Bedford Square

8

AFTER WHAT Parthenope Tannifer had told him, Pitt felt compelled to go and see Cadell. Perhaps he had no idea more than any of the others who the blackmailer was, but even the slightest chance could not be overlooked. It was always possible he would be the first victim to be asked for something specific. And he was certainly in a position of power. From the Foreign Office he could affect the outcome of delicate negotiations in a number of areas. It had occurred to Pitt that perhaps one of the victims was more important to the blackmailer than the others, that one was central to whatever purpose he had in mind, and it could be to influence the government in some policy abroad or within the Empire.

Fortunes could be made and lost on such decisions. Events in Africa alone were highly volatile. Where land and gold were concerned there were many to whom life was cheap, let alone honor. In the rush to explore, to press even farther into that vast continent, such men as Cecil Rhodes and others in his footsteps were used to thinking in terms of armies and nations. A single man’s well-being here or there might hardly be noticed.

Pitt had never left England, but he knew enough of those who had to understand that for both men and women on such fringes of ever-expanding civilization, death was around them, frequent and sudden, from violence or the many endemic diseases of tropical climates. It was too easy, in all the other extreme, necessary changes to life and values, to forget the notions of honor which were still powerful in England. The stakes were so high they could dwarf individual considerations.

He had had to make an appointment to see Cadell, and it was two days after speaking with Parthenope Tannifer when he was admitted to his rooms in the Foreign Office. Then he was kept waiting nearly a quarter of an hour.

When finally he was shown in, Cadell rose from his desk with a puzzled look on his lean face. He was not a handsome man, but his features were regular enough, and the lines of habitual expression were good-natured, even gentle. However, today he looked tired and harassed, and obviously was unwilling to see Pitt. He was doing it only because Pitt had insisted it was most urgent police business which could not wait, nor could anyone else help him.

“Good morning … er … Superintendent,” Cadell said with a slight smile, offering his hand, and then almost immediately withdrawing it, as if he had forgotten what the gesture had been for. “I’m sorry to rush you, but I am due to see the German ambassador in twenty-five minutes. I do apologize, but it is a matter which cannot be delayed.” He indicated a very beautiful Queen Anne chair with crimson upholstery. “Please sit down and tell me what I can do for you.”

Pitt accepted and began straightaway. Twenty-five minutes was very little indeed to explore such a delicate and painful matter, but he knew Cadell meant what he said.

“Then I will waste none of your time in civilities, if you will excuse me,” he said, meeting Cadell’s eyes. “This is too grave a subject to leave partway through because other business calls.”

Cadell nodded.

Pitt hated being so blunt, but there was no alternative. “What I tell you is in confidence, and I shall keep in confidence anything you say to me, so far as I am able.”

Cadell nodded, his gaze straight and unblinking. If he had the slightest idea what Pitt was going to say, he was a superb actor. But then as a diplomat, perhaps he was.

“Several prominent men, of position rather than of wealth, are being blackmailed,” Pitt said candidly.

Cadell’s face tightened so slightly it could have been no more than a change in the bright light from the window. He said nothing.

“No one has been asked yet for money,” Pitt continued. “The implication is that it may be influence or power that is demanded instead. A sword is hanging over each of them, and no one knows when it may drop, or in precisely what manner. To the best of my belief, each man is innocent of the accusation, but it is so subtle and so far in the past that not one of them can disprove it.”

Cadell let out his breath very slowly. “I see.” His eyes did not waver from Pitt’s face; they were so intent it was unnatural. “May I ask if Guy Stanley was one of them?”

“You may, and yes, he was,” Pitt said levelly. He saw Cadell’s eyes widen and heard the very slight sound as he drew in his breath.

“I see ….”

“No, I don’t think you do,” Pitt corrected. “He was not asked for anything, except a relatively worthless silver-plated flask, as a token of submission more than anything else. It was of no value of itself, only symbolic of victory.”

“Then why … why was he exposed?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. “I would guess it is as a warning to the other victims, a demonstration of power … and of the will to use it.”

Cadell was sitting very still, only his chest rising and falling as he breathed unnaturally slowly. His fingers did not clench on the desk, but they were stiff. He was holding himself in control with a massive effort.

Footsteps passed along the corridor and disappeared.

“You are quite right,” he said at length. “I have no idea how you knew I was a victim as well … perhaps I should not ask. The suggestion made about me is … disgusting, and totally untrue. But there are those who, for their own reasons, would be only too willing to believe it and repeat it. It would ruin not only me but others as well. Even to deny it would suggest the idea to those to whom such a thought would never have occurred. I am helpless.”

“But you have been asked for nothing so far?” Pitt insisted.

“Nothing whatsoever, not even a token of submission, as you put it.”

“Thank you for being so frank, Mr. Cadell. Would you describe the letter for me? Better still, if you have it, may I see it?”

Cadell shook his head.

“I don’t have it. It was cut from newspaper, I believe the Times, and glued on plain paper. It was posted in the City.”

“Exactly like the others.” Pitt nodded. “Will you keep me apprised of anything further you may receive, or anything you consider could throw any light on this at all …”

“Of course.” Cadell stood up and ushered Pitt to the door.

Pitt left uncertain of whether Cadell would tell him or not. Cadell was obviously a man of great self-control, deeply shaken by events. Unlike others, he had not told Pitt what the threat to him had been. It must cut too sharply, cause too deep a fear.

But then Dunraithe White had told only Vespasia. He would not have told Pitt.

He caught a hansom in Whitehall and went straight to see Cornwallis.

He found him at his desk amid a sea of papers, apparently searching for something. He looked up as soon as Pitt came in. He seemed glad to abandon his task. His face showed the marks of tiredness and strain. His eyes were red-rimmed, his skin papery, shadowed on his cheeks and around his lips.

Pitt felt a tug of pity for him, and anger welled up, driven by his own helplessness. He knew that what he had to tell Cornwallis now would make it worse.

“Morning, Pitt. Have you news?” Cornwallis asked before the door was closed. He looked closely at Pitt’s face, and understanding of failure came slowly into his eyes. Something in his body relaxed, but it was not ease so much as despair, a knowledge of being beaten again.

Pitt sat down without being asked. “I’ve spoken with Leo Cadell at the Foreign Office. Mrs. Tannifer was right. He is another victim, just the same.”

Cornwallis looked at him sharply. “The Foreign Office?”

“Yes. But he hasn’t been asked for anything, not even a token.”

Cornwallis leaned forward over the desk and rubbed his hands over his brow up onto his smooth head.

“That’s a police commissioner, a judge, a junior minister in the Home Office, a diplomat in the Foreign Office, a City banker and a retired general. What have we in common, Pitt?” He stared at him, a flicker of desperation in his eyes. “I’ve racked my brains! What could anybody want of us? I went to see Stanley, poor devil ….”

“So did I,” Pitt said, sinking back in the chair and crossing his legs. “He couldn’t add anything.”

“He didn’t defy the blackmailer.” Cornwallis leaned forward. “The poor devil didn’t have the chance! I think we have to assume that his exposure was a demonstration of power, to frighten the rest of us.” He waited to see if Pitt would disagree. When he did not Cornwallis went on, his voice lower, catching a little. “I had another letter this morning. Essentially the same as the others. A little shorter. Just told me I’d be blackballed from all my clubs … that’s only three, but I value my memberships.”

He was looking down at the disordered papers on the desk as if he could not bear the intrusion of meeting anyone’s eyes. “I … I enjoy going there and being able to feel comfortable … at least I did. Now, God knows, I loathe it. I wouldn’t go at all if I were not involved in certain duties I would not betray.” His lips tightened. “The sort of place where you would wander in if you felt like it, or not visit for a year, and it would be just the same as when you were last there. Big, comfortable chairs. Always a fire in bad weather, warm, crackling. I like the sound of a fire. Sort of a live thing, like the sea around you. Like a ship’s crew, stewards know you. Don’t have to be told each time what you like. Can sit there for hours and read the papers if you feel like it, or find some decent sort of chap to talk to if you fancy a spot of company. I …” He looked away. “I care what they think of me.”

Pitt did not know what to say. Cornwallis was a lonely man, without the love or the warmth, the belonging or the responsibilities, of a wife and children such as Pitt had. Only servants waited for him in his rooms. He could come and go as he pleased. He was not needed or missed. His freedom had a high price. Now there was no one to talk to him, demand his attention or offer him comfort, take his mind from his own fears and loneliness, distract him from nightmares or give him companionship and the kind of love that does not depend upon circumstance.

Cornwallis started pushing around the papers on his desk as if he were looking for something, making what had been merely untidy into complete chaos.

“White has resigned,” he said, gazing at the shambles in front of him.

Pitt was startled. He had had no idea.

“From the judiciary? When?”

Cornwallis jerked his head up. “No! From the Jessop Club. Although …” His voice was strained. “I suppose he might resign from the bench as well. It would at least remove him from the power or the temptation to comply with this man’s wishes … if that is what they are.” He pushed his hand over his head again, as if he had hair to thrust back. “Although judging by his treatment of Stanley, he could be perfectly capable of then exposing White even more violently to warn the rest of us, and surely White will have thought of that?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt said honestly.

Cornwallis sighed. “No, neither do I. When I saw him at the club, just before he resigned, he looked appalling, like a man who has read his own death warrant. I sat in my chair like a fool, pretending to read some damned newspaper … you know I can’t look at the Times these days?” His fingers were fiddling with the letters, notes and lists in front of him, but idly, not as if he had the faintest interest in what they were.

“I looked at White and I knew what he was feeling. I could practically read his thoughts, they were so like my own. He was ill with anxiety, trying to suppress the fear in case anyone else guessed, attempting to appear natural, and all the time half looking over his shoulder, wondering who else knew, who thought he was behaving oddly, who suspected. That’s one of the worst things of all, Pitt.” He looked up, his face tense, the skin shining across his cheekbones. “The mind racing away with thoughts you hate and can’t stop. People speak to you, and you misinterpret every remark, wondering if they mean something more by it. You don’t dare meet a friend’s eyes in case you see knowledge there, loathing, or worse, that he should see the suspicion in yours.”

Suddenly he stood up and strode over to the window, his back half turned to Pitt. “I hate what I have allowed this to make me into, and even as it happens I don’t know how to stop it. Yesterday I met an old friend from the navy, quite by chance. I was crossing Piccadilly, and there he was. He looked delighted and dodged in front of a brougham, nearly being clipped by the wheels, in order to see me. My first thought was to wonder if he could be the blackmailer. Then I was so ashamed I couldn’t look in his face ….”

Pitt scrambled for anything to say that would be of comfort. Everything would be lies. He could not say the man would have understood or would have forgiven. Does one forgive for being considered a blackmailer, even for an instant? If Cornwallis had suspected Pitt, Pitt could never have liked him the same way afterwards. Something irreparable would have been broken. He should know Pitt better than that. Blackmail was an abysmal sin, cruel, treacherous, and above all the act of a coward.

Cornwallis laughed abruptly. “Thank you at least for not replying with some platitude that it doesn’t matter, or that he would never know or do no better himself.” He was still staring at the street below, his back to the room. “It does matter, and I wouldn’t expect anyone to forgive. I couldn’t forgive any man who thought me capable of such a thing. And worst of all, whether anyone else knows, I know it of myself. I’m not what I thought I was … I haven’t the judgment or the courage. That’s what I hate the most.” He turned to face Pitt, his back against the light. “He’s shown me part of myself I would rather not have known, and I don’t like it.”

“It has to be someone who knows you,” Pitt answered quietly. “Or how would he have learned of that event sufficiently to twist it as he has?”

Cornwallis stood with his feet slightly apart, braced as if against the pitch of a quarterdeck.

“I’ve thought of that. Believe me, Pitt, in the small hours I’ve walked the bedroom floor or lain on my back staring at the ceiling and thought of every man I’ve ever known from schooldays to the present. I racked my brains to think of anyone to whom I might have been unjust, intentionally or not, anyone whose death or injury I could even have been perceived to have caused or contributed to.” He spread his hands jerkily. “I can’t even think of anything I have in common with the others. I barely know Balantyne to speak to. We are both members of the Jessop Club, and of a Services Club in the Strand, but I know a hundred other people at least as well. I don’t suppose I’ve spoken to him directly above a dozen times.”

“But you know Dunraithe White?” Pitt was searching his mind also.

“Yes, but not well.” Cornwallis looked mystified. “We’ve dined a few times. He’s traveled a little, and we fell into conversation about something or other. I can’t even remember what now. I liked him. He was agreeable. Fond of his garden. I think we spoke of roses. His wife is clever with space and color. He was obviously devoted to her. I liked it in him.” Cornwallis’s face softened for a moment as he recalled the incident. “I dined with him again another time. He was held in town late, some legal matter. He would have preferred to go home, but he couldn’t.”

“His decisions have been erratic lately,” Pitt said, remembering what Vespasia had told him.

“Are you sure?” Cornwallis was quick to question. “Have you looked into it? Who says so?”

With anyone else Pitt would have hesitated to answer, thinking discretion better, but with Cornwallis he had no secrets in this.

“Theloneus Quade.”

“Quade!” Cornwallis was startled. “Surely he is not another victim? God in heaven, what are we coming to? Quade is as honorable a man as any I know of—”

“No, he’s not a victim!” Pitt said hastily. “It was he who noticed White’s opinions lately and became concerned. Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould approached White because of it.”

“Oh … I see.” Cornwallis bit his lip. He frowned, walking back towards the desk and staring moodily at the tossed piles of paper. He turned to Pitt. “Do you think his erratic judgments are born of his anxiety over the blackmail, for fear of what will happen next, what he will be asked for? Or could it be the price he is paying to the blackmailer, and somewhere among the eccentric decisions is the one that matters, the one this is all about?”

Pitt considered it seriously. The thought had occurred to him before, briefly. He had given less weight to it only because he was so overwhelmingly concerned about Cornwallis.

“It could be the latter,” he replied. “Are you sure that is not the connection between you … a case in which you both have some part?”

“But if it is, then where are the others involved?” Cornwallis asked. “Is it political? Stanley is already ruined. His part hardly matters now … or does it? Was it always part of this plan to destroy his power, to prevent him from obtaining the position he sought?” He jerked his hands wide. “And Cadell? Is there a foreign power involved? Tannifer’s bank certainly deals with many European banks. Enormous amounts of money could be concerned. Balantyne fought in Africa. Could that be it?” His voice rose a tone, suddenly an edge of eagerness in it. “Could it be to do with the financing of diamonds or gold in South Africa? Or simply land, perhaps expeditions inland to claim whole new tracts, like Mashonaland or Matabeleland? Or some discovery we know nothing of.”

“Balantyne served most of his time in India,” Pitt said thoughtfully, turning it over in his mind. “His only African experience that I know of was Abyssinia, and that’s the other end of the continent.”

Cornwallis pulled his chair around and sat on it, staring at Pitt, leaning forward. “A Cape-to-Cairo railroad. Think of the money involved. It would be the biggest thing of the coming century. The African continent is an entire new world.”

Pitt caught a glimpse of the vision, but it stayed on the edge of his mind, just beyond clarity. But certainly it was a fortune, a power for which many men would kill, let alone blackmail.

Cornwallis was staring at him, his face dark with the enormity of what he perceived. His voice was urgent when he spoke.

“Pitt, we have to solve this … not just for me or for any of the individual men it may ruin. This could be far more widely reaching than a few lives made or lost; it could be a corruption which could alter the course of history for … God knows how many.” He leaned farther forward, his eyes intense. “Once any of us yields to the threat and does something that really is wrong, perhaps criminal, perhaps even treasonous, then his hold is complete and he could ask anything and we would have no escape … except death.”

“Yes, I know,” Pitt agreed, seeing an abyss of corruption open up in front of him, every man suffering alone, driven by fear, exhaustion, suspicion on every hand, until he could bear the pressure no longer. Simple murder would have been less cruel.

But rage was a waste of energy, possibly exactly what the blackmailer wanted; useless, time-consuming, clouding the mind.

Pitt composed himself with an effort. “I’ll look into all Dunraithe White’s cases over the last year or so, and all those scheduled to come before him as far in the future as is known.”

“Tell me!” Cornwallis demanded sharply. “You had better report every day, so we can compare what we know. At the moment we are in the dark. We don’t even know in which direction to begin. It could be fraud or embezzlement, or a simple murder that appears domestic. There must be money, or it wouldn’t involve Tannifer, and some foreign interest for Cadell, and possibly Balantyne …” His voice sharpened, and he raised his hand, banging his forefinger on the desk. “Mercenaries? A private army? Perhaps Balantyne knows the man who would recruit for it., or lead it? He might have knowledge he does not even realize … and some criminal case that White and I are both concerned with. Or that I may become concerned with. Perhaps we are beginning to understand something, Pitt?” There was hope in his eyes. “I could have asked White myself, but he’s resigned from the Jessop, and I don’t have the opportunity to speak to him casually anymore. And Balantyne only comes for the committee meetings. I think he hates it as much as I do. The man looks as if he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks.”

Pitt forbore from saying that Cornwallis looked the same.

“Cadell less so,” Cornwallis added, rising to his feet again. “But then I suppose it is a week or so since I saw him … before poor Stanley was ruined.”

“You know Cadell?” Pitt said quickly. He had not been aware of that, although it should not surprise him. Society was small. Hundreds of men belonged to a mere handful of clubs and associations.

Cornwallis shrugged. “Slightly. He was on the committee at the club. It’s a group who meet every so often, to do with a charity for orphans. It’s the only reason I go now. Can’t let them down.”

Pitt rose also. “I’ll start to look into Dunraithe White’s cases. I think that is where we’ll find the link. It must be something in the recent past or on the calendar for the future. I think the future is more likely.”

“Good. Let me know the moment you find anything, however tentative,” Cornwallis urged. “I might be able to see the connection before you do.”

Pitt agreed again, and left to begin, collecting a list of all the current investigations over which Cornwallis had a general authority. Then, armed with a brief note of introduction and explanation, he took a hansom to the Old Bailey Courthouse.

* * *

The afternoon had gained him a list of cases, but it was bare information and there were several pending with which both Cornwallis and White had some connection, even if tenuous. What he needed was an informed opinion, preferably that of someone who was aware of the situation. Theloneus Quade was the obvious choice. Pitt had no idea where he lived, and to approach him in court where he was presiding would be difficult, and possibly unwise.

Six o’clock in the evening found him on Vespasia’s doorstep.

“Have you news?” she asked him when he was shown into the withdrawing room where she was sitting in the late-afternoon sun reading the newspaper. She put the paper down immediately, not merely from good manners but from a very real concern. The small black-and-white dog at her feet opened one eye to make sure he was who she thought he was, then, satisfied, closed it again and went back to sleep.

“Not really,” he replied, glancing at the Times where she had let it fall. She had been following the Tranby Croft affair. Black letters proclaimed that the verdict had been brought in: guilty Pitt found it strangely chilling. He had no idea whether Sir William Gordon-Cumming had been guilty of cheating or not, but that a simple matter of dishonor at cards should have escalated into a formal court case involving so many people in conflicting testimony which had now laid bare hatred and national scandal was a tragedy. And it was one which need not have happened. There was too much that was beyond human ability to avoid; it was absurd that this should have reached such a stage.

“I suppose the Prince of Wales at least will be relieved it is over,” he said aloud.

Vespasia glanced at the paper, half on the floor. Her face was bleak with disgust.

“One presumes so,” she said coldly. “This is the first day of the Ascot races. He did not stay in court to hear the verdict. Lady Drury called by on her way home. She told me he drove to the royal box accompanied by Lady Brooke, which was tactless to say the least, and was met by boos and hisses from the crowd.”

Pitt remembered Vespasia’s dislike of craning her neck to look up at him, and accordingly sat down. “What will happen to Gordon-Cumming?” he asked.

She replied unhesitatingly. “He will be dismissed from the army, expelled from all his clubs and boycotted from society in general. He will be fortunate if anyone continues an acquaintance with him.” Her face was difficult to read. There was a sharp pity in it, but she could have considered him guilty and still felt that. Pitt knew her well enough to realize how complex were her emotions. She belonged to a generation to which honor was paramount, and the Prince of Wales’s own gambling and self-indulgent manner of life were not excused by his royal status. In fact, it made them the more reprehensible. She was of the same generation as Victoria herself, but from all he had heard, as unlike her in nature as possible, although they had lived through the same epoch of history.

“Do you think he was guilty?” he asked.

She opened her amazing silver-gray eyes wide, her perfectly arched brows barely moving.

“I have considered it carefully, for reasons relating to the problem facing us. It serves as something of a measure of public opinion, at least that part of it which would be of concern to men like Dunraithe White and Brandon Balantyne.” She frowned slightly, looking directly at Pitt. “It seems undeniable his method of placing his wager was ill advised, most particularly in the company in which he found himself.” The expression in her eyes was impossible to read. “No one comes out of this well, neither man nor woman. There has been a suggestion, not entirely absurd, that the whole matter was deliberately brought about in order to discredit Gordon-Cumming and thus disqualify him as a rival of the Prince’s for the affections of Frances Brooke.”

“The Lady Brooke with whom the Prince arrived at Ascot today?” Pitt asked, surprised. It seemed either extremely stupid or unnecessarily arrogant, and possibly both.

“The same,” she agreed dryly. “I have no idea whether it is true, but the fact that it can be suggested is indicative of opinion.”

“Innocent?” he said quietly.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “The jury apparently took only fifteen minutes to reach their decision. It was greeted by jeers and hisses also. But after the summation given by the judge little else was possible.”

“To save the Prince?” he asked.

She gave a very slight gesture of despair.

“That seems unarguable.”

“Then it has no bearing upon our situation ….”

She smiled very slightly. “Other things will have, my dear Thomas. Public opinion is a very fickle animal, and I fear our blackmailer has great skill. He has chosen his subjects far too well for us to delude ourselves that he is likely to make mistakes. To answer your question, yes, I think poor Gordon-Cumming may well have been innocent.”

“I have looked through all the possible cases where there might be a connection between Cornwallis and Dunraithe White,” he said thoughtfully, reverting back to the reason for which he had come. “A very ugly fear is in the back of my mind that the conspiracy may be a great deal more ambitious than I imagined to begin with. Nothing to do with simple payment of money, but the corruption of power …” He watched her face as he spoke, seeking to read whether she found his thought absurd. He saw only the greatest gravity. “To do with expansion in Africa, perhaps. That is the area involving all the people we know about which comes most easily to mind.”

“Indeed.” She nodded. “Of course, we do not know who else may be concerned. That is one of the most frightening aspects of this case. There may be other members of government or the judiciary, or any other area of power or influence. But I agree, Africa does seem likely. The amounts of money to be gained there at present are beyond the dreams of most of us. I think Mr. Rhodes may end up building little short of his own empire. And throughout history people have been dazzled by the prospects of gold. It seems to breed a kind of madness.”

He brought out the piece of paper on which he had written the names of the cases in which Cornwallis and Dunraithe White were both involved. There were only five. He showed it to her.

She picked up her lorgnette to read his handwriting.

“What do you need?” she asked when she had finished. “To know more about them?”

“Yes. White would not tell me, because he intends to yield to the blackmailer; you told me that yourself. I should prefer not to ask Cornwallis, because I believe he is politically naive, and I would also rather not compromise him, should we not be able to prevent the matter from becoming public.” He felt a weight inside himself, a heaviness of foreboding it was not easy to dispel, even here in this calm, sunlit room with which he had become so pleasantly familiar. “I must be able to help him … if it should come to that.”

“You do not need to explain it to me, Thomas,” she said quietly. “I understand the nature of suspicion, and of honor.” She met his gaze steadily. “I think perhaps that you should speak to Theloneus. What he does not know already, he will be able to learn. He is as deeply worried by this as we are. He also fears it may be a political plan of far-reaching nature, with high and irrevocable stakes involved. We shall call upon him … unless, of course, you feel it wiser to go alone?” There was no shadow of personal hurt or affront in her silver eyes.

He answered honestly. “I should value your judgment. You may think to ask him questions I would have missed.”

She nodded her assent. She was grateful; she loved to be involved. Her intellect and her curiosity were as sharp as ever, and the foibles of society had bored her for years. She knew them all so well she could predict them. Only the rarest, most genuine eccentric still awoke her interest or amusement. But of course she would not say so. She merely smiled, and asked Pitt if he would care for dinner first, which he accepted, asking permission to use the telephone to let Charlotte know that he would not be home.

“Of course, there are many possibilities,” Theloneus Quade said as they sat in the late-evening sun in his quiet library, the small summer garden beyond the window filled with the sounds of birdsong and of falling water from a stone fountain. The long light was apricot-gold on the full-blown roses, and a white clematis shone in a flash of silver.

“Tannifer may be pressured to grant a loan which he is aware cannot be satisfactorily guaranteed,” he continued earnestly. “Or indeed repaid. Or to overlook dealings which are fraudulent, not to investigate accounts when there has been embezzlement.”

“I know.” Pitt sat back in the comfortable chair. The room was quiet, charming, and full of individual touches. He had noticed books on a wide variety of subjects as he came in: the fall of Byzantium, Chinese porcelain, a history of the Tsars of Russia, the poetry of Dante and of William Blake and a dozen other unrelated subjects, and on the wall a watercolor of ships by Bonington which he thought was probably quite valuable. Certainly it was very lovely.

“It could also be someone who has already committed some act for which he will shortly be tried,” Theloneus went on. “And he hopes to subvert the cause of justice. Possibly, without being aware of it, the other victims may be in some way witnesses to it, and he believes they may be suborned by the threat of disclosure, or their testimony invalidated by their own ruin.” He looked at Pitt steadily, the question in his eyes. His features were mild, sensitive, but there was an acute intelligence in him which burned through, and only a foolish man would mistake his quiet voice, his outward gentleness, for any weakness of courage or intent.

“I’ve not found any connection between all the victims we know of,” Pitt explained. “They do not seem to have any common interest or background. They have only the slightest acquaintance, as all London of a certain social level has. There are a limited number of gentlemen’s clubs, the museum, the National Geographic Society, the theater, the opera, the races, the same round of social events. Even so, they do not have any interest in common I can find, or any specific acquaintance that does not equally include a thousand others.”

“And no one has yet been asked for money?” Theloneus said.

“I am not certain.” Pitt thought of Cadell. “It is possible Cadell of the Foreign Office may have.” He told him of Parthenope Tannifer’s information, and his own visit to Cadell, and his denial.

Theloneus remained silent for several moments, turning it over in his mind.

Outside the light was fading. The lawn was already in shadow, and there was a flush of gold across the sky.

“I cannot help feeling that it is more than money,” Vespasia interrupted the silence. “Money could more easily be extracted by slow and reasonable threats, and a means of payment made more obvious. The pattern does not seem to be right.”

Pitt turned in his chair to look at her. Her face was very grave in the slanting light, which was gentler than the white clarity of morning. It lent a glow to the beauty of her bones, still exquisite, untouched by the years. Her hair could almost have been gold rather than silver.

“I am inclined to agree with you,” Theloneus said at last. “The exercise of power is so deliberate I feel there will be something asked for which will be repugnant to each man we know of, but by the time the demand is made, he will be so weakened by the tension, the fear and the exhaustion that he will not be able to summon the strength to resist. He will be prepared to do almost whatever he is asked, even something he would normally refuse without consideration.”

“What concerns me,” Vespasia said with a frown, “is why Brandon Balantyne was the one chosen for the dramatic and rather extreme measure of having a corpse placed upon his doorstep.” She looked from Pitt to Theloneus, and back again. “That was bound to bring the police into this affair. Why did our blackmailer wish that? One would have thought it would be the last thing he desired.”

“That puzzles me also,” Pitt confessed. “Except it would seem that possibly some extreme pressure was desired upon Balantyne, but why, I have no idea.”

“I suppose it is not coincidental?” Theloneus asked. “Could it be merely fortuitous that poor Albert Cole died where he did?”

“No.” Pitt realized he had not told them about Tellman’s discovery. He saw their surprise at his certainty. “No, it’s not coincidence,” he said. “Tellman has been working on it. We assumed it was Albert Cole because of the bill for socks, which certainly seemed to be his. The lawyer from Lincoln’s Inn Fields identified him as Cole.” He had their total attention. They both leaned forward, eyes fixed upon his face. “But it turns out it was a petty thief by the name of Josiah Slingsby,” he continued, “who quarreled with his accomplice, Ernest Wallace, a man with a violent temper, and Wallace killed him ….”

“And left him in Bedford Square?” Vespasia said in amazement.

“They were burgling Bedford Square,” Theloneus concluded. “They stole the snuffbox from Balantyne? No … you said he admitted giving it to the blackmailer. Thomas, my dear friend, this makes no sense whatever. You had better explain yourself again. We have missed something. To begin with, where is the real Albert Cole?”

“No, Wallace did not kill Slingsby in Bedford Square,” Pitt answered. “Or anywhere near it. They quarreled in an alley in Shoreditch, and he left Slingsby exactly where he fell and ran away. He swears he never went anywhere near Bedford Square, and Tellman believed him. So do I.”

“And the receipt for socks?” Theloneus asked. “Did he know Albert Cole?”

“He says not, and there seems no reason to suppose he did.”

“And what does Cole say?”

“We haven’t found Cole. I have Tellman looking for him.”

“Then someone else took Slingsby’s body, placed Albert Cole’s receipt on it, and left it on Balantyne’s doorstep,” Vespasia said with a shiver she could not control. “Surely there can be no other conclusion than an intention to embarrass Brandon Balantyne, possibly even to have him arrested for murder?”

“You did not add, my dear, that it must be the blackmailer,” Theloneus reminded her. “Since he placed the pinchbeck snuffbox in the dead man’s pocket as well.”

She looked from Theloneus to Pitt. “Why? Under arrest Balantyne could neither pay money nor exert influence, corrupt or otherwise.”

“Then that brings to one’s mind the only other alternative,” Theloneus reasoned. “He may wish Balantyne removed so he cannot have an effect upon whatever it is he is planning to do. Perhaps he tried to corrupt him and failed, and this is his way of neutralizing his ability to affect the issue.”

“Which brings us back to the most urgent need to learn what the issue is,” Pitt said helplessly. “We don’t know! We have found nothing in common between them all, Mr. Quade.” He produced the list of cases and handed it to Theloneus. “Can you tell me anything about these? They are all the charges in which Cornwallis was concerned and are due to be heard before Dunraithe White. Is there anything in any of these which could involve the others, however indirectly?”

Theloneus studied the list very carefully, and Pitt and Vespasia remained silent while he did so. Outside the light was dying more swiftly. The roses were a pale blur. Only the tops of the trees were golden. A poplar looked like a shimmering spire as the sunset breeze caught and turned its leaves. A cloud of starlings whirled up into the air, black against the deep, soft blue of the sky. The hustle and squalor of the city was only a matter of yards away, the other side of a high stone wall, but it could have been another land.

The clock in the hall chimed the half hour.

“Some of these cases are merely sad,” Theloneus said at last. “People who have allowed shortsighted greed to sweep away their better judgment, individual crimes which will bring down the families of the men concerned, but no more. There is a sense in which it is already inevitable, and nothing Cornwallis or White will do can change that. An able barrister may mitigate the sentence by pleading the circumstances, showing the accused in a more human light, but the verdict will be the same.”

“And the others?” Pitt pressed.

“That is a domestic murder. It is unlikely to implicate anyone else, but not impossible. The woman was beautiful, and very liberal with her favors. Other men may be implicated, but I find it difficult to believe blackmail will help the accused husband. And since he is in prison awaiting trial, it would have to be accomplished for him by someone else. He does have two loyal and ambitious brothers. It is not impossible.”

“Could it involve all our blackmail victims?” Pitt said dubiously.

“If you are referring to Laetitia Charles, then most certainly not!” Vespasia said tartly. “Certainly she was, at the very kindest, a woman of overgenerous affections. She was also earthy in her tastes, very frank to the point of vulgarity, and had an uproarious sense of the absurd, frequently at the cost of her admirers—and of her husband.” She shrugged her thin shoulders very slightly. In the shadows her face was unreadable. “She would have terrified the life from a man like Captain Cornwallis, and he would have bored her to weeping. Leo Cadell would have had more of a sense of self-preservation than to have had anything to do with her, even socially, and Dunraithe White has never looked at another woman in his life. Even if he had wanted to, and I concede that he may, his sense of honor would crucify him if he had, and I, at least, would know of it.”

Theloneus smiled bleakly. “You are probably right, my dear. That leaves two cases of fraud and embezzlement, both for very large sums of money. One involves international banking in Europe—Germany, to be precise—and the transfer of funds to a very questionable enterprise in South Africa. The other is an attempt to pass forged bonds and deeds to mines, again in Africa.”

“Could they be connected to each other?” Pitt asked quickly.

“Not on the surface, but it is possible.” Theloneus regarded the paper again. “One would have to know who purchased the bonds. It is conceivable that it may concern all our victims.”

“Where in Africa?” Pitt pressed.

“As I recall, several places.” Theloneus frowned. “I think it may bear further investigation. The case is not complete yet. The trial lies some time in the future.”

“Is it still under investigation?” Pitt asked with a sinking in his stomach. “By whom?”

“Superintendent Springer,” Theloneus replied. “Reporting to Cornwallis.” He regarded Pitt steadily, a sadness in his eyes and in the lines of his face, but he would not look away nor temper the perception that was all too plainly in his mind.

“I see,” Pitt said slowly, hating himself for the thoughts he could not dismiss. Vespasia was watching him also, less easy to see clearly in the half darkness as no one had wished to light the gaslamps. The last of the day was slipping away rapidly. The rustle of the poplar leaves sounded through the open windows like breaking waves on a shore, far away.

Theloneus said it for him. “Of course, it is a possibility Cornwallis may be pressed to abandon the case, to order Springer to withdraw from it, discontinue investigation, somehow contaminate the evidence. And Dunraithe White may similarly be pressed to render an eccentric or perverse decision.”

“Would that not cause a mistrial?” Pitt asked.

“Only if there was a verdict of guilty,” Theloneus replied. “The Crown does not have the right to appeal against an acquittal. If it did, cases might never end.”

“Of course.” Pitt had not been thinking clearly. The idea of Cornwallis in such a situation—that, in fact, he might already be compromised—was even more painful than he had expected. He had said nothing, but he was a uniquely lonely man, used to the isolation of command at sea, where he could never confide in anyone or his power to lead would be damaged beyond repair. The captain was as alone on the quarter deck as if he were the only man on the face of the ocean. The slightest weakness, indecision, possibility of ignorance or error, and his position was forfeit. Everything in the structure of rank, obligation and privilege conspired to make it so. It was the only way someone could survive in an element which obeyed only its own rules and knew neither thought nor mercy.

Cornwallis could not change in a few short years, perhaps not ever. When he faced danger he would revert to the skills he knew, the ones that had carried him through countless perils before. It was an instinct he probably could not have helped, even had he wanted to.

“Is Tannifer involved?” Pitt asked, thinking of Parthenope and her fierce loyalty.

“It is embezzlement. It is possible,” Theloneus answered.

“Cadell?” Pitt went on.

“African funds. The Foreign Office may be concerned.”

“Balantyne?”

“I can’t see how, but there is much yet to be uncovered.”

“I see.” Pitt stood up slowly. “Thank you very much for your time … and your thoughts.”

Vespasia leaned forward to rise, and Theloneus offered her his arm. She took it, but lightly; as a gesture, not an assistance.

“I am afraid we have not helped, have we?” she said to Pitt. “I am sorry, Thomas. The roads of friendship are sometimes strewn with many pitfalls, and some of them can hurt a great deal. I wish I could say Cornwallis will not fail, but it would be a lie, and you would know it. Nor can I say that, even with the utmost courage and honor, he will not be hurt. But we shall not cease to fight with the very few and inadequate weapons we have to hand.”

“I know that.” He smiled at her. “We are not beaten yet.”

She gave a very slight smile back, but was too tense to argue.

They parted from Theloneus, leaving him standing in the lighted doorway, and drove home in her carriage through the lamplit streets, neither feeling it necessary to speak any further.

The following morning Pitt went to see Cornwallis. He was torn between the personal loyalties of friendship and the necessities of his duty to pursue knowledge to its end. Whether Cornwallis understood that or not, he could not deliberately fail in it and remain of use to either of them.

Cornwallis was pacing the floor again. He swung around and stopped as Pitt came in, almost as if he had been caught in some nefarious act. He looked as if he had not eaten properly or slept well in days. His eyes were sunken into his head, and for the first time since Pitt had known him, his jacket did not sit smoothly on his shoulders.

“I have had another letter,” he said baldly. “This morning.” He waited for Pitt to ask what was in it.

Pitt felt his stomach lurch and his body go cold. This was the demand at last. He could see it in Cornwallis’s eyes.

“What does he want?” He tried not to betray his knowledge.

Cornwallis’s voice was rough, as if his throat were sore, and he spoke with difficulty.

“That I should drop a case,” he replied. “If I don’t, then the H.M.S. Venture matter will be exposed in every newspaper in London. I could deny it all I wished, but there would always be those who believed, those who doubted my version of events. I … I should be blackballed from my clubs, perhaps even lose my naval rank and standing. Look what happened to Gordon-Cumming, and for far less!” His face was ashen, and he controlled his hands from trembling only by supreme effort of will.

“Which case?” Pitt asked, waiting for him to say the embezzlement that Springer commanded.

“This case!” Cornwallis frowned. “The blackmail investigation. The truth about Slingsby and the Bedford Square murder … who put the body on Balantyne’s steps. What in God’s name does the man want from us?” His voice was rising in spite of himself, a note of panic creeping in.

The room seemed to swim with the sunlight blazing in through the open window, the noise of traffic in the street below rose like thunder.

“But you won’t …” Pitt said, forcing the words through stiff lips.

A faint patch of color blushed up Cornwallis’s haggard cheeks. Something in his mouth softened.

“No! Of course not,” he said with intense, choking emotion. It seemed to take him by surprise, as if he had not thought he could feel so passionately about anything. “No, Pitt, of course I won’t.” He seemed about to add something more, a word of thanks for having assumed so much, but at the last moment the words were too open, too intimate an acknowledgment of friendship, of vulnerability. It was all better understood, where it could be glossed over later. Men did not say such things to each other.

“Naturally.” Pitt shoved his hands down inside his pockets. “At least it gives us something further to look into, a better place to begin.” He must say something trivial and matter-of-fact. It did not really matter what. “I think I’ll go and see Cadell again.”

“Yes,” Cornwallis agreed. “Yes, of course. Let me know what you learn.”

Pitt went to the door. “I might see Balantyne too,” he added as he went out. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything.”