Silence in Hanover Close Page 5

  Finally it was the older woman who broke the hot silence.

  “My son was killed by an intruder in the house, Miss Barnaby. It is something we still find too distressing to discuss. That is what made me say you were fortunate to have lost only material possessions.”

  “Oh, I am so sorry!” Charlotte said instantly. “Please forgive me for having brought you pain. How could I have been so clumsy.” A real feeling of guilt was burning inside her already. Not everything can be justified by the need for solutions to mysteries, however intriguing, or needed for Emily’s sake.

  “You could not know,” Veronica said huskily. “Please do not feel at fault. I promise you, we do not hold you so.”

  “I am sure your sensitivity will prevent you from raising the subject again,” Mrs. York said levelly, and Charlotte felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

  Veronica was quick to see her embarrassment and rushed to ease it. “That hardly needs to be said, Mama-in-law!” Her tone carried reproof, and the undertone of dislike was there again, bleak and painful in this opulent and comfortable room. It was not a flash of irritation but a long-lived and bitter thing, surfacing suddenly. “I am sure Miss Barnaby needs to feel no blame for having mentioned her own misfortune; how could she have known of our—our tragedies? One cannot cease from all conversation in case it should waken a painful memory in someone else.”

  “I believe that was the substance of my remark.” Mrs. York stared at her daughter-in-law, her brilliant eyes almost hypnotic in their concentration. “If Miss Barnaby is the person of sensibility I take her to be, having discovered our loss, she will not mention any subject close to it again while in our company. Surely that is plain enough?”

  Veronica turned to Charlotte and put out her hand. “I hope you will call on us again, Miss Barnaby, and that you will come to the academy with me. I most sincerely meant my invitation; it was not merely a pleasantry.”

  “I shall be delighted,” Charlotte said, taking the offered hand warmly. “It will be the greatest pleasure, and I look forward to it.” She rose. It was now time to leave; after that conversation it was the only possible course. Jack rose also and together they expressed their thanks and good wishes, and five minutes later they were in the chilly carriage with the clatter of hooves and the hissing of wheels in the rain. Charlotte wrapped the rug round herself more tightly, but nothing could keep all the icy spears of the draft away. Next time she borrowed a gown from Emily she would take a fur muff to go with it!

  “I assume you will be going to the academy with Veronica?” Jack said after a moment or two.

  “Of course!” She turned in her seat to look at him. “Don’t you think there is a great deal between Veronica and Mrs. York which the police could never discover? I think they both know something about the night of the burglary—although how we’ll ever learn it I can’t imagine.”

  3

  PITT HAD NO IDEA that Charlotte had gone to Hanover Close. He both knew and understood her concern for Emily, and he expected her to use all her powers of judgment and deduction to find out just how Emily felt about Jack Radley and to measure his worthiness if Emily truly cared for him. And if it turned out he was not satisfactory, there would be the major challenge of either dissuading Emily from pursuing it any further or discouraging Radley himself. Pitt suspected that it might well take all Charlotte’s skill to bring the affair to the conclusion that would cause Emily the least pain. Therefore he did not mention the York burglary or Robert York’s death to Charlotte again, nor keep her up to date on his own pursuit of a solution.

  Ballarat was evasive about the precise reason for opening the case again; it was unclear whether they hoped to discover who had murdered Robert York at this late date, or whether learning the motive was the real purpose of the investigation. Perhaps they wanted to establish beyond a doubt that it had been no more than a simple robbery that had erupted into unplanned violence, putting an end to the rumors of treason once and for all. Or were they really concerned that Veronica York was somehow involved, the unwitting catalyst of a crime of passion inexpertly covered to look like robbery? Or did they know the truth, and simply wish to make doubly sure it was successfully concealed forever by having the police test it, and if it did not break, then they could rest easy that it was buried beyond anyone’s recall?

  Pitt found this last possibility acutely distasteful, and possibly he wronged his superiors by letting it enter his mind, but he was determined to think it through until he could present Ballarat with an answer that was beyond denial or dispute.

  He began with the stolen articles, and the curious fact that none of them had turned up in the places one might have expected despite the vigorous search the police had kept up throughout the following year. All the well-known fences, pawnbrokers, and less fastidious collectors of objects d’arts had been questioned at regular intervals as a matter of course, and on each occasion the York pieces had been on the list of goods mentioned.

  But Pitt had been in the Metropolitan Police for nearly twenty years and he knew people Ballarat had never heard of, secretive, dangerous people who tolerated him for past and future favors. And it was to these he went while Charlotte was arranging her visit to the drawing rooms of Hanover Close.

  He left Bow Street and walked sharply eastward towards the Thames, disappearing into one of the vast dockland slums. He passed crowded, warped buildings, dark under the lowering skies and filled with the sour reek of the fog that crept up from the slow, gray-black water of the river. There were no carriages with lamps and footmen here, only dim wagons laden with bales for the wharves and carts with a few limp vegetables for sale. A tinker with pans clattered as he jiggled over the uneven cobbles, an old-clothes seller shouted, “Ol’ clo’! Ol’ clo’!” in a mournful, penetrating voice. His horse’s hooves had no echo in the drenching gloom.

  Pitt walked quickly, his head down and his shoulders hunched. He wore old boots with loose soles and a grimy jacket, torn at the back, which he kept for such visits. He pulled the thin collar up round his ears now, but still the rain trickled down his neck to his back, a wandering, icy finger that made him shudder. No one paid him any attention apart from the occasional glance when a peddlar or coster half hoped he might buy something. But he did not look like a man who had the means to purchase, and with face averted and body tight with the knowledge of the warmth he had left behind, he hurried deeper into the alleys and passages of the warren.

  Finally he found the door he sought, its wood black with age and dirt, metal studs worn smooth by countless hands. He knocked sharply twice, and then twice again.

  After a moment or two it opened six inches on a chain, stopping with a clunk as it reached its limit. Even though it was midmorning the daylight scarcely penetrated these narrow alleys, their jettied stories almost meeting overhead, eaves forever dripping in incessant, uneven rhythm. A rat squeaked and scuttled away. Someone tripped over a pile of rubbish and swore. In the distant street the wail “Ol’! clo’!” came again, and down on the river the moan of a foghorn. The smell of rot filled Pitt’s throat.

  “Mr. Pinhorn,” he said quietly. “A matter of business.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then a candle flame appeared in the gloom. He could see little beyond it but the outline of a large, sharp nose and the black sockets of two eyes. But he knew Pinhorn always answered the door himself, afraid that his apprentices would keep the trade for themselves and do him out of a few pence.

  “It’s you,” Pinhorn said sourly, recognizing him. “Wotcher want? I got nuffink for yer!”

  “Information, Mr. Pinhorn, and a warning for you.”

  Pinhorn made a sound deep in his adenoids as if he were going to spit, then changed it into a bark. It expressed ineffable contempt.

  “Robbery’s one thing, and murder’s another,” Pitt said carefully, not at all disturbed. He had known Pinhorn for over a decade and this reception was exactly what he expected. “And treason is a third thing, nastier than both.”


  Again there was silence. Pitt knew better than to push his case. Pinhorn had fenced stolen goods for forty years; he understood his risks perfectly, or he would not still be alive, a prisoner only of poverty, ignorance and greed. He would be in one of Her Majesty’s prisons, like Coldbath Fields, where labor such as the treadmill or passing the shot would have broken even his thick, hard body.

  The chain rattled as he took it off and the door swung wide noiselessly on oiled hinges.

  “Come in, Mr. Pitt.”

  He locked the door behind him and led the way down a passage piled with old furniture and smelling of mold, round a corner, and into a room that was surprisingly warm. A fire in an open grate shed a flickering light on the stained walls. A piece of heavy red carpet, no doubt garnered from some burglary, lay before the grate between two plush-covered armchairs. All the rest of the room apart from that cleared space was piled with dimly perceived objects: carved chairs, pictures, boxes, clocks, pitchers and ewers, piles of plates. Balanced at a crazy angle, a mirror caught the firelight and winked a red eye.

  “Wotcher want, Mr. Pitt?” Pinhorn asked again, eyeing Pitt narrowly. He was a big man, barrel-chested, bullet-headed, his gray hair in a terrier crop such as prisoners wore, although he had never actually been caught or tried. In his youth he had enjoyed something of a reputation as a bareknuckle fighter, and he was still capable of beating a man senseless if he lost his temper, which happened suddenly and violently from time to time.

  “Have you seen a pair of miniature portraits?” Pitt asked. “Seventeenth-century, man and a woman? Or a silver vase, a crystal paperweight carved with a design of scrolls and flowers, and a first edition of Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift?”

  Pinhorn looked surprised. “That all? You come all the way ’ere ter ask me vat? Vat lot in’t worf much.”

  “I don’t want them; I just want to know if you’ve heard of them. About three years ago, probably.”

  Pinhorn’s eyebrows shot up incredulously. “Free years ago! Yer bleedin’ eejut! D’yer fink I’d ’member vat sort of ’aul fer free years?”

  “You remember everything you’ve ever bought or sold, Pinhorn,” Pitt said calmly. “Your trade depends on it. You’re the best fence this side of the river, and you know the worth of everything to the farthing. You’d not forget an oddity like a Swift first edition.”

  “Well, I ’an’t ’ad none.”

  “Who has? I don’t want it, I just want to know.”

  Pinhorn screwed up his little black eyes and wrinkled his great nose suspiciously. He stared at Pitt for several seconds. “You wouldn’t lie ter me, Mr. Pitt, nah would yer? It’d be very unwise, as men I wouldn’t be able ter ’elp yer no more.” He tilted his head to one side. “Might not even be able ter stop yer gettin ’urt on yer little hexpiditions inter places where rozzers in’t nat’ral—like ’ere.”

  “Waste of time, Mr. Pinhorn,” Pitt replied with a smile. “Same as you lying to me. Have you heard of the Swift?”

  “Wot’s it yer said abaht murder an’ treason? They’re strong words, Mr. Pitt.”

  “Hanging words, Mr. Pinhorn,” Pitt elaborated distinctly. “There’s murder for certain, treason only maybe. Have you heard anyone speak of the Swift, anyone at all? You hear most things this side of the river.”

  “No I ’an’t!” Pinhorn’s face remained in the same tortured expression of concentration. “If anybody’s fenced any fink like vat, vey done it outside o’ the Smoke, or they done it private to someone as vey already know as wanted it. Although why anybody’d want it stole I dunno; it in’t worf vat much. You said first edition, dincher, not ’andwrit ner nuffink?”

  “No, just a first-edition printing.”

  “Can’t ’elp yer.”

  Pitt believed him. He was not ingenuous enough to believe past gratitude for small favors would have any weight, but he knew Pinhorn wanted him on his side in the future. Pinhorn was too powerful to be afraid of his rivals and he had no conception of loyalty. If he knew anything that it was in his own interest to tell Pitt, he would undoubtedly have done so.

  “If I ’ear anyfink I’ll tell yer,” Pinhorn added. “Y’owe me, Mr. Pitt.”

  “I do, Mr. Pinhorn,” Pitt said dryly. “But not much.” And he turned round to make his way back to the great wooden door and the dripping alley outside.

  Pitt knew many other dealers in stolen goods; there were the dollyshops, those poorest of pawnbrokers, who lent a few pence to people desperate enough to part with even their pots and pans or the tools of their trade in order to buy food. He hated such places, and the pity he felt was like being kicked in the stomach. Because he was helpless, he turned to anger as being better than weeping. He wanted to shout at the rich, at Parliament, at anyone who was comfortable, or who was ignorant of these tens of thousands who clung to life by such a frail and dangerous thread, who had not been bred to afford morality except of the crudest sort.

  This time he was free to avoid them, along with the thieves’ kitchens, where kidsmen kept schools of children trained to steal and return the profits to them. Similarly he did not need to scour the slop trade: those who dealt in old clothes, rags, and discarded shoes, taking them apart and making up new articles for the poor, who could afford no better. Often even the worst rags were laboriously unraveled and the fiber rewoven into shoddy—anything to cover those who might otherwise be naked.

  The articles from the York house had been taken by a thief not only of taste but also of some literacy, and would have been fenced similarly. They were luxuries that could not be converted into anything useful to the patrons of dollyshops.

  He made his way back through the tangle of passageways uphill away from the river towards Mayfair and Hanover Close. Thieves usually worked their own areas. Since he could not trace the goods, the best place to start was with those who knew the patch. If it was one of them, word of the theft would probably have reached the old hands. If it had been an outsider, that too would be known by someone. The police had investigated at the time, it had been no secret. The underworld would have its own information.

  It took him half an hour after reaching Mayfair to track down the man he wanted, a skinny, lop-legged little man of indeterminate age called William Winsell and known, contrarily, as the Stoat. He found him in the darkest corner of a tavern of particularly ill repute, staring sourly at half a pint of ale in a dirty mug.

  Pitt slid into the vacant seat beside him. The Stoat glared at him with outrage.

  “Wot you doin’ ’ere, bleedin’ crusher! ’Oo d’ya fink’ll trust me if vey see me wiv ve likes o’ you?” He looked at Pitt’s fearful clothes. “D’yer fink we don’t granny yer, just ’cos yer aht o’ twig in them togs? Still look like a crusher, wiv yer clean ’ands wot never worked, and crabshells”—he did not even bother to glance at Pitt’s feet—“like ruddy barges! Ruin me, you will!”

  “I’m not staying,” Pitt said quietly. “I’m going to the Dog and Duck, a mile away, to have lunch. I thought you might like to join me in, say, half an hour? I’m going to have steak and kidney pudding, hot; Mrs. Billows does that a treat. And spotted dick, made with suet and lots of raisins, and cream. And maybe a couple of glasses of cider, brought up from the West Country.”

  The Stoat swallowed hard. “Yer a cruel man, Mr. Pitt. You must want some poor bastard cropped!” He made a sharp gesture with his hand at the side of his throat, like a noose under the ear.

  “Perhaps, in the end,” Pitt agreed. “Right now it’s only burglary information. Dog and Duck, half an hour. Be there, Stoat, or I shall have to come and see you somewhere less agreeable—and less private.” He stood up, and without looking backwards, head down, he pushed his way through the drinkers and out into the street.

  Thirty-five minutes later he was in the more salubrious parlor of the Dog and Duck, with a mug of cider, bright and clear as an Indian summer, in front of him, when the Stoat crept in nervously, ran his fingers round his grimy collar as if easing it
from his neck, and wriggled onto the seat opposite him. He glanced round once or twice, but saw only dull, respectable minor traders and clerks; no one he knew.

  “Steak and kidney pudding?” Pitt offered unnecessarily.

  “Wotcher want orf of me first?” the Stoat said suspiciously, but his nostrils were wide, sucking in the delicious aroma of fresh, sweet food. It was almost as if the steam itself fed him. “ ’Oo’re yer after?”

  “Someone who robbed a house in Hanover Close three years ago,” Pitt replied, nodding over the Stoat’s head to the landlord.

  The Stoat swiveled round furiously, his face suddenly creasing with outrage. “ ’Oo’re yer signin’ at?” he snarled. “ ’Oozat?”

  “The landlord.” Pitt raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you want to eat?”

  The Stoat subsided, vaguely pink under the gray of his skin.

  “A robbery three years ago in Hanover Close,” Pitt repeated.

  The Stoat sneered. “Free years ago? Bit slow, incher? Runnin’ be’ind vese days, are we? Wot was took?”

  Pitt described the articles in some detail.

  The Stoat’s lip curled. “ Yer in’t after vem fings! Ye’re after ’oo croaked ve geezer wot caught ’em at it!”

  “I’d be interested,” Pitt conceded. “But primarily I’m concerned to prove someone innocent.”

  “Vat’s a turnup!” the Stoat said cynically. “Friend o’ yours?”

  “Hungry?” Pitt smiled. The landlord appeared with two steaming dishes piled high with meat, gravy, and feather-light suet crust. A few green vegetables decorated the side, and a maid stood by with an earthenware jug of cider sweet as ripe apples.