Bedford Square Page 12

  Impulsively, Charlotte reached out her hand and rested it on his arm, holding him lightly. “You must forgive yourself,” she said earnestly. “And no one else will need to forgive you, because they will not know. This may be precisely what the blackmailer wants, to make you so demoralized that when he asks for whatever it is, you are willing to give it to him simply to be rid of the fear and the doubts, to know at last who your enemy is so you can also know your friends.”

  She felt the muscles in his arm tighten as he clenched them, but his hand did not move and he stayed close to her.

  “I have had a second letter,” he said, watching her face. “It was much the same as the first. Cut from the Times again and pasted onto paper. It came by first post this morning.”

  “What did it say?” she asked, trying to keep perfectly steady. He must not see how alarmed she was.

  He swallowed. He was very pale. It was obviously difficult for him even to repeat the words. “That my friends would shun me, cross over in the street to avoid me, if they knew I was a coward and ran from battle, and was saved by a private soldier, and then would not even own up to my shame but let him conceal it for me.” He swallowed, his throat jerking painfully. His voice was hoarse. “That my wife, who had already suffered so much, would be ruined, and my son would have to disown his name or his career would be finished.” He stared at her in helpless misery. “And not a word of it is true, I swear that in the name of God.”

  “I had not doubted you,” she said quite calmly. The depth of his distress had the strange effect of setting a deep resolution in her to fight the issue in his defense to the very last iota of her strength or imagination, and not give in even after that. “You must never allow him to think he has won,” she said with utter conviction. “Unless, of course, it should be a tactical ploy, to lead him to betray himself. But I cannot see, at the moment, how that would be an advantage.”

  He started to walk again. They passed half a dozen people, laughing and talking together: women with tiny waists and sweeping skirts, flowers and feathers on their hats; men in summer coats. And all the time carriages were busy along the street.

  They found the house where Elliot had lived, only to be told that he had died of a kidney ailment two months previously.

  They ate luncheon in a small, quiet restaurant, trying to keep each other’s spirits up, and then took the underground railway right across the city to Woolwich to find Samuel Holt. It was an extraordinary experience, and entirely new to Charlotte, although she had heard about it from Gracie. It was acutely claustrophobic, and the noise was beyond belief. The whole train shot through long, tubelike tunnels, roaring like a hundred tin trays dropped upon a paved yard. But it did achieve the journey in a remarkably short time. They emerged into the blustery, mild wind north of the river and only two streets from Holt’s house.

  He received them with great pleasure, although unable to rise from his chair and apologizing for it with some embarrassment; old wounds and rheumatism had disabled him. But when asked, he said that yes, most certainly he had been on the Abyssinian Expedition and remembered it quite clearly. How could he assist?

  Charlotte and Balantyne accepted the seats offered.

  “Do you recall the storming of the baggage train on the Arogee Plains?” Balantyne said eagerly, unable to keep hope out of his voice.

  “Arogee? Oh, yes.” Holt nodded. “Nasty.”

  Balantyne leaned forward. “Do you remember a small bunch of men panicking before enemy fire?”

  Holt thought for a few moments, his blue eyes misty and far away, as if he were seeing the plains of Abyssinia again, the brilliant skies, the dry earth and the colors of fighting men a quarter of a century before.

  “Nasty,” he said again. “Got a lot of men killed that way. Never panic. Worst thing you can do.”

  “Do you remember me?”

  Holt squinted at him. “Balantyne,” he said with evident pleasure.

  “Do you remember me going back for the wounded?” Balantyne said eagerly. “My horse fell. I was thrown, but I got up after a moment or two. Got Manders and helped him back. He was shot in the leg. You turned and went for Smith.”

  “Oh, yes … Smith. Yes, I remember.” He looked at Balantyne with a charming, wide-eyed smile. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “You remember it?”

  “Of course. Dreadful business.” He shook his head, the sunlight catching his white hair. “Brave men. Too bad.”

  A shadow crossed Balantyne’s face. “The Abyssinians?” he questioned.

  Holt frowned. “Our men. Remember the jackals … eating the dead. Fearful! What makes you mention it now, sir?” He blinked several times. “Lose a lot of friends, did you?”

  Balantyne’s face tightened; a bleakness crossed it as if in that instant some hope in him had died.

  “Do you remember that attack and my going back for Manders? Do you remember how it happened?”

  “Of course I do,” Holt insisted. “I said so, didn’t I? Why does it matter now?”

  “Just recollections,” Balantyne replied, leaning back. “Bit of a difference of opinion with someone.”

  “Ask Manders himself, sir. He’ll tell you. You rescued the poor devil. He’d have been dead for certain if you hadn’t. What any officer worth his salt would do. Who says otherwise?” Holt was puzzled; it upset him. “Terrible bloodshed. Remember the stench of bodies.” His face pinched with distress.

  Charlotte looked at Balantyne. He, too, was torn with the pain of memory.

  “Good men,” Holt murmured sadly. “Manders wasn’t one of them, was he?”

  “Killed in India a couple of years later,” Balantyne said quietly.

  “Was he? I’m sorry. Lost count, you know. So many dead.” He stopped, searching Balantyne’s face.

  Balantyne took a deep breath and stood up, extending his hand.

  “Thank you, Holt. Good of you to spare me your time.”

  Holt remained seated in his chair. His face lit with pleasure, and he clasped Balantyne’s hand fiercely, clinging to it for several moments before he let go. His eyes shone. “Thank you, General,” he said with deep feeling. “It was a great thing that you came to see me.”

  Outside in the street, Charlotte could hardly wait to turn to Balantyne and see his relief.

  “That proves it!” she said exultantly. “Mr. Holt was there. He can make nonsense of the whole charge.”

  “No he can’t, my dear,” Balantyne answered quietly, controlling his emotions with such difficulty he would not look at her. “We lost no men at Magdala. In fact, there were only two men killed in the entire campaign. Many wounded, of course, but only two dead.”

  She was astounded, confused. “But the stench,” she protested, still trying to force away what he was saying. “He remembered it.”

  “Abyssinians … seven hundred at Arogee with the baggage train. God knows how many at Magdala. They slew their prisoners. Hurled them over the walls. It was one of the worst things I ever knew.”

  “But Holt … s-said …” she stammered.

  “His mind is gone … poor creature.” He walked quickly, his body tight. “He is lucid in moments. I think when I left he actually did remember me. Most of the time he was simply lonely … and wanted to please.” He kept his face straight ahead, and she saw the pain in it, heard the thick huskiness in his voice. She knew it was not for himself. The hollowness of failure would come later.

  She did not know what to do, whether touching him would be an intrusion. He was walking very rapidly. She had to pick up her skirts and stride to keep up with him, but he was unaware of it. She moved beside him in silence, every now and again giving a little skip not to be left behind. Loyalty was all she could offer.

  Tellman was very fully occupied learning more about the recent life of Albert Cole. He began at Lincoln’s Inn Fields with a pair of bootlaces. He found the corner where Cole had stood, and already there was someone else there, a thin man with an unusually long nose b
ut a cheerful expression.

  “Laces, sir?” He held out a pair in a fairly clean hand.

  Tellman took them and examined them closely.

  “Best you’ll find,” the man assured him.

  “You get them the same place as the fellow who was here before you?” Tellman said casually.

  The man hesitated, not sure which was the best answer. He looked at Tellman’s face and learned nothing.

  “Yeah,” he said eventually.

  “Who was that?”

  “You buy ’em from me, guv. I got the best laces in London.”

  Tellman held out the appropriate money; it was little enough. “I still want to know where you get them. Police business.”

  “They ain’t nicked!” The man’s face paled.

  “I know that. I want to learn all I can about Albert Cole, who had this patch before you.”

  “ ’im wot was croaked?”

  “Yes. Did you know him?”

  “Yeah. That’s ’ow I got the patch. Poor sod. ’e were a decent bloke. Soldier, ’e were. Got shot somew’ere out in Africa, or somew’ere like that. Don’t know wot the ’ell ’e were doin’ in Bedford Square.”

  “Thieving?” Tellman suggested dourly.

  The peddler’s body stiffened. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but yer din’t oughter say that, ’less you can prove it, like. Albert Cole were an ’onest man wot served ’is country. An’ I ’ope as yer find the bastard wot topped ’im.”

  “We will,” Tellman promised. “Now, where’d he get the bootlaces?”

  “Good man,” the bootlace stockist said when Tellman found him. He nodded his head sadly. “London ain’t safe no more. When a quiet fellow doin’ nobody ’arm can get killed like that, the p’lice ain’t doin’ their jobs.”

  “Did he have any money trouble?” Tellman ignored the criticism.

  “ ’Course ’e did. Anyone wot peddles bootlaces on a street corner’s got money troubles,” the man said dryly. “You work fer a livin’, or wot? You just do this ’cos yer like it, mister?”

  Tellman held his temper with difficulty. He thought of his father, who had left their two rooms in Billingsgate at five in the morning and worked carrying bales and boxes in the fish market all day. In the evening he had relieved a friend driving hansom cabs, often until midnight, all seasons of the year: in the swelter of summer when the traffic was jammed head to tail and the smell of manure filled the air; when the rain made the gutters swim and the rubbish and effluent swilled across the road and the cobbles shone black and glistening in the lamplight; in the winter when the wind chapped the skin and the ice made the horse’s hooves slide dangerously. Even the pea soup fogs had not stopped him.

  “I’ve got nothing except what I work for,” Tellman said, the anger edging his voice till it cut. “And my pa could teach you what that word means, or any man.”

  The bootlace supplier backed away, frightened not by Tellman’s words but by the well of rage he had unwittingly tapped into. Tellman was mollified. The ache of memory was not healed. He could still see in his mind his father’s gaunt face, worried, cold, too tired to do anything but eat and sleep. There had been fourteen children, eight of whom lived. His mother cooked and washed, and sewed and swept, scrubbed and carried buckets of water, made soap out of lye and potash, sat up at night with sick children or sick neighbors. She laid out the dead, too many of them her own.

  Most of the people he worked with now did not even imagine what exhaustion, hunger and poverty really meant; they only imagined they did. And those like General Brandon Balantyne, with his bought and paid for career, they lived in another world, as if they were more than human and Tellman and his like were less. They had more respect for their horses … come to think of it, a great deal more! And their horses had a far better life: a warm stable and good food, a kind word at the end of the day.

  But alarmed as he was, the supplier could tell him nothing more about Albert Cole, except that he was absolutely honest in his dealings and worked as regularly as most men, only missing the odd few days through illness. That was until his disappearance, a day and a half before his body was found in Bedford Square. And no, he had no idea what Cole could have been doing there.

  Tellman took the omnibus and rode back towards Red Lion Square. He started visiting the pawnshops and asking about Albert Cole. No one knew him by name, but the third one he visited seemed to recognize the description Tellman gave of him, particularly the break in his left eyebrow.

  “ ’Ad a feller like that in ’ere fairly reg’lar,” he said with a gesture of resignation. “Always ’ad summink a bit tasty, like. Last time it were a gold ring.”

  “A gold ring?” Tellman said quickly. “Where’d he get it?”

  “Said ’e found it,” the pawnbroker replied, looking straight at Tellman without blinking. “Goes down the sewers sometimes. Comes up wi’ all sorts.” He scratched his ear irritably.

  “Down the sewers?” Tellman said.

  “Yeah.” The pawnbroker nodded. “Find gold, diamonds, all sorts down there.”

  “I know that,” Tellman said. “That’s why it costs a fair penny to buy a stretch of sewer to patrol. And any tosher’ll knock your head in if you trespass.”

  The pawnbroker looked uncomfortable. Apparently, he had not expected Tellman to be so familiar with the facts of scavenging.

  “Well that’s wot ’e told me!” he said abruptly.

  “And you believed it?” Tellman gave him a withering look.

  “Yeah. Why not? ’ow was I ter know if ’e were tellin’ the truth?”

  “Haven’t you got a nose on your face?”

  “A … nose?” But the pawnbroker knew what he meant. The smell of a sewer scavenger was unmistakable, just like the smell of a mudlark, a man who sifted the river silt for lost treasures.

  “A thief,” Tellman said scathingly. “But of course you wouldn’t know that. How often did he come here with stuff?”

  The pawnbroker was now extremely uncomfortable. He scratched his ear again.

  “Six or seven times, mebbe. I din’t know’e were a thief. ’e always ’ad a good tale. I thought ’e were a …”

  “Yes, a tosher,” Tellman supplied for him. “You said. Always jewelry? Did he ever come with paintings, ornaments, or the like?”

  “From down the sewers?” The pawnbroker’s voice rose an octave. “I may not be as clever as you are about toshers, but even I know as nobody loses paintings down the bath ’ole!”

  Tellman smiled, showing his teeth. “And no pawnbroker buys gold rings from a tosher without knowing that either. No need to fence it if it was fair pickings.”

  The pawnbroker glared at him. “Well, I dunno w’ere ’e got ’is things, do I? If ’e were a thief it weren’t nuthin’ ter do wif me. Now, if yer in’t got nuffink else ter ask me, will yer get out o’ me shop. Yer puttin’ orff me proper custom.”

  Tellman left feeling angry and puzzled. This was a very different picture of Albert Cole from the one he had gained previously.

  He went back and had a late luncheon at the Bull and Gate public house in High Holborn. It was only a few yards from the corner where Cole had had his position selling bootlaces. Perhaps on a cold day he had come in here, even if only for a mug of ale and a slice of bread.

  He ordered ale for himself and a good, thick sandwich of roast beef and horseradish sauce. He sat where he hoped to fall into conversation easily with some regular of the place. He began to eat. He was hungry. He had been walking all morning and was glad to sit down. He had not cared a great deal about clothes until lately. He had bought one or two things in the last couple of months, a new coat in good dark blue, and two new shirts. A man should have some self-respect. But boots that fitted were his greatest expense, and had not been skimped on since his very first wage.

  He bit into the bread, and thought of Gracie’s cake. There was something about home cooking, eaten at the kitchen table, which sat better in the stomach than the best meat eaten in
some anonymous place, and paid for. Gracie was a funny mixture of a person. At times she sounded so independent, even bossy. And yet she worked for Pitt and lived in his house, without any place that was really her own. She was at his beck and call all hours, not only day but night too.

  He pictured her as he sat chewing on the beef sandwich. She was very little, nothing really but skin and bone, not the sort of woman to attract most men. Nothing to put your arms around. He thought of other women he had found pleasing at one time or another. There was Ethel, all fair hair and soft skin, plenty of curves there, and nice-natured too, agreeable. She had married Billy Tomkinson. At the time that had hurt. He was surprised that he could think of it so easily now, even with a smile.

  What would Gracie have made of Ethel? His smile widened. He could hear her voice in his mind. “Great useless article!” she’d have said. He could imagine the tolerant scorn on her face with its wide eyes and thin, strong features. She was strong. She had all the courage and determination in the world. She’d never let you down, never run away from anything. Like a little terrier, face anyone. And she knew right from wrong. Conscience like iron. No, maybe more like steel, sharp … and bright. Funny how much that sort ofthing could matter when you really thought about it.

  Not that Gracie wasn’t pretty, in her own way. She had a beautiful neck, very smooth, and the daintiest ears he had ever seen. And nice fingernails, oval-shaped and always pink and clean.

  This was ridiculous. He should stop daydreaming and get on with his job. He needed to find out a great deal more about Albert Cole. He bought another pint of ale and struck up a conversation with a large man standing at the bar.

  He left an hour later, having heard nothing but good of Cole. In the opinion of the barman and other regulars he had spoken to, Cole was a decent, cheerful, hardworking man as honest as the day, careful with his money but always ready to stand a friend a drink when it was his turn.