Farriers' Lane Read online

  Joshua’s eyebrows rose and he straightened up, taking his hands out of his pockets. “With the police? I’m sorry—I thought he was taken ill. Was it an injury? Good heavens—in the theater?”

  “No, it looks as if it may have been poison,” Pitt said carefully.

  “Poison?” Joshua was incredulous and Tamar stiffened. “How do you know?” Joshua asked.

  “I don’t,” Pitt replied, looking from one to the other of them, “But the symptoms were alarmingly like those of opium poisoning. I should be irresponsible were I not to allow the possibility, and learn what I can, tonight, while memories are sharp and recent, before I hand the matter over to whoever will handle it when the medical report comes in.”

  “I see.” Joshua bit his lip. “And you have come here because both Tamar and I saw him during the day, and you suspect us?” His face was tight, full of hurt. Almost unconsciously he put out his hand and touched Tamar’s arm. It was a protective gesture, although she looked in some ways the stronger of the two. Her face was fiercer, less vulnerable than his.

  Watching her, Charlotte thought of the little she had heard of the Godman case, and the appalling loss of her brother. She wondered what Aaron Godman had been like. If he resembled her, Charlotte could imagine how people might have feared him, and believed him at least capable of a passion that could have ended in murder!

  “Among many others.” Pitt did not prevaricate. “But it is also possible you may provide some observation which will simply guide us to the truth.”

  “You mean implicate someone else,” Tamar said coolly. “We have been through a murder investigation before, Inspector Pitt. We cherish no illusions that it will be a pleasant affair, or that the police will rest before they have found evidence to satisfy a court of someone’s guilt.”

  Charlotte was acutely aware of how exact was her use of words. The wound of her brother’s conviction was far from healed.

  “It is ours to present the evidence, Miss Macaulay,” Pitt replied without anger or criticism in his face. “Not to decide on it—thank God. But I have never knowingly provided anything which I did not believe to be true. I am aware that you feel your brother was wronged, and that it was in connection with that case that you visited Mr. Stafford today.”

  “Of course.” Her amusement was genuine, if bitter. “I have no other reason for seeking his acquaintance. I am aware that actresses have a certain reputation. In my case it is not warranted. And I know no reason to suppose it was in Mr. Stafford’s either.” There was savage laughter in her eyes, a mockery of Stafford and of herself and all people suppressed of emotions. “He was a somewhat humorless man,” she went on. “Lacking in imagination, and in the unlikely event he were to pursue a romance, I think he would be more discreet than to choose an actress with whom to do it!”

  Charlotte looked at Pitt’s face and saw the imagination take flight in him. Tamar was a woman a man might fall in love with, even passionately, but not a woman with whom he would have an affaire. She was the stuff of dreams, even of visions, not a pleasant pastime, a little laughter and sensuality away from the duties of marriage or the loneliness of a bachelor life. Charlotte could not imagine her as a comfortable woman, and she believed Pitt did not either.

  “I do not leap to conclusions, Miss Macaulay.” Pitt’s voice cut across her thoughts. “Even when they seem on the firmest of ground.”

  A smile flashed across Tamar’s face and vanished.

  “And you, Mr. Fielding?” Pitt turned to Joshua. “Did Mr. Stafford come to sec you about this case?”

  “Yes, of course. I gathered from what he said that he was considering reopening it after all.” He sighed heavily. “Now we have lost that chance. We have not managed to persuade anyone else to consider it at all.”

  “Did you see him alone, Mr. Fielding?”

  “Yes. I imagine that there is no point in my telling you what happened, since there is no one to verify it.” Joshua shrugged. “He simply asked me about the night Blaine was killed, and made me rehearse everything I know all over again. But he said he was off to see Devlin O’Neil—that was Blaine’s friend, with whom he quarreled that evening—over money, I think.”

  “Did he have this with him?” Pitt pulled the silver flask out of his pocket and held it forward.

  Joshua regarded it curiously. “Not that I saw, but then one doesn’t usually carry such a thing where it is visible. Why? Is it poisoned?”

  Tamar shrank a little into herself and looked at it with distaste.

  “I don’t know,” Pitt replied, putting it away again. “Have you seen it before, Miss Macaulay?”

  “No.”

  Pitt did not argue.

  “Thank you. I expect whoever is in charge tomorrow will speak to you again. I’m sorry to have had to distress you this way.”

  Joshua shrugged gently, a smile crossing his face and disappearing.

  Pitt bade them good-night and after the briefest exchange Charlotte, Pitt and Caroline took their leave. Outside the night was dark; the theater lights were dimmed now, only the ordinary street lamps like luminous pearls in a faint fog that was gathering in gauzy wraiths in the air. Carriage wheels hurried along the damp streets and hooves clattered sharply on the wet stone.

  Had Stafford planned to reopen the case of murder for which Aaron Godman had been hanged? Was that why he had been killed? Tamar Macaulay wanted it reopened. Who wanted it kept closed—enough to murder?

  Or was it something entirely different: a different person, a different fear—or hate?

  Charlotte walked a little faster and linked her arm in Pitt’s as he looked for a hansom to take them home.

  2

  MICAH DRUMMOND was in his office early in the morning. Since the case which had centered on Belgrave Square that summer, and produced so much horror and scandal, and for Drummond himself, knowledge that affected every part of his life, he was no longer happy with his own thoughts. Work was something of a relief, even though it offered reminders far too often of just what a tortuous web of obligations he had unknowingly entered when he accepted membership in the secret society of the Inner Circle.

  Eleanor Byam was a different matter. The only way he could keep his mind from her was to sink it in the urgent and complicated problems of other people.

  He was standing near the window in the thin autumn sunlight when Pitt knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” Drummond said hopefully. There was too little on his desk and what there was was stale. He had already read it and delegated it appropriately. Now all he could do was send for further reports every so often to keep him abreast of every new turn of events, which would be more interference than his officers deserved. “Come in!” he said again more sharply.

  The door opened and Pitt stood in the entrance, his hair curling wildly, his jacket crooked and his cravat in imminent danger of coming undone completely. Drummond found him a remarkably reassuring sight, at once familiar and yet always on the brink of some surprise.

  Drummond smiled. “Yes, Pitt?”

  Pitt came in, closing the door behind him.

  “I was at the theater last night.” He put his hands in his pockets and stood in front of the desk, at anything but attention. In another man Drummond might have resented it, but he liked Pitt too much to wish to reaffirm their relative positions of authority.

  “Oh yes.” Drummond was surprised. It was not one of Pitt’s regular habits.

  “Invitation from my mother-in-law,” Pitt elaborated. “Justice Samuel Stafford died in his box,” he went on. “I saw him taken ill and went to offer any help I could.” He pulled a silver hip flask out of his jacket pocket, a beautiful thing gleaming in the light.

  Drummond looked at it, then at Pitt’s face, waiting for the explanation.

  Pitt put the flask on the green leather desk top.

  “There’s no medical report yet, of course, but it looked too much like opium poisoning to ignore the possibility. Justice Ignatius Livesey was there as well.
He’d been in the next box and came to help too. Actually it was he who realized it might well be poison. He saw Stafford drink from the flask, so he took it from Stafford’s pocket and gave it to me, for the medical examiner to look at.”

  “Samuel Stafford,” Drummond said slowly. “He’s an appeal court judge, isn’t he.” It was not a question, just an observation. “Poor man.” He frowned. “Poison? Opium? Doesn’t seem very likely.”

  Pitt lifted his shoulders and there was a rueful expression in his eyes.

  “No, it doesn’t, on the face of it,” he agreed. “But I made a few enquiries into what he had done during the day, and some interesting things emerged. Do you remember the Blaine/Godman case, about five years ago?”

  “Blaine/Godman?” Drummond came a little closer to the desk. His face creased in thought, but apparently nothing came to his mind.

  “A man crucified against a door, in Farriers’ Lane,” Pitt said.

  “Oh!” Drummond winced. “Yes, of course I do. Fearful business, absolutely appalling! There was a terrible outcry. One of the most horrible cases I can remember.” He looked at Pitt with a frown. “But what has Stafford’s death in the theater last night got to do with Farriers’ Lane? The man who did that was hanged at the time.”

  “Yes,” Pitt said with anger and pity in his face. He hated hanging, whatever the offense. it only compounded one barbarity with another, and human judgment was far too often fallible, mistakes too easy, knowledge too little. “Stafford was one of the judges who denied Godman’s appeal,” he went on aloud. “His sister, the actress Tamar Macaulay, has been trying to reopen the case ever since then. She believes her brother was not guilty.”

  “Not unnatural,” Drummond interrupted. “People find it very hard to accept that their relatives, even their friends, can be guilty of something so horrific. Surely she was on stage, wasn’t she? She was hardly in a position to poison Justice Stafford’s flask of—whatever it is—whiskey?”

  “I’ve no idea!” Pitt picked it up and unscrewed the top, putting his nose to it delicately. “Yes—it’s whiskey. Yes, she was on stage at the time he died. But she called on him earlier in the day, at his home.” He screwed the top back on and set the flask on the desk again.

  “Oh!” Drummond was surprised and concerned. The picture began to look darker. “But why would she kill Stafford? How could that possibly help her brother’s cause? Or has she lost all sense of reason, and her wits as well?”

  Pitt smiled. “I have no idea! I’m only telling you what happened last night, and handing over the flask to you, so you can give it to whoever is put in charge of the enquiry—if there is one.”

  “Mr. Samuel Stafford.” Drummond smiled back, a charming expression that totally altered the gravity and somewhat ascetic cast of his face. “Justice of Her Majesty’s Court of Appeal. A most important person, indeed! A case worthy of your talents, Pitt! A delicate case, a most political one,” he added. “It will require careful and tactful investigation, should it prove to be murder. I think you had better take care of it yourself—definitely. Yes—delegate whatever else you have on hand at the moment, and enquire into this.” He picked up the flask from the desk and handed it back to Pitt, meeting his eyes with humor and challenge.

  Pitt looked at him long and steadily, then reached out his hand and took the flask.

  “Keep me informed,” Drummond commanded. “If it is murder, we’d better deal with it pretty rapidly.”

  “We had better be right!” Pitt corrected fiercely. Then he smiled suddenly and widely, seeing Drummond’s shadow of anxiety. “And diplomatic!” he added.

  “Get out!” Drummond grinned, not because there was anything remotely amusing in the case, murder or not, but because quite unreasonably, he felt a lift of warmth inside himself, a reassertion that the odd, the eccentric, the unruly, the honest, that which would laugh and would pity, that which was essentially human, was infinitely more important than political expediency or social rules. Unbidden, Eleanor’s face came to his mind, but with so much less pain than before, and none of the bleak hopelessness.

  Pitt was surprised to have been given the case, although on reflection he should not have been. Drummond had been frank with him when Pitt had declined promotion because he did not want to sit behind a desk and tell other men how to do a job he was so eminently gifted for himself, and loved in spite of the relatively lower pay. An increase in salary would have meant so much. He would have taken it, for Charlotte’s sake, and their children, and the difference it would have made to them, but it was Charlotte who had refused, knowing how much the work meant to him.

  But from that time on Drummond had said he would give Pitt all the most delicate and political cases, a sort of lateral promotion, Drummond’s way of rewarding him in spite of himself, and possibly also making the best use of his skills.

  The medical examiner was a new man whom Pitt had not met before. When Pitt went into his laboratory he was standing behind a microscope at a huge marble-topped bench, an intense expression screwing up his face, bottles, retorts and vials all around him. He was huge, as tall as Pitt, and far heavier, but probably no more than thirty-five. His bright ginger hair stood out in a shock of tight little waves, and his beard looked like a fallen bird’s nest.

  “Got it!” he said with great enthusiasm. “Got it, by heaven! Come in and make yourself comfortable, whoever you are, and compose your soul in patience. I shall be with you in a moment.” He spoke in a high voice with a soft Highland Scots accent, and never once did he take his eyes from his instrument.

  It would have been churlish to be offended, and Pitt did as he was requested with good humor, taking the flask out of his pocket, ready to hand it over.

  Several moments of silence passed by while Pitt stared around him at the chaotic wealth of jars, slides and bottles containing all manner of substances. Then the medical examiner looked up and smiled at Pitt.

  “Yes?” he said cheerfully. “And what is it I can do for you, sir?”

  “Inspector Pitt,” Pitt introduced himself.

  “Sutherland,” the medical examiner responded. “I’ve heard of you. Should have recognized you—sorry. What is it? A murder?”

  Pitt smiled. “For the moment, a flask. I’d like to know what is in it.” He handed it over.

  Sutherland took it and opened it up, holding it gingerly to his nose.

  “Whiskey,” he replied, looking at Pitt over the top of it. He sniffed again. “A very moderate malt—expensive, but still very moderate. I’ll tell you what else, when I’ve had a look at it. What do you expect?”

  “Perhaps opium?”

  “Funny way to take it. Thought it was usually smoked. Not too difficult to get hold of.”

  “Don’t think he took it intentionally,” Pitt answered.

  “Murder! Thought so. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” He held up the flask and looked at it, reading the name engraved. “Samuel Stafford.” His face sharpened. “Didn’t he die last night? Heard the newsboys shouting something about it.”

  “Yes. Let me know as soon as you can.”

  “Most certainly. If it is opium, I’ll know by tonight. If it’s something else, or nothing, it’ll take longer.”

  “The autopsy?” Pitt asked.

  “It’s the autopsy I’m talking about now,” Sutherland replied quickly. “The whiskey’ll only take a moment. Not complicated. Adulterate even a moderate whiskey and it’s not hard to find.”

  “Good. I’ll be back for it,” Pitt said.

  “If I’m not here, there is my home,” Sutherland said vigorously. “I’ll be there from about eight.” And without adding anything further he resumed his study of the microscope. Pitt placed his card on the marble bench top, with the Bow Street station address printed on it, and set out to begin his investigation.

  The first thing to determine was whether Stafford had intended to reopen the Blaine/Godman case or not. Surely if he had taken the time to go and see both Joshua Fielding an
d Devlin O’Neil, then he must at least have considered it. Would he have bothered to tell anyone other than Tamar herself if the matter must remain closed?

  Or was Livesey right, and he intended only to prove once and for all that Godman was guilty and there could be no more question raised on the matter, or suggestions that somehow justice had miscarried? Constant doubts, however trivial or based in emotion, old loyalties and loves, still disturbed public confidence in justice and the administration of the law. When the law itself was not held in respect, then everyone suffered. It would be a natural and honorable thing for Stafford to do.

  In seeking to establish Godman’s guilt, and justify the law, even to Tamar herself, had he unwittingly stumbled on some irregularity? Had he frightened someone guilty of—what? Another crime? A private sin? A complicity of some nature?

  The place to begin, regrettable as it was, had to be with the widow. Accordingly he strode along the pavement past elegant ladies on their way to see dressmakers and milliners, servants on errands, petty clerks and tradesmen about their business. It was a brisk, chilly morning and the streets were clattering with noise of horses’ hooves, carriage wheels, shouts of drivers and costermongers, crossing sweepers, newsboys, running patterers singing the ballads of scandal and folk drama.

  He hailed a hansom and gave the Staffords’ home address in Bruton Street, off Berkeley Square, which he had obtained from the desk sergeant in Bow Street. He sat back as the cab bowled west along Long Acre, and began to contemplate the questions to which he must find answers.

  It was an unpleasant thought that if the judge’s death had nothing to do with the Blaine/Godman case, then since Stafford was not presently involved in any other plea, it might prove to be a personal matter, a private vengeance or fear, very probably to do with his family—his widow—perhaps money.

  Tomorrow he would know more, at least if Sutherland found opium in the body and in the flask. But if Stafford had in fact died of some disease no one else had been aware of, if his private physician could offer some explanation, then he could happily forget the whole matter. But it was a hope that hovered beyond the edge of his mind, not a solution he expected.