Belgrave Square

6

PITT LEFT THE HOUSE the following day still feeling depressed in spirit. He and Charlotte had been civil over the breakfast table, but the old warmth was not there. The episode of the exhibition could not easily be repaired. Some of the sweetness had gone out of his life lately, the lift in his spirits as he turned towards home at the end of the day, no matter how ragged or disappointing it had been. It was not that Charlotte was not always there. That he understood and accepted. She had often spent time with Emily, or even very occasionally with her mother. And goodness knows he had long ago stopped fighting against her joining in his cases because it was unseemly, or even dangerous. In fact he was proud of her abilities to judge people he would never know except from an outside view.

It was not that. As he trudged along the dusty pavement towards the main street where he could get an omnibus, he was honest enough to admit it was because she was stepping into Emily’s world, and enjoying it. And it had been her world until she married him. It would have remained hers, had she chosen someone suited to her own social position, and her family’s expectations.

That was it. He felt guilty-and shut out. He had been invited to the opera as well, of course. Emily would never have excluded him. And he had enjoyed it-at least some of it. He did not care for the music a great deal. But then neither had most of the people who were there. It was a social event for them, not an artistic one. Everyone knew everyone else, if not in person then by repute.

The omnibus drew to a halt and he stepped on, choosing to climb the open spiral steps at the back up onto the top deck. There were plenty of seats available and he sat alone, still deep in thought.

He had looked at Charlotte more than at the stage. He had never seen her more beautiful, her hair shining and coiled, dressed by Emily’s maid, her face flushed with excitement, her eyes bright. She had loved it. That was what hurt. He would love to have been the one who took her. But all he could ever manage would be once, and it would be a great occasion. Now she had already been, and if Emily chose, would go again, as often as she wished. The top of the omnibus was open and the sun was warm on his face.

He wanted Jack Radley to succeed in Parliament, not only for Jack’s own sake, because he liked him, and for Emily, but for the good he might do. But it was not the same as when Charlotte and Emily were meddling in one of his cases and he felt as if he had a part in it. There was no way he could help Jack. In fact his relationship would more likely be a hindrance, were it known.

That was it, not very attractive, not easy to admit, but he was jealous.

The omnibus halted again for a few moments, then jerked forward as the horses began up a slight gradient, pulling hard.

On the other hand, he was justified in being angry. Charlotte had no business to go off in the afternoon simply to look at an exhibition of pictures, leaving poor Gracie to do the housework and prepare the dinner.

Which did nothing to make him feel better. Being justified was a cold thing.

He arrived at the Clerkenwell police station in a poor mood and went straight through to the small back office. Innes’s sharp, intelligent face was little cheer. This case was every bit as unpleasant and intractable as he had feared at the outset. There were too many elements in it that worried him. How had Byam heard of the murder so quickly? What was there in it that distressed Micah Drummond, and yet he could not speak of it and kept on through his embarrassment and obvious discomfort? Why had William Weems sat behind his desk and allowed someone to bring in a gun? A gun capable of firing the gold pieces would have to be a muzzle loader. Who walks through the streets carrying such a thing? It argued a very careful premeditation. Where were the incriminating papers and the letter Byam had said were there? If Byam was guilty, and he had removed them, why had he bothered to call Drummond and admit any connection at all? And what about Addison Carswell?

“Mornin’ sir,” Innes said cheerfully. “Lovely day again.”

“Yes,” Pitt agreed dourly. “Going to be hot.”

“Got anything further?” Innes was relentlessly optimistic, although his quick eyes had taken in Pitt’s expression. “Any of them other people look hopeful? We got nothing ’ere, an’ I can’t ’elp wonderin’ ’ow any o’ these people would get ’old o’ the kind o’ gun that killed the poor devil.” He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, a comfortable and informal gesture.

“I wish we could find that, Mr. Pitt,” he said with a frown. “I’d feel a lot closer if we could. I bin ’round all the cabbies, like you said, but no one remembers a fare carryin’ anything like a gun big enough ter blow Weems’s ’ead off.” He screwed up his face. “You sure it couldn’t ’a bin the one wot was already there on the wall? They couldn’t ’a used it then taken the pin down after, to confuse us, like?”

“No,” Pitt said grimly. “It was filed down and there was a patina of use on the metal. You don’t fake that in a few minutes. And who would think to bring a file-or hang around with that corpse to use it?”

Innes shrugged. “Yer right. It don’t make no sense. an’ there weren’t ’anging space fer another gun, nor there weren’t one moved on the wall, I looked fer that.”

“Did we ask the cleaning woman-what’s her name?”

“Mrs. Cairns.”

“Did we ask her if she’d seen another gun any time?”

“Yes-she said she ’adn’t seen nothing-but I don’t know whether to believe ’er or not. She’d no love fer ’im, as she don’t want ter get involved with any part of it.”

“You think she’d lie?” Pitt sat on the windowsill, this time leaving the chair for Innes, if he wished.

“I think she’d deliberately forget,” Innes said judiciously. “The local opinion is pretty well on the side of ’oever done it. ’E weren’t liked, weren’t Mr. Weems.”

“What a surprise,” Pitt said sarcastically. “Still, I think I’ll go and take another look at his rooms. Are all the papers still there?”

“Yes sir. Place is locked. I’ll get the key. Mind, I’m beginning ter think it were one o’ your nobs. Sorry sir, but I do.”

“So do I,” Pitt admitted. “But I’m often surprised.” He stood up again. “Come on-get that key and we’ll look again.”

Half an hour later they were methodically sorting through sheets of paper and putting them from one pile to another, uncertain what they were looking for. They found the closed office with its stale air, and their knowledge of what was done there, heavily oppressive, even to the rise of nausea if they stopped to imagine that night, the despair, the violence and the sudden horror of blood, an act irretrievable, and the fear afterwards.

“Got it!” Innes said suddenly in triumph, his voice ringing out in the heavy silence. “ ’Ere!” He held up a sheet of paper with a name in capitals on the top, and figures and dates and amounts all down it, finishing at the bottom with a line of handwriting.

“What?” Pitt said, puzzled as to what it could be and afraid to hope.

“ ’Ere!” Innes was not to be dampened in his victory. “Look!” He thrust the paper forward. “Walter ’Opcroft, paid ’is last installment of interest in ’is debt with a blunderbuss-same day as Weems was shot!” His voice rose with conviction. “It must ’a bin ’ere in the office when ’is murderer came! ’E just took advantage of it! Stands ter reason.” His face was beaming.

Pitt straightened up from the drawers where he had been sifting through papers yet again. “And what?” He frowned. “He and Weems had a quarrel and he saw the blunderbuss, went to the powder boxes, tipped the powder into the breach, picked up the gold coins from the desk, or wherever they were, loaded them, and then shot half Weems’s head off? What was Weems doing?”

Innes stood motionless.

“Well at least we know w’ere the gun came from,” he said defensively.

Pitt sighed. “We do,” he agreed. “Well done. Now we have to work out how in heaven’s name he managed to load it and fire it without Weems stopping him. What happened here, Innes? Can you think of anything-anything at ail-that would explain it?”

“No sir,” Innes said, pulling a face. “Maybe when we know who it is, we’ll understand.” He looked hopeful.

“Maybe,” Pitt agreed. “I was rather looking for it to be the other way, knowing what happened would lead us to who it is.”

Innes took a deep breath. “I don’t like to ’ave ter say this, sir, but could this nob o’ yours ’ave come ’ere, for whatever reason, an’ ’ad a quarrel with Weems, an’ ’is bein’ a nob, Weems don’t think ’e’d turn nasty, so ’E didn’t believe it when it ’appened. P’r’aps the nob-sorry sir-but not knowin’ ’is name I ’ave ter call ’im something, p’r’aps ’E admired the gun, casual like, and Weems, since ’E ’ad the upper ’and, Jus’ sat there an let ’im go on!”

Innes drew a deep breath. “An’ o’ course Weems knew ’E ’adn’t any shot for it, an’ ’E wouldn’t think o’ gold coin as bein’ ammunition. an’ the nob-sorry sir-’E quietly loads it, talking agreeable like, an’ keepin’ the gold coins in ’is pocket w’ere Weems don’t know about them-until the last moment when ’E shoved them down the barrel and lifted it up. And Weems were so surprised ’E didn’t believe it, till the gentleman fired, an’ it were too late!” He stood expectantly, waiting for Pitt’s comment.

“Doesn’t sound very probable,” Pitt said slowly. “But it’s better than anything else we’ve got so far. Pity we didn’t know Weems-only got other people’s ideas of him to know whether he was as complacent as that, or sure of having the whip hand.”

“From what I ’ear, ’E was,” Innes said with disgust. “ ’Ad a lot o’ power ’round ’ere-and liked the taste of it.”

Pitt pushed his hands into his pockets.

“Who did you get that from?” Pitt asked, realizing how little he had pressed Innes for the sources of his knowledge about the dead man. Perhaps he had been remiss. It was just conceivable the murder had been personal after all, and nothing to do with debt or blackmail, although it was so remote a possibility he did not believe it for a moment.

“We ’ad the errand chappie, Windy Miller, in again,” Innes replied, still holding the sheet of paper in his hand. “Nasty little beggar, but ’E certainly knew Weems pretty well. Got ’im summed up ter rights. Read ’im like a book, an’ ’ated ’im according.” Innes pushed out his lip. “Thought we might ’ave ’ad summink there, but ’e’s got twenty witnesses’ll swear ’E was in the Dog an’ Duck ’alf the night playin’ dominoes, and drunk under the table the other ’alf. Besides, ’E ’ad a good job wi’ Weems, and not like ter get another easy.”

Pitt sat down on the edge of the table.

“And he couldn’t tell you anything useful? Didn’t Weems have any female attachments, even just…” He hesitated, not sure how to phrase what he meant.

“No,” Innes answered for him with a wry grin. “Seems ’E ’adn’t no use fer women. Nor nobody else,” he added hastily. “Some people’s like that-not many, mind, but Weems were one of ’em. Liked money, an’ the power it give ’im. Windy said ’e’d always bin like that. ’is pa were a gambler, rich one day and dirt poor the next. died in debtors’ prison somewhere. Never knew ’is ma.”

“What did the housekeeper say about him?”

“Nothin’ much,” Innes said with a shrug. “Nasty piece o’ woik.”

“Mrs. Cairns?”

“No-although she’s no jewel, but I meant Weems. Watched every farthing, she says, wouldn’t give nobody an inch. She didn’t say it in them words, but I gather as ’E ’ad no sense o’ ’umor neither. Liked ’is food and spent money on it, but that’s about all. Oh-’E liked ter be warm. Didn’t mind spendin’ money on keepin’ the fire in ’is own room. Rest o’ the ’ouse was like an icebox in winter, she said, but always a good fire in ’is office.”

“Anyone have a good word for him?” Pitt said dryly.

“Tradesmen,” Innes replied with a meaningful look. “ ’E paid ’is bills in time, and to the penny.”

“Bravo.” Pitt was sarcastic. “No one else?”

“Not a soul.”

Pitt looked around the room. “So what happened to this blunderbuss? I suppose the murderer took it away with him. It certainly wasn’t here when you found Weems.”

“I’m sure o’ that,” Innes said decisively.

“You’d better start a search specifically for a blunderbuss,” Pitt instructed. “But don’t waste much time on it. It could be anywhere, and it wouldn’t give us much idea who used it, even if we did by some miracle come up with it. I’ve got some other ideas to follow up-and some more people on his list.”

“Nobs?”

“Yes. So far we’ve got two who could have done it, and certainly had cause, and so far as I can see, opportunity. And now it seems pretty well anyone who came that night had the means, since it was sitting here in the office.”

“Nasty one, sir,” Innes agreed.

“Yes.” Pitt knew that Innes hoped it was a “nob,” not one of his own people, some Clerkenwell debtor pressed beyond his bearing. Pitt was inclined to agree, except he did not wish it to be Carswell. He could imagine his desperation vividly; it made him real, and painfully immediate. But why on earth had Carswell dismissed the case of Horatio Osmar without even hearing Beulah Giles’s evidence? It made no sense.

And it would be almost worse if it were Urban. He could imagine the scandal, and the injury to the already unpopular police force, still suffering from the ignominy of not having caught the Whitechapel murderer known as Jack the Ripper only last autumn. He must find the last name-Clarence Latimer. It was his only escape from tragedy.

Or was it Byam after all? That thought was no better. And Drummond would take it very hard.

And that was another problem that needed to be faced. Why had Micah Drummond interfered in the case at all? Why had he been so quick to defend Byam?

Innes was busy tidying up, closing drawers to leave the place as they found it.

Pitt would have staked his career that Drummond was utterly honest and would not have altered the course of an investigation on a friend’s behalf, however close. And it had not seemed that Byam was more than an acquaintance anyway.

There was no point in asking him, trying to press. His attitude had already made it plain he did not feel free to discuss it. It must be some debt of honor; that was all that would hold a man like Drummond so obviously against his wishes. He was suffering-Pitt had known that from the beginning. He hated doing it, and yet he felt unavoidably compelled.

Why? For what?

“I’m going back to Bow Street,” Pitt said aloud. “I’ve got to look into the other people on the list. Do what you can about the blunderbuss, and anything else you can think of. Have you found all the debtors on the first list?”

“Almost sir. Poor bastards!”

“Then you’d better finish it. Sorry.”

“Yes sir.” Innes smiled lopsidedly. “Not that it’s any worse than what you’ve got ter do.”

Pitt looked at him with a sudden warmth.

“No,” he agreed. “No it isn’t.”

But when he arrived at Bow Street the immediate problem of asking Urban about Weems was temporarily put out of his mind by the news given him by the desk sergeant.

“No sir, I think Mr. Urban is busy with the solicitors, Mr. Pitt. Can’t interrupt ’im now.”

“Solicitors?” Pitt was taken aback. Knowing his own errand, views of prosecution flashed into his mind and he felt a chill of both apprehension and pity.

“Yes sir.” The desk sergeant’s pink face was full of confusion. “ ’E’s got a very important gennelman in there now.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “From Parkins, Parkins and Gorman.”

Pitt had heard the name and knew it to be one of the foremost firms of solicitors in London. They were certainly not the people an ordinary man would employ to organize a defense, it would be completely beyond his means. Pitt’s mind raced, trying to think of any reason for Urban’s seeking legal advice of such an order, before any investigation had begun, let alone charges brought.

“Do you know why?” he asked the desk sergeant, then immediately wished he had not.

The sergeant looked embarrassed.

“No sir. I ’eard tell as it were to do with perjury, and summink about someone in this station ’avin’ lied. I know Mr. Urban were very angry.”

Pitt turned towards the corridor that led to Urban’s office.

“You can’t go in there, sir!” the sergeant said hastily, moving from one foot to the other, not sure how he was going to stop Pitt, who was both senior to him and larger.

Pitt smiled sourly and sighed. “Let me know when Mr. Urban is free, will you? I need to see him, to do with an investigation.”

“Yessir.”

Pitt turned away and was about to leave, frustrated because he wanted to get the matter over with, when a slim dapper man in pin-striped trousers and a frock coat came out of the corridor. He nodded briefly to the desk sergeant, who leaped to attention, then with a flicker of irritation relaxed again. The man went out of the door into the street without looking behind him.

“You can go in and see Mr. Urban now, Mr. Pitt, sir,” the sergeant said quickly.

“Thank you,” Pitt acknowledged and moved smartly to Urban’s office door. He knocked and as soon as he heard the least sound inside, pushed it open and went in. The room was very like his own, similarly furnished but much tidier.

Urban was standing by his window with his back to the door, his hands in his pockets and his feet apart. He was a tall man, slender and fair haired and dressed in the police uniform of a senior inspector. He turned slowly as he heard the latch on the door.

“Hello, Pitt.” His voice was light and pleasing with a slight south country accent. “What are you doing here? Can we help with something?”

Pitt was surprised that Urban knew him so quickly. He would not have recognized Urban had he walked into Pitt’s office unannounced. He looked at Urban’s face for anxiety, even fear, and saw only a slowly clearing anger, now being overtaken by curiosity.

“No,” he said uncertainly. “I don’t think so.” Then realizing that that made no sense he hurried on. “Am I interrupting you?”

Urban laughed abruptly. “The solicitor? No. He’s gone. This is as good a time as any. What is it?”

There was no alternative but to go ahead with what he had planned to say before the desk sergeant had told him about the solicitor being there.

“Do you know William Weems, of Cyrus Street, Clerkenwell?”

“The usurer that was murdered?” Urban’s fair eyebrows rose. Obviously the question was one that he had not expected, but it seemed to cause him no alarm. “No. Know of him of course. Caused something of a stir, his death. Releases a lot of debts, it would seem. No heir so far. Why?”

Urban was not the sort of man upon whom to try trickery, and Pitt found himself oddly ashamed that he had thought of it.

“He had two lists of debtors,” he replied. “One the usual you would expect, ordinary people in financial difficulties. The second was very much smaller, only three names were indicated as still being in debt.” He watched Urban’s face and saw nothing in it but mild interest. There was no start of surprise, no anxiety, only the still-clinging remnants of anger.

“Oh? Someone I know, I presume, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Pitt bit his lip. “Yes-your own name is there.”

Urban was obviously astounded. He stared in complete disbelief. His wide blue eyes searched Pitt’s face as if he expected to find some horrid joke. Then gradually he grasped that Pitt was serious and the statement required a response.

“I don’t owe him any money,” he said slowly. “Or anyone else.” Then there was a flicker, a shadow in his clear eyes, and Pitt knew he was suddenly less than honest, in thought if not in word. A chill touched him inside. He tried to keep the knowledge of it from his expression.

“But you have encountered him?” he said with conviction.

“I’ve never met him,” Urban denied. He had chosen his words carefully, but his face was open and he met Pitt’s gaze easily. “Cyrus Street is out of my area-yours too, for that matter.” His eyebrows rose. “Why are you concerned anyway?”

Pitt told all the truth that he could. “Because of the people who may be involved.”

“Not on my account. Who else is on the list?” Urban asked, pointing to the chair near Pitt, and sitting down in his own chair behind the desk.

Pitt smiled ruefully. “Confidential,” he apologized.

“But important people,” Urban pressed. “Weems was killed several days ago now. I’m not the first you’ve come to see-and you’ve been handling the political cases this last year or so. There’s someone of considerable influence involved in this.” He was watching Pitt’s face and he knew he was right. It was beyond Pitt’s ability, or his desire, to conceal it.

“It was a large amount of money,” Pitt said instead.

“What? That Weems has me down for?” Urban looked puzzled. “But it’s irrelevant-I didn’t owe him anything. I never had anything to do with him.” He took in a breath as if to add something, then changed his mind.

“Why was the solicitor here?” Pitt asked abruptly.

“What?” Urban’s mouth tightened in irritation again. “Oh-that damned Osmar!” He shook his head. “They not only threw the case out of the magistrate’s court, you know, now the wretched man is charging that Crombie and Allardyce committed perjury in saying he behaved indecently in the park, and he wants them prosecuted for it. Can you credit it? I had the best solicitor I could find to see if we can reopen the case and try him again.”

“Osmar?”

“Yes. Why not? Parkins thinks there’s a good chance.”

Pitt smiled. “Good. At least save Crombie and Allardyce from charges.”

“I intend to. And I’d like to know why the magistrate threw it out.” This time it was Urban who saw the momentary evasion in Pitt’s eyes. He hesitated on the edge of asking him, then some professional instinct asserted itself and he remained silent.

“You have no idea why?” Pitt asked.

“None at all,” Urban replied, and Pitt knew he was lying.

“Thank you for your time,” he said. “I’ll have to go back to the list and see what else I can find.”

“Sorry I can’t help you,” Urban apologized again, and smiled courteously as Pitt took his leave.

Investigating Urban proved to be both as difficult and as distasteful as Pitt had expected. He began by going to Urban’s home. This time he took the public omnibus, as the route took him to within five hundred yards of the street, and he was in no particular hurry. Indeed the hot, noisy ride on the bus, sitting squashed between a thin woman in blue with a cold in her head and a large man smelling of beer, gave him an opportunity to let his thoughts roam. Not that it accomplished anything. He had liked Urban and the thought of prying into his private life was increasingly unpleasant. And because he was intelligent and forewarned, this would prove very difficult to accomplish without his becoming aware of it.

By asking him openly about Weems he had forewarned him that Pitt knew he was connected with the case. He was still feeling angry and miserable about Charlotte, furious with her for behaving as if she were a lady with leisure and money to do as she pleased, and for not making better use of her time than entertaining herself. And he was miserable because that was what she had been born to expect, and she was so easily and naturally enjoying the chance that Emily had given her and Pitt never could. And it hurt that she should still find these things so important. He had enjoyed the spectacle of the occasion himself. People had always interested him, people of every sort, and he had been enthralled watching the faces, and observing the ritual games they played with one another, and the passions behind the masks.

But this investigation he was carrying out alone. For once Charlotte knew almost nothing about it, and her concern was not engaged. It was a curiously lonely thing and he missed her sharing it, even if she did not know the people and could contribute nothing but her interest.

What should he learn about Urban? His reputation among his fellows? His home, his life, the money he spent? His professional integrity? He was lying about something, even if only by omission. Could he possibly know why Addison Carswell had dismissed the case against Osmar? Carswell’s name was on Weems’s list as well-but what had Osmar to do with it? And if it was blackmail, why was Byam’s name not there?

He got off the omnibus and walked the last distance along the narrow pavement in the heat, passing women with children, old men gossiping, a tradesman sweeping his shop’s front step, a rag and bone man shouting in a singsong voice, and a housemaid in a crisp cap arguing with a butcher’s boy standing in the areaway wiping his hands on his blue-and-white apron. It was not far from where he lived himself, and not unlike his street. He pushed the thought of Charlotte out of his mind; that was another hurt, for another time.

Urban’s house was quite small and ordinary from the outside, exactly like its neighbors. The front step was scrubbed clean, the door recently painted, the garden was small and neat with a few roses around and a pocket handkerchief lawn. He had already debated with himself what he was going to say. There was little point in duplicity. It would be too easily discovered, and then would create an ill feeling that would be hard, if not impossible, to repair. And if Urban was innocent, that would be an impediment to future work.

The door was opened by a small woman in a gray stuff dress and a plain white apron. Her thick reddish hair was tied back in a knot and there was a white cap balanced precariously, and crookedly, on top of her head. She reminded him of the woman who came to do the heavy scrubbing for Charlotte, and whom Gracie bossed around mercilessly, now that she considered herself a senior servant.

“Yes?” the woman said impatiently. Obviously he had interrupted her in her work and she did not appreciate it.

“Good morning,” he said quickly. “I am conducting a police investigation and I need to examine some papers of Inspector Urban’s. My name is Pitt. May I come in?”

She looked doubtful. “ ’Ow do I know you’re tellin’ me the truth? You could be anyone.”

“I could,” he agreed, and produced his police identification.

She looked at the card carefully. Her eyes did not move along the line, and Pitt guessed she could not read. She looked up at him again, studying his face, and he waited for her to make her judgment.

“All right,” she said at last. “If it’s police yer’d better come in. But ’E in’t done nuffink wrong.”

“It’s information I need,” he said, somewhat begging the question, and followed her into the narrow hallway where she opened one of the doors into the front parlor. “That’s where ’E keeps ’is papers,” she said stiffly. “Anyfink yer wantin’ll be in there. If it in’t, then it in’t ’ere at all.” It was a definite statement he was not going to be allowed anywhere else.

“Thank you,” he accepted. She remained standing rooted to the spot, her eyes hard and bright. Obviously she was not going to leave him alone, policeman or not. He smiled to himself, then began to look around. It was not a large room, and the space was further crowded by at least a dozen paintings on the walls. They were not at all what he would have expected, family portraits, sentimental pastoral scenes or sporting prints. Rather they were very modern impressions of sunlit landscapes: bars of light, blurs of water lilies all blues and greens with flashes of pink; a dazzle of shades and points of vivid color which conjured peasant women lying under the trees by the side of a cornfield. They were highly individual experiments in art, the selection of a man who had very definite opinions and was prepared to spend a good deal of money investing in what he believed to be good. There was no need to look any further for the part of Urban’s lifestyle that would run him into debt. It was here on his walls for any caller to observe.

He stayed a few minutes longer, examining the pictures more closely, seeing the brushwork, the imagination and the skill that had gone into them. Then he went over to the desk and opened it in order to satisfy the waiting housekeeper that he was indeed looking for information of a sort she could understand. He shuffled through a couple of papers, read one, and closed the drawer. Then he swung around to face her. She looked faintly surprised that he should be finished so soon.

“You all done then?” she said with a frown.

“Yes thank you. It was only a small thing, and easily found.”

“Oh-well then you’d best be gone. I got work to do. Mr. Urban’s not the only gennelman as I see after. Mind my step as you go out. Don’t go dragging your feet over it. I just done that, I did.”

Pitt stepped over it carefully and went on down the path and out of the gate. The beauty of the pictures, the courage to back such individual and daring taste should have pleased him. Ordinarily it would have; but this time, knowing Urban’s salary, and that he was lying over something, he found it deeply depressing. Was Urban so wooed by loveliness, so caught by the collector’s fever, that he had borrowed from Weems, and then realized he could never hope to repay? Or was there something even uglier: had he obtained the money in some other way, dishonest, even corrupt, and Weems had learned of it and blackmailed him?

Pitt lengthened his stride along the hot, dusty street, passing an errand boy whistling between his teeth, swinging a bag, then two old women standing in the middle of the footpath, heads together, gossiping. At the end of the street he came into the main thoroughfare and stood waiting for the omnibus, his mind moving from one unhappy thought to another.

He knew what he must do next, and he chose a series of omnibuses because he was in no hurry to get there. Before coming to Bow Street, Urban had worked in Rotherhithe, south of the river. Now Pitt must go to his old station and ask his colleagues about him, what manner of man he was, and try to read between the loyalty of their answers the truth of what they knew, or suspected. He would have to look through his previous cases, such as were distinctly his. It was not so clear-cut with uniformed men. And lastly he would have to find the people on the edge of the criminal underworld who had most dealings with the police and ask them, learn what Urban’s reputation had been, see if he could find there the ends of the threads which would lead him to the money that had bought those wild and lovely pictures.

He stopped and had a brief luncheon at a public house, but his thoughts were too much engrossed in Urban to enjoy it. By two o’clock he was in the Rotherhithe police station, explaining his inquiries to the superintendent, a large man with a lugubrious smile and a hot untidy office full of piles of paper. In a patch of sun on the floor a small ginger-and-white kitten lay stretched out asleep on a cushion, every now and then its body twitching in some ecstatic dream.

The superintendent’s eyes followed Pitt’s.

“Found ’im in the alley,” he said with a smile. “Poor little beggar was starvin’ an’ sickly. Don’t think ’e’d ’ave lasted more’n another day or two. ’ad ter take ’im in. Need a mouser anyway. Can’t ’ave the station overrun wi’ the little beggars. ’e’ll be good fer that when ’e’s a bit bigger. Thinks about it already, by the looks of ’im.”

The kitten gave another twitch and made a little sound in its sleep.

“What can I do for yer?” the superintendent said in a businesslike manner, pushing a pile of papers off a chair to make a place for Pitt to sit down. The cushion remained for the kitten. Pitt had no objection.

“Samuel Urban,” Pitt replied, looking at the little animal.

“Engagin’ little beggar, in’t ’e?” the superintendent said mildly.

“What did you think of him?”

“Sam Urban? Liked ’im. Good policeman.” His face puckered with anxiety. “Not in trouble, is ’e?”

“Don’t know,” Pitt admitted, looking at the kitten stretching out and curling its claws into the cushion, pulling the threads.

“Hector!” the superintendent said amiably. “Don’t do that.” The kitten disregarded him totally and kept on kneading the cushion. “Taken from ’is mother too early, poor little devil,” the superintendent continued. “Suckles on my shirts till I’m wet through. What’s ’E supposed to ’ave done, Urban, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“Borrowed money from a usurer, maybe,” Pitt replied.

The superintendent pushed out his lip. “Not like ’im,” he said thoughtfully. “Always careful with ’is money, that I know of. Never threw it around. In fact I sometimes wondered what ’E did wif it. Never drank nor spent it on women, like some. Didn’t gamble, so far as I ’eard. What’s ’E got in debt for? Inherited an ’Ouse from ’is uncle, so it in’t that. In fact that’s why ’E moved to Bow Street-’ouse is in Bloomsbury. Are you sure about this debt?”

“No,” Pitt admitted. “His name was on the usurer’s books for a very considerable sum. Urban denies it.”

“I don’t like the way you say ‘was.’ You mean the usurer is dead?”

“Yes.” There was no use trying to deceive the big, good-natured man. He might take in stray kittens, but he was far from naive when it came to judging men. Pitt had seen the clear, clever eyes under the lazy stare.

“Murdered?”

“Yes. I’m following up all the debtors-or those that the lists say are debtors. So far all of them on the first list admit to owing very small amounts. Those on the second list deny it. But he was known to be a blackmailer…” He left the question open, an unfinished sentence.

“And you think he may have been blackmailing Urban?”

“I don’t know-but I need to.”

The kitten stretched, rolled over and curled up in a ball, purring gently.

“Can’t ’elp you,” the superintendent said with a little shake of his head. “ ’E weren’t always a popular man. Too free with ’is opinions, even when they wasn’t asked for, an’ got some airy-fairy tastes what in’t always appreciated by all. But that’s by the way. It’s no crime.”

“May I see the records of his main cases, and speak to a few of his colleagues?”

“O’ course. But I know what goes on in my station. You won’t find anything.”

And so it proved. Pitt spoke to several of the men who had worked with Urban in the six years he had been in Rotherhithe, and found a variety of opinions from affection to outright dislike, but none of them saw in him either dishonesty or any failure of prosecution that was not easily accounted for by the circumstances. Some considered him arrogant and were not afraid to say so, but gave not the slightest indication they thought him corrupt.

Pitt left in the warm, still early evening and came back over the river north again on the long journey home. He felt tired and discouraged, and underneath was a growing unease. The Rotherhithe station had offered nothing about Urban that suggested he was dishonest. Everything Pitt learned created the outline of a diligent, ambitious, somewhat eccentric man respected by his colleagues but not often liked, a man whom no one knew closely, and whom a few conservative, small-visioned men were tacitly pleased to see apparently in trouble.

And Pitt was sure in his own mind that Urban was concealing something to do with Weems’s death, and it was something Pitt had said which had made the connection in his mind. But was it the questions about Weems and his debtors, or could it be as it appeared, the extraordinary case of Horatio Osmar and his unaccountable release by Carswell?

He was obliged to travel on several omnibuses, changing at intervals as each one turned from his route back to Bloomsbury. At one change he saw a tired, grubby-faced little girl selling violets, and on impulse he stopped and bought four bunches, dark purple, nestling in their leaves, damp and sweet smelling.

He strode along his own street rapidly, but with an unfamiliar mixture of emotions. It was habit steeped in years that his home was the sweetest place he knew. All warmth and certainty was there, love that did not depend upon gifts or obedience, did not matter whether he was clever, amusing or elegant. It was the place where he gave the best of himself, and yet was not afraid he would be rejected for the worst; where he strove to be wise, to blend honesty with kindness, to make patience natural, to protect without domineering.

Nothing had changed in the deep core of it, but perhaps his perception had deluded him into believing Charlotte was happier than was true. Some of the bright peace of it was dulled.

He opened the door and as soon as he was inside took off his boots and hung up his jacket on the coat hook. Then he went with a nervousness that startled him, stocking footed, along to the kitchen.

It was bright and sweet smelling as always, clean linen on the airing rack suspended from the ceiling, wooden table scrubbed bone pale, blue-and-white china on the dresser and the faint aroma of fresh bread in the air. Jemima was sitting at the table solemnly buttering bread for Daniel. He was watching her and holding on to the jar of raspberry jam, prepared to give it to her only when she had met his exacting standards and there was butter right to every corner.

Charlotte was dressed in floral muslin with a long lace-edged apron on, her sleeves rolled up and her hands in the sink preparing fresh vegetables. There was a pile of shelled peas in a dish on the table near Jemima, and a little heap of empty pods on a newspaper ready to be thrown out.

Charlotte smiled at him, took out the last of the carrots and dried her hands.

“Hello Papa,” Jemima said cheerfully without stopping her task.

“Hello Papa,” Daniel echoed, still holding on to the jam jar.

Pitt touched them both gently but his eyes never left Charlotte. He held up the violets.

“They’re not an apology,” he said guardedly.

She looked totally innocent, mystified. “For what?” she asked with wide eyes, then betrayed herself by a quiver of laughter at the corners of her mouth. She buried her nose in their damp fragrance and breathed in with a sigh. “Thank you. They smell wonderful.”

He passed her the small blue-and-white cup she usually put short-stemmed flowers in.

“Thank you,” she repeated, and filled the cup with water, all the time meeting his eyes. She put the cup in the middle of the table and Jemima immediately smelled the flowers too, holding them up to her nose and breathing in, eyes closed, with exactly the same expression.

“Let me!” Daniel reached for it and reluctantly she passed it over. He breathed in, then breathed in again, not sure what he was doing it for. Then he set the cup down, satisfied, and took up the jam jar again, and Jemima resumed her buttering.

Supper was conducted with the greatest good manners, but not with heads bent and eyes downcast as the previous evening, and intense concentration on the most trivial occupations as if it mattered enormously that every last pea should be chased into a corner and speared with the fork, every crumb of bread picked up. Now the food was barely glanced at. It could have been anything, and all the care that went into preparing it was wasted, but their eyes met and though nothing was said, everything was understood.

Pitt continued to investigate Urban without success for another two days, going through the cases on which he had worked in Bow Street and finding nothing untoward, no pattern that spoke of anything other than hard work and intelligence, sometimes intuition beyond the normal skills, but no questionable judgments, no hint of dishonesty. He kept his private life very much to himself, he mixed little with his colleagues, which earned him their respect but not their affection. No one knew what he did with his spare time and amiable inquiries had met with equally amiable rebuffs.

Finally Pitt decided to confront Urban with the frank question as to where he was on the night of Weems’s death. That at least would give him the opportunity to prove himself elsewhere, and make further pursuit unnecessary, at least as far as the murder was concerned. There was still the question of debt, and in Pitt’s own mind, the conviction that Urban was lying about something.

He arrived at Bow Street station later in the morning than usual to find an atmosphere of uncharacteristic tension. The desk sergeant looked harassed, his face was pink and he kept moving papers from one place to another without adding anything to them, or apparently reading them. His top tunic button was undone but still he looked as if the neck were too tight. Two constables glanced at each other nervously and shifted from one foot to another, until the sergeant barked at them to get out and find something to do. An errand boy came in with a newspaper and as soon as he was paid, fled out past Pitt, bumping into him and forgetting to apologize.

“What is it?” Pitt said curiously. “What’s happened?”

“Questions in the ’Ouse,” the desk sergeant replied with a tight lip. “ ’E’s ’oppin’ mad.”

“Who’s hopping mad?” Pitt asked, still with more curiosity than apprehension. “What’s happened, Dilkes?”

“Mr. Urban called the solicitors to bring up the case against Mr. Osmar again, and ’E got wind of it and complained to ’is friends in the ’Ouse o’ Commons.” Awe mixed with disgust in his face. “Now they’re askin’ questions about it, and some of ’em is sayin’ as Crombie and Allardyce lied ’emselves sick in court, an’ the police is corrupt.” He shook his head and his voice became anxious. “There’s some awful things being said, Mr. Pitt. There’s enough folk undecided as to if we’re a good thing or not as it is. an’ then all that bad business in Whitechapel last autumn, an’ we never got the madman what done it, an’ folks sayin’ as if we were any good we’d ’ave got ’im. an’ all the trouble over the commissioner too. an’ now this. We don’t need trouble like this, Mr. Pitt.” He screwed up his face. “What I don’t understand is how it all came up over summat so, beggin’ yer pardon, damn silly.”

“Neither do I,” Pitt agreed.

“So ’E was ’avin’ a bit o’ ’anky-panky in the park. ’E should ’a known better than to do it in public, like. But ’e’s a gennelman, and gennelmen is like that. Who cares, if ’e’d just said yes, ’E was a bit naughty, sorry, an’ it won’t ’appen again, me lud. Only now we got questions asked in the ’ouses o’ Parliament, an’ next thing the ’ome secretary ’isself will want ter know wot we bin doing.”

“I don’t understand it myself,” Pitt agreed. But he was thinking more of Addison Carswell, and becoming uncomfortably aware of the general feeling against the police, especially as the desk sergeant had said, since the riots in Trafalgar Square known as Bloody Sunday, and then last autumn the failure to catch the Whitechapel murderer, followed almost immediately by the hasty resignation of the commissioner of police after a very short term of office and amid some unpleasantness. The thought kept intruding into his mind that Carswell and Urban were both on Weems’s list for very good reasons, which only too probably spoke of blackmail. And he still had to find Latimer, the third name.

“Is Mr. Urban in?” he asked aloud.

“Yessir, but-”

Before the desk sergeant could add his caveat, Pitt thanked him and strode along the passage to Urban’s door and knocked.

“Come!” Urban said absently.

Pitt went in and found him sitting behind his desk staring at the polished and empty surface. He was surprised to see Pitt.

“Hello. Got your murderer yet?”

“No,” Pitt said, disconcerted that with his very first words Urban had made it impossible for him to be subtle or indirect. “No I haven’t.”

“Well what can I do for you?” Urban’s face was totally innocent. He regarded Pitt out of clear blue eyes, waiting for an answer.

Pitt had no alternative but to be completely frank, or else retreat altogether, and the whole exercise would become pointless if he were to do that.

“Where were you on Tuesday two weeks ago?” he asked. “Late evening.”

“Me?” If Urban were feigning amazement he was doing it supremely well. “You think I killed your usurer?”

Pitt sat down in the chair. “No,” he said honestly. “But your name was on his list, and the only way I can eliminate you is by your proving you were somewhere else.”

Urban smiled. It was charming and candid and there was a flicker of humor in the depths of his eyes.

“I can’t tell you,” he said quietly. “Or to be more accurate, I don’t wish to. But I was not in Cyrus Street, and I did not kill your usurer-or anyone else.”

Pitt smiled back.

“I’m afraid your word is not proof.”

“No, I know it isn’t. But I’m sorry, that’s all you’re getting. I assume you’ve tried the other people on this list? How many are there?”

“Three-and I’ve one man left.”

“Who were the other two?”

Pitt thought for a moment, turning over the possibilities in his mind. Why did Urban want to know? Was he being helpful, seeking some common denominator, or an excuse, someone else to lay the blame on? Urban had to know that he would rather be suspected than admit to it.

“I prefer to keep that confidential for a little longer,” Pitt replied, equally calmly and with the same frank smile.

“Was Addison Carswell one of them?” Urban asked, and then his wide mouth curled in a faint touch of humor when he saw Pitt’s face, the start of surprise before he formed a denial.

“Yes,” Pitt conceded. There was no point in pretending any more. Urban had seen it in his eyes and a lie would not be believed.

“Mm,” Urban grunted thoughtfully. He seemed not to find it necessary to ask who the third was, and that in itself had meaning. “You know that damned Osmar has put his friends up to raising questions in the House?” he said with anger and incredulity in his voice.

“Yes, Dilkes told me. What are you going to do?”

“Me?” Urban leaned back in his chair. “Carry on with the prosecution, of course. The law for ex-government ministers is the same as for anyone else. You don’t play silly beggars on the seats of public parks. If you must make an ass of yourself with a young woman, you do it in private where you don’t offend old ladies and frighten the horses.”

Pitt’s smile widened.

“Good luck,” he said dryly, and excused himself. He wondered how Urban knew the first name on Weems’s list had been Addison Carswell. From what reasoning did he deduce that?

He could not possibly follow Urban himself; they knew each other far too well by sight. Reluctantly he would have to hand it over to Innes.

He went home earlier than usual. There was not much more he could do unless he began to investigate Latimer, and that could wait until tomorrow. He felt no guilt at putting off what would almost certainly be another extremely distasteful task, and after his discoveries about Carswell and Urban, he dreaded what he would find.

The following day Pitt took over Innes’s duties pursuing the investigations of the people on Weems’s first list, the long catechism of misery, ill education, illiteracy, humble employment, sickness, debt, drunkenness and violence, more debt, falling out of work, small loans, larger loans, and finally despair. Innes had already found all of them and questioned them. Most of them had been where they could easily be vouched for: in public houses, brawling in the streets or alleys, some even in police charge. The more respectable-men quietly despairing-had been at home sitting silent and hungry, worrying about the next day’s food, the next week’s rent, and what their neighbors would think, what else there was left to pawn.

It was bitterly miserable and all the pity in the world would change none of it. He was pleased to get home again in the heavy, sultry evening and find Charlotte had been visited by Emily and was full of colorful and superficial gossip.

“Yes, tell me,” he urged when she brushed it all aside and dismissed it as too trivial to bother him with. “I should like to hear.”

“Thomas.” She looked at him with wide, laughing eyes. “Don’t be so terribly agreeable. It’s unnatural and it makes me feel nervous, as if we were not quite at ease with each other.”

He laughed and leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the small stuffed pouffe, something which he did regularly, and which always annoyed her because his heels scuffed it.

“I would love to hear something totally inconsequential,” he said honestly. “About people who are always well fed, well clothed, and have nothing more serious to worry about than what he said to her, and she said to him, and what someone else wore and whether it was fashionable or not, and if the shade became them.”

Perhaps she understood. For a moment there was a softness in her face, then she grinned and settled herself back, arranging her skirts to be comfortable.

“Emily was telling me about some of the latest debutantes being presented to the Queen, or perhaps it was the Princess of Wales,” she began in rather the same voice she used when telling Jemima or Daniel a particularly good story. “Apparently it is a fearful crush, and after hours and hours of standing around waiting, one finally gets to the royal presence. One is so busy keeping one’s headdress straight-all those feathers, you know-and not falling over one’s skirt, or seeming too bold with raised eyes, that one does not even see the Queen.” She tucked her feet up beside her. “Only a small, fat hand which one kisses. It could have belonged to anyone-the cook, for all we know. It isn’t the doing of it at all, it is the having done it, which matters.”

“I thought that was the case with most of society’s events,” he said, recrossing his legs.

“Oh no. The opera, as you know, is beautiful, the Henley regatta is fun-so I am told-and Emily says that Ascot is terrific. The fashions are simply marvelous-and it is always wonderfully full of gossip. It matters so much who is seen with whom.”

“What about the horses?”

She looked up, surprised. “Oh I’ve no idea about them. But Emily did tell me that Mr. Fitzherbert was there, with Miss Morden, of course. And they met up with Miss Hilliard and her brother again.”

Pitt frowned. “Fanny Hilliard?”

“Yes-you remember! Very pretty girl, about twenty-four or twenty-five I should say. You must remember,” she said impatiently. “She spoke to us at the opera, and then again at the supper table afterwards. Fitzherbert seemed rather taken with her!”

“Yes,” he said slowly. A picture of Fanny in the coffee shop took shape in his mind, her eager face soft and full of affection as she took the hat and the parasol from Carswell.

“Well,” Charlotte went on quickly, “she seems to be equally attracted to him.” There was a mixture of pleasure and a sharp, sensitive regret in her face. One moment her words were rapid as if the excitement of love were echoed in her with pleasure, and the next it disappeared as she understood the cold shock of loss. “Of course he is betrothed to Odelia Morden, and I had thought they looked so set together, in such a comfortable relationship that nothing could intrude into it, or at least not seriously.”

He looked at her face, the slight puckering of her brow and the gravity in her eyes. He knew it disturbed her, but not whether it was for the people concerned, or just the reminder of the frailty of happiness, how easily what you assumed safe can slip from your grasp.

“Are you sure it is not just a handsome man who cannot resist a flirtation?” he asked.

She thought for a moment, considering it.

“No,” she said at last. “No, I don’t think so. One…” She sought very carefully for the exact meaning she wanted. “One can tell the difference between fun and a feeling that threatens to hurt because it is not just”-she hunched her shoulders and slid a trifle further down in the sofa-“not just laughter and a little entertainment that one can forget when it is past, and go back to everything else and it will all be just the same. I don’t think Fitz can go back and feel exactly as he used to about Odelia.”

“Are you being romantic?” Pitt asked without criticism. “Is Fitzherbert a man to fall in love beyond what is pleasant and will serve his ends? After all, he has to many someone if he is to succeed in his career. He hasn’t the political brilliance to climb very far if he lacks the social requirements.”

“I’m not saying he will forgo marrying Odelia,” she denied. “Simply that there is something there which will not leave him without scars when he and Fanny separate and go their different ways. And Odelia won’t forget. I’ve seen it in her face.”

He smiled and said nothing, but it did cross his mind to wonder what Emily thought of it, and indeed if she had had any hand in it. If Fitzherbert jilted his fiancée it would affect Jack not at all unfavorably. He forbore from saying it.

Charlotte took a deep breath.

“And Jack has struck up quite a friendship with Lord Anstiss,” she continued. “He is a most remarkable man, you know.” She recalled his comments about her social ambitions with a tolerant irony. It was no more than she expected. “I don’t think I have listened to anyone more interesting in such a wide variety of subjects. He has so many tales about people, and he recounts them with such a dry, clever wit. And Emily says nothing seems to bore him. Sometimes one might forget how important he is, until one looks at his face for a moment in repose. There is a great deal of power in him, you know.”

He listened in silence, watching her face, the animation, the play of light and shadow over her features and the intense vividness of her interest.

“He was telling Emily about the pre-Raphaelites and the beautiful pictures they have painted creating a whole new idealism, and about William Morris and his furniture. She said he was so interesting he made it all seem urgent and important, not just a collection of facts. And also she met that odd young man, Peter Valerius, who is so consumed with interest in international finance in Africa-of all the tedious subjects so utterly the opposite of Lord Anstiss who is absolutely never a bore.”

She continued about other people Emily had told her of, what they wore and to whom they spoke, but he did not listen with any great attention. Rather he allowed it to wash over him in a pleasant blur of sound. He was far more pleased just to see her face full of life and know that she was telling him not because it was important to her either, but because she was sharing it with him and that mattered intensely.

It was only another day before Innes reported on the unenviable task of following Urban. As a precaution he did not come to Bow Street, but sent a message that he had turned up something which he felt Pitt ought to know.

Accordingly Pitt left Bow Street, where he had been reporting to Drummond and sifting yet again through Urban’s records, and tracing the will of the uncle who had left him the house in Bloomsbury to see if there were also pictures in the legacy. If there were, or if there had been money, it would at least excuse Urban’s indulgence in such things. It took him some time to learn the uncle’s name and trace his will through probate. When he did he found it was quite simple. The house went to “my dear sister’s only son, Samuel Urban.” It included the contents thereof, which were duly listed. There were no modern pictures, indeed there were no pictures at all.

Pitt was immensely relieved to have an excuse to leave the task and at least for the length of the journey involve himself in some physical action, even if it was only a hansom ride to Clerkenwell. He felt the urgency of Innes’s message would allow that indulgence instead of the longer, more circuitous omnibus ride.

He was inside the hansom and bowling along High Holborn when he remembered that Innes had been following Urban, and his discovery was far more likely to concern him than one of the people on the first list. Those were being traced entirely from Clerkenwell, since they were almost all local inhabitants. Although even if Innes had found Weems’s murderer there and had him in custody with irrefutable evidence, that would give Pitt no pleasure. He dreaded seeing the defeat and the guilt in the face of whatever wretched person had finally turned out of his despair into violence, and precipitated himself into even deeper disaster. Cursing or silent, fighting or crushed, underneath it he would be deathly afraid, knowing Newgate and the hangman awaited him.

Pitt realized grimly that he did not really want to find out who had murdered William Weems. And yet the case could not go unresolved from choice. Murder in theory was always wrong, and society, if it was to survive, must find the offender and punish him. It was just that in practice so often it was immeasurably more complex, and the victim was sometimes as much of an offender, in more hidden ways. It was a complicated tragedy with intertwined offenses and sufferings; one could not simply punish one participant and call the matter justly settled.

He was lost in tangled thoughts and memories when the cabby drew up at the Clerkenwell station and announced his arrival.

Pitt climbed out, paid him, and went in to find Innes.

As soon as he saw Innes’s face he knew the news was disturbing. Innes’s thin features were twisted in unhappiness and there were dark circles under his eyes as if he had been up too long and slept badly.

“Mornin’, Mr. Pitt,” he said glumly, rising to his feet. “You’d better come out.” And without explaining himself any further he pushed past an overweight sergeant and a constable chewing on a peppermint stick, and led the way out again into the street.

Pitt followed close behind him and then fell into step on the pavement where there was room to walk side by side. He did not ask. The sun was bright again the morning after the previous night’s rain and everything looked cleaner and there was a crispness in the air.

“I followed ’im,” Innes said, looking down at the stones beneath his feet as if he must watch his step in case he tripped, although the way was perfectly smooth.

Pitt said nothing.

“If Weems were blackmailing ’im, I know what it were for,” Innes went on after another few yards. He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed hard. Still he did not look at Pitt. “ ’E spent the evenin’ at a music ’all in Stepney.”

“That’s not an offense,” Pitt said, knowing there must be more. An evening at a music hall was a perfectly acceptable type of relaxation for a busy man. There were tens of thousands in the city who spent their time so. His remark was pointless; it was only a rather futile way of putting off the moment when Innes would tell him the real discovery. He could almost hear the words before they were spoken. There would be a woman, pretty, probably buxom, perhaps a singer, no doubt wooed by many, and Urban, like countless men before him, had got into debt trying to outdo his rivals.

“Get on with it,” Pitt said abruptly, stepping off the pavement for a couple of yards to avoid a peddler.

“ ’E worked there,” Innes answered equally abruptly, catching up with him.

“What?” Pitt could scarcely believe him. “In the halls? Urban! I can’t see him as a turn on the boards. He’s too-too sober. He likes fine paintings-probably classical music, given the chance.”

“No sir-not on the stage. As a bouncer, throwin’ out them as gives trouble.”

“Urban!”

“Yessir.” Still Innes stared down at his pacing feet on the pavement, face straight ahead. “Quite good at it, ’E is. Big feller, and got the kind of air of authority as people don’t argue wiv. I saw ’im break up a nasty quarrel between a couple o’ gents what ’ad ’ad a bit too much, and ’E did it quick and quiet like, and only them closest ’ad any idea it’d been nasty.” He moved aside to allow a woman with three children in tow to pass. “Paid ’im quite nice fer it, the management,” he continued when she was gone. “ ’E could ’a saved quite a bit over the years if ’e’s bin doin’ it long. Wouldn’t ’a needed Weems’s money to do quite nice fer ’isself. But o’ course if Weems knew, ’e’d ’ave ’ad a nice ’old over ’im. Rozzers moonlighting. Thrown off the force. an’ I don’t suppose Mr. Urban wants to do bouncin’ for a livin’.”

“No,” Pitt said slowly. A small part of him was relieved because it was so much less pathetic than making a fool of himself over a woman he would never have married anyway. But it was far more serious. As Innes said, he would have been dismissed from the force. The mounting sense of relief was darkened over and with thoughts much uglier and more painful. If Weems knew of it, then it was motive for murder.

They walked side by side in silence for several more minutes, going nowhere, simply moving because it was easier, and stopping meant coming to some conclusion.

“You’ll take care of it, sir?” Innes said at last as they came to the crossroad with the main thoroughfare. They were obliged to wait several minutes for the traffic to ease.

“Yes,” Pitt answered, without any inner decision. Of course he must face Urban with it, but if in some way Urban could prove he had not killed Weems, if he had been in Stepney that night and had witnesses, then would Pitt still report his moonlighting? It was a decision he did not have to make today. If Urban was guilty of murder it would hardly matter.

Innes began across the road, dashing in and out of manure; there was no crossing sweeper. Pitt followed him, narrowly missed by a berline driven by a gentleman in a high temper.

“Mr. Pitt-” Innes began when they were over the street and on the far pavement.

“Yes?” Pitt knew he was going to ask if he had to report Urban.

“Ah-” Innes changed his mind. It was a question to which he did not really want to know the answer; he preferred to hope.

Pitt did not bother to pursue it. They both understood the justice, and the account.

Pitt found Urban in his office, and was angry because he liked the man, angry with the frailty that had made him sacrifice so much for a few pictures, no matter how lovely.

“What is it now?” Urban’s face was shadowed. He knew Pitt would not have returned yet again unless there was some unavoidable need, and perhaps he saw the emotions in Pitt’s all too readable face.

“Weems,” Pitt replied. “Still Weems. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where you were the night he died?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference,” Urban answered slowly. “I can’t prove it, and you can’t accept my word without proof. But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even know him.”

“If you were in Stepney you could prove it,” Pitt said quietly. “The management must keep records.”

Urban’s cheeks paled, but his eyes remained on Pitt’s face.

“You followed me? I didn’t see you, and I was prepared. I thought you might.”

“No,” Pitt said, biting his lip. “I had someone else do it. I’d have been a fool to try myself. Of course you’d have seen me. Is that where you were?”

“No.” Urban smiled, a sad, self-mocking expression. “I wish now I had been. I went to another hall, where I thought I might get a better rate, but I didn’t give my name. I didn’t want word out. I might lose what I had.”

“Why?” Pitt said harshly. “You’re paid enough here. Are a few paintings worth it-really?”

Urban shrugged. “I thought so at the time. Now perhaps not.”

He faced Pitt squarely, his eyes full of something that was half a question, half an apology. “Tomorrow I don’t suppose I’ll think so at all. I like being a policeman. But I did not kill Weems-I’d never heard of him until you came in here and told me about my name being on his list. Perhaps he intended blackmailing me, and was killed before he could-” He stopped, and once again Pitt had the powerful impression he was lying by omission.

“For God’s sake tell me!” Pitt said furiously, his voice husky. “It’s more than your career in jeopardy, man. It’s your life! You had the motive to kill Weems, you had the opportunity, and so far as we know, you had as much chance of the means as anyone. What is it? What is it you are hiding? You know something. Has it to do with Osmar and why Carswell let him off?”

“Osmar,” Urban said slowly, his smile becoming softer as if in some way at last he had given in. “I suppose I have nothing left to lose now, except my neck.” He moved his head jerkily as he spoke as if freeing it from some grip. “The Circle may do me a great deal of harm, but it won’t be as bad as the hangman…”

“Circle?” Pitt had no idea what he was talking about. “What circle?”

Urban sat down behind his desk and echoing his movement Pitt sat down also.

“The Inner Circle,” Urban said very quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper as if he was afraid even here of being overheard. “It is a secret society for mutual benefit, charitable work, and the righting of injustices.”

“Whose injustices?” Pitt asked quickly. “Who decides what is just or unjust?”

Urban’s face registered the difference with a flash of irony.

“They do, of course.”

“If its aims are so fine, why is it secret?”

Urban sighed. “Some things are hard to accomplish, and those who resent it can be very obstructive, at times very powerful. Secrecy gives you some safety from them.”

“I see. But what has this to do with you and Weems-and Osmar?” Pitt asked.

“I am a member of the Inner Circle,” Urban explained. “I joined some time ago, when I was a young and rising man in Rotherhithe. An officer in power then thought I was a promising man, just the sort who would one day be a fine member of the Circle, a brother.” He looked self-conscious. “I was a lot younger then. He flattered me, told me all the good works and the power I might have to help people. Not the superintendent they have now. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

He leaned still further forward. “I joined. To begin with it was all very simple stuff, a little gift to a good cause and a few hours of my time, nothing remarkable.”

Pitt remained silent.

“It was several years before I came up against anything that worried me,” Urban continued, “and even then nothing was said. I simply declined certain tasks I was asked to do. Six months ago the first real discipline came. I was asked to favor a man in a case. He was not accused, simply a witness, but he did not wish to testify, and I was supposed to overlook it, in the name of brotherhood. I refused. I had heard of other members of the Circle being disciplined for such acts, finding themselves suddenly unwelcome where they used to be respected, or unaccountably blackballed from clubs, when no charge had been made and no known offenses committed, criminal or social.”

“The Inner Circle disciplining its errant members,” Pitt said slowly.

“I think so. There wasn’t anything you could call proof, but the people concerned usually understood. And what may be more to the point, other members hovering on the brink of disobedience decided against it.”

“Effective,” Pitt said. A mass of thoughts whirled in his mind, possibilities connecting Weems and Addison Carswell, and Horatio Osmar, explaining the dismissal of charges-brothers of the Inner Circle. And Urban-and presumably Latimer too? A web of tacit understandings, favors, obligations, unspoken threats, and for rebels a swift and effective discipline: a warning to others.

Was that why Micah Drummond had been so willing to help Lord Byam, and why it made him so profoundly uncomfortable, and yet unable to explain? And of course that was why Byam had been told of Weems’s death in the first place, and why the Clerkenwell station had handed over the case when they were asked: all in the name of the Inner Circle, a secret brotherhood of power-used for what?

Micah Drummond!

How strong were the bonds of this brotherhood? Stronger than duty? Where did brotherhood end and corruption begin?

“And you defied them?” he said, looking at Urban again.

“I misbehaved,” Urban admitted. “I think my name on Weems’s list is a warning to others. But I can’t prove that.”

“Then the question is,” Pitt said slowly, “did Weems’s murderer leave the second list there for us to find, and so embarrass you, and Carswell…” He deliberately left off Latimer’s name. “Or was it there anyway, a precaution to be used at another time, and Weems’s murder unforeseen?”

“I don’t know,” Urban admitted. “I don’t even know beyond question that Carswell is a brother, but it would explain his dismissing the charge against Osmar. I know Osmar is. And Carswell’s name was also on your list.”

Pitt said nothing. His mind had grasped what Urban had said, and he knew it was very possibly true, but crowding it out and hurting far more was the memory of Micah Drummond’s face as he told him of Weems’s murder, and how they were going to help Byam. There were all sorts of questions springing from that. Was that why Micah Drummond agreed, and had the power to do it so easily? Why was Byam’s name not there? Could he have left the second list, and then been caught by his own trap when someone else, some desperate debtor, had come later and murdered Weems? Was that why he was so afraid, not that his name was there, but that he had been there himself, and was afraid he had been seen?

That made no sense. Why leave the list, unless he knew Weems would be murdered and the police find it?

But ugliest of all was the question of Micah Drummond’s part. What was his role in the Inner Circle? Was he being disciplined in some way? Was he obedient, pliant to their will? Or worse, was he the discipliner, the one who placed the threats, and the punishment? Could he have been there after Weems’s death and before Pitt went and found the lists?

Or for that matter, had Byam heard from the Clerkenwell station of Weems’s murder even before Drummond? Had he been to Cyrus Street and placed the second list?

Or was it someone in the Clerkenwell station whom he had not even considered yet-the unknown person who had first told Byam?

It was a secret society-who knew who its members were, or their real purpose? Did even its own members know? How many were innocent pawns of a few?

And how many of its tentacles grasped, twisted and corrupted the police?

“No,” he said aloud, breaking the long silence. “I don’t know either.”