Farriers' Lane

12

CAROLINE WAS ECSTATIC. It was all over, and Joshua was freed from any suspicion whatever. He was guilty of nothing, and it had been proved. The anxiety was ended, even the smallest fear niggling at the back of the mind. The relief was overwhelming. She wanted to laugh aloud, to cry, to run and shout.

She looked at Charlotte’s face and saw the shadows in her eyes, the conflicting emotions tearing at her.

“What?” she said quickly, her mind confused. “What else? There is something you haven’t told me. What is it?”

“What are you going to do now?” Charlotte asked. They were standing in the withdrawing room in Cater Street. It was early morning and the fire was still only just burning up and there was little heat in it.

“I’m going to tell Joshua, of course,” Caroline replied, still puzzled. “And Tamar, naturally.”

“I didn’t mean right this minute …”

“Then what?”

“I—I mean about Joshua. There is no need to worry about him now.” She stopped, uncertain how to continue.

“I have no idea,” Caroline answered very quietly. “That depends upon him. I shall enjoy each day, and let the one after take care of itself. And Charlotte, my dear …”

“Yes?”

“That is all I am prepared to say on the subject, either to you or to Grandmama.”

“Oh.”

“And now I am going to order the carriage and go and tell Joshua and Tamar the news. You may come if you wish.”

“Yes—yes, I will tell Tamar. I would like to do that.”

“Of course. I think you should.”

It was too early to find anyone at the theater, so Charlotte and Caroline went to the house in Pimlico. They were let in by a surprised Miranda Passmore, but as soon as she saw their faces she knew the news was good. She threw open the door and ushered them in, taking Caroline by the arm and calling loudly for her father.

“Is Miss Macaulay in her rooms?” Charlotte asked, caught up in the happiness of the moment in spite of her own reservations about Caroline and Joshua.

“Yes, I’m sure. She wouldn’t have gone out this early. You want to tell her yourself? You should. It is all over, isn’t it?” Miranda swung around to face them. “I didn’t even ask you, but I can see you’ve discovered something wonderful. He was innocent, wasn’t he?” Her words tumbled over each other. “Can you prove it at last? You can—can’t you?”

Charlotte found herself smiling, unable to deny such pleasure.

“Yes—and better than that, last night they arrested the man who really did it.”

“Oh, that’s marvelous!” Miranda did a little twirl around on the spot out of sheer joy, then clasped Charlotte in a spontaneous hug. “That’s wonderful! You are brilliant! You’d have liked Aaron, he was a bit like you—impulsive and full of ideas. Come, you must tell Joshua too.” This last was to Caroline. “He’ll be in his rooms as well, probably having breakfast. Come on up.”

Charlotte left Caroline outside Joshua’s door. She did not need to hear Caroline’s voice lifted in excitement and happiness, the relief in him, the thoughts and memories of a dead friend, the sense of victory, and the sorrow that all of it was so dreadfully, disastrously late.

She went on up behind Miranda to Tamar’s rooms and knocked on the door.

Tamar opened it after a moment, looked first to Miranda’s shining face, then at Charlotte.

“It’s over,” Charlotte said quietly. “They arrested Prosper Harrimore last night, and he did not even deny it. All the world will know Aaron was innocent.”

Tamar stood motionless, simply staring at Charlotte, searching her face to make absolutely sure she could not be mistaken, then as she believed it the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. She lifted her hands, and then let them fall.

Charlotte forgot everything about decent restraint, good manners and all rules of etiquette and threw her arms around her, holding her tightly and finding her own eyes stinging. Caroline was forgotten. If she too was in Joshua’s arms and they laughed or cried or clung to each other, it did not matter, at least for now.

Pitt felt far from happy. To have solved the murder in Farriers’ Lane reversed an old and bitter injustice, but it could not help Aaron Godman now. Nothing could undo his suffering or retrieve his loss. It was a small balm to the living, but any redress of wrong was worth fighting for, even when it would cause the guilt and the questions that this would, including the ruin of several reputations.

But he had expected it also to solve the murders of Samuel Stafford and Constable Paterson. And it had not. Apart from the fact that he believed Harrimore, it took him only an hour to ascertain that it was physically quite impossible for him to have committed either crime. His time was fully and unequivocally accounted for.

So who had killed Stafford, and why?

Was it conceivable that it was not anyone they had so far suspected? No one in the theater had any motive that he could imagine. If Stafford had indeed been considering reopening the Farriers’ Lane case, then it was supremely in their interest that he should remain alive. None of them was guilty. That was now undisputed.

He was forced to think again of Juniper and Adolphus Pryce. But they had each feared it was the other.

Who did that leave?

No one.

He could think of no alternative but to go back once more and retrace Stafford’s actions all that last day, speak again to anyone who had seen him, cross-check every piece of evidence and see if he could draw anything new from it.

He set out for the police station where he had gone to tell Drummond that he had ascertained that Harrimore could not be guilty of Stafford’s death or Paterson’s. The day was crisp and cold. A weak sun shone fitfully through the drifting clouds of smoke from countless chimneys, and the paving stones were slippery with ice. Fresh horse manure in the street steamed gently in the freezing air.

He did not expect to learn anything from those involved with the case of Kingsley Blaine. It seemed after all as if Stafford’s death had no connection with it except that of coincidence. O’Neil would have more tragedy than any man could deal with today, and Pitt would certainly not intrude on him unless it were a matter of crisis. And neither had he any wish to see Joshua Fielding or Tamar Macaulay. They would be celebrating the end of five years’ nightmare. Nothing would bring back the dead, but at last the shame was gone. And although it had had nothing to do with Pitt at all—far from it, he had been the one to resolve it—still he felt implicated because he represented the law to them. He was a member of the police who had unwittingly wronged them so irretrievably.

He paced along the footpath deep in thought, narrowly avoiding bumping into people. The clatter of wheels and hooves, the cries of coachmen, costers and crossing sweepers passed over him in a sea of sound he ignored. When the early afternoon newspapers carried word of Harrimore’s arrest all London would know of it. His mind was filled with the furor it would cause. He even wondered if he should go and tell Lambert himself. But how could he phrase it? Simply to announce it would sound like self-praise, and criticism that Lambert had been tragically wrong. To express sorrow or sympathy would be unforgivably condescending. Lambert would be bound to think he had come in order to savor his victory.

No. Let him read it in the newspapers and nurse his defeat alone. Perhaps privacy was the best he could offer.

That was something Paterson would be spared, poor devil. He would not have to face the public embarrassment. Although what was that, compared with the private guilt?

And what about the officers of the courts? Thelonius Quade had doubted all the time, so much so that he had even considered in some way invalidating the proceedings so a mistrial would be called. But in the end his trust in the law had prevailed. How much would he blame himself for that?

And the appeal judges. Was some suspicion of haste, of emotion governing judgment, what had driven Mr. Justice Boothroyd to retirement and drink? Or might it have happened anyway? Did he see something, perceive a lie, a doubt in the transcript of the original trial, and not have the courage to say so? It would take a brave man, in the climate of the time, to tell the law and the public that it had convicted the wrong man, the case was not over at all. There was no closing the file and putting it in the past, no saying that, yes, it was a tragedy, but it was resolved, could be forgotten, with honor.

Forgetting would be sought in vain, and there was no honor for anyone.

The first person Pitt resorted to again was Juniper Stafford. He found her still in black, but this time it was plain, even dull. It was still an expensive cloth and well cut, but it was fashionable rather than possessing any character and it no longer rustled when she moved; nor was her perfume more than the pleasing scent of cleanliness. She looked truly bereaved in every sense. In seeing her face he was intensely aware of loss, even of failure. It was not Samuel Stafford she mourned, and perhaps not even Adolphus Pryce. He felt it was something in herself, a belief, a dream which had died, and the self-knowledge which had taken its place was a bitter fruit.

“Good morning, Inspector Pitt,” she said without interest. “Do you have some news? My maid tells me the afternoon newspapers say that you have arrested another man for the murder of Kingsley Blaine. I assume he murdered Samuel also, and for some reason they have not mentioned it. It seems an odd omission.” She stood in the center of the morning room. The fire cast a glow on her cheeks, but it could not put life into her eyes, or mobility in her expression.

“The omission was necessary, Mrs. Stafford,” he replied. She had assumed Harrimore guilty, as indeed he had himself, but Juniper did not even ask why. Did she suppose Stafford had threatened him with discovery, or did she no longer particularly care? “Prosper Harrimore did not kill the judge,” he said aloud.

She frowned very slightly. “I don’t understand. That’s ridiculous. If he didn’t, then who did? And why?” The first very faint flicker of humor lit her eyes, totally without fear. “You cannot have returned because you imagine it was I—or Mr. Pryce. You have very effectively proved that it was not, by helping us to blame each other.” She turned a little away from him. “I will not say you made it happen, that would be to give you too much credit—or blame. Had we been stronger, had we the love we imagined we had, you could not have done such a thing.” She brushed her hand over her skirt, removing a fleck of thread. “So why have you come?”

He was sorry for her, in spite of the contempt he had felt before. Disillusion is one of the bitterest of all griefs.

“Because I am driven back to the beginning again,” he replied candidly. “All the information I thought I had is of little use. The judge’s death appears, after all, to have had nothing to do with the Farriers’ Lane case. Or if it does, it is a connection I haven’t seen, and still cannot see now. There is nothing for me to do but go back to the physical details and reexamine each one to see if I have missed something, or misinterpreted it.”

“How tedious.” she said without feeling. “I can repeat everything I told you before, if you believe it may be helpful.” And without waiting for him to reply, in a monotone she recited the events of the last day of Stafford’s life, from seeing him at breakfast through Tamar Macaulay’s visit, his agitation, to his leaving to go and interview Joshua Fielding and Devlin O’Neil again. She told him of Stafford’s return, his preoccupation, which was not particularly unusual, the dinner they had shared.

“And he was perfectly well then?” he interrupted. “He was not sleepy, unusually inattentive? He ate well, without complaint of pain or discomfort?”

“Yes, he ate excellently. And we were served from the same dishes. There was nothing he took which I did not. More, of course, but just the same dishes. He cannot have been poisoned in this house, Mr. Pitt.”

“No, I had already concluded that, Mrs. Stafford. Besides, we found the traces of opium in his flask. I wondered if he could have taken anything from it already, before the meal, that’s all. I am checking everything …”

“I can see you are totally lost,” she agreed with a flicker of a smile.

He could not entirely blame her, although her amusement stung. It was he who had shed light on a truth that maimed her so much. Without him she might never have seen her love for Pryce as anything less than a great passion. She would have to have been a woman of great generosity not to have hated him for it.

“May I speak with the valet, please?” he asked.

“Of course. He is still here, although I shall have to dismiss him presently. I have no need for his services.” She reached for the bell rope embroidered in silk, and pulled it to summon a servant.

But the valet could tell him nothing useful. He had not seen the flask that evening, nor did he think that the judge had drunk from it. It was not his habit to use the flask when in his own home where he could send for a drink from the decanter merely by ringing a bell. Nor could any of the other servants add anything to what they had already said. He could feel their unspoken contempt that after this time, and all the questions, he was reduced to going over old facts he had known all along, and still he found no pattern from which he could deduce an answer. He was disgusted himself, and discouraged and angry.

The next person he saw was Judge Livesey, but he had to wait until the middle of the afternoon and find him in his chambers between other engagements. Livesey looked surprised to see him, but not disconcerted.

“Good afternoon, Inspector. What may I do for you on this occasion? I hope you have no further disasters to report.” He said it with a smile, but there was no ease in his face, and certainly no humor. He looked tired; the purplish smudges under his eyes and the creases in his face from his nose to the corners of his lips were deeper, his mouth set in harder lines. Pitt remembered how harsh the news of Harrimore’s arrest would be to him. The Godman appeal had been one of the achievements of his career. The dignity and assurance with which he had conducted it had earned him considerable praise both from the general public and, which would be sweeter, from his peers. Now, when it was too late, he was proved tragically wrong.

“No,” Pitt said quietly. “No, there is nothing new, thank God. I am still back with the first crime for which I was called in. I am no further forward in learning who killed Mr. Stafford than I was at the beginning.”

“Frustrating for you,” Livesey remarked, almost without expression. “I have no idea how I can help you. I know nothing more than I did then.”

“No sir, I had not held any hope that you did. But perhaps there are questions I omitted to ask which I might put to you now?”

“Of course.” Livesey sat down heavily in the chair close to the fire, which must have been lit long before he returned from court. He indicated the other chair opposite, not so much in an invitation as a request that Pitt should cease to stand over him. “Please ask what you must. I will try to be of service to you.” He sounded tired and as if the courtesy cost him a considerable effort.

“Thank you, sir.” Pitt reclined less than comfortably. He did not bother to go over Stafford’s visit to Livesey earlier that day, and the proof that the flask was uncontaminated when Stafford left. They had already exhausted that. He started with their meeting at the theater.

“You first saw him in the foyer, you said?”

“That is correct, but I did not speak to him then. There was a considerable crush of people, and a great deal of noise, as I daresay you recall?”

“Yes, indeed.” Pitt remembered vividly the air of excitement and expectation, the raised voices, the constant, jostling movement. Conversation would have been difficult. “Where did you go from there?”

Livesey thought for a moment. “I started off up the stairs towards my box, then in the gallery I saw someone I knew and was about to stop for a word when he was accosted by a woman I find exceedingly tedious, so I changed my mind and went back down again for about five minutes, by which time they were gone. I went up to my box then, and sat down alone from that time until the curtain went up.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders very slightly. “Of course I saw several other people I knew, taking their seats, but I spoke to none of them. One cannot, without making a spectacle of oneself.” He searched Pitt’s face curiously. “Is this really of any service to you, Inspector?”

“Not so far,” Pitt admitted. “But it may be. Anyway, I know nowhere else to look.”

“It will be regrettable if you are obliged to leave the matter unresolved,” Livesey said with a curious, bitter twist to his mouth. “Not, I imagine, what you wish.”

“I have not reached that stage yet.”

There was nothing so crude as disbelief in Livesey’s voice, or in the very gentle arching of his eyebrows. “Well, I shall certainly relate all that I remember of that evening, if you feel it may assist. You were in the box on the far side of him, one or two spaces away, as I recall. No doubt you saw all that I did.”

“I don’t mean anything of what happened in the box,” Pitt said quickly, then as he saw Livesey’s expression, realized his error. “No, that is foolish,” he corrected himself before Livesey could do so. “I do not know what is relevant. If you saw anything at all, please tell me.”

Livesey shrugged, and this time there was definitely humor in his face—dry, entirely intellectual, but very real.

“Of course. Naturally I did not spend the majority of the evening looking sideways at Mr. Stafford’s box, but I glanced that way on several occasions. He was sitting towards the back to begin with, a little behind Mrs. Stafford. I formed the opinion that he had come largely on her account. He did not seem to have his attention entirely upon the stage, but to be concerned with his own thoughts. Not surprisingly. I have taken my wife to many events for her pleasure, not my own.”

“Did he appear ill?”

“No, merely thinking. At least that is how it seemed to me. With the wisdom of hindsight I appreciate that he may have felt unwell.” Livesey was watching Pitt now, and his blue eyes were amused. “Are you trying to ask me if I saw him drink from his flask? I don’t believe so, but I cannot swear. He did reach for something from his pocket, but I was not paying sufficient attention to see what it was. I am sorry.”

“It is not of importance. He did drink from it at some time, that is beyond question,” Pitt said flatly.

“Indeed, tragically, that is true.” Livesey frowned. “Tell me, Pitt, what is it you hope to learn? If I knew I might be better able to answer you. I confess, I don’t see what you believe there is that could help. We know the poison was in the flask, and that he died of it. What assistance would it be if someone had seen him actually drink? Surely it is inescapable that it did happen?”

“Yes, of course it is,” Pitt conceded. “I admit, I don’t know. I am simply fishing for anything I can find.”

“Well, I cannot think of anything further to add. I saw him drift into what I took at the time to be a sleep. It was not remarkable. He would certainly not be the first man to sleep in the theater!” Again the flash of humor crossed his face. “It was only when I saw Mrs. Stafford’s agitation that I realized he was ill. Then, of course, I rose and went out of my own box and into theirs, to see if I could offer any assistance. The rest you know yourself.”

“Not quite. There is the interval. Did you leave your box?”

“Yes. I went to find a little refreshment, and to stand. One gets stiff sitting for so long.”

“Did you see Stafford leave his box?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Did you go to the gentlemen’s smoking room?”

“Very briefly. I looked in, and then left again immediately. To tell the truth there were one or two people there I preferred not to see. They insist on speaking of legal matters, and I wanted to enjoy an evening away from such things.”

“And you didn’t see Stafford until you returned to your box?”

“No. I’m sorry.” Livesey rose to his feet, pushing himself up from the arms of his chair. “I am afraid there is nothing else I can tell you, Inspector. Nor could I usefully suggest anywhere further for you to look, except into poor Stafford’s domestic life.”

“Thank you for sparing me your time.” Pitt stood up also. “You have been very patient.”

“I am sorry I could be of no help.” Livesey held out his hand and Pitt shook it. It was an unusual courtesy from a judge to a policeman, and he appreciated it.

After luncheon he went to the offices of Adolphus Pryce and was obliged to wait nearly half an hour before Pryce was free to see him. The office was the same, comfortable, elegant, and individual. Pryce himself was just as graceful, but there was a tiredness in his face and his gestures looked habitual, devoid of the inner energy they had had before. He too was disappointed in himself: his dreams had been shown to be shallow, his emotions dishonest, and it hurt him where there was no evasion, and as yet no healing.

“Yes, Pitt? What can I do for you?” he said politely. “Do sit down.” He indicated the chair opposite. “I really feel I have already told you everything I know, but if there is something more, please ask me.” He smiled bleakly. “I should congratulate you for solving the Farriers’ Lane case. That was an excellent piece of work. You have certainly put the rest of us to shame. Poor Godman was innocent. That is a fact I shall not live with easily.”

“Nor, I imagine, will many others,” Pitt said grimly. “But you have nothing to reproach yourself for. Your duty was to prosecute him. You were the only one in the court who was an enemy in plain guise, and he knew you for one. The others were either on his side or supposed to be impartial.”

“You are too hard on them, Pitt. Everyone believed him guilty. The evidence was overwhelming.”

“Why?” Pitt asked, his eyes meeting Pryce’s with challenge.

Pryce blinked. “I don’t understand you. What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Why was it overwhelming? What came first, the evidence or the belief? I begin to think perhaps it was the belief.”

Pryce sat down wearily. “Perhaps it was. We were all horrified, and a little frightened. You know the public is a savage animal when you disturb its deeper beliefs and awaken its fears. There is no purpose whatever in trying to reason with it, explain what you can do, and what you cannot, tell them how difficult it is. All they want is results. They do not care how you obtain them, they don’t want to know the details or the cost. But you are a policeman, you must know that. I don’t imagine they have left you uncriticized or harried over poor Stafford.”

“No,” Pitt said ruefully. “Although there hasn’t been a public outcry. It was a quieter crime. It lacked the horror. I suppose people feel that a judge is somehow different from themselves, and so the fear is a step removed, not personal. There is no unreasoning monster out there in the shadows crucifying people. Though certainly the Home Secretary has been down to chivvy us once or twice.”

Pryce crossed his legs and a faint flicker of amusement touched his mouth.

“You sound bitter, Pitt. What can I help you with? I really have no idea who killed Stafford, or why.”

“Neither have I,” Pitt said sourly. “I am reduced to going over the facts again—and again. Did you see him during the interval that evening?”

Pryce looked vaguely surprised, as if he had been expecting some difficult question.

“Yes. He was in the smoking room, talking to various people. I don’t think I can remember who. I spoke to him myself, but only briefly. Something of no meaning at all—the weather, or the latest cricket disaster, I think. I didn’t see him drink from the flask, if that is what you are hoping.”

“Did he have a glass in his hand?”

Pryce’s eyes widened. “Come to think of it, yes, he did. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? Why does a man drink from a flask if he has a glass of whiskey in his hand?”

“A second one, I suppose,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “He did drink from the flask, because he drank the poison. It was in the flask when we tested it. That is about the only fact which is incontrovertible.”

“Well, there must be a limited number of people who could have put it there, by the mere physical facts,” Pryce said logically. “One can reduce their number, surely? Disregard motive, for the time being. It has to be someone who had access to the flask after he left Livesey, because both Livesey and his companion were seen to drink from it then, and they are both in perfect health. And yet it was in the flask when Stafford drank from it later, presumably in the theater. It could be someone in the interval, I suppose.”

“Who else was in the smoking room?”

“A couple of hundred people.”

“They didn’t all speak to Stafford. Can you recall the names of anyone who might have been close enough to him to have spoken to him, or seen what happened?”

Pryce sat silent for a moment or two, looking bleakly at Pitt.

“I remember the Honorable Gerald Thompson,” he said at last. “He has a voice that would break glass, and never stops talking. He was close to Stafford, and facing him. And Molesworth was there, from Chancery. Do you know him? No, I don’t suppose you do. Big man, bald, with a white beard.”

“Is that all you remember?” Pitt asked.

“There was a tremendous crush in there,” Pryce protested. “Everyone elbowing their way through, trying not to spill drinks, vying for attention, all talking at once. And there was a bit of a commotion going on because Oscar Wilde was there, and at least a dozen people wanted to speak to him. I can’t think why. He was close to Stafford.” Pryce’s face lit with malicious amusement. “You could always go and ask him.”

“Is he likely to have noticed anything?”

Pryce’s eyebrows shot up. “I have no idea. I should doubt it. Too busy being amusing.”

“Thank you.” Pitt rose to his feet. At least Pryce had given him something to pursue, although he had no plan beyond that, nothing else to seek, no one to question.

“Not at all,” Pryce replied. “I imagine I will see you again. What I’ve given you will be of little use. Even if someone did see him drink from the flask, it won’t tell you anything, unless they saw someone else put something into it—and that seems a little like hoping someone will tell you the Derby winner before the day.”

Pitt took his leave without further comment. They had said it all.

Outside it was bitterly cold with a wind off the river which cut through the wool of his coat, into his flesh. He walked rapidly along the footpath, head down, woollen muffler tight, collar up over his ears, until he came to the main thoroughfare where he could hail a cab back to Bow Street. Before he could ask those gentlemen what they could remember of the smoking room in the theater on a night now several weeks ago, he must find out where they lived.

The Honorable Gerald Thompson fitted Pryce’s description unpleasantly well. He did indeed have a voice which was unusual in tone, a little high and extraordinarily penetrating, and a braying laugh Pitt heard before he saw him.

He received Pitt in the hallway of his club in Pall Mall, preferring not to be seen in the company of a questionable character in one of the main rooms. This way he could pretend, if anyone asked him, that Pitt was merely on some errand and it was not a personal call at all.

“Thank heaven you had the wit to come in your own clothes,” he said dryly. “Well, what can I do for you? Don’t be long about it, there’s a good fellow.”

Pitt swallowed the rejoinder he would have used were he free to, and came straight to the point. “I believe you were in the smoking room at the theater the night Judge Stafford died, sir?”

“As were several hundred other people,” Thompson agreed.

“Indeed. Did you see the judge, sir?”

“I believe so. But I have no idea who slipped poison into his flask. If I had, I should have told you so long before now. My moral duty.”

“Of course. Do you remember if the judge had a drink in his hand when you saw him?”

The Honorable Gerald screwed up his face for several moments, then suddenly opened his eyes wide. “Rather think he had, but he finished it while I was watching him. Saw him raise his hand to attract the waiter for another.”

“Did you see the waiter bring it to him?”

“No, come to think of it, the fellow didn’t appear at all. Fearful melee in those places, you know. Fortunate to get anything at all. Suppose that was why he took a sip from his own flask, poor devil. Not that I saw him do it. Can’t help you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Pitt asked him a few more questions about others who might have observed something, and learned nothing of profit. He thanked the Honorable Gerald and took his leave.

The learned Mr. Molesworth was even less help. He had seen Stafford certainly, but standing, trying to attract the waiter’s attention and failing. He had not observed him drinking from his own flask, or talking to anyone in particular. He was brisk, businesslike and obviously in a hurry.

Mr. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was as different as it was possible to be. Pitt took some time to find him, but eventually he was successful in catching him at his desk in his own rooms. He received Pitt with interest and a remarkable courtesy, rising to greet him, waving his hand and inviting him to be seated. The room was filled with books and papers, and it was apparent that Pitt had interrupted his working.

“I am sorry to intrude, sir,” Pitt apologized sincerely. “I am at my wits’ end, or I should not have imposed.”

“It is when one is at one’s wits’ end that one lets go and finds a courage and imagination in despair not possible in the more comfortable emotions,” Wilde replied immediately. “Over what do you feel such a passion, Mr. Pitt? And what may I do, beyond offer you my pity, which you have gratis, for all it may mean to you.”

“I am investigating the murder of Mr. Justice Stafford.”

“Oh dear.” Wilde screwed up his face. “What execrable taste. What an uncivilized thing to do—murder a man in his box at the theater! How can we poor playwrights compete with such a thing? I am a critic, Mr. Pitt, but even my bitterest and most damaging remarks have not gone so far. I may write that a work is poor, but I shall offer my remarks and leave the playgoer to make his own decision. This was pure sabotage—and quite inexcusable.”

Pitt had prepared himself to be surprised; nevertheless, he was still disconcerted by Wilde’s attitude. It was apparently callous, and yet looking at the long face with its slightly drooping eyes and large mouth he saw no cruelty in it, and innocence rather than indifference.

“I believe you were in the smoking room during the first interval?” he said aloud.

“Certainly. A most agreeable place, full of posings and attitudes, everyone trying to appear what they wished to be, rather than what they were. Do you like observing people, Inspector?”

“It is very often my job,” Pitt replied with a slight smile.

“And mine,” Wilde agreed quickly. “For utterly different reasons, of course. What did I observe that may be of interest to you? I didn’t see anyone slip poison into the poor devil’s flask.” His eyes widened. “You see—I read the newspapers, not just the criticisms, although art is even better organized than life. Crime so seldom has any humor, don’t you find? Real crime, that is. I loathe the squalid. If one has to do something distasteful, one should at least do it with flair.”

“But you did see the judge?”

“I did,” Wilde agreed, his eyes never leaving Pitt’s face. He seemed to find him both interesting and agreeable. In spite of his pose, Pitt could not help liking the man.

“Did you see him drink from his flask?”

“You know, this is absurd—I didn’t—but I did see him hand it to someone else, a Mr. Richard Gibson. I only know the judge from his obituary photograph in the newspapers, but Gibson I have met. Stafford took the flask out of his pocket and passed it to this acquaintance, who thanked him and took a good-sized gulp from it before handing it back.” He raised his eyebrows and looked at Pitt curiously. “I assume that means that someone poisoned it after that? I don’t envy you. I did not know opium would kill anyone so rapidly. But I assure you that is what happened.” He leaned back a fraction, concentrating on his inner vision. “I can see it quite clearly in my mind. Stafford gave the flask to this man, who drank from it and handed it back. Stafford didn’t drink from it himself. He was smoking, a large cigar. The bell rang for the second act, and Stafford took the cigar out of his mouth, pulled a face as if he disliked it, then knocked the burning end off and put it in his jacket pocket.” He frowned.

“You mean in his cigar case,” Pitt corrected.

“No, I don’t,” Wilde said. “I mean in his pocket, as I said. Filthy habit. But he didn’t drink, of that I am positive. And Gibson is still alive and flourishing. I saw him only the other day. What a curious circumstance. How do you explain it?”

Pitt was thinking the same thing, ideas half formed whirling in his head.

“You are quite sure?” he asked.

“Of course.” Wilde’s eyebrows rose. “What would be the purpose in inventing such a thing? It is only interesting if it is true.”

Pitt stood up.

Wilde looked up at him, his face alive with interest. “You have thought of something! I can see it in your eyes. What is it? I have provided you with the vital clue! All is revealed—you know the heart of the murderer—and less interesting but more to the point, you know his face.”

“I may.” Pitt smiled in spite of himself. “Certainly I have an idea as to the weapon—”

“Opium in the whiskey flask.”

“Perhaps not. Thank you, Mr. Wilde. You have been of the utmost help. Now if you will excuse me, I have something extremely unpleasant to do.”

“Shall I now have to scan the newspapers to learn what it is?” Wilde asked plaintively.

“Yes—I’m sorry. Good day, sir.”

“Interesting, frustrating, interrupted, in patches most stimulating,” Wilde answered. “Good is far too tame and pedestrian a word. Have you no imagination, man?”

Pitt smiled back at him from the doorway. “It is otherwise occupied.”

Wilde waved him out with total agreeability and resumed his work.

Pitt took a hansom straight to Stafford’s house and asked to see Juniper.

“I expected you back, Mr. Pitt,” she said tartly. “I confess to that—but not so soon. I appreciate that you are confounded, but I have done everything I can. I really cannot help you any further.”

“Yes, you can, Mrs. Stafford,” he said quickly. “May I see Mr. Stafford’s valet again? I must know what has happened to Mr. Stafford’s clothes.”

Her face pinched. “Of course you may see the valet if you wish. My husband’s clothes are still here. I have not had the heart to dispose of them yet. It will have to be done, of course, but it is a duty I have not steeled myself for.” She reached for the bell, still looking at him. “May I ask what you hope to learn from them?”

“I would prefer not to say until I am certain,” he answered. “If I might speak to the valet first …”

“If you wish.” There was very little interest in her face or her voice. All the vitality which had been so vivid in her before was drained away, killed. She wanted an end to it, but the details were of no importance anymore.

When the butler answered her summons she ordered him to take Pitt upstairs to the master’s dressing room and have the valet wait upon him there.

When the valet arrived, a little out of breath, he regarded Pitt with perplexity. He was a very stout man with black hair and a homely face, and he did not conceal his surprise at seeing Pitt again.

“Yes sir. What can I do for you?”

“Judge Stafford’s suit the night he died. Where is it now?” Pitt asked.

The man was genuinely shocked.

“That was Mr. Stafford’s best suit, sir! ’ad it made for ’im just a few months back. Best quality wool barathea.”

“Yes, I’m sure, but where is it?”

“ ’E was buried in it, sir. What you’d expect?”

Pitt swore in weariness and exasperation.

The valet stared at him. He was too well trained for anything a man did to shake his composure, unless of course it was another servant, which was entirely a different matter.

“And his cigar case, where is that?” Pitt demanded.

“In ’is dresser, sir, as it ought. I took all ’is things out of ’is pockets, natural.”

“May I see the cigar case?”

The valet’s eyebrows rose. “Yes sir. O’ course you may.” He kept his voice civil, but his belief was plain that Pitt was eccentric at the very least. He went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. He took out a silver cigar case and passed it across.

Pitt opened it with shaking fingers. It was empty. It was foolish, but he was bitterly disappointed.

“What did you take out of this?” he said in a low, tight voice.

“Nothing, sir.” The man was aggrieved.

“Not the best cigars—to smoke yourself?” Pitt pressed, although if he had, it would disprove his theory. “Not a butt?”

“No sir. There weren’t nothing in it! I swear by God it was just like it is now. Empty.”

“The judge smoked half a cigar at the theater that night, and put the other half back in his pocket. What happened to it?”

“Oh, that.” Relief flooded the man’s face. “I threw it out, sir. Couldn’t bury the poor man with a cigar butt in his pocket. Messy thing, it was.”

“Messy? Coming to pieces?” Pitt asked.

“Yes sir.”

“And that suit is still on Mr. Stafford?”

“Yes sir.” The valet stared at him with growing alarm.

“Thank you. That’s all.” And without waiting any further he went downstairs, bade the footman in the hall thank Mrs. Stafford, and took his leave.

“You what?” Drummond demanded incredulously, his face dark.

“I want to exhume the body of Samuel Stafford,” Pitt repeated as calmly as he could, but still his voice shook. “I have to.”

“For the love of God—why? You know what he died of!” Drummond was appalled. He leaned across his desk, staring at Pitt in consternation. “Whatever purpose can it serve, apart from distressing everyone?” he demanded. “We’ve got enough public anger and blame over this already. Don’t make it immeasurably worse, Pitt.”

“It’s the only chance I have of solving it.”

“Chance?” Drummond’s voice rose in exasperation. “Chance is not sufficient. You must be sure, if I am going to ask the Home Office for permission to dig him up. Explain to me exactly what you will achieve.”

Still standing in front of the desk like a schoolboy, Pitt explained.

“On the cigar?” Drummond said with slowly widening eyes. “As well as in the flask? But why? That’s absurd.”

“Not as well as, sir,” Pitt said patiently. “Instead of. That would explain why the whiskey in the flask didn’t have any effect on the other man who drank it.”

“Aren’t you forgetting we found opium in the flask?” Drummond asked with only a slight edge of sarcasm. He was too worried to give it full rein. “And all this on the word of Oscar Wilde, of all people? I know you’re desperate, Pitt, but I think this is taking it too far. It isn’t sense. I don’t think I could get you an exhumation order on the evidence, even if I wanted to.”

“But if the opium was on the cigar butt, not the flask, it changes everything,” Pitt argued desperately. “Then there is only one conclusion.”

“It was in the flask, Pitt! The medical examiner found it there. That is a fact. And anyway, the cigar butt was thrown out, you told me that.”

“I know, but if it was in his pocket for several hours, and crumbling, as the valet said, there may be enough there for traces of opium to be found.”

Doubt clouded Drummond’s eyes.

“It’s the only explanation we’ve got,” Pitt said again. “There’s nothing else to pursue. Are you prepared to close the case unsolved? Someone killed Judge Stafford …”

Drummond took a deep breath. “And poor Paterson,” he added very softly. “I feel very badly about that. I don’t know whether the Home Office will grant it, but I’ll try. You’d better be right.”

Pitt said nothing, except to thank him. He had no certainty to reassure either of them.

Until Micah Drummond should tell him whether he had succeeded or not, there was nothing further for Pitt to do regarding the exhumation. But one thing was quite clear in his mind. The solution to Paterson’s death would not be answered by finding opium in Stafford’s pocket. That was still as big a mystery as it had been the very first morning when they found the body. Only one thing was beyond question. Harrimore had not killed him.

Without forming a conscious decision, Pitt found himself outside on the pavement in Bow Street looking for a hansom. When he stopped one, he gave the address of Paterson’s lodgings in Battersea, and sat uncomfortably as the vehicle lurched forward and clattered along the street.

When they arrived he climbed out, paid the driver and went to the door. It was opened by the same pale, grim woman as before. Her face darkened as soon as she recognized Pitt, and she made as if to close it.

He put his foot against the lintel. “I want to see Constable Paterson’s rooms again, if you please,” he asked.

“They ain’t Constable Paterson’s rooms,” she said coldly. “They’re mine, an’ I let ’em to a Mr. ’Obbs. I can’t go openin’ ’em up an’ disturbin’ ’im, for any ol’ p’lice as comes ’ere.”

“Why would you want to stop me from finding out who murdered Paterson?” he asked with a hard edge to his voice. “It would be most unpleasant for you if I were obliged to have police watching the house day and night, and question all your lodgers again. I’m surprised you don’t think it altogether a better thing to let me come in and look at one room.”

“Or’right,” she snapped. “Bleedin’ rozzers. I s’pose there in’t nuffin’ I can do ter stop yer. Bastard!”

He ignored her and went up the stairs to the door of what had been Paterson’s rooms, and were now presumably those of Mr. Hobbs. He knocked loudly.

There were several seconds of silence, then a scuffling of shoes on the far side, and the door opened about six inches. A face appeared a foot or so below him, pale, surrounded by gray whiskers. Anxious blue eyes looked up.

“Mr. Hobbs?” Pitt asked.

“Y-Yes, y-yes, that’s me. What can I do for you, sir?”

“I am Inspector Pitt of the metropolitan police …”

“Oh—oh dear!” Hobbs was filled with alarm. “I assure you, I know of no crime, sir, none at all! I am sure I regret, but I can offer you no assistance whatever.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Hobbs, you can allow me inside to look at your rooms, which as you are no doubt aware were the scene of a tragedy.”

“Oh, no sir, you are mistaken,” Hobbs said in considerable agitation. “That was next door, I assure you! Yes, yes, next door.”

“No, Mr. Hobbs, it was here.”

“Oh! But you must be mistaken. The landlady assured me …”

“Possibly. But I was among those who found the body. I remember quite clearly.” He felt sorry for the man’s distress. “It seems you have been lied to, possibly in order to secure your tenancy. But they are very agreeable rooms. I wouldn’t let it dissuade you.”

“But really—murder, sir. This is dreadful!” Hobbs moved from one foot to the other.

“May I come in?”

“Well—yes, I suppose so, if you must. I am a law-abiding man, sir. I have no right to stop you.”

“Yes, you have, until I obtain a warrant, but I shall certainly do so, if you make it necessary.”

“No! No, not at all. Please.” And he opened the door so far back it knocked against the stop and shuddered forward again.

Pitt went in, remembering sharply and with a peculiar jolt of sadness his first time here, Livesey sitting in the chair looking sick, and the body of young Paterson still hanging by its rope in the bedroom.

“Thank you, Mr. Hobbs. If you don’t mind, it is the bedroom I wish to see.”

“The bedroom. Oh, my sainted aunt! The bedroom!” Hobbs’s hand flew to his face. “Oh dear—you don’t mean—not in the bedroom? The poor soul! I shall have to have the bed moved. I can’t sleep there now.”

“Why not? It is no different from last night,” Pitt said with less sympathy than he might have felt were there not so many other problems boiling in his mind.

“Oh, my dear sir—you jest at my expense.” Hobbs followed him anxiously to the bedroom door. “Or you are totally without sensitivity.”

Pitt had no time to be concerned about him. He knew he was being abrupt, but his mind was turning over every possibility, new ideas forming painfully. He looked at the room. It had not changed from his first visit except that of course the dreadful corpse of Paterson was no longer there, and the chandelier had been hung up again. Other than that it appeared totally untouched.

“What are you looking for?” Hobbs demanded from the doorway. “What is it? What do you think is here?”

Pitt stood motionless in the center of the floor, then began to turn very slowly, looking first at the bed, then the window.

“I’m not sure,” he replied absently. “I won’t know unless I see it—perhaps …”

Hobbs let out a gasp and fell silent.

Pitt turned towards the chest of drawers. It looked vaguely out of place, and yet he was sure it had been precisely there the first time.

“Have you moved that?” He looked around at Hobbs.

“The chest?” Hobbs was startled. “No sir. Most definitely not. I have moved nothing at all. Why should I?”

Pitt walked over to it. The picture on the wall was too close to it. But the picture had not been moved. He lifted it to make sure. There was no mark on the paper behind it, no pinhole. He ran his fingers over it to make doubly sure.

“What are you looking for, sir?” Hobbs said angrily, alarm making his voice rise in both pitch and volume.

Pitt bent down and looked very carefully at the floorboards, and at last he saw it, a very slight indentation about six inches from the front foot of the chest of drawers. There was a second indentation six inches from the back foot. That was where it had been accustomed to stand! It had been moved. And when he took off the cloth and looked at the polished surface there were scratch marks such as if someone had stood on it wearing boots, and slipped a little, losing his footing. He felt a little sick.

“You are sure you haven’t moved this?” He swung around to stare at Hobbs.

“I’ve told you, sir, I have not moved it,” Hobbs said furiously. “It is exactly where it was when I came here. Do you wish me to take my oath upon it? I will.”

Pitt rose to his feet. “No, thank you, I don’t think it will be necessary, but if it is, I shall call upon you to do so.”

“Why? What does it mean?” Hobbs was pale with agitation and mounting fear.

“It means, I think, that Constable Paterson moved this piece of furniture out of its place in order to climb up and take down the chandelier, then place his noose over the hook, and jump,” Pitt answered him.

“You mean his—murderer!” Hobbs gasped.

“No, Mr. Hobbs,” Pitt corrected. “I mean Paterson himself, when he realized what he had done to Aaron Godman; when he realized how he had allowed his horror and his rage at the time to blind him not only to the truth but to both honor and justice. He not only reached the wrong conclusion, he reached it by dishonest means. He did not listen to the flower seller; he made up his mind what had happened and coerced her into believing it. He was so sure he was right he forced the issue—and he was wrong.”

“Stop it,” Hobbs said in anguish. “I don’t want to hear it. It is quite terrible! I know what you are talking about—that murder in Farriers’ Lane. I remember when they hanged Godman. If what you are saying is true, then what hope is there for any of us? It can’t be! Godman was tried and found guilty, the judges all said so. You must be wrong.” He was wringing his hands in consternation. “They haven’t convicted Harrimore yet—and they won’t. You’ll see. British justice is the best in the world. I know that, even if you don’t.”

“I don’t know whether it is or not,” Pitt said evenly. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“How can you say that?” Hobbs was beside himself, his face white but for two hectic spots of color high in his cheeks. “That is monstrous. What matters on earth, if that doesn’t?”

“It doesn’t matter whether other people’s justice is better or worse,” Pitt explained with an effort at patience. “It matters that in this case we were wrong. You may find it painful. So will many others. That won’t change it. The only choice we have now is whether we will lie about it still and try to conceal it, condoning the act, becoming party to Godman’s death, or if we will uncover it and make damnably sure it doesn’t happen again—at least not easily. Which would you rather, Mr. Hobbs?”

“I—I, er …” Hobbs fell silent, staring at Pitt as if he had changed shape in front of him into something hideous. But he had neither spirit nor conviction to argue. Something in him knew Pitt was right.

Pitt said nothing more. He tipped his hat very slightly and went out past Hobbs, thanking him, and left.

“I haven’t got your exhumation order yet,” Drummond said quickly as soon as Pitt came into the office. “I’m still trying.”

Pitt threw himself down in the chair by the fire without waiting to be asked.

“Paterson committed suicide,” he said.

“You told me he couldn’t have,” Drummond replied. “And anyway, why on earth should he?”

“Wouldn’t it cross your mind, if you realized you had manufactured evidence that had hanged an innocent man?” Pitt demanded. He sank farther into the chair. “Paterson wasn’t a bad man. The Farriers’ Lane murder sickened him. He let his emotions govern his behavior. He was outraged, and frightened. He needed to find whoever was guilty, not just for the law but for himself, because he could not live with the idea that whoever it was was beyond the law to catch.”

“Not a weakness I fail to understand,” Drummond said quietly, standing looking down at Pitt. “I think a few of us suffer from that. It frightens me to think that such crimes can happen at all. We need to believe we can find the killers and prove their guilt. We need to believe in our own superiority, because the alternative is too dreadful.” He pushed his hands deep into his pockets. “Poor Paterson.”

Pitt said nothing. His mind was darkened by pity for him, imagining what he must have thought that last day of his life as he stood in his bedroom, bitterly alone, facing the ultimate failure. It was a knowledge he could never have denied, but he took a perverse satisfaction in turning the knife in himself, simply because it was truth, it was not escape, and he was sickened by escape. “He tore off his own stripes,” he said aloud. “It was a mark of dishonor, his own way of confessing.”

Drummond was silent for a long time.

“I still don’t see how you can be right,” he said at last, breaking into Pitt’s thoughts. “You said there was no way Paterson could have done it himself. There was nothing near for him to have climbed on. What are you saying happened?”

“That it was tidied up in order to look like murder,” Pitt replied quietly.

“For heaven’s sake, why? And by whom?”

“By Livesey, of course, when he found him, before he called us.”

“Livesey!” Drummond’s voice was high with disbelief. “Why? Why should he care if poor Paterson was condemned as a suicide? He may have pitied the man, but he is an appeal court judge. He wouldn’t tamper with evidence.”

Pitt rose to his feet. “Nothing to do with pity. That was before we knew Godman was innocent. Tell me when you have that exhumation order.”

“I don’t even know if I can get it. Pitt! Where are you going?”

“Home,” Pitt said from the doorway. “There’s nothing more I can do now. I’d like to go home to something clean and innocent before I dig up Stafford. I shall go and tell my children some fairy story before they go to bed, something about good and evil, where it all ends happily.”

The exhumation order was granted late in the evening, but Micah Drummond kept it till the early morning, and collected Pitt at seven o’clock in the drizzling darkness before dawn. The streets were wet, lamplight gleaming on the pavements and the splash and hiss of wheels in the water mingled with the clatter of hooves and slam of doors.

There was nothing to say. They sat together huddled up in greatcoats in the back of the cab and journeyed through the streets to the graveyard where they got out still in silence. Side by side they walked through the squelching mud over to the little group of men in rough clothes leaning on their spades. There was already a deep hole in the cold earth, bull’s-eye lanterns glowing like angry flares, showing the dark soil where it was turned. Pitt could smell the wet earth and feel the rain running down the back of his neck. Two lengths of rope were in place.

“ ’Allo, Guv,” one of the men said to Drummond. “You want that there coffin lifted now?”

“Yes, please,” Drummond replied.

Pitt stood beside him, chilled through, the wind in his face. The lamp was held high, light gleaming on the wet handles of the spades.

Slowly the men hauled on the ropes and the coffin rose into sight, handles shining where they had been wiped by a rough hand. One man leaned forward and brushed the loose earth off the top, smearing it in the rain. With difficulty they pulled it sideways out of the hole and set it on the ground. One of the men slipped in the mud and sent a shower of pebbles rattling down into the hole. Someone swore and crossed himself.

“Open it,” Drummond ordered.

The man took a screwdriver out of his coat pocket and obeyed. One of the others held the lantern higher. It took him several moments before finally he had all the screws removed and he could lift the lid. He looked away as he did it, his face pale. One of the others shuddered and said a few words of prayer.

“Thank you.” Pitt stepped forward. He had requested this. He must be the one to look.

The body was not as decayed as he had expected, probably because it was winter and the ground was cold. Still he would not look at the gray face more than once. With considerable difficulty he eased the limp body up and was immensely relieved when one of the men came forward and helped him. Very carefully he undid the jacket and slipped it off first one arm, then the other, then pulled it from underneath, laying the body back carefully. He looked at the jacket. As the valet had said, it was good cloth. Very gently he put his fingers into the pockets one by one. He was acutely conscious of the nasty smell and a sweetness that was unpleasant. He was glad of the freezing rain on his face. In the first pocket there was nothing except a clean handkerchief. What an odd thing to be put there. It was a thought which he found curiously pitiful, as if someone had done it for him as if he could need it.

Pitt took a deep breath and tried the next pocket. His fingers met tobacco fragments and a slight stickiness. He took his hand out and smelled it. There was only a faint odor of tobacco. He looked up at Drummond.

“Anything?” Drummond asked.

“I think so. If this is opium then we have the answer. I’ll take it to the medical examiner.” He turned to the diggers. “Thank you. You can close it again and put it back.”

“That all, Guv? Yer jus’ want ’is coat?”

“Yes, thank you, just his coat.”

“Jeez!”

Drummond and Pitt turned away and Pitt folded the coat to carry it carefully. The dawn was graying very slightly in the east, dull and heavy in the overcast. They walked slowly, picking their way back down the sodden path to the waiting cab, where the horse was stamping in the roadway and snorting white breath as the smell of the grave frightened it.

“I’m coming with you,” Drummond said as soon as they were inside. “I want to know what the medical examiner says.”

Pitt smiled grimly.

“Opium,” the medical examiner stated, looking up at Pitt through his eyebrows. “Paste of opium.”

“Strong enough to kill a man if he put a cigar end with that on it into his mouth?” Pitt asked.

“That concentration, yes. Not immediately, but after thirty minutes or so, could be.”

“Thank you.”

“But there was opium in the whiskey,” the medical examiner said hastily.

“I know,” Pitt agreed. “But someone else was seen to drink from the flask in the theater, and came to no harm.”

“Impossible. The concentration in that flask was enough to kill anyone!”

“Pitt?” Drummond demanded. Both men were looking at him now.

“The opium that killed Stafford was on the cigar. The opium in the flask was put there after he was dead,” Pitt explained.

“After …” Drummond was very still, his face pale. “You mean, to confuse us. But that means …”

“Precisely,” Pitt replied.

“Why? For God’s sake, why?” Drummond was confused and distressed.

“One of the oldest of reasons,” Pitt answered. “To keep the public image, the honor and the status he had earned over the years. To be proved wrong now would be a blow he could not take. He is a proud man.”

“But murder,” Drummond protested.

“I daresay it began simply as coercion, a tacit conspiracy among them all.” Pitt drove his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “They must have realized only very slowly that there was a possibility they had overlooked something, been too hasty to accept an answer because they needed one so badly. The public were clamoring. The Home Office would not wait. Everywhere they turned there was hysteria, pressure, fear. They clung together, bolstering each other up, and privately each took his own way of escaping from it, into retirement, the bottle, building allies against the day they might need them, salving conscience with good work—all except Stafford. His conscience nagged him until he found the courage to go back and look again. And it cost him his life.”

Drummond looked tired and sad, but he said nothing.

“They killed Godman,” Pitt said quietly. “I daresay they believed it was right at the time, a service to the law—and the people. But in the end he ruined them all, one way or another. Now if you will excuse me, I have a duty to carry out.”

“Yes—yes, of course. Pitt!”

“Yes sir?”

“I have no regrets over leaving the police force—but I might have had, were it not you taking my place.”

Pitt smiled, raised his hand as if to salute, then let it fall.

He entered Judge Livesey’s chambers without knocking and saw Livesey sitting behind his desk.

“Morning, Pitt,” Livesey said wearily. “I didn’t hear you knock.” Then he saw Pitt’s face and he frowned, slowly, the color dying from his cheeks. “What is it?” His voice was husky, forming the words with difficulty.

“I have just exhumed Samuel Stafford’s body.”

“What for, for God’s sake?”

“His dinner jacket. The opium on the unsmoked portion of his cigar …”

The last of the blood drained from Livesey’s face. His eyes met Pitt’s and he knew the end, as a man recognizes death when he sees it.

“He betrayed the law,” he said very quietly, so quietly Pitt barely heard him, although the words fell like stones.

“No,” Pitt argued with passionate belief. “It was you who betrayed the law.”

Livesey rose from his chair like a man asleep.

“Allow me the dignity of walking out of here without manacles,” he said.

“I had no intention of manacling you,” Pitt answered him.

“Thank you.”

“I have no wish to take anything from you. You have already robbed yourself of everything of worth.”

Livesey stopped and looked at him out of dead eyes. He perceived what Pitt meant, and understood despair.