Bedford Square Page 7

  “Not a very social sort of man?” Tellman suggested.

  “Well … always very civil, but not … not overfriendly, if you get my meaning, sir.”

  “Yes, I do.” Tellman thought of Balantyne’s rigid back, his rapid stride along Oxford Street, speaking to no one.

  “Does he gamble at all, do you know?”

  “I believe not, sir. Nor drink very much either.”

  “Does he go to the theater, or the music hall?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.” The steward shook his head. “Never heard him refer to it. But I think he has been to the opera quite often, and to the symphony.”

  Tellman grunted. “And museums, no doubt,” he said sarcastically.

  “Yes sir, I believe so.”

  “Rather solitary sort of occupations. Doesn’t he have any friends?”

  “He’s always very agreeable,” the steward said thoughtfully. “Never heard anyone speak ill of him. But he doesn’t sit around talking a lot, doesn’t … gossip, if you know what I mean. Doesn’t gamble, you see.”

  “No sports interests?”

  “Not that I ever heard of.” He sounded surprised as he said it, as if it had not occurred to him before.

  “Pretty careful with money?” Tellman concluded.

  “Not extravagant,” the steward conceded. “But not mean either. Reads a lot, and I overheard him once say he liked to sketch. Of course he’s traveled a lot—India, Africa, China too, so I heard.”

  “Yes. But always to do with war.”

  “Soldier’s life,” the steward said a trifle sententiously and with considerable respect. Tellman wondered if he had the same respect for the foot soldiers who actually did the fighting.

  He went on talking to the steward for several minutes more, but little was added to the picture he was forming of a stiff, cold man whose career had been purchased by his family and who had made few friends, learned little of comradeship and nothing of the arts of pleasure, except those he considered socially admirable, like the opera … which was all foreign anyway, so Tellman had heard.

  None of it appeared to have anything whatever to do with Albert Cole. And yet there was a connection. There must be. Otherwise how had Cole got the snuffbox? And why was that the only thing taken?

  General Brandon Balantyne was a lonely, unbending man who followed solitary pursuits. He had been privileged all his life, working for none of the advantages he possessed, money, rank, position in society, his beautiful house in Bedford Square, his titled wife. But he was also a troubled man. Tellman was a good enough judge of character to know that. And he intended to find out what that trouble was, most especially if it had cost ordinary, poor, underfed and ill-clothed Albert Cole his life. Honest men reported thieves, they did not murder them.

  What could Albert Cole, poor devil, have seen in that house in Bedford Square for which he had been killed?

  3

  PITT WAS CONCERNED with the murdered man who had been found in Bedford Square, but Cornwallis’s problem preyed more urgently upon his mind. For the time being there was not a great deal he could accomplish that could not be done equally as well by Tellman as far as discovering who the man was and, if possible, what had taken him to Bedford Square in the middle of the night. He still thought it most likely to be a burglary which had in some disastrous way gone wrong. He hoped profoundly that Balantyne was not involved, that the man had burgled Balantyne first, taking the snuffbox, and then gone on elsewhere and been caught in the act and killed, perhaps accidentally. The killer had removed his own belongings but had not taken the snuffbox in case the possession of it incriminated him.

  It was probably a footman or butler in one of the other houses. When it was discovered which, then great tact would be necessary, but all the discretion in the world would not much alter the final outcome. And he had confidence in Tellman’s ability to pursue the trail quite as well as he would have himself. Meanwhile, he would do all he could to help Cornwallis.

  He set out from home in the morning as usual, but instead of going either to Bow Street or to Bedford Square, he caught a hansom and requested the driver to take him to the Admiralty.

  It took considerable argument and persuasion to obtain the naval records of H.M.S. Venture without explaining why he wanted them. With much use of words like tact, reputation, and honor, but mentioning no names, by mid-morning he finally sat alone in a small, sunlit room and read what he had asked for.

  The record was simple: Lieutenant John Cornwallis had been on duty when a seaman had been injured attempting to reef the mizzen royal in rising bad weather. According to his own account, Cornwallis had gone up to help the man and had brought him down, half conscious, the last few yards assisted by Able Seaman Samuel Beckwith.

  Beckwith was illiterate, but his verbal account, taken down by someone else, was largely the same. Certainly he had not contradicted any part of the official version. The words recorded were bare, just a few sentences on white paper. There was no sense of the people behind it, none of the roaring wind and sea, the pitching deck, the terror of the man trapped up the mast, one minute over the wooden boards which would break his bones if he were to fall on them, the next over the howling, cavernous depths of water which would swallow him beyond any human power to rescue. Any man who fell into that would be gone forever, as completely as if he had never existed, never had life or laughter or hope.

  There was no sense of what manner of men they had been, brave or cowardly, wise or foolish, honest or lying. Pitt knew Cornwallis, at least knew him as he was now, an assistant commissioner in the police force, taciturn, painfully honest, out of his depth with politicians, having no conception of their deviousness.

  But he did not know how he had been fifteen years before as a lieutenant, faced with physical danger, the chance of admiration and promotion. Had this been an otherwise honorable man’s one mistake?

  He did not believe that. Such deceit would surely have left a deeper mark. If Cornwallis had profited from stealing another man’s reward, praise for someone else’s act of courage, would it not have stained everything else he touched? Would he not have spent the rest of his career looking backward over his shoulder, fearing Beckwith’s telling of the truth? Would he not have built guards for himself against just this eventuality, knowing there was always a chance? And would that not have shown in all else that he did?

  Would he have allowed Pitt to know of it?

  Or was he so arrogant he thought he could use Pitt, and Pitt would never realize?

  That was such a distortion of the man Pitt perceived that he discarded the notion as close to impossible.

  That left the question, did the blackmailer believe it was true or did he simply know that Cornwallis could not prove its untruth?

  Beckwith was dead, according to Cornwallis. But had he relatives alive, someone to whom he had told the story, perhaps boasting a little, elaborating on his own part until he appeared the hero, and this person had taken him at his word, as perhaps a son or a nephew might do?

  Or for that matter, a daughter. Why not? A woman was as capable as any man of cutting out letters from newspapers and framing a threat.

  While he was there, Pitt decided, he should find all he could of the rest of Cornwallis’s naval career, and all there was available on Samuel Beckwith as well, particularly if he had a family still alive, and where they might be now.

  More argument and more persuasion were necessary before he was given a very abbreviated summary of Cornwallis’s career, only those things which were largely a matter of public knowledge anyway, such as any other naval personnel might know from their own observation.

  He had been promoted and changed ship within two years. In 1878 and 1879 he had been in the China Seas, involved with distinction in the bombardment of Borneo against the pirates.

  Within a year after that he had had his own command. He had sailed in the Caribbean and been involved in several actions of a minor nature, largely skirmishes to do with slavers
still operating out of West Africa.

  He had retired from the sea in 1889 with distinction and an unblemished record. There was a list of ships on which he had served and the ranks he had held, nothing more.

  Pitt compared it with Samuel Beckwith’s career, which had been cut short by death at sea, carried overboard by a spar broken loose in a gale. He had never married, and left behind a sister, living in Bristol at the time of his death. His effects and his back pay had been sent to her. She was listed as a Mrs. Sarah Tregarth. Her address was given.

  But Beckwith had been unable to read or write. The letter sent to Cornwallis was quite articulate and contained several complex words. Had Sarah Beckwith learned such an art in spite of her brother’s inability?

  A discreet letter to the Bristol police would confirm that.

  Now Pitt looked at the names of the ships on which Cornwallis had served and copied down a dozen or so names of other men who had served at the same times, including the captain of the Venture and the first lieutenant.

  Next he showed his list to the man who had so far assisted him and asked for the addresses of all those who were not currently at sea.

  The man looked at Pitt narrowly, then read through them.

  “Well, he was killed in action about ten years ago,” he said, biting his lip. He moved to the next one. “He’s retired and gone to live in Portugal or somewhere. He’s in Liverpool. He’s here in London.” He looked up. “What do you want all these men for, Superintendant?”

  “Information,” Pitt replied with a tight smile. “I need to know the truth about an incident in order to avert a considerable wrong … a crime,” he added, in case the man should miss the urgency of it or doubt his right to involve himself.

  “Oh. Oh, yes sir. It’ll take me a little while. If you’d come back in an hour or so?”

  Pitt was hungry, and even more he was thirsty. He was delighted to accept the suggestion and go out and buy himself a ham sandwich from a stall, and a cup of strong tea. He stood in the sun on the street corner enjoying them, watching the passersby. Nursemaids in starched aprons wheeled perambulators. Their older charges rolled hoops or pretended to ride sticks with horses’ heads. A small boy played with a spinning top and would not come when he was told. Little girls in frilly pinafores mimicked their elders, walking daintily, with heads high. He thought with a wave of tenderness of Jemima and how quickly she had grown up. Already she was beginning to be self-conscious, aware of coming womanhood. It felt like only months ago she had been struggling to walk, and yet it was years.

  When he had first met Balantyne she had not even been born. And she had been stumbling with speech, often unintelligible to anyone but Charlotte, when Balantyne had lost his only daughter in the most fearful way possible.

  Memory of that turned the sandwich in his mouth to sawdust. How could a man bear such grief and survive? He wanted to rush home and make doubly, triply sure Jemima was all right … even hold her in his arms, watch her all the time, make any decisions for her, decide where she should go and who befriend.

  Which was ridiculous. It would make her hate him—rightly so.

  How did anyone endure having children and watching them grow up, make mistakes, get hurt, perhaps even destroyed, suffer pain worse, more inexplicable, than death? Had Augusta been any help to Balantyne, any comfort at all? Had their common grief brought them closer together at last or merely driven them each into greater isolation, even more alone in their grief?

  What was this new tragedy? Perhaps he shouldn’t have left it to Tellman to investigate. And yet he could not abandon Cornwallis.

  He threw away the rest of his sandwich, drank the last of his tea, and strode back to the Admiralty. There was no time for standing around.

  He began with Lieutenant Black, who had served as first officer with Cornwallis in the China Seas. He was home on shore leave and might be called back to sea quite soon. He lived in South Lambeth, and Pitt took a hansom over the river.

  He was fortunate to find Lieutenant Black at home and willing to speak with him, but unfortunate in that what Black had to say was so punctiliously honorable it conveyed very little at all. His professional loyalty to a brother officer was so great as to rob his comments, even his memories, of any individuality or meaning. It conveyed much of Black himself, his perception of events, his fierce patriotism and allegiance to the service in which he had spent all his adult life, but Cornwallis remained only a name, a rank and a series of duties well performed. He never became a man, good or bad.

  Pitt thanked him and looked for the next name on his list. He took another hansom and went north over the Victoria Bridge to Chelsea, watching the pleasure boats in the river full of women in pale dresses with bright hats and scarves and men with bare heads in the sun, children in sailor suits, eating toffee apples and striped peppermint sticks. The music of a hurdy-gurdy drifted loudly on the air, along with shouts, laughter and the swish of water.

  He found Lieutenant Durand a very different man, lean, sharp featured, roughly the same age as Cornwallis, but still a serving officer.

  “Of course I remember him,” he said sharply, leading Pitt into a very pleasant room filled with naval memorabilia, probably from several generations, and overlooking a garden full of summer flowers. It was obviously a family home, and judging from the portraits Pitt had glimpsed in the hall, he came from a long and distinguished line of naval officers, going back long before Trafalgar and the days of Nelson.

  “Sit down.” Durand indicated a well-worn chair and sat in one opposite it himself. “What do you want to know?”

  Pitt had already explained his reasons, but this time he must phrase it more skillfully and learn something of the man. “What qualities made him a good commanding officer?”

  Durand was obviously surprised. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this.

  “You assume I thought he was a good commander,” he said with raised eyebrows, looking at Pitt very directly and with amusement. His face was burned by wind, his eyebrows fair and sparse.

  “I assumed you would say so,” Pitt replied. “I was wanting something a little less dry. Was I mistaken?”

  “Loyalty before honesty. Is that no use to you?” The faint thread of humor was still there. He sat with his back to the window, leaving Pitt to face the garden and the sunlight.

  “None at all.” Pitt sat back in the chair. It was very comfortable. “Sometimes it is all I can find.”

  “A naval failing, at times,” Durand observed, a flicker of bitterness in his voice. “And the sea has no such sentimentality. She forgives nothing. She’ll find the measure of a man faster than anything else. In the end the only honor is the truth.”

  Pitt watched him carefully, already aware of strong undercurrents of emotion, perhaps of anger or a belief of injustice or tragedy somewhere.

  “And was Cornwallis a good commander, Lieutenant?”

  “He was a good sailor,” Durand answered. “He had a feeling for the sea. In a way I would say he loved it, insofar as he loved anything.”

  It was an odd remark, said without affection. His face was shadowed, difficult to read.

  “Did his men trust him?” Pitt pursued. “Have confidence in his ability?”

  “Ability to do what?” Durand was not going to answer anything lightly. He had decided to be frank, and that meant no evasions simply to satisfy.

  Pitt was obliged to think harder, more clearly. What did he mean?

  “To make the right judgments in bad weather, to know the tides, the wind, the …”

  Durand smiled. “You are not a seaman, are you.” It was a statement, not a question, and made with patience, even condescension, the amusement returned. “I think the questions you want to ask are, for example, was he thorough? Yes, extremely. Was he competent to read a chart, take a ship’s position, and judge the weather? Yes, to all of those. Did he think ahead and plan accordingly? As much as any man. Occasionally he made mistakes. When he did, could he think quickly
, adapt, get out of the danger? Always, but sometimes more successfully than at other times. He had his share of losses.” His voice was dry, the emotion carefully controlled.

  “Of ships?” Pitt was horrified. “Men?”

  “No, Mr. Pitt, if he had done that he’d have been retired ashore a long time before he was.”

  “He wasn’t retired for loss?” Pitt demanded too quickly.

  “Not so far as I know,” Durand said, leaning back a little, still staring at Pitt. “I think he simply realized his career was going no further, and he got tired of it. Wanted to come ashore, and somebody offered him a comfortable option, so he took it.”

  A tart response about the reality of Cornwallis’s present job was on Pitt’s lips, but he could not afford to alienate Durand if he were to gain any useful information, strong as his impulse was to do so. And Durand obviously had not liked Cornwallis. Perhaps the fact that Cornwallis had reached captaincy while Durand was still serving, and only a lieutenant, had much to do with it.

  “What other questions would I ask, if I knew something of the sea?” Pitt said a little stiffly, trying to mask his own feelings.

  Durand seemed quite unaware of it. There was a concentration apparent in the angle of his head and shoulders against the light. He was eager to talk.

  “Was he a good leader?” he started. “Did he care for his men, know them individually?” He gave a slight shrug. “No, he never gave that impression. If he did, they did not believe it. Did his officers like him? They barely knew him. He was private, withdrawn. He had a captain’s dignity, but he had a cold man’s isolation, and there is a difference.” He was studying Pitt’s face as he spoke, watching his reaction. “Did he have the art to communicate to the crew his belief in them, in the mission the ship was bound on?” he continued. “No. He had no humor, no common touch, and no visible humanity. That was what lifted Nelson above all the rest, you know, his mixture of genius and humanity, sublime courage and foresight, with a complete vulnerability to the ordinary aches and losses of other men.” His voice hardened. “Cornwallis had none of that. The men respected his naval ability, but they did not love him.” He drew in his breath. “And to be a really good commander, you must be loved … that is what inspires a crew of men to go beyond their duty, beyond even what can be expected of them, to dare, to sacrifice, and to achieve what to a lesser crew, with the same ship, would be impossible.”