Murder on the Serpentine Read online

  “Not very good news from South Africa,” he said ruefully, looking at Kendrick. “I believe you know Alfred Milner? What do you think he is going to do? He’s not really going to go hand to hand against Kruger, is he?”

  Kendrick smiled. “You overstate my knowledge of him, Carlisle. It is some time since we’ve had any contact.”

  “Has he changed from the man you knew?” Carlisle did not seem inclined to let the matter go. “Does he think Kruger will back down?”

  From what Pitt had learned of Paul Kruger, president of the Transvaal, he would be the last man to back down, whatever the enemy or the cost, but he said nothing. This was not really about Kruger, or even about Africa; it was about Kendrick and what he was willing to say, or might let slip if pushed.

  “Do you think he won’t?” Kendrick responded. “Or are you suggesting that we should?” There was a thin vein of scorn in his tone.

  “I think anyone with diplomatic skill of even the barest sort would have more sense than to put us in a situation where it was necessary,” Carlisle said frankly. “Unless, of course, he had some interest in there being another Boer war?”

  Kendrick raised his eyebrows. “That suggests you think we will lose.”

  Suddenly the atmosphere was different, harder. Ferdie Warburton forgot about his own embarrassment, even about horse-racing and money, and stared at Carlisle earnestly.

  Kendrick turned to Pitt. “Is that Special Branch’s point of view, Mr. Pitt? You’re afraid we could lose—against the Boers?”

  Pitt gave him an honest answer. “Possibly not militarily, at least for a while. I mean a few decades. But economically is a different matter…”

  “Have you even the faintest idea how much gold there is in Johannesburg alone?” Kendrick demanded. “Not to mention diamonds.”

  “A reasonable assessment, yes.” Pitt met Kendrick’s eyes unblinkingly. “What do you think a war that far away from Britain will cost us, in money, weapons, and men’s lives? What about future trade? Not to speak of international goodwill? And if you reduce everything to money, you need to put a price on other nations’ judgment of our morality and what we may have to do, fighting against a largely civilian population of farmers and their families. We may pay for that for a longer time than we imagine.”

  “You sound like a politician!” Kendrick derided. “Are you running for office?” It was a joke, not a question.

  “I don’t sound like any politician I’ve ever heard,” Pitt answered him. “I hear ‘expedient or not,’ ‘popular or not,’ ‘expensive or cheap.’ I don’t hear right or wrong so much.”

  “Then you should listen to Alfred Milner,” Kendrick shot back at him. “He thinks it is our moral duty as a superior civilization to care for those less able, less wise, less advanced. It is a moral responsibility, and a good man accepts that and does his best. Counting pennies doesn’t come into it.”

  “Well said by a man who has hundreds of thousands of pennies,” Carlisle said bitingly. “Wait until your children lie awake all night, crying because they have nothing to eat.”

  “I don’t believe Milner lives where he can hear that,” Pitt replied before Kendrick could speak. “Or where he can send the butler for more brandy.”

  “In a club such as this, Mr. Pitt, he is referred to as a steward.” Kendrick’s sarcasm was knife sharp.

  Pitt laughed. “Is Mr. Milner sitting around in a gentlemen’s club? I thought he was in Africa arguing with the Boers. That could explain the lack of grasp on the details.”

  Kendrick swore under his breath. “Since you’re not a member here, I’ll get the steward myself.” He raised his hand and the steward appeared almost immediately.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Another brandy each,” Kendrick asked. “Except Mr. Pitt here. He doesn’t appear to drink.”

  While the steward fetched a further brandy for the three of them and served it, Ferdie turned to Pitt and asked a question about horse-racing. It was an obvious attempt to turn the conversation to something less contentious.

  “Don’t embarrass the man, Ferdie,” Kendrick said with a quick, hard smile. “His experience lies with cart horses—sorry, perhaps I should say shire horses; it sounds less—”

  “Rude,” Carlisle supplied for him, his smile equally tight. “Actually, I think his expertise lies with knowledge of a different sort…more pertinent to…all sorts of things.”

  “Oh, yes,” Kendrick turned to face Pitt. “Sorry. We horse-racers get a bit myopic where other subjects are concerned.” He left the remark hanging in the air to be interpreted as anyone wished.

  Pitt accepted the challenge. It was what Carlisle had asked him here for, and he would not get a better chance.

  “Not really one to gamble my money on winning,” he said, looking at Kendrick and ignoring Ferdie.

  There was a moment’s silence. Kendrick waited, ignoring his brandy.

  “More of a hunter,” Pitt finished.

  “Gamble my life, and yours, on winning…eventually,” Kendrick replied.

  Ferdie laughed nervously.

  “So you are,” Carlisle said with guarded eyes and a smile on his lips. “Told you, he took over from Narraway. You knew Narraway, didn’t you, Kendrick?”

  “Probably better than you think,” Kendrick replied. “Or you,” he added, including Pitt this time. “A great information collector, which is a dangerous occupation.”

  Ferdie looked increasingly uncomfortable. He shifted slightly in his seat.

  “Usually personal and unpleasant,” Kendrick went on. “I suppose it’s necessary, grubbing around in other people’s secrets, looking for something to use. It’s hardly a gentleman’s occupation. And as I just said, it’s dangerous.”

  Pitt pictured Sir John Halberd lying senseless, facedown in the waters of the Serpentine, drowning. Quite suddenly he was deeply angry.

  “Profoundly,” he agreed, with no lift of good humor in his voice, no easing his face. “When you find out something really ugly about some people, they don’t face you openly as a soldier would, or on the floor of the House of Commons, to argue it out. They are more likely to stab you in the back, in some dark street where there is no one to help you. Or crack your skull and leave you to drown in a lake or river, so the unpracticed observer thinks it was an accident.”

  Carlisle’s eyes opened wide. Kendrick’s body stiffened.

  “Oh God!” Ferdie let out a slow gasp. “Are you saying that John Halberd was murdered? He was a collector of all sorts of information. He knew everyone!”

  “Don’t be so damn stupid!” Kendrick snapped. “He’s baiting you. Halberd probably had too much to drink and refused to buy a prostitute. Her pimp got into a fight with him and Halberd came off worst. I daresay it was an accident in that the man didn’t mean to kill him.” He turned to Pitt. “That’s the problem with you people ferreting out all sorts of things. You can’t leave even a decent man alone, you have to go sniffing around the midden and digging up things a better man would leave buried.”

  There was a hot silence. Even Carlisle was startled.

  “Talking about knowledge,” Pitt said slowly and clearly, “it seems you know a great deal more about that particular incident than most people do. There is no evidence that there was a woman involved, or that she was a prostitute with an impetuous pimp. How do you know that?”

  Another burning silence. Even Carlisle was rigid in his seat now.

  Kendrick replied at last. “This time you are right, Pitt. It was only an uneducated guess, based on my acquaintance with the man. He was a clear example of one who gathers up every scrap of grubby knowledge about people, and still has no idea how the real world works. It was only a matter of time before he made an expensive mistake. It was his misfortune that it was also a fatal one.”

  Pitt’s mind was racing, but he managed to maintain his calm, even his smile. At least he thought he did. Carlisle was sitting opposite him, just the faintest movement of his chest indicating th
at he was breathing.

  “Knowing so much about it, I’m sure you must have warned him that trawling for prostitutes in Hyde Park was unwise,” Pitt said slowly. “Apart from the awkwardness of a rowing boat out on the Serpentine for such adventures, there is the extreme likelihood of unintentionally bumping into someone you know.”

  Carlisle let out a guffaw of laughter.

  Ferdie Warburton choked and went into a coughing fit.

  Kendrick rose to his feet, knocking over his empty brandy glass, which rolled onto the floor.

  “I thought Narraway was ghastly, but at least he knew what he was doing. You, sir, are a fool in policeman’s clothing. You should leave the job to those who are capable of doing it at least efficiently, if not well!” He turned and walked out, leaving Ferdie Warburton to scramble to his feet and follow after him.

  “Bravo,” Carlisle said quietly. “You might be either brilliant or disastrous, but no one could call you a coward. I know a lot more about Kendrick than I did an hour ago. I hope you do too.”

  “Unfortunately Kendrick also knows a lot more about me,” Pitt replied, his mouth dry.

  “Then he’ll either back off a little,” Carlisle said, “or else he’ll attack.”

  —

  BY LATE THAT AFTERNOON Pitt knew which of the two it was to be. At five o’clock he was sent for by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. Unlike the Queen, he did not send a carriage for Pitt, merely a hand-delivered message, formal and peremptory in tone. Pitt was to bring the note with him, and if presented to the prince’s staff, it would gain him entrance to Kensington Palace, where the prince was presently staying.

  Pitt told Stoker where he was going and caught a hansom cab at the end of Lisson Grove, giving the startled driver the address of Kensington Palace and the entrance at which Pitt was to present himself.

  He sat in the cab, oblivious of the streets he was passing through and the delays caused by traffic jammed in the evening bustle. He had a considerable history with the prince, very little of it fortunate. It started when Pitt was thrown out of the police force and found Special Branch the only law-enforcement body that would employ him.

  Narraway had been the head of Special Branch then, and the Prince of Wales had been deeply unpopular with a large section of London’s inhabitants. The Queen was still very much in mourning for Prince Albert, even though he had been gone for years. In the eyes of many, she neglected her subjects. The Prince of Wales lived ostentatiously beyond his means and borrowed money from many people, never intending to pay it back. For one particular man it had ended in death, nearly closing his factory and losing employment—and thus livelihood and home—for hundreds of families.

  The East End of London was on the edge of a revolutionary rising. It had not happened, but it had come far too close for comfort. The prince’s self-indulgence had been a high contributing factor, and he was made aware that Pitt knew it.

  Then there had been the tragic affair involving the prince’s intention to back the building of a railway line from Cairo on the Mediterranean, through Africa—nearly all of which was British ruled, right to Cape Town on the southern tip. It was a marvelous dream—but again, it was Pitt’s solving of a murder that had precipitated its collapse. And of course Pitt had interviewed the prince and witnessed his failure. That was unforgettable.

  Now the prince had sent for Pitt. Edward would soon be king, but that did not affect the fact that Pitt’s loyalty was to the throne itself, not to Edward or his frail, grieving mother.

  The cab stopped. Pitt alighted and paid, then, drawing the prince’s instructions out of his pocket, walked up to the guard at the side door and presented the card.

  Half an hour later he was standing by the window of a pleasant sitting room when the footman told Pitt that His Royal Highness would see him now.

  The second room was very like the one Pitt had just left, only larger. Edward was standing. He was looking very much his nearly sixty years, heavily built, much more than when Pitt had last seen him. His hair was thinning, and his beard covered almost all the lower part of his face. His eyes had a slightly downward outer slope, as always; usually they reflected clarity and humor, if not the joy of life.

  Now he looked Pitt up and down with acute displeasure. Pitt knew better than to speak first.

  “Alan Kendrick is a friend of mine,” the prince began. “Do you suspect him of something criminal?” He was several inches shorter than Pitt, but still managed to look at him disparagingly. Pitt was startled. That was the last thing he had expected the prince to say.

  “No, Your Royal Highness.” There was no other possible answer.

  “Then what the devil are you doing publicly insulting him as if he were some common hooligan? Have you no sense of who he is?” Edward demanded.

  All the way here, Pitt had been trying to plan what he was going to say, but nothing in his mind fitted the interview at all. How could he say “He insulted me, and I insulted him back”? It sounded like something out of the school yard for ten-year-olds!

  The truth, or at least part of it, was the only thing he could rely on.

  “We quarreled over the death of Sir John Halberd, sir,” he said quietly, trying to keep his tone and attitude respectful. “Mr. Kendrick believed that Sir John was with a prostitute and her pimp attacked him. I am looking into the matter—”

  “Why, for God’s sake?” the prince cut across him, his face red with anger. “Let the poor man rest in peace. How is it any of your business how it happened? Can’t you keep your nose out of anything?”

  Pitt clenched his hands at his sides. “If a loyal subject of Her Majesty, and one whom she trusted as an adviser, is first murdered and then his memory slandered, no, sir, I cannot.”

  “Murdered?” The prince was stunned. “Who murdered him? Do you think that? Are you sure?”

  “I believe he was murdered, sir. There is no way he can have fallen accidentally and hit his head on both the oar and the side of the boat in the way his injuries and the blood on the boat indicated. I don’t know who is responsible, or why, but I am doing all I can to find out, discreetly. I am also doing whatever I can to find out why he was there in the first place, in a rowing boat on the Serpentine, after dark and apparently alone. But it is not easy to do so without ruining his reputation. It is not made easier by Mr. Kendrick’s loudly expressed opinion that Sir John was there with a woman of the street.”

  The prince pulled his mouth into a tight line of displeasure, as if someone had broken a bad egg near him.

  “Why the hell was he such a fool?” he demanded. “Do you know, Pitt?”

  Pitt found himself defending Halberd with some heat. “I know of no reason to believe he was doing anything of the sort. I think he may have been meeting someone, but it could have been a man or a woman, and for a variety of reasons.”

  “Such as…what?”

  Should Pitt tell him anything close to the truth? That it was for Victoria? No. He did not have to question himself to know that the prince was the last person who should even guess at Halberd’s task.

  “I don’t know, sir. The more I look into his life, the more I see he knew a great deal about people and affairs.”

  “Whose affairs?” the prince said suspiciously.

  “Business and political matters, sir, not personal, so far as I know.”

  The prince considered in silence for several minutes. Pitt stood to attention, waiting.

  “Then I suppose you had better get on with it,” the prince said at last. “But Alan Kendrick is a friend of mine. Good with horses, really very good. Never knew a man who judged his bloodstock with more skill. And loyal! I don’t forget loyalty. Or disloyalty, Pitt. Remember that.”

  “Sir.” Pitt stood to attention, meeting the prince’s eyes. One day this man would be king. He had waited for it all his life. Now he was portly, gray, and far from the young man he had been. His accession to the throne would change a lot of things, far more than anyone could foresee.
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  It might change the whole of life for Pitt as well.

  “All right,” the prince said abruptly. “I suppose you had better find out what happened to Halberd. Don’t charge around like a bull in a china shop! You can do that…?”

  Pitt drew in his breath, and let it out. “Yes, sir.”

  CHARLOTTE HAD A RESTLESS day. She saw that Pitt had dressed unusually formally and knew that he needed to go somewhere that required it of him. He had no interest in clothes for style, only for comfort. The only article he cared about was boots. He greatly appreciated if they were also smart. Recently he had dropped his old habit of stuffing all kinds of things into his pockets because he realized that he needed more than the affection of his men; he needed their respect. He must look like a commander of Special Branch, even more for the general public and the aristocracy he quite often had to deal with. He would never match Narraway for elegance, but he moved with ease, and that was a kind of grace.

  And so she knew that wherever he was going to lunch today, he was nervous about it. She had nearly said something to reassure him, but just as she was going to speak, she saw how unwelcome it would be. It was not a superficial tension in him: The anxiety was deep.

  And yet he could not tell her anything about the case. He should not even have mentioned Sir John Halberd and Narraway. Of course, this lack of information had only succeeded in driving everything else out of her mind. She was worried for him. He could not triumph in everything—nobody did—but he had to win all the big ones. There were enough people who thought Victor Narraway had entrusted too much to Pitt in promoting him so far, so quickly. Having a brilliant career as a policeman solving murders was not the same thing as heading a whole force that deals with treason, sabotage, and bombings. The stakes were often ideological rather than personal, and the perpetrators were anyone from foreign refugees without a penny to their names, living on whatever they could find around disused warehouses, up to the landed aristocracy whose loyalty to the Crown might be suspect and whose ambitions outgrew their places.