Belgrave Square

11

PITT STOOD in Micah Drummond’s office in the hazy sun. It was mid-afternoon and he had come to the point in his thoughts when he could no longer put off asking Drummond further about Byam. He was sinking in a morass of facts and suppositions, few of which he could fit into any coherent order. He did not even know fully how Weems had been killed, let alone by whom. Someone had visited him that night, found the blunderbuss and the powder, either seen or brought with him the coins, and had loaded the gun and fired it. But why had Weems sat still and permitted him to do that? From all he had learned, it seemed that Weems was a cautious man and well familiar with the danger he might be in from desperate clients pushed beyond endurance.

Drummond was standing by the window as he so often did. Pitt, hands in his pockets, was close to the desk, his thoughts still racing.

Surely Weems’s other occupation as a blackmailer would have made him even more careful still? The bars on the door to the single entrance testified to that. Who would he permit to visit him at that hour, and for what purpose?

If they knew that, Pitt felt they would be a great deal closer to knowing who killed him.

And why? Was it debt? That seemed less and less likely. Or blackmail? If blackmail, then was it Byam, in a double bluff, or Carswell, or Urban, or Latimer? He thought not Urban, for all the excellent motive. Or was that simply because he liked the man? He had not yet told anyone about the picture frame in the Stepney music hall.

Charlotte was convinced it was not Carswell, and he was disposed to agree. Latimer? Or Byam himself, after all?

Or was it not blackmail, but some other motive, a more deep and ugly personal reason to do with Weems. Or perhaps his death was simply a necessary part of some other plan, and someone else was the real victim.

If that was true, they might be as far from a solution now as they had been when Byam first sent for them, which was a frightening thought.

“What is it?” Drummond said aloud, his face creased with anxiety. This case troubled him as very few before, and in an entirely different way. Pitt understood it, but he could do nothing to ease it; in fact it was probable he would make it worse.

He hitched himself sideways a little to sit on the desk. It was a very disrespectful attitude, but neither of them noticed. Drummond was sitting on the windowsill, his back to the sun.

“What if the motive was not debt or blackmail, but something else?” Pitt said aloud. “What if it was part of something personal…”

Drummond frowned. “But you said you had already investigated that, and you could find no personal relationships at all. He had no family of any sort, his only employees were the errand runner and the housekeeper, neither of whom seemed suspects, and no connection with any woman that you could find. Who would feel violently enough about him to kill him? There isn’t even an heir.”

“He must have had a collaborator of some sort,” Pitt pointed out. “He didn’t learn all his blackmail information himself. Someone told him.”

Drummond looked up quickly, his eyes sharp.

“A backer? Perhaps Weems was only the person who actually contacted the victims and took the money, but he paid it on to someone else?” He straightened up a fraction as new hope caught him. “And that person murdered him? Maybe he got greedy, or even threatened a little pressure of his own, do you think?”

“He may have got greedy,” Pitt said slowly. “He’d be a fool to try twisting the arm of whoever it is; and I don’t have the feeling that Weems was a fool. He wouldn’t have lasted long in that business if he were.”

Drummond bit his lip. “No-but greedy. He wouldn’t have been in the business in the first place otherwise.”

Pitt smiled. “I’ll grant you that.”

Drummond went on thoughtfully. “But if as you say Weems got his information from someone else, we have to find out who it was. In fact we ought to find out anyway. That someone will surely take up the blackmail-” He stopped, comprehension of something coming into his face and as quickly being masked.

But Pitt saw it.

“Again,” he finished for him. “And is he? Is someone being blackmailed again?”

Drummond hesitated.

Pitt saw his indecision and understood it. He had every compassion with Drummond’s feelings for Eleanor Byam, and thus the complex emotions over Byam himself, but he could not permit it to interfere with their pursuit of the truth.

“Byam,” he said aloud.

“I believe so.” Drummond did not look at him.

Pitt thought for a few moments before continuing.

“Byam,” he said at last. “I wonder why him, and so far as we know, not the others.”

Drummond lifted his face. “You have an idea?”

“Perhaps…”

“Well what is it? For heaven’s sake don’t equivocate. It’s not like you, and it doesn’t serve anyone.”

Pitt smiled for an instant, then was totally serious.

“What if Anstiss did not forgive him as openly and generously as Byam supposed? What if in fact he never got over Laura’s death, and above all her betrayal of him-and he is taking a subtle and vicious revenge on Byam for it?”

“But why now?” Drummond asked, his brows drawn together in doubt. “Laura Anstiss has been dead for twenty years, and Anstiss himself always knew the truth about it.”

“I don’t know,” Pitt confessed. “Perhaps something happened that they haven’t told us.”

“What, for example? A quarrel Byam would know about himself, and then he would hardly have drawn us in.”

“If he realized Anstiss was behind it,” Pitt argued. “Perhaps Weems was used as a cover precisely to prevent that.”

“Have you found any connection between Anstiss and Weems?” Drummond asked slowly. “Anything at all?”

“No-but it occurs to me that we may have been looking in the wrong area for the motive to murder Weems. It’s worth considering.”

Drummond remained silent for several moments, his face dark with thought.

Pitt waited some time before he interrupted him.

“Is it still money?” he said at last.

“What?”

“That Byam is being blackmailed for this time?”

“I think not,” Drummond said miserably. He drew in a deep breath then let it out. “I think this time it is influence in office-a matter of changing his mind over certain foreign investments and loans. At least it seems likely, from what Lady Byam says. I don’t know.”

“You asked him?”

“Of course I asked him.” Drummond colored very faintly. “He said it was partly a political decision, pressed upon him by fellow members of the Inner Circle, and for reasons he could not explain to me, but he said he was persuaded by them. He denied it was blackmail.”

“But you did not believe him?”

“No-I don’t think so. I’m not sure. But you’ll have to prove some connection between Anstiss and Weems, to make that even remotely believable. I can’t see Lord Anstiss as a petty blackmailer behind a wretch like Weems. How would he even come to know Weems in the first place?”

Pitt hitched himself a little further onto the desk.

“Maybe Weems found him. After all Weems had the love letter Laura Anstiss wrote to Byam. Maybe he tried to sell it to Anstiss first.”

“Then surely Anstiss would have killed him then, if he were going to do it at all,” Drummond reasoned. “No Pitt, I can’t see it. I agree there is someone behind Weems, apart from the servant who came up with the letter, someone who provided his other information.” He looked up suddenly. “Maybe one of Weems’s debtors? Perhaps some wretched beggar was desperate and paid off his debts in information?”

It was a good idea. It made sense.

“One of the larger debtors,” Pitt elaborated slowly. “Someone who knew about Fanny Hilliard and Cars well, and that Urban was working at the music hall in Stepney-and Latimer was taking payoffs from the bare-knuckle fighters, and gambling on them…”

“Not necessarily one person.” Drummond was enthusiastic now. “It could have been several people. Once Weems got the idea of accepting repayment in information he may have suggested it to other people himself. It would be a permanent source of income for him-never repayable in capital, always interest.”

“Makes you wonder why no one killed him sooner, doesn’t it?” Pitt said harshly.

“But how to find these sources of information, or at least prove they exist, other than by deduction.” Drummond pulled a face. “Not that it necessarily brings us any closer to finding out who killed him. There are times when I would dearly like to abandon the whole case-I really don’t care who killed the miserable swine.”

“Did we ever?” Pitt said grimly. “All we set out to do was to prove it was not Byam, didn’t we?”

Drummond’s face tightened, but it was guilt, not anger. There was no need for him to reply, and denial was impossible. He looked up at Pitt.

“What are you going to do?”

“Go and see Byam again, and try to find out more about this letter and precisely where it came from.”

“You think it matters?”

“It might. I should have paid more attention to it in the beginning. I’d like to find this servant who gave it to Weems and see who else might have known about it, and why we didn’t find it among Weems’s possessions. It was worth far too much for him to have parted with it.”

“Maybe he sold it,” Drummond suggested. “It could have got him a nice profit. Or more likely the murderer took it, along with his record of Byam’s dealings. He would very probably have kept the two things together, since they were part of the same business.” He bit his lip. “I know-that points to Byam again.”

“Except that if he had both the original letter and Weems’s notes, he would not have come to you-and who is blackmailing him now, and with what?”

“With having murdered Weems, of course,” Drummond said miserably. “Don’t creep all ’round it, Pitt.”

Pitt said nothing, but stood up off the desk. He glanced at Drummond from the doorway.

“Tell me,” Drummond asked.

“I will,” Pitt promised, and went out into the corridor and downstairs.

It was pointless expecting to find Byam at home before the early evening. Accordingly it was after six when Pitt arrived at Belgrave Square and the footman let him in. Byam received him within a few minutes; there was no pretense that he had better or more important things to take his time.

They stood together in the library, Pitt by the window with his back to the light, Byam against the mantel facing him. Even the golden glow of early evening could not entirely soften the lines of fear and sleeplessness and the shadows around his eyes.

“What have you learned?” he asked, still with the same courtesy in his voice, although it was strained and his body was stiff under his immaculate clothes. He looked thinner.

“A great deal, sir.” He felt sorry for the man because his suffering was so plainly visible in spite of all his efforts to appear normal, and even though he knew Byam might well be guilty of bringing most of it upon himself, indeed he might even have caused it directly. “But there are still facts missing before we can fit it all together to make sense of it,” he went on.

“You don’t know who killed Weems?” There was a flicker of hope in Byam, but it died almost before he had finished speaking.

“I’m not sure, but I think I am far closer than before.”

Byam’s face tightened but he did not ask again.

“What can I do to help?” he said instead.

“You told me in the beginning, or at least you told Mr. Drummond, that Weems’s original weapon against you was a letter written by Lady Anstiss to you, which unfortunately had fallen into the hands of a maid, who was related to Weems.”

“That’s right. Presumably she showed it to him, or told him of it, and he saw the financial possibilities for himself.”

“And Weems took it from her, because presumably you knew he had it or you would not have paid him?” Pitt went on.

Byam was very pale. “Yes. He had half of it. He showed it to me.”

“We didn’t find it.”

“No. I assume if you had you would not be asking me these questions. What can I tell you that is of any purpose now?”

“Do you know the name of this servant?”

Byam was quite motionless, but his eyes widened. “No-can it matter?”

“It may.”

“For heaven’s sake why?”

“Do you believe that whoever stole the letter did so by chance, sir?”

Byam’s face drained of every last vestige of blood. He swayed on his feet so that for a moment it seemed almost as if he might fall. He put his tongue over dry lips and made no sound.

Pitt waited, wondering if he would say something, anything at all to reveal what terrible thought had come to him. But the seconds ticked by and still he said nothing.

“The maid?” Pitt prompted at last. “She may have told someone else. Perhaps if she married, her husband might be a greedy or ruthless man?”

“I-I have-I have no idea,” Byam said at last. “It was twenty years ago. You will have to ask in Lord Anstiss’s house. Perhaps his butler has some record of past servants-or the housekeeper? Do you really think it could be that? It seems… farfetched.”

“It is farfetched that a man like Weems should have the means to blackmail a person of your position and standing,” Pitt pointed out. It was somewhat less than honest, but he did not wish Byam to have any idea that he suspected Anstiss, even as a remote possibility.

Byam smiled bitterly, but he seemed to accept it as an answer.

“Then you’d better go and see Lord Anstiss’s butler,” he said, as if weariness had suddenly overcome him and he were exhausted with it all. “I presume you know his address?”

“Not of the country house, sir, which is where I suppose I will find the appropriate butler?”

“No, not at this time of the year. Some domestic staff stay in the country, housekeepers probably, and maids, and so on, and a cook of sorts, and naturally all the outside staff, but the butler and valet travel with his lordship. You’ll find the butler in London.”

“Thank you. I shall call upon him and see if he has any record.”

“Please God you find something useful! This matter is-” he stopped, either not wanting to put words to it, or not finding any powerful enough to express his emotions.

“Thank you, sir,” Pitt said quietly.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, thank you sir, for the time being.” And Pitt excused himself and left Byam standing by the cold grate, staring outside at the garden and the fading light.

He preferred to visit Anstiss’s house during the day, when his lordship would more probably be out. He was not an easy man to bluff, or a man who would accept a partial explanation.

However on this occasion, although it was ten o’clock in the morning, Anstiss was at home, and he received Pitt in the morning room of his very elegant and imposing house. The style was Queen Anne, gracious and substantial, but with all the clean brilliance of that period. The curtains were forest-green velvet, the wood mahogany, and the one ornament Pitt had time to observe was an Irish silver chalice of utter simplicity and a beauty so exceptional he found it hard to refrain from staring at it, in spite of the urgency of his business and the fact that Anstiss made him less sure of himself than usual.

Anstiss stood beside a mahogany table with a large bronze of horses and surveyed Pitt with mild curiosity.

“What can I do for you, Inspector?” His blue-gray eyes were unflinching and he seemed vaguely amused. Certainly there was no apprehension in him at all. He was a spectator of this petty tragedy, no more.

Pitt had to treat him as if he knew nothing whatever about any part of the affair, except what anyone might know from the headlines in the newspapers.

“I am investigating the murder of a blackmailer, my lord,” Pitt began.

“How unpleasant. But I imagine such people frequently come to an untimely end.” Anstiss was still only very superficially interested. He was being polite, but it would be safe to assume that his courtesy would last only briefly if there were not something a great deal more relevant following soon.

“They don’t often press their fortune far enough to endanger their own lives,” Pitt answered. Ridiculously he found his mouth dry. “This one was successful for quite a long time. He obtained his information from servants who had chanced to learn something personal about their employers, and chosen to try to take advantage of it.”

Anstiss’s face darkened with contempt.

“If you expect my pity, you will be disappointed, Inspector. Such people deserve to be hoist on their own petard.”

“No sir.” Pitt shook his head. “I find it hard to care who killed him myself. But it is my duty, and we cannot permit private persons to become executioners, no matter how hardly tempted. This judgment may be one we concur with, but what about the next?”

“I take your point, Inspector, you do not need to labor it. What has all this to do with me?”

“One of the servants in question once worked in your country house.” He watched closely to see if there was a flicker in Anstiss’s face, anything that would tell him he had caught a nerve.

There was nothing.

“Indeed? Are you sure? I am not being blackmailed, Inspector.” He made no protestations and there was humor in his face, not anxiety.

“I’m very glad.” Pitt smiled back. “It is someone who was a guest in your home some time ago.”

“Oh? Who is that?”

It was Anstiss’s first error, and not a serious one.

“I am sure, my lord, you will understand if I do not answer that,” Pitt said smoothly. “I must treat such information in confidence.”

“Of course.” Anstiss shrugged. “Foolish of me to have asked. I was not thinking. It was a sense of guilt. I feel responsible that a guest of mine should suffer such an offense.” He shifted his weight a little and relaxed, but he did not invite Pitt to sit. One did not entertain policemen as if they were social acquaintances. “How can I help? You said it was some time ago?”

“Yes. Several years. If I could speak to your butler he may have either records, or if not, then some memory of past servants. He may even know where they may be found now.”

“It’s possible,” Anstiss agreed. “But don’t hold much hope, Inspector Pitt. Some servants stay a long time, of course, indeed all their lives, but many others move position often, and this one sounds most unsatisfactory. The sort of person you are speaking of may well have passed from one place to another, always downward, and in quite a short space have ended up on the streets, or by this time dead. Still, by all means speak to Waterson if you like. I’ll call him.” And without waiting for any better instruction he moved to the bell rope and rang it.

Waterson proved a dignified man with a dry and individual humor in his face, and Pitt liked him immediately. On Anstiss’s instruction he conducted Pitt to his pantry, where he offered him a cup of tea with biscuits, an unusually civilized concern to a policeman. Then he recalled as well as he was able all the upstairs servants in the country house approximately twenty years previously.

He was tall and lean with a fine head of white hair. Were it not for his deferential and unobtrusive manner, one might have taken him for the aristocratic owner of the house. His features had a refinement Anstiss’s lacked, but neither the strength nor the blazing intelligence. Seeing them side by side one would never have failed to see that Anstiss was the leader designed by nature as well as by society.

“Probably a housemaid or a ladies’ maid,” Pitt prompted, sipping his tea. It was hot and delicately flavored and was served in porcelain cups.

“That would be about the time of Lady Anstiss’s death,” Waterson said slowly, his eyes on the ceiling as he leaned back in his chair. “Not a time easily forgotten. Let me see… we had young Daisy Cotterill then, she’s still with us-head laundress now. And Bessie Markham. She married a footman from somewhere or other. Left us, of course. We’ve got one of her daughters as tweeny now.” He frowned in concentration. “The other one I can recall would be Liza Cobb. Yes, she left shortly after that. Said it was something to do with family. Happens sometimes, of course, but not often a girl can afford to give up a good place just because her family has difficulties.” He looked up at Pitt. “Usually her job is the more important then-a little guaranteed money. Not a particularly satisfactory girl, not got her mind on her duty. Sights set on something better. Yes, Liza Cobb could be your girl.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Waterson. Have you any idea how I might find her?”

Waterson’s blue eyes opened wider. “Now?”

“If you please?” Pitt took the last biscuit. They were remarkably good.

“Well, let me see…” Waterson looked up at the ceiling again and concentrated for several minutes. “I don’t know myself, but it is possible Mrs. Fothergill, the housekeeper at number twenty-five, may know. I believe she was some sort of cousin. If you wish, I will write you a note of introduction.”

“That is very civil of you,” Pitt said with surprise and gratitude. “Really very civil.”

He spent another quarter of an hour sharing a little harmless gossip with Waterson, who seemed to have an ungentlemanly interest in detection, about which he was embarrassed, but it did little to dim his delight. Then Pitt took his leave and visited the house across the street Waterson had indicated. There he found Mrs. Fothergill, who was able with much shaking of her head and tutting to redirect him to yet another possible source of information as to Liza Cobb’s present whereabouts.

Actually it took him till the following noon before he found her behind the counter in an insalubrious fishmonger’s off Billingsgate. She was a large woman with raw hands and a coarse face which might have been handsome twenty years ago, but was now rough-skinned, fleshy and arrogant. He knew instantly that he had the right person. There was a look about her that reminded him sickeningly of the half of Weems’s face which the gold coins had left more or less intact.

He stood in front of the counter between the scales and the wooden slab and knife on which the fish were cut, and wondered how to approach her. If he were too direct she would simply leave. The door to the interior of the shop was behind her, and the counter between her and Pitt.

Perhaps she was as greedy as her relative.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he said with a courtesy that came hard to him.

“Arternoon,” she said with slight suspicion. People did not customarily address her so.

“I represent the law,” he said more or less truthfully. Then as he saw the dislike in her pale eyes, “It is a matter of finding the heir, or heiress, to a gentleman recently deceased,” he went on. Yes, it was the eyes that were like Weems. “And if I may say so, ma’am, you bear such a resemblance to the gentleman in question, I think my search ends right here.”

“I ain’t lorst anyone,” she said, but the edge was gone from her voice. “ ’Oo’s dead?”

“A Mr. William Weems, of Clerkenwell.”

Her face hardened again and she glanced angrily at the queue of women beginning to form behind Pitt, faces curious. “ ’E were murdered,” she said accusingly. “ ’ere! ’Oo are yer? I don’t know nuffin’ abaht it. I don’t get nuffin’ ’cause ’e’s dead.”

“There’s his house,” Pitt said truthfully. “It seems you may be his only relative, Miss-er, Miss Cobb?”

She thought for several seconds, then eventually the vision of the house became too strong.

“Yeah, I’m Liza Cobb.”

“Naturally I have one or two questions to ask you,” Pitt continued.

“I don’t know nuffin’ abaht ’is death.” She glared not at him but at the women behind him. “ ’ere-you keep your ears to yerself,” she said loudly.

“I have nothing to ask you about Mr. Weems’s death,” Pitt replied soothingly. “What I want to ask you goes back long before that. May we speak somewhere a little more private?”

“Yeah, we better ’ad. Too many ’round ’ere can’t mind their own business.”

“Well I’m sure I don’t care if you got relations wot was murdered,” the first woman said with a sniff. “But you keep a civil tongue in yer ’ead, Liza Cobb, or I’ll get me fish elsewhere. I will.”

“Yer comes ’ere ’cause I give yer tick when no one else will, Maisie Stillwell, an’ don’t yer ferget it neither!” Liza Cobb spat back at her. She turned and cried out shrilly for someone to come and take her place at the counter, then led him into a hot, stale-smelling back room.

“Well?”

“Twenty years ago you were in service in Lord Anstiss’s country house?”

“Yeah-must’a bin abaht then. Why?”

“You found a letter from Lady Anstiss to Lord Byam, who was a guest there?”

“Not exactly,” she said guardedly. “But what if I ’ad?”

“Then what did happen-exactly?”

“W’en Lady Anstiss died, Rose, ’er ladies’ maid, took some of ’er things, they gave ’em ’er, there weren’t nuffin’ wrong in it,” she answered. “Well w’en Rose died, abaht three year ago, them things passed ter me. All rolled up inside them, like, were this letter. Love letter, summink fierce.” Her broad lip curled in a sneer. “Din’t know decent folk wrote letters like that to each other.”

“How did you come to give it to Weems?”

Her eyes were sharp and clever. “I din’t give it ter ’im. Least not all of it. It were in two pages, like. I sold ’im one, an’ kept the other.”

Pitt felt a prickle of excitement.

“You kept the other one yourself?”

She was watching him closely.

“Yeah-why? Yer want ter see it? It’ll corst yer-yer can take a copy, fer five guineas.”

“Is that what Weems paid you?”

“Why?”

“Curious. It’s a fair price. Let me see it. If I think it’s worth it, I’ll pay you five guineas.”

“Let’s see the color o’ yer money. Yer don’t look like yer got five guineas.”

Pitt had come prepared to buy information, although he had not expected to spend it all on one person. But he was increasingly certain that this letter was at the heart of the case. He fished in his pocket and found a gold guinea, six half guineas and a handful of crowns, shillings and six-pences. He held his hand half open so she could see them but not reach them.

“I’ll get it for yer,” she said, her eyes keen, and she disappeared into the back room. Several minutes later she returned with a piece of paper in her hand. She held out her other hand for the money.

Pitt gave it to her, counting it out carefully, and then quickly took the paper. He unfolded it and saw written in a strong, emotionally charged hand:

Sholto, my love,

We have shared a rare and high passion which most of the world will never know as we do. It must never be lost, or denied us. When I look back on our hours together, they hold all that is most exquisite to the body, and the soul. I will permit no one to tear it from me.

Have courage! Fear nothing, and keep our secret in your heart. Turn it over and over, as I do, in the long hours alone. Dream of times past, and times to come.

There was no more, no signature. Apparently there had been at least one other page, and it was missing.

Pitt kept it in his hand. It was a passionate letter, nothing modest in it or waiting to be wooed. Indeed it seemed Laura Anstiss had been a woman of violent emotions, self-assured, willful, not even considering that her love might not be equally returned.

He began to see how indeed she might have been so stunned by rejection that it temporarily unbalanced her mind and threw her into a state of melancholia. If Byam had ever received that letter, he would have been far less surprised at her suicide.

“ ’ere-gimme it back!” Liza Cobb said sharply. “Yer read it.”

Had Laura Anstiss lived in a world of her own fantasy? The letter implied they had been lovers in a very physical sense. Anyone reading it would assume so. Had Anstiss seen either this, or some other like it?

“No,” he said levelly. “It is evidence in a murder case. I’ll keep it for now.”

“Yer thievin’ swine!” She lunged forward at him, but he was taller and heavier than she. He held out his other hand in a loose fist and she met it hard and retreated with ugly surprise in her face. “It’s mine,” she said between closed teeth.

“It was apparently never sent, so it belongs to Lady Anstiss,” he contradicted. “And since she is dead, presumably to her heirs.”

Her lip curled in a sneer. “Yer goin’ ter give it ter ’is lordship, are yer? I’ll bet-at a price. The more fool you! D’yer fink if it were that easy I wouldn’t ’a done that meself? I know ’im. You don’t. ’e’ll never pay yer. ’Orse-whip yer more like.”

“I’m going to give it to the police,” he said with a tight smile. “Which I am-Inspector Pitt of Bow Street. When the case is finished, if you’d like to come to Bow Street, you can try to claim it back.” And he turned on his heel and marched out, hearing her string of epithets and curses following him.

He walked briskly, pushing past the now wildly curious crowd. He was glad that the corner of small, open square lay across his way; the sight of the leaves against the sky was a clean and uncomplicated thing after the greed and the rage of the fishmonger’s shop and the woman in it. Reading the letter gave him a much clearer picture of why Byam had paid Weems for over two years. It was not the innocent passion he had implied, at least not in Laura Anstiss’s mind, and would not be read as such by any impartial person now.

If Frederick Anstiss hated Byam it would not be surprising. It would take a man of superhuman forgiveness not to feel betrayed by such emotions in his wife for his best and most trusted friend, and guest under his roof.

The square was crossed diagonally by a path and there were two couples strolling along, heads close in conversation, and a third couple standing facing each other in what was unmistakably an angry exchange. The man in a high winged collar was very pink in the face and clutched his cane fiercely, twitching it now and again, jabbing at the air. The woman was equally heated, but there was a certain air of enjoyment in her, and it served only to exacerbate her companion’s rage. After a few moments more he turned on his heel and strode off, and then as he passed a flower bush he lifted the cane high and sliced off a small branch in sheer temper. The action was so sudden and unforeseen it took Pitt by surprise.

Then startlingly he had a picture in his mind of Lord Anstiss standing in front of Weems’s desk in his office while Weems read that damning letter aloud, jeering, demanding money, and a stick going up in the air without warning, striking Weems on the side of the head, robbing him of his senses long enough for Anstiss to take up the blunderbuss, fill the powder pan and load it with gold coins, and fire it.

Or it might have been anyone else, any gentleman who quite normally carried a stick or a cane, and any other provocation. But the letter stayed in his mind, and the image of Anstiss’s face.

Had Weems, after two years of successful blackmail of Byam, tried his hand with Anstiss, and met a very different man; a man not plagued by guilt, but still burning with injury, humiliation and a long-hidden and unsatisfied hatred?

But why should he hide the hatred, if indeed he felt it? Friends drift apart; it would need no explanation, and Byam of all people would understand. He would never tell anyone the truth, in his own interest if not in Anstiss’s.

Pitt quickened his step.

Or was this the first time Anstiss had realized his wife’s guilt? Perhaps until then he had accepted Byam’s word for the innocence of the affaire, that it was simply an unwise friendship into which she alone had imagined love?

No one had thought to ask where Anstiss was on the night Weems was shot. He had never been a suspect; he was the injured party, not the offender.

The injured party.

He slowed down again unconsciously, the spring going out of his step. That was true. Anstiss was the one wronged. He had done nothing whatever to indicate a hatred of Byam or a desire to do anything but forget the whole matter. He did not seem a man to act in rage so uncontrollable as to commit murder.

No. If it was he who had struck Weems, and then shot him, there must have been a more powerful motive than simply to avoid paying a few guineas in blackmail over a letter which branded his long-dead wife as an adulteress.

He was well beyond the square now and walking quickly along the street towards the thoroughfare where he could get an omnibus home. It was early, but he wanted to speak to Charlotte.

The omnibus seemed ages in coming, and when it did, was hot and crowded. He sat squashed between two large ladies with shopping baskets, but he was unaware of them as he thought more and more of Anstiss and the terrible wound to his pride of his wife so obsessed with Byam. It was a passionate, immodest letter. There was something willful, almost commanding about it. It changed his view of Laura Anstiss entirely. He had imagined her as fragile, utterly feminine with a haunting beauty, and her suicide as a solitary grief, hugged to herself, a terrible loneliness. But the letter sounded far more robust, almost domineering, as though she expected to be obeyed, in fact had little doubt of it. Was she really such a spoilt beauty? Pitt thought he would not have liked her.

Perhaps Byam had been secretly nonplussed and had rejected her fairly roughly after once succumbing to physical temptation. That would explain his guilt even after so many years. He had betrayed Anstiss by making love to Laura, and then when he discovered her nature more fully, had rejected her pretty abruptly.

He reached home still preoccupied with his thoughts, and threw the door open. He called Charlotte’s name, and there was no answer. He went down the corridor and through the kitchen out into the garden.

“Thomas!” Charlotte swung around from the roses where she was snapping off the dead flower heads. “What has happened? Are you all right?”

He looked around. “Where are the children?”

“At school, of course. It’s only three o’clock. What is it?”

“Oh-yes, of course it is. I want to talk to you.”

She passed him the raffia trug for the flower heads and he took it obediently, holding it for her to continue.

“What about?” she asked, clipping off another head.

“Lord Anstiss.”

She must have caught the urgency in his voice. She stopped what she was doing, her hands motionless above the next rose. She looked at him.

“You think he is behind your secret society?” She put the secateurs in the basket and abandoned the task. “I think you are probably right. We had better go inside and talk about it.”

“No,” he said honestly, although even as he said it it ceased to be true. “I think he might have murdered Weems, but I am not totally sure why. I have bits of motives, but they none of them seem quite strong enough.”

She frowned, standing still by the rose bed. “Well, he surely wouldn’t kill someone just so the police would find the notes incriminating Mr. Carswell, and the police officers, even if he did want to take away the references to Lord Byam, who was his friend-and presumably in good favor with the society. He must be clever enough to think of a better way of doing that.” She shook her head. “One that wouldn’t be so dangerous to himself, or so extreme. It seems rather hysterical to me-and he certainly is not a panicky man, I am as sure of that as I am of anything about anyone. I would say he is cold-blooded, and quite in control of himself at all times. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes-but we could be mistaken. Sometimes very deep emotions lie under an outwardly calm face and manner.” He followed as she led the way inside and set the trug down on the kitchen table. Without asking she put the kettle on the hob and reached for cups and the teapot.

“Lord Byam might panic,” she replied. “I still don’t think Anstiss would. But I know that is not proof of anything. And he would need a very good reason indeed to do something so dangerous.”

“I know.” He sat down at the table.

“Have you had luncheon?” she asked.

“No.”

Automatically she took bread, butter, cheese and rich, fruity pickle from the cupboard.

“Byam is still being blackmailed,” he went on thoughtfully.

“For money?” she asked, spreading the bread.

“Not directly, so far as I can see. According to Lady Byam he has changed his mind very radically over the government policy in lending moneys to certain small countries in the empire, in Africa. One of his longtime friends and colleagues called recently and they had a fearful quarrel. He accused Byam of having betrayed his principles. Byam is in a very poor state, sleeping badly and looks like a ghost.”

She stopped what she was doing, her hands in the air.

“Peter Valerius-” she said.

“Peter Valerius is blackmailing him?” Pitt asked with disbelief.

“No, no! He told me about venture capital.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you interested in venture capital, and what is it?”

“I’m not.” She took the kettle off the hob and poured the water over the tea, letting it steep. “He told me because honestly I think he’d tell anyone who would have the good manners to listen, or the inability to escape. It is a sort of money you can get, at a terrible usury, when no one else will lend you money and you are desperate. I mean industries and countries and the like, not little personal debtors.” She turned around to face him. It was not easy to explain because she understood it only very little herself. “If you have a big industry and you have run out of money, perhaps your costs have gone up and your profits have gone down, and your ordinary banker won’t help-that is someone like Byam-then you may go to someone who will lend you venture capital, at a very high rate of interest, and the price of a third of your company, forever-which may be where Anstiss comes in-maybe? But if you are desperate and will lose everything-perhaps you are a small country and your whole trade is tied up in one export-your people are starving…”

“All right,” he said quickly. “I understand. But I have no idea if Anstiss has anything to do with venture capital.”

“Well if that is what Byam is being blackmailed for, then it seems someone has.”

He bit into the bread and pickle, hungry in spite of the thoughts running faster and faster in his brain.

“I need to know a great deal more about Anstiss,” he said with his mouth full.

“Well where was he when Weems was killed?” she began, With one hand she poured his tea and passed him the mug.

“I don’t know-but I think it is past time I found out.” He ate the rest of his bread and held out his hand for the tea. As soon as he was finished he meant to go and find this Peter Valerius. He needed to know if Anstiss had profited from Byam’s Treasury decision. “Where does Valerius work?” he asked her. “He does work, I suppose?”

“I haven’t any idea. But Jack probably knows. You could ask him.”

Pitt stood up. “I will.” He kissed her quickly. “Thank you.”

He took a hansom to Emily’s house and was fortunate that Jack was at home. From him he learned where to find Peter Valerius, and by quarter to five he was striding along Piccadilly with him, dodging around slower pedestrians, leaping off the pavement over the gutter and back again, avoiding hooves and carriage wheels with considerable skill, coattails flying.

“Of course that is off the top of my head,” Valerius warned cheerfully. “You will want some sort of documentary proof.”

“If I’m right, I will,” Pitt replied, increasing his pace to keep up.

Valerius jumped back onto the curb with alacrity. A horse swerved sideways and the coachman shouted a string of ungentlemanly imprecations at him.

“My apologies!” Valerius called over his shoulder. He grinned at Pitt. “Anstiss is the prime mover behind a lot of financial dealings, and the major shareholder in a few merchant banking interests. He, and his associates, stand to make a fortune, and not a small one, if certain African interests have to go to venture capital. A single year’s interest repayments alone would keep most of us for life, let alone a third share in the company and all its profits in perpetuity.” His face tightened and a look of anger close to hatred came into his eyes. “Never mind they are robbing blind a small country of people caught in a vise of borrowing, price fixing, and trade wars, and not sophisticated or powerful enough to fight.”

Pitt caught him by the arm and pulled him back as he was about to launch off the pavement into a cross street almost under the hooves of a hansom.

“Thank you,” Valerius said absently. “It’s one of the most monstrous damned crimes going on, but no one seems to care.”

Pitt had no argument to offer and no comfort. He refused to make some polite platitude.

The hansom passed and they crossed the street, Pitt watching both ways for traffic, and just reaching the far side as an open carriage swept by at a reckless speed.

“Idiot,” Pitt said between his teeth at the driver.

“It will be traceable.” Valerius went on with his own train of thought. “I’ll get you the proof.” He lengthened his step yet again, his coat flying. Meandering pedestrians who were simply taking the air and showing off moved aside with more haste than dignity, a dandy with a monocle muttering under his breath and two pretty women stopping to stare with interest.

“Thank you,” Pitt said with appreciation. “Can you bring it to me in Bow Street?”

“Of course I can. How long will you be there?”

“Tonight?”

Valerius grinned. “Of course tonight. In a hurry, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Then I’ll see you in Bow Street.” And with a wave he swung around and raced off down Half Moon Street and disappeared.

With a new sense of hope Pitt made his way to Bow Street.

Once there he went straight up to Micah Drummond’s office and knocked on the door. As soon as he was inside he knew something was wrong. Drummond looked profoundly unhappy. His face was pale, his features drawn, and there was fury in every angle of his body.

“What is it?” Pitt said immediately. “Byam?”

“No, Latimer, the swine. The man is a complete outsider!”

From a man like Drummond that was the ultimate condemnation. To be an outsider was to be lost beyond recall. Pitt was taken aback.

“What has he done?” His mind raced through possibilities and came up with nothing damning enough to warrant such contempt.

Drummond was staring at him.

“Where have you been?” he demanded.

“I think I may be close to the end of the Weems case,” Pitt replied. “It’s nothing to do with Latimer.”

“I didn’t think it was.” Drummond turned back to the window. “Damn him!”

“Is it about the bare-knuckle fighting?”

Drummond turned around, his face lifting with hope. “What bare-knuckle fighting?”

“He gambles on it. That’s where his money comes from-not from Weems. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No you didn’t! Don’t be this ingenuous, Pitt. Nor did you tell me about Urban’s moonlighting at a music hall in Stepney, and having possible stolen works of art.”

Pitt felt a sudden coldness inside him. “Then how do you know?”

“Because Latimer told me, of course!”

“About Urban? Why, for-” But before he could finish the questions, he understood. The Inner Circle. Latimer had showed his ultimate obedience by betraying Urban, becoming his executioner for the brotherhood. Drummond knew it, and this was the reason for his rage. “I see,” Pitt said aloud.

“Do you?” Drummond demanded, his face white, his eyes blazing. “Do you? It’s that hellish Inner Circle.”

“I know.”

For moments they stood staring at each other, then Drummond’s eyes dulled into misery again and the fire went out of him.

“Yes-of course you do.” He sat down behind the desk and waved towards the chair opposite. “There’s one good thing. That self-important idiot Osmar has done it again, and been caught beyond question this time-in a public railway carriage on the Waterloo line, of all things.” His eyes held a flash of humor. “And by an elderly lady of unquestionable reputation and veracity. No one will doubt the Dowager Lady Webber when she says his behavior was unpardonable and his dress inadequate for public wear. And the young woman likewise, and her profession only too apparent. He’ll have no defense this time.” In other circumstances Pitt would have laughed. Now all he could raise was a hard smile.

“What did you come for?” Drummond asked.

Pitt told him all he either knew or believed about Lord Anstiss, his suppositions about Weems and the letter, Charlotte’s information concerning venture capital and his subsequent meeting with Peter Valerius.

“Do you have this letter?” Drummond asked, frowning.

Pitt drew it out of his pocket and passed it to him.

Drummond took it and read it slowly, his brows drawing down, his face darkening as he came to the end. He looked up, puzzled and oddly disappointed.

“Somehow this is not how I imagined Laura Anstiss.” He smiled very briefly. “Which is foolish. It hardly matters, but I…” He seemed unable to find the words, or else was embarrassed by his emotion and its irrelevance.

“Nor I,” Pitt agreed. “It’s a forceful letter, and perhaps even a little indelicate.”

“That’s it,” Drummond agreed quickly. “And it seems Byam was a good deal less than honest with us. From this it sounds as if they were indisputably lovers, which he said they were not. I’m not surprised he still feels guilt over her.”

Pitt looked at Drummond’s face, the letter lying on the desk between them. He knew Drummond was faintly repelled by it, as he had been himself, and had not wished to say so.

“I think Weems may have decided to try his hand with Anstiss as well,” Pitt said. “After all, it had worked successfully for him with Byam. For two years he had had a nice little addition to his income.”

Drummond regarded him steadily without interruption.

“But this time he found a very different mettle of man,” Pitt went on. “Anstiss lost his temper and struck him with his stick. If we go to Anstiss’s house and find his cane, I think there may well be blood or hair on it.”

Drummond pursed his lips but there was agreement in his eyes.

“And then when Weems was temporarily unconscious,” Pitt continued, “he saw the opportunity-probably Weems had already let him know he was blackmailing Byam-so he loaded the blunderbuss and killed Weems. Then he took the papers incriminating Byam, and Weems’s half of the letter, perhaps not even realizing there was another half. He left the second list incriminating the errant members of the Inner Circle, of which he is a master, in order to discipline them. I daresay he knew their secrets through the Inner Circle as well. With this situation he would take over the blackmail of Byam himself, and force him to change his Treasury decisions and allow Anstiss to step in with his venture capital. The profit would be enormous.”

Drummond sat without speaking for several moments, then at last he looked up. There was no conviction in his eyes.

“It seems to me you are trying too hard, Pitt. There are too many motives for Anstiss, and all of them too small to move an intelligent and self-controlled man to murder, especially one who already has power, wealth and position. I can easily believe he would take advantage of Weems’s death and Byam’s vulnerability to extend the blackmail and force Byam to change his political decisions on African loans. But I can’t see him committing cold-blooded murder to bring it about. And honestly, even with proof that he profited, I don’t think we would convince any jury of it. In fact I don’t think we’d even get the public prosecutor to bring the charge.”

Pitt refused to give up.

“Perhaps Anstiss had not seen the letter until Weems showed it to him,” he suggested. “And we don’t know what was in his half, but if it was in the same vein as the half we have, he may have struck out in rage then, and his prime motive might have been to have revenge on Byam. Especially if Byam told him what he told you-that he was never Laura Anstiss’s lover, that it was simply a sudden infatuation she had for him, and he broke it off when he realized how serious she was. If Anstiss had accepted that all these years and forgiven him in that belief, to see proof in Laura’s own hand, if he was also deeply in love with her…”

He stopped. It was not necessary to fill in the rest. Infatuation was one offense; to be cuckolded in one’s own house quite another.

Drummond’s face tightened.

“That I can believe. If he had always accepted Byam’s innocence, and his wife’s virtue, if not her love, then it would come as a very violent shock to him, enough to make him lose all control, at least for long enough to strike out at Weems’s smiling face, and then kill him, and get rid of the one other person who knew of it-and destroy Byam as the perpetrator. But can you prove any of it?”

“I don’t know.” Pitt shook his head. “Valerius will bring proof of the financial connection, which will be sufficient to go and question him. Then we can find the stick, or prove he has recently lost one. I don’t suppose we’ll ever find the blunderbuss, or that he will have kept Weems’s half of the letter.”

“The main thing will be to see if we can place him in Cyrus Street,” Drummond pointed out. “Or if he can prove he was somewhere else. When do you expect this Valerius?”

“Some time this evening.”

“No more accurate than that?”

“No-he said it would not take him long, but I did not press him to a particular hour.”

Drummond rose to his feet slowly, as though his body were stiff.

“Then I’ll go and see Byam, at least tell the poor devil he is no longer suspected. He will be very shocked if it is Anstiss. They have been friends most of their lives.”

“He won’t be so very shocked when he realizes Anstiss has read Laura’s letters,” Pitt said dryly.

Drummond made no comment, but picked up his hat from the stand at the door, and his cane from the rack below.

Drummond walked well over a mile before he hailed a hansom and directed it towards Belgrave Square. It was a cool evening with a breeze off the river and the mist was rising. By dusk it could well be foggy. He needed time to think, although all the time in the world would not alter the facts. He would be able to give Eleanor the one thing she really wished: her husband’s innocence, even his release from the second blackmail. Drummond would always know what the letter contained, the evidence that Byam’s involvement with Laura Anstiss was not as innocent as he had claimed, but he would not tell her that.

He passed a group of ladies and tilted his hat politely as they inclined their heads.

What Byam chose to tell Eleanor was his affair, and if she guessed he had lied it was still between them. She might well put it from her mind and forgive him. It had been twenty years ago, and before he knew her.

Then Drummond would never see her again, unless their paths crossed socially, and he was torn as to whether he even wanted that or not. It was a decision he would not make now.

An acquaintance passed in an open carriage and he acknowledged him absently. Why was it when you most wished to be alone that you passed so many people you knew?

He hailed a hansom and climbed in.

Belgrave Square came all too quickly. He alighted and paid. There was nothing more to decide, nothing more to think about. He went up the steps and pulled the bell.

The butler let him in and mistook his grave face for a portent of bad news.

“Shall I call Lord Byam, sir?” he said grimly.

Drummond forced a pleasanter look.

“If you please. I have word he will wish to hear.”

“Indeed, sir.” The man’s eyebrows rose. “I am very relieved.” And after conducting Drummond to the library, he disappeared about his errand.

The fire was lit this evening, in spite of its being summer and still many hours of daylight left. The mist was heavier now and there was a dampness to the air outside. The fire’s glow was welcome. Automatically Drummond went over to it.

Byam came almost immediately. Drummond was half glad Eleanor had not come with him. It would be easier, and perhaps more appropriate, if he were able to tell Byam without her there.

“What have you heard?” Byam did not even pretend to courtesies. His face was pale with spots of color high in his cheeks and his eyes looked feverish. He had closed the door behind him, cutting off the servants, Eleanor and the rest of the house. “Do you know who killed Weems?”

“Yes, I believe I do,” Drummond replied. He was taken by surprise that Byam should have asked so bluntly. He had expected to govern the conversation himself, to approach the subject and choose his words.

Byam tried to be casual, but his body under its elegant clothes was rigid and he drew his breath as though his lungs were compressed and his throat tight.

“Is it-is it anyone I have-have heard of?” He cleared his throat. “I mean was it someone else he was blackmailing? Or one of his ordinary debtors?” He made half a move as if to go to one of the silver-topped decanters on the side table, then stopped.

“It appears to be someone he was blackmailing,” Drummond answered. “But you will appreciate, we have not arrested him yet, so I prefer not to say more. I came to tell you as soon as I could that you need no longer worry about your own safety or reputation.”

“Good. I-I am obliged to you.” Byam swallowed. “You have behaved with great consideration, Drummond. I am sensible of your generosity.”

Drummond was embarrassed, painfully aware of his emotions as well as his acts, things of which he profoundly hoped Byam had no notion.

“I assume you will arrest him?” Byam went on, more to fill the silence than from any apparent interest.

“Tomorrow,” Drummond replied. “We still require some documentary evidence.”

Byam moved jerkily and made as if to speak, then remained silent. He seemed very little relieved, considering the weight of the news Drummond had just brought, almost as if it were peripheral to his real anguish.

“We know you are not guilty,” Drummond said again, just in case somehow he had not grasped that his ordeal was over.

Byam forced a smile. It was ghastly.

“Yes-yes, I am very grateful.”

“And the blackmail will end,” Drummond added, trying to bring the man some ease.

“Of course. Weems…”

“No-I mean the second blackmail-to change your mind on the lending policy in the African empire states and drive them to venture capital. It was the same man, and his arrest will end it all.”

Byam stood motionless.

“I-I thought it was one of Weems’s associates,” he said very quietly. “Whoever he left his papers with, to safeguard himself.”

“No-it was his murderer,” Drummond corrected. “When he killed Weems he took the letter, and blackmailed you with it. Only this time not for a few guineas, but for political corruption and the infinitely greater prizes that would bring.” He realized as he said it that freedom from suspicion, even from that pressure, was only part of Byam’s need. He would never undo the decisions he had made in office, or the guilt for having set his personal reputation ahead of his political honor.

“I’m sorry,” Drummond said quietly. It was not an apology.

Byam was ashen, as if every vestige of blood had drained from his face.

“And Weems was blackmailing the murderer also, you say?”

“Yes.”

“For money?”

“Presumably. But it didn’t work. The man killed him.”

Byam swayed on his feet. He forced the words between dry lips.”

“And-took the-letter?”

“Yes.” Drummond was afraid Byam was going to faint, he looked so ill.

“How-how did you discover…?” Byam stammered.

“It was the letter, actually,” Drummond replied. “Pitt found half of it. Can I get you something? Brandy?”

“No-no! Please leave me. I am…” He coughed and gasped for breath. “I-I am obliged.” Drummond stood helpless for a moment longer, then went to the door and found the butler standing outside in the hall.

“I think Lord Byam is not well,” he said hastily. “Perhaps you had better go and see if you can be of assistance.”

“Yes sir.” And without waiting to hand him his hat and stick, simply indicating the footman, the butler did as he was told. Drummond took the things from the footman’s hand and went outside into the foggy, clammy evening, already growing dim.

Pitt met Drummond at eight o’clock the following morning. The mist had not yet cleared and the streets were damp, their footsteps echoing when they alighted from the hansom and walked across the pavement and up the steps to Lord Anstiss’s house. Drummond rang the bell.

It was several chilly minutes before a footman answered, looking surprised and more than a little confused to see two people he did not know on the step at this hour.

“I’m sorry sir,” he apologized. “Lord Anstiss is not yet receiving visitors.”

Pitt showed him his police identification.

“He will see us,” he insisted, gently pushing past the man.

“No ’E won’t, sir!” The footman was clearly extremely unhappy. “Not at this hour, ’E won’t!”

Drummond followed them in and unconsciously glanced at the hall stand where two sticks and an umbrella rested. Pitt picked up both sticks and turned them over in his hand, looking at the lower ends of the shafts.

“ ’ere!” the footman said sharply. “You can’t do that! Them is ’is lordship’s. Give ’em ter me!”

“Are they Lord Anstiss’s sticks?” Pitt asked, still holding them. “Are you sure?”

“ ’Course I’m sure! Give ’em ter me!”

Drummond waited, deeply unhappy, visions of dismissal and disgrace in his mind, should they prove mistaken.

But Pitt seemed very certain.

“Don’t worry,” he said to the footman more gently. “They are evidence-at least this one is.”

“Is it?” Drummond demanded. “Have you found something? You’re sure?”

Pitt’s face did not lose its grim expression, but the line around his mouth eased a little. “Yes-there’s a dark stain ingrained in the wood of the shaft, reddish brown.” He looked at the footman. “We must see Lord Anstiss. This is not your fault. We are police and you have no choice but to call his lordship. We will wait at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Dammit, Pitt!” Drummond said under his breath. “He’s not going to run away!”

Pitt gave him a dour look, but did not move.

The footman hesitated a moment, looking questioningly at Drummond.

“You’d better go and waken him,” Drummond agreed. The die was cast and there was no retreating now.

Obediently the footman went upstairs, and came down again within the space of three minutes, his face pink and worried.

“I can’t get in, sir, and neither can I make ’is lordship answer me. Is there summink wrong, sir? ’Ad I better fetch Mr. Waterson?”

“No-we’ll go up,” Pitt said quickly, without giving Drummond time to suggest any alternative. He glanced at the footman. “You’re a big lad, come with us in case we need to force the door.”

“Oh, I can’t do that!”

“Yes you can if you’re told to.” Pitt strode up the stairs two at a time and the others followed hard on his heels. “Which way?” he asked at the top.

“Left, sir.” The footman squeezed in front and went along to the first door in the east wing. “This one, sir. But it’s locked.”

Pitt turned the handle. It was indeed locked.

“Lord Anstiss!” he said loudly.

There was no answer.

“Come on!” he ordered.

He, Drummond and the footman put their shoulders to it and together all three of them threw their weight at it. It took them four attempts before the lock burst and they half fell inside. The footman stumbled across the dim room towards the curtains and drew them back. Then he turned and stared at the bed. He gave a shriek and swayed a moment before falling to the floor in a dead faint.

“God Almighty!” Drummond said in a strangled voice.

Pitt felt his stomach lurch, but he went forward and stood by the side of the bed staring down at it.

Sholto Byam and Frederick Anstiss lay side by side in the big four-poster, both naked. Anstiss was drenched in blood, his throat cut from side to side, his head lying awkwardly at a half angle, his eyes wide in horror. Byam was beside him, more composed, as if he had expected death, even welcomed it, and his haggard features were ironed out, all the anguish gone at last. A broad-bladed knife lay beside him and both his wrists were gashed. The surrounding area of the bed was dark red with deep-soaked blood, as if once the act was done he had not moved but lain there almost at peace while his life poured away.

Somewhere behind them in the doorway a housemaid was screaming hysterically over and over again, but the footman was incapable of helping her. There was a sound of running feet.

On the pillow beside Byam’s head was a letter addressed not to Drummond but to Pitt. He reached over and picked it up.

By now you probably know the truth. Micah Drummond told me you had found the other half of the letter to me, and you know it was not Laura who wrote it, but Frederick. Laura did not love me, poor woman. I will never forget the night she came and found Frederick and me together, in bed.

Many women might have kept such a secret, but she would not. He and I killed her, and gave out the story that it was an accident. We kept the suicide idea in case anyone did not believe that she had slipped. It was better than the truth, and of course it was what I told Drummond when that devil Weems began to blackmail me.

But when he tried it on Frederick it was a different thing-the letter was in Frederick’s hand, and when Weems realized that, however he did, perhaps he had some letter or agreement to meet, then of course Frederick had to kill him. Weems knew the truth, not only about us, but presumably he guessed we had killed Laura as well.

Whether or not Frederick would have betrayed me when he was arrested, I don’t know-and perhaps it hardly matters now. I have loved him all these years, and he professed to love me-that he could have blackmailed me for the African loans and corrupted the best thing I did is beyond my ability to bear, or to forgive.

He has ruined me, and all I believed in, both love and honor. I shall see that he dies with such a scandal London will never forget it.

There is nothing more to be said, this is the end of it all.

Sholto Byam

Pitt passed it across to Drummond.

Drummond read it slowly then looked up, his face ashen.

“God, what a mess.”

Beyond the doorway Waterson, gray-faced, was standing like a man stricken. Someone had taken the housemaid away. The footman was still on the floor.

“You’d better go and tell Lady Byam,” Pitt said quietly. “It will come better from you than anyone else. I’ll clear up here.”

Drummond hesitated only a moment, guilt, realization and pity fighting in him.

“There’s nothing else to do,” Pitt assured him. “It is all finished here-we must care for the living now.”

Drummond took his hand and squeezed it fiercely for a moment, wringing it so hard he bruised the flesh, then swung around on his heel and went out.

Pitt turned back to the bed, and very gently pulled up the bedspread to cover the faces of the dead.