The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (33 page)

‘Good God, I hope not!’ Pitt said impetuously, then instantly regretted it when he saw Teague smile. ‘Is that sanctity?’ he asked. ‘Nothing I’ve seen in nature is so . . . self-righteous, or essentially absurd!’

Teague sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t know the woman. But if she had wanted to escape that I wouldn’t blame her. However, all that I’ve been able to gather – and it’s a great deal – indicates that she did not go willingly, either before her pathetic followers were killed or after. In fact from the numbers of men I have been able to utilise, I don’t believe she left the area of London within a mile or two of Inkerman Road.’

Suddenly it was no longer a matter of polite conversation, to be got over with as soon as possible. Pitt found himself tense, listening not only to Teague’s words but to the tone of his voice, and watching his face, the strong hands in his lap, even tension in his shoulders.

‘Why is that?’ Pitt asked as levelly as he could.

‘Diligence,’ Teague answered, his voice almost expressionless. ‘I have a large number of men I can call on, Commander. Not just servants of one sort or another, but old colleagues, other sportsmen in social disciplines, not just casual. Men I knew in school, county players when I was in my twenties. I played for Surrey for a while, all around the Home Counties. Team-mates, opponents, groundsmen, lovers of the game, all kinds of people are willing to help. Dammit, she was a good woman as far as she knew how, and a guest in our country. A word here and there, friend of a friend, you know? Different from being questioned by police. There was no sign of her anywhere. She couldn’t have walked. I don’t doubt she put up a fight! Do you?’ He looked at Pitt closely, watching his eyes, his posture, just as Pitt was watching him.

‘No, I don’t,’ Pitt admitted. ‘You think she was hurt, even then?’

Teague’s eyelids flickered. ‘Even then? You think she has been hurt since? You have heard something? Found something?’

Pitt wondered for a moment whether to lie or not. Should he tell this man the truth? Teague had known Hall since youth, even childhood. He might be able to tell all kinds of things about him that would be of great use in judging his next move. He might even know of other properties Hall owned where he might be holding her.

But then he might also be perfectly aware of the cheating, and even of Hall’s part in it, or for that matter, his own. That was unlikely, but not impossible. Teague had done well enough since then to prove his intelligence. But sometimes even the cleverest people are lazy, especially those who would rather play sports and be heroes, idolised by others, than sit in a quiet room and study.

Teague was waiting, watching.

‘I wish I could say I had,’ Pitt answered. ‘But as you said, it is very likely she put up a fight. In fact I have to face the possibility that she is dead.’

Teague’s jaw tightened and he ran his tongue over his lips. ‘Or have you given up already?’ There was a very faint note of contempt in his voice or perhaps he would call it disappointment, as if Pitt had let him down.

‘Possibility,’ Pitt said the word slowly. ‘Not probability. I think she was taken alive for a reason.’

Teague’s eyebrows rose. ‘Indeed? A deduction or a guess?’

Pitt gave a half-smile. ‘A deduction, and a hope. As you said, she is a remarkable woman.’

‘From what do you deduce it?’ Teague demanded.

Pitt made a decision, his muscles aching from the tension of fear that he was being rash. ‘From the fact that we have not found her body, and yet the other two women were killed immediately and brutally,’ he answered. ‘I think whoever took her did so for a reason.’

Teague thought for a moment, and then spoke slowly. ‘What . . . reason . . . Commander? Money?’ He was still watching Pitt intently.

Pitt had no intention of telling Teague of the demand.

‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘None has been asked for. If that were what was wanted, why wait so long?’

Teague considered for a moment. ‘To heighten the tension?’ he suggested. ‘Her followers are bound to be distressed, and increasingly so with time.’

‘They were distressed by the deaths of the other two women,’ Pitt pointed out. ‘I think if they had been asked for money they would have given it immediately.’

‘You may be right.’ Teague nodded very slightly. ‘Then what could the kidnapper want? A denial of her faith, do you think? Made publicly?’

Pitt kept his face totally impassive.

‘Do you think she would do that?’ He turned the question back to Teague.

Teague thought for several moments, and then a thin smile touched his lips. ‘Then why kill the other two women? That makes little sense. Surely it would have been more effective to take the other two women and tell her that if she doesn’t publicly repudiate her beliefs, they would pay with their lives?’

Pitt nodded. ‘It makes far more sense,’ he agreed. ‘We are assuming that whoever took her did so with a plan. I hope that’s true, but I’m not certain of it.’

Teague turned it over in his mind.

Pitt waited, watching him, studying him.

‘I have learned a little about her,’ Teague went on. ‘From past sermons, if you can call them that, and listening to what her colleagues say of her. I imagine you have had reported to you the rather different message that Melville Smith is now giving, as if on her behalf?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘Very . . . watered down. I dare say he means well, but in his own way he is betraying her.’

‘I doubt that is how he sees it,’ Pitt replied. ‘But what were you going to say about it?’

Again Teague’s eyes were fixed on Pitt’s as if he could read his mind in the depth of his gaze.

‘That she forgives indiscriminately, and that God would be more careful,’ Teague replied to the question. ‘Which makes me wonder if perhaps she has formed some alliances that he considers criminal or more likely politically dangerous.’

‘Anarchists?’ Pitt said what he knew Teague meant.

‘Is it impossible?’ Teague asked.

‘Not at all,’ Pitt said honestly. ‘The same thought had occurred to me.’

‘Then they may be behind the kidnapping,’ Teague said. ‘Although I can’t see why they would take her, if she has given them comfort, or pardon.’

‘Neither can I. But there has been some difference of approach among different groups,’ Pitt told him.

‘I see.’ Teague did not say whether he had been aware of that or not. ‘Smith seemed to be certain she had come to England to speak with Barton Hall. Does Smith know what her purpose was?’

‘He says not,’ Pitt replied. ‘Do you have any idea?’ For an instant he wondered whether to say that he knew Teague and Hall had been friends at school, and then he changed his mind.

As if he had seen the flicker in Pitt’s eyes, Teague responded with a guarded question. ‘How well do you know the journalist Frank Laurence?’

‘I’ve met him. Why?’ Pitt asked.

‘He’s a bit irresponsible,’ Teague replied. ‘Always out to make a name for himself, very free with opinions that are as yet unverifiable. I raise his name because I think he knows, or suspects, that Hall has something to do with Señora Delacruz’s abduction,’ Teague went on. ‘Hall is profoundly ambitious, you know? Or perhaps you don’t know. He would dearly like to become Governor of the Bank of England one day. A man like Frank Laurence wouldn’t be above guiding the news in a way to help him, if it were to his own profit. Or equally, destroying him, if that were.’

Pitt drew breath to disagree, then changed his mind, and let it out in silence.

‘A dangerous little man.’ Teague was still watching Pitt. ‘Plenty of ambition, but he hasn’t the brains, the power or the nerve to be behind this.’

‘Laurence? What reason would he have?’ Pitt asked, trying to sound as if he were still considering the possibility.

‘No idea,’ Teague said with a slight shrug. ‘Paid by someone, I imagine.’

‘Who?’ Pitt asked. ‘Barton Hall?’

‘Possibly.’ Teague stood up slowly, again holding his hand out. ‘I won’t give up, but I admit to feeling disheartened. The poor woman must be at the end of her strength.’

Pitt took his hand, briefly, felt the firmness of his grip, then let go. ‘I fear you are right,’ he replied. ‘Thank you, Mr Teague.’

As Teague left the room Pitt sat back in his chair and thought over what Teague had said. He had been trying to find out how much Pitt knew, how determined he still was to rescue Sofia, or if he was beginning to feel defeated. He was always probing. And it was he, not Pitt, who had raised the subject of Hall, almost as if they had agreed on him as a suspect.

And Hall seemed as willing to discredit Laurence as Laurence was to discredit him. Was that coincidental? Or could it matter?

The evening of the next day Pitt received a hand-delivered note to say that Narraway and Vespasia were home, and would Pitt accompany the messenger back to Vespasia’s house to meet with them.

Pitt kept the man waiting no more than ten minutes.

He rose in silence in the carriage, his mind racing over the possibilities of what they might have to say. As soon as he arrived he thanked the driver and went straight to the front door. It was opened by the maid before he had time to knock.

Narraway was standing by the fireplace, his face pale with exhaustion. Vespasia sat in her usual chair, and on the sofa was a slender, dark-eyed Spanish man whose haunted expression proclaimed his identity as Nazario Delacruz.

There was a pot of tea on the table and a plate of freshly cut sandwiches. Narraway introduced Pitt and then stood back.

Very quietly, with many halts, Nazario recounted how Sofia had taken in penitents, especially the one who was so terrified after the murder of the man left eviscerated in the road, in a manner hideously like that in which Cleo and Elfrida had also been killed.

‘She took him in and agreed to protect him,’ Narraway added quietly. ‘She hid him, on condition of his repentance for the crime he had committed, and that he should do all he could to redeem the effect of it.’

‘What was the crime?’ Pitt asked, looking at Nazario.

‘I do not know,’ Nazario answered. ‘Those things she never told me. But I do know that he was very frightened that he would be murdered next. He came to Sofia because he did not want to die without making a confession. He feared hell. She was determined that he should make amends for the crime, but she never mentioned what it was.’

‘But it was straight after that when Señora Delacruz said that she had to come to London and meet with Barton Hall,’ Narraway said.

‘Barton Hall,’ Pitt repeated quietly.

‘Yes,’ Narraway agreed.

Vividly, as if the days between had disappeared, Pitt remembered being in the bank, learning of the huge amounts of money spent and at least partially replaced. And then Narraway’s words about bank collapse, loss of confidence and the effect of one bank following after another, like a row of dominoes.

He looked across at Narraway now, and saw in his eyes the understanding that what Sofia had recognised was the exposure of a financial hoax that would start the collapse of one bank after another and result in economic chaos.

Pitt turned to Nazario, but before he could speak, Nazario answered the question.

‘I will go straight to Angel Court, and think, weigh it in my mind, and pray. Tomorrow I will answer you as to what I will do.’

Pitt bowed his acknowledgement and no one else argued.

PITT WAS still tired from the late evening and the rapid pace of events when he arrived at Lisson Grove next morning. He felt bleary-eyed and a trifle stiff as he sat at his desk.

Stoker came in with a mug of tea for him.

‘For heaven’s sake sit down,’ Pitt told him, accepting the mug of tea gratefully. He took the first sip before he started to tell Stoker about Nazario Delacruz, briefly and without sparing the horror of the situation. Nor did he have to warn Stoker that Nazario might be erratic, mistrustful of them, and possibly even seek his own answer.

‘Poor devil,’ Stoker said when Pitt had told him all that he needed to know.

‘Indeed,’ Pitt said quietly. ‘I should have taken the whole threat issue a great deal more seriously from the beginning.’

Stoker had the candour not to argue. ‘I did look into Barton Hall’s Canadian investments, as you asked.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t find any trace of his using the money himself. He lives in the house he was born in. Belongs to a few gentlemen’s clubs, some for years. Pretty frugal with his general expenses. Good tailor, but you’d expect that in his position. You don’t bank with someone who looks like he can’t afford a decent coat. Doesn’t own a carriage, doesn’t give expensive gifts to people. In fact, as far as I can see, he doesn’t have any lady friends. His wife died, and he hasn’t courted anyone since.

‘And I checked gambling in just about every form it exists, and any payments that could be past debts, or even blackmail. There wasn’t anything.’ Stoker looked earnest and frustrated. ‘I really don’t know what he’s done with the money, sir. But it’s nothing I’ve seen before. I asked Darlington, he’s expert in financial matters, and he couldn’t suggest anything else.’

‘Thank you,’ Pitt said bleakly. ‘The investment in Canadian land seems to be paying well, so why is it secret, and what is he so desperate about, and needing more money for? It may have nothing to do with Sofia Delacruz, but we can’t afford to ignore it.’

‘Yes, sir. He’s the reason she says she came to England at all. But why? Could she be blackmailing him over this cheating business so long ago? Even if she is, I still can’t see him murdering these women like that. He looks so . . . like a banker! With the imagination of a dish of custard!’

Pitt smiled in spite of himself. Everything seemed predictable about Barton Hall. ‘An excellent way to look, if you wish to be invisible for what you are.’

‘I suppose so. Something I did turn up, sir. He travels quite a lot. Mostly Europe, Paris especially, and of course he could go anywhere else from there.’

‘Interesting,’ Pitt agreed. It was, but he found himself unable to keep his mind on anything other than Nazario Delacruz, and the moments in the streetlights when he had stood in the chandler’s shop and saw that hansom go by, with Sofia’s bruised face staring at him out of the window.