Even now he stared wide-eyed and amused more than angry at the suggestion, and there was no fear in him, no tension in his body, no shadow in his eyes.

“He must have had my name for some other reason,” Carswell went on with a shrug of his shoulders. “My calling means that my name is known to various people of unsavory character and dubious occupation. Perhaps one of his clients passed through my court?”

“Very possible,” Pitt agreed. “But his book stated quite specifically that you owed him a large amount of money. The sum was written out, and the date at which you borrowed it, at what rate of interest, and when the loan was due. It was not simply a casual reference.”

Carswell drew his brows down. “How very peculiar. I assure you, Mr. Pitt, it is quite untrue. I have never borrowed money in my life.” His otherwise pleasant voice grew a trifle sharper. “I have never required to. My situation is more than comfortable, which I could prove to you, had I the mind to, but I prefer to keep my financial affairs confidential, and I see no reason why I should break that custom because you have come across a moneylender with a malicious sense of amusement.”

He leaned back a little and looked very directly at Pitt.

“Go back and tell Mr. Weems that I do not appreciate having my name taken lightly, and that he would be well advised to be truthful in future, or it will go ill with him. One can be prosecuted for willfully making mischief with another man’s reputation.”

“You have never met Mr. Weems?”

“I have not, sir.” His tone grew sharper; his patience was thinning and he no longer felt anxious. “I thought I had made that plain! Now if that is all you have to say, I would ask you to allow me the remainder of my respite from court in peace so I may collect my thoughts and take some refreshment.”

Pitt looked at him carefully, but he could see nothing in Carswell’s face whatever but the good-natured irritation any man might feel at such a liberty both with his name and his time.

“Mr. Weems is dead,” he said quietly. “He was murdered a week ago.”

“Oh.” Carswell was obviously taken aback, but still there seemed no fear in him. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to speak lightly of any man in his extremity. But I am afraid I still cannot help you. I do not know him. Nor can I think of any reason why he should have my name in his papers. It seems to me extremely mischievous.” He frowned, a flicker of anxiety returning to his face. “Is there some conspiracy, Mr. Pitt? You mentioned that people may be lying. You asked me where I was, and now you say this man Weems has been murdered. Did your suspect claim to have been in my company at the time?”

Pitt smiled, a small, rather bleak gesture. “I too would prefer to reserve some of my information, sir,” he said as courteously as was possible with such a statement. “Thank you for sparing me your time in the middle of the day. I will find my own way out. Good day, Mr. Carswell.”

“Good day,” Carswell replied from behind, his voice subdued and thoughtful.

There was little purpose in seeking information from Carswell’s friends or colleagues. They would only infer that the police had been inquiring about him, and he would realize he was suspected of Weems’s murder. He was far too used to criminal procedure to imagine Pitt would waste his time otherwise. It would put him on his guard without offering any benefit, and the chance that any friend would betray anything of import was so remote as not to be worth pursuing.

All that was left now was the tedious and wearing task of following him for as many days as were necessary, either to establish that he had a pattern of spending, a debt that would tend to confirm his borrowing from Weems, or some secret that would make blackmail possible; or else find nothing, which would mean that he was aware of his danger and clever enough to conceal his weaknesses, or there were none, and Pitt would have to look further to find out why his name was on Weems’s list.

It was a morning and evening job through the week. Carswell was safe enough in the court through the days, except perhaps at midday when he might well take his luncheon out. Pitt could hardly stand around inside the court building to see who visited him, as he had done himself, through the day. He did not wish Carswell to be aware he was being observed—apart from warning him, it would make keeping him in sight so much more difficult.

Pitt hated having his hours and his whereabouts dictated in such a way; it was an oddly irritating limitation he had left behind with his first promotion. The freedom to act for himself without forever reporting and accounting to someone else was one of the things he liked best about being a detective rather than a uniformed officer. He smiled at his own frailty that such a small thing should feel so cramping, and resented it just as much.

But Carswell, Urban and Latimer were the best suspects, unless it was Byam after all, which was a thought he would avoid as long as possible. And he was deeply reluctant to find it was one of the ordinary borrowers, the small men and women driven to despair by cold, hunger and worry. If it was one of them he would feel an icy finger of temptation to call the case unsolved, and he did not want to face the moral dilemma of that. He might find his judgment confounded by emotions of pity and anger against the endless grind that allowed one man to bleed another into hopelessness and rob him of the dignity of a choice that was better than death by cold and hunger not only for himself but for his children—this terrible violence. If you drive a man to choose between death of his body or corruption of his soul, how much are you also to blame if his choice is the wrong one?

Such were Pitt’s thoughts as he stood, hands in his pockets, head down, as he waited for Carswell to leave the court at the end of the day. It was harder following people in the summer. The evenings were light until ten or later, the weather was warm, so there was no excuse for pulled-down hats, turned-lip collars, and no shadows to sink back into. Not often was there fog to blanket one, and little rain to hurry through with head down. And his height was against him; he stood half a head above the crowd. If Carswell once realized he was there, he would recognize him and pick him out easily enough again.

When Carswell emerged he had little difficulty in following him to Curzon Street, where he waited until well after the dinner hour, when he decided he was probably going to remain there all night. He gratefully gave up and, shivering a little from the long standing still, he turned and strode off to the main thoroughfare where he could find a hansom to take him back to Bloomsbury and his own home.

It was only when he was lying in bed listening to Charlotte’s quiet breathing and feeling her warmth beside him that he realized with a start of guilt that there was no real reason why Carswell could not have gone out again once his family was asleep. If he had any nefarious purpose to fulfill, it might very well be accomplished in the night, the one time he could best count on a measure of privacy, and not feel any call to explain his whereabouts. Perhaps that was when he had visited Weems—not in the evening but the middle of the night, the short summer night which would only amount to five or six hours of darkness.

It was too late now. But tomorrow he would have to go to Clerkenwell police station and request at least one other man to help him. Carswell must be watched all the time, day and night.

He turned and put his arms around Charlotte, touching her hair soft over her shoulder, heavy and warm, smelling faintly of the lavender water she liked. He smiled and put his guilt behind him. She stirred slightly and moved a little closer.

Innes continued to investigate the borrowers on Weems’s first list, and in the small room in the Clerkenwell station he told Pitt of seven who were in deep distress with nothing else to pawn, no food and owing rent, no clothes but those they stood in, hollow eyes filled one moment with resignation, the next with a sudden flame of anger and the will to fight. None of these few could find anyone to swear as to their presence somewhere else when Weems was killed. Innes told Pitt their names with a deep unhappiness. He made little effort to hide his own wish that it should be one of the “nobs” who was guilty. He stood in the Clerkenwell station in the room they had lent Pitt, his thin body stiff, his shoulders squared, looking at Pitt a little defiantly.

It would have been clumsy to express understanding in words. The feeling was both too profound and too delicate: a mixture of pity; guilt for not suffering with them, for seeing what should have been private; and fear that in the end they would have to arrest one of them and take him to be tried and hanged, exactly as if they had understood nothing.

“Then we’d better follow Mr. Carswell very thoroughly,” Pitt said with no particular expression in his voice, and looking a little beyond Innes’s stiff face. “We’ll need another man. Can you see to that?”

“Why would a magistrate borrer money from a swine like Weems, sir?” Innes said without relaxing in the slightest. “It don’t make no sense.”

“He probably didn’t,” Pitt agreed. “I expect it was blackmail.”

“Is that wot ’appened to your nob?” Innes asked baldly, his stare unwaveringly in front of him.

“Yes,” Pitt admitted equally baldly. “But there’s no crime involved, only a misjudgment of character. A woman became infatuated with him and took her own life. It would be a scandal, and unpleasant for his family.”

“ ’Ardly compares wiv what I’ve seen.” Innes was still grudging. He stood stiffly beside the table. Pitt was leaning on the only chair.

“No—which is why I don’t think he killed Weems. He didn’t have enough to lose. But maybe Carswell did.”

“I’ll see ter gettin’ ’im followed.” Innes relaxed a little at last. “What times do yer want ter do it yerself, sir? Or would yer like two men so they can do it all?”

“One will do,” Pitt conceded. “I’ll do it during the day. I’ve nothing better to do.”

Innes forgot himself for a moment.

“What about the nob o’ yours, sir? Even though ’e’s not afraid o’ scandal, if ’E were prepared to pay, maybe ’E got tired of it, and decided to get rid o’ Weems. ’Specially if Weems got greedier and upped ’is price?”

“I have thought of that,” Pitt said very levelly, his voice not exactly cold, but very precise. “I will pursue it if I exhaust the other possibilities.”

Innes opened his mouth, about to apologize, then some element of pride intruded—or perhaps it was a sense of dignity and a desire to maintain a certain relationship—and he remained silent.

“Then we’ll look at the other debtors on the second list,” Pitt went on. “Mr. Urban and Mr. Latimer.”

“I could start on them right away, sir,” Innes offered.

“No,” Pitt said rather too quickly, then seeing Innes’s face, felt obliged to explain. “We’ll leave them till we have to—Urban at least. He’s a colleague.”

“Whose colleague?” Innes did not yet understand.

“Ours, Innes,” Pitt said flatly. “He is police.”

Innes’s face would have been comical were the situation not so painful. All the ugly possibilities flickered through his mind and across his wildly expressive face, debt, gambling, blackmail and corruption.

“Ah,” he said at last. “I see. Yes sir. Let’s dispose o’ Mr. Carswell first then. I’ll see to it that ’e’s followed all night, every night, sir.” And with that he turned on his heel and went out, leaving Pitt alone in the small, cramped room.

During the next four days Pitt followed Addison Carswell from the Bow Street court to his home; to Kensington, Chelsea and Belgravia to dine with acquaintances; to his club, where he had to remain outside, unable to learn if he gambled, won or lost, whom he owed or with whom he spoke. It was almost a waste of time, since all he could learn of use was closed to him, but he had not yet any grounds to go in and demand information with any authority.

He followed Carswell to his tailor, who seemed to receive him without the rather stiff, hostile familiarity tailors employed if they were owed money. Indeed the man was all smiles when he came to the door to bid Carswell good-day.

It was not until the fifth day, when Pitt was losing heart, that Carswell finally went somewhere of interest. Shopping of itself held no particular meaning, nor even what he purchased. A pretty hat and a lace parasol, all wrapped in tissue and pink boxes, were not remarkable purchases for a man with a wife and four daughters, three of them unmarried. It was the fact that when he emerged from the shop, Pitt close behind him, he hurried along the footpath, head down, occasionally glancing sideways. Once when he saw ahead of him someone he seemed to know, he pulled his hat forward and leaped over the gutter to dart across the street in front of a brougham, almost under the horse’s hooves, startling the animal and causing the driver to jerk on the reins and swear violently, then draw up his vehicle, shaking with fear that he had so nearly killed a man.

Pitt had lost sight of Carswell and felt a twinge of uncertainty. The sweat broke out on his skin as he struggled to find a space between the broughams, barouches, landaus, phaetons and victorias to go over himself. He danced on the curb in impatience as a brewer’s dray went past him, with huge bay horses, flanks gleaming, manes braided and ribboned, hard followed by a hansom, then a clarence. At last he ran out into the street, defying an open landau with two women taking the air, raced in front of a barouche going the other way, and reached the opposite side amid a group of fashionable idlers. Carswell was nowhere in sight. He brushed past three men talking, calling out apologies, and ran along the path, only catching up with Carswell as he was about to climb into a cab.

Pitt hailed a hansom immediately behind.

“Follow that cab that just pulled out!” he ordered.

“What?” The cabby was suspicious, turning on his box to stare at him.

“I’ma policeman,” Pitt said urgently. “A detective. Follow that cab!”

“A detective?” The man’s face brightened with sudden interest.

“Get on with it!” Pitt said exasperatedly. “You’ll lose him.”

“No I won’t!” The cabby caught the spirit of it. “I can follow anybody anywhere in London.” And with enthusiasm and some skill he urged his horse and turned into the traffic, butting ahead of a victoria and across the path of a berline. They were going westward towards Curzon Street, but south, which made Pitt at last feel that he was about to discover something of Carswell that was not utterly predictable and totally innocent.

He sat upright in the cab, wishing he could see forward as well as sideways as they went over the river at Westminster Bridge, then turned south into Lambeth.

They traveled up Westminster Bridge Road and Pitt could see couples out walking, the women in pastels and flowers and laces in the late afternoon sunshine. One or two carried parasols, more for elegance than to protect them from the soft light, and the heat was gone. He wondered who Carswell’s gifts were for. The married daughter in the pictures in Curzon Street? She might live south of the river. But it seemed more likely Carswell would visit her later, with his wife and in his own carriage, not alone in a hired vehicle.

They turned into Kennington Road. It was full of people taking the evening air, open carriages, street peddlers with all manner of food: pies, eels, peppermint water, fruit sherbets, cordials, sandwiches. Girls offered bunches of flowers, matches, packets of lavender, little dolls. An organ grinder played hurdy-gurdy music and in the summer street it sounded unexpectedly pleasing, all its harshness and tawdriness sweetened by the open air, the clopping of horses’ feet and the hiss of wheels.

Pitt’s cab stopped and the driver leaned out.

“Yer fare’s got out, sir,” he said quietly. “ ’E went inter the coffee’ouse on yer left.”

“Thank you.” Pitt climbed out and paid him. “Thank you very much.”

“Who is ’e?” the cabby asked. “Is ’E a murderer?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt said honestly.

The other cab had moved away so presumably Carswell intended remaining where he was for some time. “Thank you, that’s all,” Pitt said, dismissing the cabby, to his acute disappointment. He moved away reluctantly, still giving the occasional glance backwards over his shoulder to see what was happening.

Pitt smiled to himself and pulled his coat even further open and took his tie off altogether, then followed Carswell into the coffeehouse.

Inside was warm, stuffy and full of chatter, clinking glass and rustling skirts, and the smell of coffee beans, pastry and sugar. On the walls were colorful theater posters, and now and again someone roared with laughter.

In a corner over to the right Addison Carswell was being greeted by a slender, pretty girl with a mass of soft honey-brown hair which was piled on her head in the very latest fashion, the short ends curling onto her neck as only nature can and no art has learned to imitate. In spite of her youth her features were strong and her face full of vitality, her eyes wide and clear. Pitt judged her to be in her early twenties.

Carswell was looking at her with a smile he could not mask and an anticipation in his eyes as he gave her the hatbox and the parcel containing the parasol. She opened them with quick fingers, tearing at the paper, every few moments glancing up at him, then down again. When she finally took off the last pieces and let them flutter to the ground she held up the parasol with unfeigned delight, and then the hat.

Carswell put out his hand and touched her wrist, restraining her before she could swing the hat up and try it on. She smiled, blushing as if she suddenly remembered her foolishness, and put her hand down again.

Carswell’s face reflected an extraordinary tenderness, an emotion so transparently genuine it startled Pitt and made him uncomfortably aware of being not merely a detective, but at this moment a voyeur.

He watched them for another thirty minutes. They sat at the table, the hatbox and the parasol at the girl’s feet, leaning forward speaking to each other one minute earnestly, the next lightly and with laughter, but it was not loud, neither did the girl have any of the mannerisms of flirting. Rather it seemed an affection of two people who have known each other some time and shared many experiences which have given them a treasury of understanding from which to draw.

When Carswell arose and left after having bade the girl farewell, Pitt did not follow him, but turned his face away just in case Carswell should glance his way. But as it happened he looked neither to right nor left, but with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, he went out into Kennington Road. Pitt paid his bill and went out onto the pavement. He watched Carswell march away down towards Westminster Bridge where he might find a hansom, and presumably return home to Curzon Street and his wife. Perhaps before then he would have taken the jauntiness out of his stride and the dreaming from his face.

A few moments later when the girl left also, Pitt was waiting for her. She did not look for a cab, but walked along the pavement carrying the hatbox and the parasol, holding them close to her, also. Her step too was quick and light, almost as if she would have skipped, had it not been absurd and likely to draw attention to herself.

She crossed the road a hundred yards further along, passing the organ grinder and giving him a coin. He spoke to her cheerfully, touching his hat as if perhaps he knew her, and redoubled his efforts at the music. She turned off at St. Albans Street and a short way along, at number 16, stopped, fished from her reticule a latchkey, and went in.

Pitt stood on the pavement staring. It was a very ordinary house, small, narrow fronted, without a garden, but at least on the outside, eminently respectable, even if there was no servant to answer the door. It was the sort of house lived in by a petty clerk, a small trader or a teller in a bank, or perhaps the mistress of a man of means just sufficient to keep two establishments.

Then why did Carswell meet her in a coffeehouse, where they could do no more than talk and perhaps hold hands?

The obvious answer was that she did not live alone. Either she was married, although there had been no ring on her hand, or she shared her home with a parent or a brother or sister.

He turned away and retraced his steps to Kennington Road. It was not difficult to invent some trivial story, and learn from the shopkeeper on the corner that since poor Mrs. Hilliard became an invalid, number 16 was occupied by Miss Theophania Hilliard and her brother, Mr. James, and a very nice couple they were, always polite and paid all their bills on time. Never any trouble to anyone.

Pitt thanked him and left with an intense feeling of depression. He also walked down towards the bridge where he could find a cab which would take him home. But even when one passed him he felt an urge to continue on foot; he wanted to use the energy, as if the anger and disappointment inside him could be burned away in physical effort. There was everything here for tragedy: a middle-aged man of public respectability, a wife and daughters at home, who chose to buy expensive and highly feminine gifts and cross the river alone to give them to a young and pretty girl for whom he very obviously had intense feelings. In many ways it would have been less serious had it simply been a visit to a brothel; such things were more readily understood, and hardly worth blackmailing anyone over, certainly not worth committing murder to hide.

But Theophania Hilliard was not a casual appetite, and the hat and parasol did not seem to be bribes for favors past or future, rather gifts for someone towards whom he felt the most profound emotions. But had they been those of a nature he could acknowledge, why had he come furtively, going to such lengths to avoid being seen by anyone he knew? He had risked being killed, in careering across the road as he had, just to avoid being seen by an acquaintance. And why a coffee shop on the Kennington Road, if it were acceptable to her brother? Presumably he also objected to the liaison, or else he was entirely ignorant of it.

How much was this relationship costing Carswell? Did he bring her gifts often, or was this an isolated time? She had not seemed particularly surprised, at least looking back on it Pitt thought not. Had he brought such things for Charlotte she would have shown more amazement, more—he visualized her face if he were able to spend money on such pretty luxuries. She would have cried out, tried them on immediately, paraded up and down in them and twirled around for him to admire, her eyes would have danced, her voice would have been high, lifted with excitement. He wished with a sharp, almost hurting intensity that he could do such a thing for her, something extravagant and totally unnecessary, just beautiful, feminine, endlessly flattering. There must be a way he could save enough, something he could do without, or put off paying for.

It was so painfully easy to understand Addison Carswell—especially the first time, and this was assuredly not the first. Theophania Hilliard was accustomed to receiving pretty things from him—but once begun how could he stop, whatever it cost?

Was that it? Was he borrowing to finance his desire to please her? He would not readily admit it.

Or was it far uglier than that? Had Weems been blackmailing him too? And had he been driven beyond the point of reluctant compliance and into violent escape from a pressure he could no longer bear? Was it Carswell’s innate sense of justice which had loaded some gun with gold coins and shot away half Weems’s head?

Had he been with Theophania Hilliard that night which he refused to account for—or had he been in Clerkenwell, in Cyrus Street?

The next morning Pitt went to the police court early, intending to speak to Carswell at the first break from duty. It was a confrontation he was dreading, but it was unavoidable. The man must be given the opportunity to reconsider his silence and explain where he was the night Weems was murdered, and his relationship with Theophania Hilliard. It was just conceivable there was an innocent answer to it—not innocent of all culpability, but innocent of murder.

The first case to be heard was a clerk who had embezzled a few shillings from his employers. He might, as the defense claimed, simply have been careless with figures, and have miscalculated the funds. It was just possible, although Pitt thought, looking at the man’s pale intelligent face, he was more probably struggling to pay a bill and had taken his first step into crime. Or as the prosecutor maintained, he might have been testing the water preparing for a career of theft. Carswell inclined towards the last view, and sentenced him to a short term of imprisonment. Having found him guilty there was little alternative open to him and Pitt thought it was probably an accurate judgment, and not overharsh.

The second case came to him as a surprise. The accused’s name was familiar even before his portly figure and angry face appeared in the dock. Horatio Osmar. Beside him, buxom, fair hair gleaming, but very scrubbed and demure, was Miss Beulah Giles, also accused.

The clerk of the court read out the charges, to wit that they had both been behaving in an unseemly manner likely to offend against public decency, and the time and place of the offense added to make the issue perfectly plain. Somehow such details made it sound even more down-to-earth, and indescribably small and grubby.

Horatio Osmar stood very stiff, balancing on the balls of his feet. His coat was immaculate, if a trifle lopsided at one shoulder, as if he had struggled with his escort and snatched himself away from a restraining grip. His face was overpink, his shapeless nose shone and his whiskers bristled, his eyes glared at everyone who chanced to catch his glance.

Miss Giles stood motionless with eyes downcast, and her dress, on this very different occasion from the one when Pitt had first seen her, was buttoned right up to her throat, and of a sober shade of blue-gray, with a touch of teal in it so at moments one was not sure whether it was entirely blue, or perhaps green. It could not have been gentler or more designed to make one think well of her.

The lawyer stood respectfully to plead for them, in both cases, not guilty.

Pitt leaned forward, startled even more. The man was a Queen’s Counsel, one of that highly select group of lawyers who had taken silk and now dealt only in the most prestigious cases. What on earth was a Q.C. doing in a magistrate’s court arguing a case of indecent behavior in a public park? It was natural Osmar should want to be found not guilty, but the facts were overwhelmingly against him, and to have such eminent counsel would only draw the press’s attention to an incident which might otherwise have gone unreported.

The prosecution began by calling a very self-conscious P.C. Crombie, who took the witness stand and swore to his name and occupation, and that together with P.C. Allardyce he had been on duty in the park at the relevant time and place.

“And what did you see, Constable Crombie?” the prosecution asked, raising bushy eyebrows in inquiry.

P.C. Crombie stood to attention.

“I saw the accused sitting on the bench together with their arms ’round each other, sir.”

“And what were they doing, Constable?”

Osmar snorted so fiercely it was audible in the body of the court.

P.C. Crombie swallowed. “ ’Ard to say exact, sir. They looked like they was struggling over something, not fighting, like, just rocking back and forth—” He stopped, the color rising up his face with embarrassment.

“And what did you do, Constable?” the prosecution persisted, his face lugubrious as if his interest were barely engaged.

“P.C. Allardyce and me went up to them, sir,” Crombie answered. “And as we got close the gentleman rose to ’is feet and started to rearrange ’is clothes—sir—”

Again Osmar grunted loudly and Carswell glared at him. There was a murmur around the room among the few spectators.

“Rearrange?” the prosecutor asked. “You must be more specific, Constable.”

P.C. Crombie’s face was scarlet. He looked straight ahead of him at some point in the woodwork on the far wall.

“ ’Is trousers was undone, sir, and ’is shirt was ’anging out at the front. ’E tucked it in and did up ’is buttons, sir.”

“And the young lady, Constable?” The prosecutor was merciless, his beautifully modulated voice cutting the silence like a silver knife.

P.C. Crombie closed his eyes.

“She was doin’ up ’er blouse, sir, at the—” He raised his hands and held them roughly where his bosom would have been, had he one. He was a young man, and not married.

“Are you saying she was in a state of indecency, Constable?”

The Q.C. rose to his feet and there was a sharp rustle of interest around the room. Osmar smiled.

“My lord, the prosecution is leading the witness,” the Q.C. said with injured gentility. “He did not say Miss Giles was indecently dressed, merely that she was fastening her blouse.”

“I apologize to my learned friend,” the prosecution said with a touch of sarcasm. “Constable, how would you describe the state of dress of Miss Giles?”

“Well sir—” Crombie glanced at Carswell, uncertain now how to proceed in what he was permitted to say. His face was burning red.

Osmar shifted in the dock, his face shining with satisfaction.

The prosecution smiled drily.

“Constable, did her state of dress embarrass you?”

“Yes sir! That it did!”

Beulah Giles hid a smirk less than satisfactorily.

The Q.C. was on his feet again. “My lord, that is surely irrelevant?”

“No it is not,” the prosecution insisted, still smiling. “P.C. Crombie is part of the general public, and his reaction may be an acceptable indication of what other passersby might have felt when they saw this spectacle of a man and woman in such a degree of intimacy on a park bench for all to see.”

“My lord, that has yet to be proved!” The Q.C. simulated outrage. “It may be argued that P.C. Crombie’s susceptibilities are the sole issue here. It was he who arrested my client, and therefore he has something of an interest in the outcome of this case. He cannot be considered an unbiased witness. The prosecution’s argument is circular.”

Now the spectators in the room were agog, every face staring, bright with attention.

Carswell looked at the prosecution.

“Is this all you have, Mr. Clyde? If so, it seems very thin.”

“No sir, there is also P.C. Allardyce.”

“Then you had better call him.”

Accordingly P.C. Crombie was excused and P.C. Allardyce was called. He was an older man by some three or four years, and married. He was less easily embarrassed, and as soon as he spoke the Q.C. realized it. He did not challenge his evidence but let it remain. He made no counterclaim when Allardyce described the struggle Horatio Osmar had made upon his arrest, his less than gentlemanly language and his arrival purple faced and furious at the police station, nor Miss Giles’s similar state of dishabille.

He began his defense by calling Horatio Osmar himself to testify. He yanked his clothes straighter, stretched his neck as if to settle his collar, then faced Carswell directly for a moment before turning to the prosecution and waiting with polite inquiry for him to begin.

“Would you give us your account of this deplorable affair, please, Mr. Osmar,” the Q.C. asked courteously.

Pitt watched with interest to see how Osmar would dress it in some form of respectability. The whole thing had been a miserable and excruciatingly silly affair, but for his dignity Osmar could not admit it here. How much easier if he had simply pleaded guilty and accepted a fine. Carswell would surely not have given him more than a caution, and a sum to pay he would easily afford. Whoever had advised him to employ a Queen’s Counsel was either extremely foolish, or was secretly desiring his downfall.

Osmar put his shoulders back and stared defiantly at the spectators in the room, and they fell silent, not entirely out of respect, Pitt thought, but more largely so as not to miss anything.

Osmar’s whiskers bristled and he cleared his throat importantly and sniffed. Then he began. “Certainly sir, I shall do that. I was taking the air in the park when I encountered Miss Giles, a young lady of my acquaintance. I greeted her and asked after her health, which she informed me was excellent.”

The prosecution began to fidget and Carswell glared at him.

“Please continue, Mr. Osmar,” he directed with a tight smile.

“Thank you, sir. I shall.” He too glared at the prosecution, then straightened his tie ostentatiously.

There was a movement around the court and someone laughed.

Osmar began again. “I also asked after her family, as was only civil, and she began to tell me of their condition. I suggested that we might take a seat, which was nearby, rather than stand in the middle of the path. She accepted that it was a good idea so we adjourned to the bench upon which we were seated when the two constables saw us.”

“And were you struggling with Miss Giles, sir?”

“Certainly not!” Osmar sniffed and his expression registered his contempt for the idea. “I had asked after a nephew of hers, and she showed me a picture of the child which was in a locket around her neck. She had to fumble a moment to open the catch, it was very small and not easy to find.” He glanced around at the crowd. “I assisted her with it as it was quite naturally not in a position in which she could see it.”

Pitt’s opinion of Osmar’s invention went up, and of his veracity went down. He looked at Carswell to see how he took this vivid piece of fabrication, and was startled to see an expression of total sobriety on his face.

“An innocent enough pastime,” Carswell said with raised eyebrows and a look of irritation at the prosecution.

The prosecution looked puzzled, caught off guard, but it was not prudent for him to speak now and he knew it. He sat back in his seat, biting his lip.

“And was your dress in disarray, sir?” the Q.C. asked Osmar.

“Of course not!” Osmar said sententiously. “I am not a tidy man, as you may observe—” There was a titter around the room. “I had been searching my pockets for a note which I had mislaid,” Osmar went on. “I am afraid I was somewhat hasty in my efforts, and may well have looked in disarray when I was accosted by the constables, but I was untidy, not more—and that is not yet a crime against anything but good taste.”

The prosecution pulled a face of disbelief, the Q.C. smiled and Beulah Giles kept her face in a sober expression with obvious difficulty. For the first time Carswell looked faintly uncomfortable.

“And did you explain this to the constables, Mr. Osmar?” the Q.C. inquired, his eyes wide, his voice eminently reasonable.

“I attempted to.” Osmar looked hurt. “I told them who I was, sir.” At this his shoulders straightened even further back and his chin lifted. “I am not unknown in certain circles—I have a reputation, and many years of honorable service to my Queen and country.”

“Indeed,” the Q.C. said hastily. “But the constables would not listen to you?”

“Not a word,” Osmar said with an acute sense of injury. “They were very rough with me, which is objectionable enough, but what I cannot forgive is the appalling way in which they treated Miss Giles, a young woman of respectable family and unspotted reputation.”

Someone in the crowd shifted noisily. Beulah Giles colored and Osmar’s face darkened.

“Forgive me, Mr. Osmar,” the Q.C. said with a very slight smile. “But we have only your word for this—this order of things—so different from the account given to us by Constables Crombie and Allardyce.”

“Ha!” Osmar’s voice quivered and his cheeks puffed out. “That is not true, sir; not true at all. There was another witness—a man who was only a short distance away. He saw it all, because he observed that in my distress when I was arrested, I left behind the attaché case which I had with me. He picked it up and at a later hour he went to the police station and turned it in, so that I might reclaim it.”

There was an audible sucking in of breath around the room.

“He was close enough to observe this?” The Q.C. feigned amazement. “And why did the police not call him as a witness here, now?”

Osmar assumed an expression of injured innocence, his little eyes wide open.

“I can give no answer to that, sir, which is not critical. It would be better that they answered for themselves.”

“If they can.” The Q.C.’s voice was now unctuous. He turned to Carswell. “My lord, I respectfully submit that the police have been negligent in their duty; they have not called a witness to the event who could perhaps have cleared my client. Now he cannot be called because there is no record of his name or whereabouts. Therefore I request that the case be dismissed and my client leave without a stain on his character.”

Constable Crombie swiveled to stare in consternation at Constable Allardyce, and the prosecution half rose from his seat, but Carswell stopped them all with an imperious gesture.

“Your request is granted, Mr. Greer. The case is dismissed.” And he banged his gavel on its rest to indicate the end of the matter.

Pitt was dumbfounded. They had not even called Beulah Giles. There had been no opportunity to question her, and she must surely be the best witness of all. It was an extraordinary procedure, and Osmar had got away with it. Certainly it was a trivial offense, causing embarrassment at the most. No one was injured or robbed, and in the circumstances very probably no one had even been discomfited, as there appeared to have been no other passersby at the time. But that was not the issue. The police had been made to look foolish and ineffectual, and Osmar had defied the law.

And perhaps most serious of all as far as Pitt was concerned, Carswell had behaved unaccountably. Only the crowd was satisfied, and that not because they were partisan in the case, simply that they had been thoroughly and unexpectedly entertained.

On the way out Pitt passed the two constables looking confused and angry. He caught Crombie’s eye and the unspoken message of understanding flashed between them. Neither knew the reason for such acts, but both shared the emotions.

The Q.C. strode along the passage, gown tails flapping, features composed in lines of deep thought. He no longer had the oozing satisfaction he had had in the courtroom. Either his own feelings were mixed, or else his attention was already upon the next case. Horatio Osmar was nowhere to be seen, nor the handsome Miss Giles.

Pitt had another half hour to wait around the corridors before Carswell retired to his chambers and Pitt was able to see him.

“Yes Mr. Pitt?” he said, looking up from his desk, his face furrowed with mild irritation. Obviously he had considered the matter concluded at their last interview, and had no wish to have to turn his mind to it now. “I am afraid I must ask you to be brief,” he went on. “I have many other affairs that require my time.”

“Then I will proceed immediately,” Pitt said very quietly. He hated this, but it was inescapable. “Are you sure you would not care to tell me where you were on the night William Weems was murdered?”

Carswell’s face darkened, and his voice had an edge to it. “I am quite sure. I do not require to account for myself, sir. I did not know the man or have any dealings with him whatever. I have no idea who killed him, nor, beyond my civic duty, do I care. Now if that is all, please attend to your calling, and leave me to mine.”

“Weems was also a blackmailer.” Pitt stood perfectly still.

“Indeed? How unpleasant.” A look of distaste crossed Cars well’s face, but there was no start of anxiety or sudden fear. “I grieve for his death still less,” he said tersely. “But I did not know him, sir. I have already said so, and do not intend to waste my valuable time repeating it to you. You may believe me or not, as you choose, but since it is the truth, you will not find proof of anything different. Now if you please, prosecute your inquiries somewhere else!”

“Are you quite sure you do not care to tell me where you were that night?”

Carswell half rose from his seat, his face deep pink.

“I do not, sir! Now do you leave like a gentleman, or do I summon the ushers and remove you like a felon?”

Pitt sighed and took a deep breath. He did not dislike Carswell, and he hated having to do this to him.

“Perhaps Miss Hilliard was acquainted with him, and gave your name as collateral for a loan?” he suggested quietly and very levelly. “Neither she nor her brother are in such fortunate circumstances—”

Carsweirs face went white as the blood fled from it, and then blushed scarlet again, and his legs seemed to fold under him. He collapsed back into his chair and stared helplessly, unable to clear his thoughts or muster any argument to deny.

“Did Miss Hilliard know Weems?” Pitt repeated, not because he thought Theophania Hilliard guilty of murder for an instant, but he did not want to prejudice Carswell’s answers by suggesting them in the form of his questions.

“No! No—” Carswell’s voice sank again. “No, of course not. It is—” He took a deep, shuddering breath and let it go. “It is I—it—” He looked up at Pitt, his eyes anguished. “I did not kill Weems.” He pushed the words between his teeth. “I had no occasion to. Before God, I swear to you, I never knew the man, and I was not there that night!”

“What is your relationship with Miss Hilliard, sir?”

Carswell seemed to hunch inside himself, almost to grow smaller in his chair.

“She is—she is—my mistress.” It was so hard for him to say it came out in a whisper.

Was there any point in asking if Weems was blackmailing him? The cause for it was only too obvious. And what would a denial be worth? It would surely be instinctive, a man protecting himself, denying guilt automatically.

“And Weems knew?”

Carswell’s face tightened.

“I am saying nothing more, except that I did not kill him. And if you have any humanity in you, any justice at all, you will not involve Miss Hilliard. She knows nothing whatever of any part of it—please—” The word was almost strangled in his throat. It was a measure of his distress that he could bring himself to speak it at all. His hands were clenched on the desk top and his body looked hunched and beaten.

“Miss Hilliard is under no suspicion,” Pitt said before he considered the wisdom of telling him. “It is not a crime a woman might have committed, nor is there anything to connect Miss Hilliard with Weems.” Then to salvage something of his advantage, “It was your name we found on his books.”

Carswell sat back in his chair, pale, tired, his body slowly relaxing into limpness. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps even thanks, then changed his mind and closed it again.

Pitt inclined his head in a small bow, and excused himself. There was nothing more to say and it was a pointless cruelty to stand and watch the man’s embarrassment. He would learn nothing new from it. He would like to have asked him why on earth he had ruled as he had on the case of Horatio Osmar, but that was a privileged decision which Pitt had no authority to investigate. There were no grounds to suppose it was corrupt, only eccentric and inexplicable.

“What?” Micah Drummond was incredulous. “Carswell dismissed it?”

“Yes sir,” Pitt agreed, standing in Drummond’s office in the sun. “He threw it out. Allardyce and Crombie could hardly believe it.”

“Did you say Horatio Osmar?” Drummond said more thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he a junior minister in the government a few years ago?”

“I believe so, but does that make it any better?” Pitt was ready to be angry at the abuse of privilege.

Drummond smiled with a small lift of his shoulders.

“None at all, but it may explain Cars well’s behavior—”

“Not to me,” Pitt said hotly. “If that is the sort of justice he dispenses then he is not the man I thought him, nor is he fit to sit on the bench.”

Drummond’s eyes widened. “A forceful opinion, Pitt.”

Pitt felt his face color. He admired Drummond and was suddenly aware he had exceeded his position and breached the social gap which lay between them in criticizing a man out of his own class, and in Drummond’s.

“I apologize,” he said huskily. “I should not have expressed it.”

Drummond’s face relaxed into genuine humor.

“I like your choice of words, Pitt, there is a nice difference between that and saying that you were mistaken in your estimate.” He moved from behind the desk. “I am inclined to agree with you, if that were the case, but I meant that Carswell and Osmar may have associates in common who may well have—” He hesitated, again uncomfortable, seeking to explain something which seemed to embarrass him. Pitt was suddenly reminded of the emotion he had felt riding beside him through the darkness in the hansom to see Lord Byam the first time.

Pitt waited. The silence lay in the bright air. Outside someone dropped a wooden crate on the pavement, and in the distance a coster cried his wares, the sound coming clearly through the open window.

“—have reminded him of friendship,” Drummond finished, “of obligation.”

“I see,” Pitt said quietly, although he did not. It was a cloudy mass of possibilities, none of them hard-edged, all confused in the darkness of social pressures, debts of money, favor, the whisper of corruption, however politely phrased, and behind it all blackmail, and the ugly body of William Weems.

Drummond pushed his hand into his pocket and looked miserable.

“I suppose this mistress business is an excellent motive for murder, poor devil,” he said resignedly. “What about the other names on Weems’s list? Have you looked at them yet?”

“No sir.” Pitt felt his heart sink. “One of them is on the force—”

Drummond’s face paled. “Oh God! Are you sure?”

“I suppose there is a remote hope it is someone else by the same name,” Pitt said without any hope at all.

Drummond stared at the floor. “Well I suppose you’d better do it. What about the gun?” He looked up. “Have you found that yet? You said the one there—what was it?”

“A hackbut,” Pitt replied. “Ornamental, on the wall.”

“You said it wasn’t in working order?”

“It isn’t. It wouldn’t have killed him, but it must have been something like it, muzzle loaded and with a wide barrel, to accommodate the coins.”

Drummond winced. “I suppose you’ve got the local police looking for it? Yes, of course. Sorry. Well you’d better learn what you can about the others on the list. It gets uglier as it goes on.”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed. “I’m afraid it does.”