Bedford Square tp-19 Page 5

  Balantyne went over and closed it with a sharp snap, to the obvious surprise of the footman standing in the foyer and holding Augusta’s cape.

  “I’m sorry,” Balantyne said with profound embarrassment. He did not offer any explanation or attempt to make better of it. Any candor between them would be shattered by such a denial of the truth. “It was …”

  “Probably well deserved,” she finished for him ruefully. “It was rather clumsy of me to have come at all, and I had no idea what I was going to say, except that I feel for you, and I hope you will consider me as your friend, regardless of what should transpire.”

  He looked thoroughly taken aback by such frankness, and acutely pleased. “Thank you … of course I shall.” He seemed about to add something more, then changed his mind. He was still deeply troubled, and there was another emotion more powerful beneath the surface anger or shame for Augusta’s behavior or for his own discomfort in the face of candor.

  “Actually, I did read the newspaper,” she admitted.

  “I assumed you did,” he said with the ghost of a smile.

  “It was a shameful piece! Completely irresponsible. That was what prompted me to come-outrage … and to let you know I am on your side.”

  He looked away from her. “You speak blindly, Mrs. Pitt. You cannot have any idea what may transpire.”

  He was not uttering some platitude. She was quite sure-from the stiffness in his body, the unhappiness in his face and the way he glanced away from her-that he feared something specific, and the anxiety of it underlay everything else he was able to think of.

  It frightened her for him, and her response was to defend him, instantly and without thought.

  “Of course not!” she agreed. “What kind of friend makes their support conditional upon knowing everything that will happen, and that there will be no unpleasant surprises and absolutely no inconvenience, embarrassment or cost?”

  “A great many friends,” he said quietly. “But none of the best. But this loyalty must run both ways. One does not allow friends to walk unknowingly into danger or unpleasantness, nor require of them a pledge, even unspoken, whose costs you know and they do not.” He realized he had overstated what she had offered, and looked deeply uncomfortable. “I mean …”

  She walked to the door, then turned and met his eyes. “There is no need to explain. Time has passed since we last met, but not so much as all that. We do not misunderstand one another. My friendship is yours, for what that may be worth. Good day.”

  “Good day … Mrs. Pitt.”

  Charlotte went straight home, walking so briskly she passed by two people she knew without even noticing them. She went in her own front door and straight through to the kitchen without bothering to take off her hat.

  The ironing was finished, and Archie was asleep in the empty basket.

  Gracie looked up from the potatoes she was peeling, the knife still in her hand, her face full of anxiety.

  “Put on the kettle,” Charlotte requested, sitting down in the nearest chair. She would have done it herself, but one did not go near even the cleanest stove when wearing a yellow gown.

  Gracie obeyed instantly, then got out the teapot and the cups and saucers. She fetched milk from the larder. She set the blue-and-white jug on the table and removed the muslin cover, weighted down all around with glass beads to keep it from blowing off.

  “’Ow was the General?” she asked, getting the tin of biscuits off the dresser. She still had to stretch to do it, standing on tiptoe, but she refused to put them on a lower shelf. That would be acknowledging defeat.

  “Very distressed,” Charlotte answered.

  “Did ’e know the man wot was killed?” Gracie asked, putting the biscuits on the kitchen table.

  “I didn’t ask him.” Charlotte sighed. “But I am afraid that he might. He was extremely worried about something.”

  “But ’e din’t say, I suppose.”

  “No.”

  The kettle began to hiss as steam blew out of the spout, and Gracie took the holder for it to pick it up, poured a little hot water into the teapot, swilled it out and threw it away down the sink. She put three spoonfuls of tea leaves into the pot and carried it back to the stove, then poured the rest of the water on. She filled up the kettle again as a matter of habit. One should always have a kettle of hot water, even in June.

  “Are we goin’ ter do summink about it?” she asked, carrying the teapot over and sitting down opposite Charlotte. The potatoes could wait. This was important.

  “I don’t know what we can do.” Charlotte looked across at her. Absentmindedly, she took off her hat.

  “Are you scared as mebbe ’e did do summink?” Gracie screwed up her face.

  “No!”

  Gracie bit her lip. “Aren’t yer?”

  Charlotte hesitated. What was Balantyne afraid of? He was certainly afraid of something. Was it simply more pain, more public exposure of his personal and family affairs? Every family has grief, embarrassments, quarrels or mistakes they prefer to keep unknown from the public in general and from their own circle of acquaintances in particular … just as one does not undress in the street.

  “I’m not really sure,” she said aloud, setting the hat on the table. “I believe he is a totally honorable man, but all of us can make errors of judgment, and many of us do foolish or rash things to protect those we love or feel responsible for.”

  Gracie poured the tea. “’Oo’s ’e responsible fer, the General?”

  “I don’t know. His wife, maybe any of the servants, perhaps a friend.”

  Gracie thought for several minutes. “Wot’s ’is wife like?” she said at length.

  Charlotte sipped her tea and tried to be fair. “Very handsome, very cold.”

  “Wouldn’t a’ bin ’er lover, would ’e, this corpse?”

  “No.” Charlotte could not imagine Augusta dissembling sufficiently to have a lover, let alone one who would be found dead on a doorstep.

  Gracie was watching her anxiously. “You don’ like ’er a lot, do yer?”

  Charlotte sighed. “No, not a lot. But I don’t think she would attack anyone without extraordinarily good reason, and I can’t think of anything that would make her kill someone and then not be perfectly prepared to call the police and explain herself-if, for example, she had caught him in the house attempting to steal, and he had turned on her.”

  “Wot if the General caught ’im?” Gracie asked, taking a biscuit.

  “The same. Why not call the police?”

  “I dunno.” Gracie sipped her tea also. “Yer sure ’e were upset about the body, not summink else?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I s’pose as we’d better keep up wif everythink as the Master finds out,” Gracie said seriously.

  “Yes,” Charlotte agreed, wishing they could know at least some of it before Pitt found out.

  Gracie was watching her, waiting for her to take the lead with some practical and clever plan.

  There were only two things in her mind: the sense of fear she had drawn from General Balantyne as he stood by the window in his morning room; and her sharp awareness that Sergeant Tellman, very much against his will and judgment, was attracted to Gracie. It was against his judgment because they disagreed about almost everything. Gracie considered herself to be very fortunate to work in Pitt’s house, to have a roof over her head, a warm bed every night and good food every day. She had not always had these things, or expected to. She also considered that she was doing a very important and useful job, and was appropriately proud of it.

  Tellman had profound feelings regarding the innate social evil of any person’s being servant to another. From that basic difference sprang a host of others on every subject of social justice and personal judgment. And Gracie was cheerful and outgoing by nature, while he was dour and pessimistic. They had neither of them yet realized that they shared a passionate sense of justice, a hatred of hypocrisy and a willingness to work and to risk their own sa
fety to fight for what they believed in.

  “Sergeant Tellman is on the case,” Charlotte said aloud.

  “I don’t see as ’avin’ ’im ’elps,” Gracie replied, wrinkling her nose a little. “I s’pose ’e’s quite clever, in ’is own fashion.” This last was added half grudgingly. “But ’e won’t ’old no favors for generals an’ the like.”

  “I know he won’t,” Charlotte admitted, thinking of Tellman’s opinion of all inherited privilege. No doubt he was fully aware that in Balantyne’s time of office commissions were purchased. “But at least we have him.”

  “Yer mean like ter speak to?” Gracie was puzzled.

  “Yes.” A plan was rapidly forming in Charlotte’s mind, not a very good one so far. “He might be persuaded to tell us what information he has learned.”

  Gracie brightened. “Yer reckon? If yer asked ’im, like?”

  “I was thinking more if you asked him.”

  “Me? ’e wouldn’t tell me nuffink! ’E’d say sharpish as it were none o’ my business. I can see ’is face now if I started meddlin’ wif questions about ’is work. Tell me right w’ere to put meself, ’e would.”

  Charlotte took a deep breath and plunged in.

  “I had in mind more if he were to make his reports to Mr. Pitt at home, instead of at Bow Street, and perhaps when Mr. Pitt happened to be out.”

  “’ow are we goin’ ter manage that?” Gracie was nonplussed.

  Charlotte thought of Tellman’s face as he had looked at Gracie the last time she had observed them together.

  “I think that could be arranged, if you were to be very nice to him.”

  Gracie opened her mouth to argue, then colored very pink.

  “I s’pose I could be, if it was important ….”

  Charlotte beamed at her. “Thank you. I should be very grateful. Mind, I do appreciate it will take a great deal of careful planning, and it may not work every time. A little subterfuge may be necessary.”

  “A little what?” Gracie frowned.

  “A little more or less than the truth, now and again.”

  “Oh, yeah … I see. O’ course.” Gracie smiled back and took another sip of her tea, reaching for a second biscuit. In the laundry basket, Archie woke up, stretched and started to purr.

  When Sergeant Tellman had begun to work on identifying the body found on General Balantyne’s step he had naturally started at the mortuary. Looking at corpses was part of his duty, but something he disliked intensely. For a start, they were naked, and it was an intrusion into a man’s decent privacy he was helpless to prevent. Tellman found it offensive, even though he completely understood the necessity. Secondly, the smell of dead flesh, formaldehyde and carbolic turned his stomach, and no matter what time of the year it was, the place always seemed cold. He found himself both sweating and shivering. But he was conscientious. The more he disliked a job, the less would he stint in doing it.

  However, even the most diligent examination taught him nothing he had not observed in the first few moments by lantern light in Bedford Square. The dead man was lean to thin, wiry, pale skinned where his clothes covered him, weathered where they did not, as if he spent much time in the open. His hands were not those of a laborer. He had several scrapes, as if he had fought hard to save himself, especially across his knuckles. He had been hit extremely hard on the head, killed with one blow.

  He looked, as nearly as Tellman could judge, to be in his fifties. There were half a dozen old scars of varying sizes. None of them looked to be from major injuries, just the sort of thing any man might collect if he had been involved in dangerous work or lived largely on the streets. There was one exception: a long, thin scar across the left side of his ribs, as though from a knife slash.

  Tellman replaced the sheet gratefully and moved to the clothes. They were well worn, rather grubby and uncared for. The soles of the boots were in need of repair. They were exactly what he would have expected of a poor man who had spent the day outside, and possibly the night before as well. They told him nothing.

  But the contents of the pockets were a different matter. Of course, the most interesting thing was the snuffbox, now in Pitt’s keeping. He was puzzled as to its meaning; it could be any of a dozen things, all more or less implicating General Balantyne. But Pitt had said he would look into that himself. A year before, Tellman would not have believed him, expecting him to protect the gentry from the just desserts for their own deeds. Now he knew better, but it still rankled.

  The only other thing that seemed relevant to the search for either his identity or that of the person who had killed him seemed to be the receipt for the three pairs of socks. Actually, he was surprised that a man in such circumstances should purchase socks from a shop which had its name on the paper. He would have expected him to buy them from a peddler or market stall. Still, the receipt was there, so he should follow it.

  He was relieved to be able to go out into the sun again, and the relatively fresh air of the street with its smell of smoke, horse dung and dry gutters, and the sound of hooves on the cobbles, peddlers’ cries, the clatter of wheels, and somewhere in the distance a barrel organ and an errand boy whistling off-key.

  He caught a horse-drawn omnibus, running after it the last few paces as it drew away from the curb and swinging himself onto the step to the great disapproval of a fat woman in gray bombazine.

  “Yer’ll get yerself killed like that, young man!” she said critically.

  “I hope not, but thank you for the warning,” he replied with politeness, which surprised both of them. He paid his fare to the conductor and looked without success for a seat, being obliged to remain standing, holding on to the post in the center of the aisle.

  He got off again at High Holborn and walked the two blocks to Red Lion Square. He found the haberdasher’s shop easily and went inside with the receipt in his hand.

  “Mornin’, sir,” the young man behind the counter said helpfully. “Can I show you anything? We have excellent gentlemen’s shirts at very agreeable prices.”

  “Socks,” Tellman answered, wondering if he could afford a new shirt. Those on display looked very clean and crisp.

  “Yes sir. What color, sir? We have ’em all.”

  Tellman remembered the socks the dead man had been wearing. “Gray,” he answered.

  “Certainly, sir. What size would you be requiring?”

  “Nine.” If the dead man could afford socks, so could he.

  The young man bent to a drawer behind him and produced three different pairs of gray socks in size nine.

  Tellman selected the pair he liked best, glanced quickly at the price, and produced the money, leaving himself sufficient for his bus fare back to Bow Street but unfortunately not enough for lunch.

  “Thank you, sir. Will that be all?”

  “No.” Tellman held out the receipt. “I’m a policeman. Can you tell me who bought these gray socks five days ago?”

  The man took the receipt. “Oh, dear. We sell a lot of socks, sir. And gray is a popular color this time o’ year. Lighter than black, you see, and better looking than brown. Always look a bit country, brown, if you know what I mean?”

  “Yes. Think hard, if you please. It’s very important.”

  “Done something wrong, has he? They were paid for, that I can swear to.”

  “I can see that. Don’t know what he did, but he’s dead.”

  The young man paled. Perhaps it had been a tactical error to have told him that.

  “Gray socks,” Tellman repeated grimly.

  “Yes sir. What did he look like, do you know?”

  “About my height,” Tellman said, thinking with an unpleasant chill how much he resembled the man on the step. “Thin, wiry, fairish hair receding a little.” That at least was different. Tellman had dark hair, straight and still thick. “And mid-fifties, I would guess. Lived or worked outdoors, but not with his hands.”

  “Sounds like two or three what come here often enough,” the young man said tho
ughtfully. “Could be George Mason or Willie Strong, or could be someone as never came but the once. Don’t know everybody’s name. Can’t you tell me anything else about him?”

  Tellman thought hard. This might be their only chance to identify him.

  “He had a long knife or bayonet scar on his chest.” He indicated on himself the place where it had been, then realized the futility of telling the salesman such a thing. “Could have been a soldier,” he added, more to defend his remark than anything else.

  The salesman’s face brightened. “There was one gentleman come in, and I think he did buy several pairs, thinking on it. Had a bit of a conversation, ’cos he spoke about being a soldier, and how important it was to keep your feet right. I remember he said, ‘Soldier with sore feet is use to neither man nor beast.’ That’s why he sold bootlaces himself, now he’s fallen on hard times. But I can’t tell you his name or where he lives. Don’t recall as I ever saw him before. An’ didn’t see him that well this time. It were a fine evenin’, but he was muffled up, said he had a chill. But he was thinnish and about your height. Couldn’t say dark or fair.”

  “Where did he sell his bootlaces?” Tellman asked quickly. “Did he say?”

  “Yes, yes, he did. Corner of Lincoln’s Inn and Great Queen Street.”

  “Thank you.”

  It took Tellman the rest of the day, but he found George Mason and Willie Strong, the two men the salesclerk had named, and they were both quite definitely alive.

  Then he made enquiries about the peddlers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and learned that there was normally an old soldier named Albert Cole on the northwest corner near Great Queen Street. However, no one recalled seeing him for five or six days. Several barristers from the Inns of Court habitually bought their bootlaces from him and described him passably well. One of them offered to come to the mortuary the next day and identify the body if he could.

  “Yes,” the barrister said unhappily. “I am afraid that looks very much like Cole.”

  “Can you say for sure that it’s him?” Tellman pressed. “Don’t say if you aren’t happy about it.”