Belgrave Square (29 page)

He looked at her face, the slight puckering of her brow and the gravity in her eyes. He knew it disturbed her, but not whether it was for the people concerned, or just the reminder of the frailty of happiness, how easily what you assumed safe can slip from your grasp.

“Are you sure it is not just a handsome man who cannot resist a flirtation?” he asked.

She thought for a moment, considering it.

“No,” she said at last. “No, I don’t think so. One …” She sought very carefully for the exact meaning she wanted. “One can tell the difference between fun and a feeling that threatens to hurt because it is not just”—she hunched her shoulders and slid a trifle further down in the sofa—“not just
laughter and a little entertainment that one can forget when it is past, and go back to everything else and it will all be just the same. I don’t think Fitz can go back and feel exactly as he used to about Odelia.”

“Are you being romantic?” Pitt asked without criticism. “Is Fitzherbert a man to fall in love beyond what is pleasant and will serve his ends? After all, he has to many someone if he is to succeed in his career. He hasn’t the political brilliance to climb very far if he lacks the social requirements.”

“I’m not saying he will forgo marrying Odelia,” she denied. “Simply that there is something there which will not leave him without scars when he and Fanny separate and go their different ways. And Odelia won’t forget. I’ve seen it in her face.”

He smiled and said nothing, but it did cross his mind to wonder what Emily thought of it, and indeed if she had had any hand in it. If Fitzherbert jilted his fiancée it would affect Jack not at all unfavorably. He forbore from saying it.

Charlotte took a deep breath.

“And Jack has struck up quite a friendship with Lord Anstiss,” she continued. “He is a most remarkable man, you know.” She recalled his comments about her social ambitions with a tolerant irony. It was no more than she expected. “I don’t think I have listened to anyone more interesting in such a wide variety of subjects. He has so many tales about people, and he recounts them with such a dry, clever wit. And Emily says nothing seems to bore him. Sometimes one might forget how important he is, until one looks at his face for a moment in repose. There is a great deal of power in him, you know.”

He listened in silence, watching her face, the animation, the play of light and shadow over her features and the intense vividness of her interest.

“He was telling Emily about the pre-Raphaelites and the beautiful pictures they have painted creating a whole new idealism, and about William Morris and his furniture. She said he was so interesting he made it all seem urgent and important, not just a collection of facts. And also she met that odd young man, Peter Valerius, who is so consumed with interest in international finance in Africa—of all the
tedious subjects so utterly the opposite of Lord Anstiss who is absolutely never a bore.”

She continued about other people Emily had told her of, what they wore and to whom they spoke, but he did not listen with any great attention. Rather he allowed it to wash over him in a pleasant blur of sound. He was far more pleased just to see her face full of life and know that she was telling him not because it was important to her either, but because she was sharing it with him and that mattered intensely.

It was only another day before Innes reported on the unenviable task of following Urban. As a precaution he did not come to Bow Street, but sent a message that he had turned up something which he felt Pitt ought to know.

Accordingly Pitt left Bow Street, where he had been reporting to Drummond and sifting yet again through Urban’s records, and tracing the will of the uncle who had left him the house in Bloomsbury to see if there were also pictures in the legacy. If there were, or if there had been money, it would at least excuse Urban’s indulgence in such things. It took him some time to learn the uncle’s name and trace his will through probate. When he did he found it was quite simple. The house went to “my dear sister’s only son, Samuel Urban.” It included the contents thereof, which were duly listed. There were no modern pictures, indeed there were no pictures at all.

Pitt was immensely relieved to have an excuse to leave the task and at least for the length of the journey involve himself in some physical action, even if it was only a hansom ride to Clerkenwell. He felt the urgency of Innes’s message would allow that indulgence instead of the longer, more circuitous omnibus ride.

He was inside the hansom and bowling along High Holborn when he remembered that Innes had been following Urban, and his discovery was far more likely to concern him than one of the people on the first list. Those were being traced entirely from Clerkenwell, since they were almost all local inhabitants. Although even if Innes had found Weems’s murderer there and had him in custody with irrefutable evidence, that would give Pitt no pleasure. He dreaded seeing the defeat and the guilt in the face of whatever wretched
person had finally turned out of his despair into violence, and precipitated himself into even deeper disaster. Cursing or silent, fighting or crushed, underneath it he would be deathly afraid, knowing Newgate and the hangman awaited him.

Pitt realized grimly that he did not really want to find out who had murdered William Weems. And yet the case could not go unresolved from choice. Murder in theory was always wrong, and society, if it was to survive, must find the offender and punish him. It was just that in practice so often it was immeasurably more complex, and the victim was sometimes as much of an offender, in more hidden ways. It was a complicated tragedy with intertwined offenses and sufferings; one could not simply punish one participant and call the matter justly settled.

He was lost in tangled thoughts and memories when the cabby drew up at the Clerkenwell station and announced his arrival.

Pitt climbed out, paid him, and went in to find Innes.

As soon as he saw Innes’s face he knew the news was disturbing. Innes’s thin features were twisted in unhappiness and there were dark circles under his eyes as if he had been up too long and slept badly.

“Mornin’, Mr. Pitt,” he said glumly, rising to his feet. “You’d better come out.” And without explaining himself any further he pushed past an overweight sergeant and a constable chewing on a peppermint stick, and led the way out again into the street.

Pitt followed close behind him and then fell into step on the pavement where there was room to walk side by side. He did not ask. The sun was bright again the morning after the previous night’s rain and everything looked cleaner and there was a crispness in the air.

“I followed ’im,” Innes said, looking down at the stones beneath his feet as if he must watch his step in case he tripped, although the way was perfectly smooth.

Pitt said nothing.

“If Weems were blackmailing ’im, I know what it were for,” Innes went on after another few yards. He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed hard. Still he did not look at Pitt. “ ’E spent the evenin’ at a music ’all in Stepney.”

“That’s not an offense,” Pitt said, knowing there must be more. An evening at a music hall was a perfectly acceptable type of relaxation for a busy man. There were tens of thousands in the city who spent their time so. His remark was pointless; it was only a rather futile way of putting off the moment when Innes would tell him the real discovery. He could almost hear the words before they were spoken. There would be a woman, pretty, probably buxom, perhaps a singer, no doubt wooed by many, and Urban, like countless men before him, had got into debt trying to outdo his rivals.

“Get on with it,” Pitt said abruptly, stepping off the pavement for a couple of yards to avoid a peddler.

“ ’E worked there,” Innes answered equally abruptly, catching up with him.

“What?” Pitt could scarcely believe him. “In the halls? Urban! I can’t see him as a turn on the boards. He’s too—too sober. He likes fine paintings—probably classical music, given the chance.”

“No sir—not on the stage. As a bouncer, throwin’ out them as gives trouble.”

“Urban!”

“Yessir.” Still Innes stared down at his pacing feet on the pavement, face straight ahead. “Quite good at it, ’E is. Big feller, and got the kind of air of authority as people don’t argue wiv. I saw ’im break up a nasty quarrel between a couple o’ gents what ’ad ’ad a bit too much, and ’E did it quick and quiet like, and only them closest ’ad any idea it’d been nasty.” He moved aside to allow a woman with three children in tow to pass. “Paid ’im quite nice fer it, the management,” he continued when she was gone. “ ’E could ’a saved quite a bit over the years if ’e’s bin doin’ it long. Wouldn’t ’a needed Weems’s money to do quite nice fer ’isself. But o’ course if Weems knew, ’e’d ’ave ’ad a nice ’old over ’im. Rozzers moonlighting. Thrown off the force. an’ I don’t suppose Mr. Urban wants to do bouncin’ for a livin’.”

“No,” Pitt said slowly. A small part of him was relieved because it was so much less pathetic than making a fool of himself over a woman he would never have married anyway. But it was far more serious. As Innes said, he would have been dismissed from the force. The mounting sense of relief
was darkened over and with thoughts much uglier and more painful. If Weems knew of it, then it was motive for murder.

They walked side by side in silence for several more minutes, going nowhere, simply moving because it was easier, and stopping meant coming to some conclusion.

“You’ll take care of it, sir?” Innes said at last as they came to the crossroad with the main thoroughfare. They were obliged to wait several minutes for the traffic to ease.

“Yes,” Pitt answered, without any inner decision. Of course he must face Urban with it, but if in some way Urban could prove he had not killed Weems, if he had been in Stepney that night and had witnesses, then would Pitt still report his moonlighting? It was a decision he did not have to make today. If Urban was guilty of murder it would hardly matter.

Innes began across the road, dashing in and out of manure; there was no crossing sweeper. Pitt followed him, narrowly missed by a berline driven by a gentleman in a high temper.

“Mr. Pitt—” Innes began when they were over the street and on the far pavement.

“Yes?” Pitt knew he was going to ask if he had to report Urban.

“Ah—” Innes changed his mind. It was a question to which he did not really want to know the answer; he preferred to hope.

Pitt did not bother to pursue it. They both understood the justice, and the account.

Pitt found Urban in his office, and was angry because he liked the man, angry with the frailty that had made him sacrifice so much for a few pictures, no matter how lovely.

“What is it now?” Urban’s face was shadowed. He knew Pitt would not have returned yet again unless there was some unavoidable need, and perhaps he saw the emotions in Pitt’s all too readable face.

“Weems,” Pitt replied. “Still Weems. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me where you were the night he died?”

“It wouldn’t make any difference,” Urban answered slowly. “I can’t prove it, and you can’t accept my word without proof. But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even know him.”

“If you were in Stepney you could prove it,” Pitt said quietly. “The management must keep records.”

Urban’s cheeks paled, but his eyes remained on Pitt’s face.

“You followed me? I didn’t see you, and I was prepared. I thought you might.”

“No,” Pitt said, biting his lip. “I had someone else do it. I’d have been a fool to try myself. Of course you’d have seen me. Is that where you were?”

“No.” Urban smiled, a sad, self-mocking expression. “I wish now I had been. I went to another hall, where I thought I might get a better rate, but I didn’t give my name. I didn’t want word out. I might lose what I had.”

“Why?” Pitt said harshly. “You’re paid enough here. Are a few paintings worth it—really?”

Urban shrugged. “I thought so at the time. Now perhaps not.”

He faced Pitt squarely, his eyes full of something that was half a question, half an apology. “Tomorrow I don’t suppose I’ll think so at all. I like being a policeman. But I did not kill Weems—I’d never heard of him until you came in here and told me about my name being on his list. Perhaps he intended blackmailing me, and was killed before he could—” He stopped, and once again Pitt had the powerful impression he was lying by omission.

“For God’s sake tell me!” Pitt said furiously, his voice husky. “It’s more than your career in jeopardy, man. It’s your life! You had the motive to kill Weems, you had the opportunity, and so far as we know, you had as much chance of the means as anyone. What is it? What is it you are hiding? You know something. Has it to do with Osmar and why Carswell let him off?”

“Osmar,” Urban said slowly, his smile becoming softer as if in some way at last he had given in. “I suppose I have nothing left to lose now, except my neck.” He moved his head jerkily as he spoke as if freeing it from some grip. “The Circle may do me a great deal of harm, but it won’t be as bad as the hangman …”

“Circle?” Pitt had no idea what he was talking about. “What circle?”

Urban sat down behind his desk and echoing his movement Pitt sat down also.

“The Inner Circle,” Urban said very quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper as if he was afraid even here of being overheard. “It is a secret society for mutual benefit, charitable work, and the righting of injustices.”

“Whose injustices?” Pitt asked quickly. “Who decides what is just or unjust?”

Urban’s face registered the difference with a flash of irony.

“They do, of course.”

“If its aims are so fine, why is it secret?”

Urban sighed. “Some things are hard to accomplish, and those who resent it can be very obstructive, at times very powerful. Secrecy gives you some safety from them.”

“I see. But what has this to do with you and Weems—and Osmar?” Pitt asked.

“I am a member of the Inner Circle,” Urban explained. “I joined some time ago, when I was a young and rising man in Rotherhithe. An officer in power then thought I was a promising man, just the sort who would one day be a fine member of the Circle, a brother.” He looked self-conscious. “I was a lot younger then. He flattered me, told me all the good works and the power I might have to help people. Not the superintendent they have now. He wouldn’t have anything to do with it.”