“Can you tell me what it’s about, sir?” Bayliss asked reasonably.
“No, I can’t, and you would prefer not to know.”
“If it’s on my watch, sir, I need to know, whether I like it or not.”
“It’s not on your watch. This is Special Branch business. Get me Constable Upfield.”
“He’s off duty. . sir.”
“Then get him back on,” Narraway snapped.
“Yes, sir.”
It was a long night of questioning, arguing, threatening. It was after midnight by the time they elicited the information that Kate, the missing girl, had gone out to see a client in the mews. He had wanted to look at what he was buying and she was willing to oblige.
This particular man had had very precise tastes. Apparently he had already tried one or two other houses, and found nothing to his liking.
However, Kate suited him, according to the boot boy, and she had gone with him.
“Gone?” Pitt said quickly. “Not into the house?”
“No, poor stupid cow.” The boot boy shook his head. “ ’E spoke nice, but that don’t mean nothin’. Don’t even mean ’e got money, let alone sense. Some o’ them up-market toffs is the worst.”
“When did she go?”
“Gawd knows.”
“Didn’t you go after her?” Narraway snapped. “Later, if not then.”
The boot boy gave him a dirty look. “I’m ’ere ter ’elp business, not drive it away!”
Pitt knew that whether the boot boy had followed her or not-
and he probably had-he was not about to admit it. He would have known roughly what had happened, and been very willing to keep it secret rather than help the police investigate the establishment. The quality trade they aspired to would take their patronage somewhere else rather than risk visiting a house that was the subject of any kind of police interest. In the service of survival he would have concealed the crime, had there been one. If they could find who had killed her themselves-and they would try-then they would execute their own justice. Pitt realized he should have told Narraway that before they came.
“Of course,” Pitt agreed aloud. “No one wants a Peeping Tom when they’ve taken a girl along the street a little. Who found her?
You? Or should we ask someone else?”
“I. . er. . I dunno.”
Narraway glanced at Pitt, and was silent.
“It would be better,” Pitt began judiciously, “if we didn’t have to discuss this with anyone else. Let us just suppose you were unlucky enough to have been the one who found her. The wisest thing would be to move her somewhere else, wouldn’t it.” He said it as an observation of fact, not a question. “It all comes down to the same thing in the end. She’ll be found by police, if it makes any difference, which it doesn’t really. If it was a toff, they’re never going to find him. She’ll get a decent burial, and your business is safe. Isn’t that right?”
Narraway’s eyes widened very slightly in the lamplight. In the distance a cart rumbled by them, the horses’ hoofs louder on the cobbles in the comparative stillness of the night.
“Yeah,” the boot boy agreed reluctantly.
“So who did you find to take her away for you? I don’t suppose you have any idea what they did with her?”
“I don’t wanter know!” The boot boy’s voice rose indignantly.
“Of course you don’t. Well, she will get a decent burial, I can promise you that.”
The boot boy looked relieved, his sallow face easing a little.
“In return I would like to know exactly what the man looked like who took her away, and how he took her, cart, carriage, wagon, dray?”
“Cart,” the boot boy said immediately.
“What color horse?”
“What?”
“You heard me! What color was the horse?”
The boot boy swore under his breath. “Gawd! I dunno! There was Kate lyin’ in the street wif ’er neck broke. An’ yer think I’m carin’ wot color the bleedin’ carter’s ’orse is? Light color-gray, summink like that. ’Oo cares?”
“And the carter?” Pitt persisted.
“Scruffy old devil. I gave ’im a guinea ter put ’er somewhere else, at least a mile away. Best the other side o’ the river.”
“Can you remember his face?”
“No, I bleedin’ can’t!” He swore again under his breath.
“Try. It’s worth your guinea back.”
“Sharp face, wi’ eyes like coals,” the boy said instantly. “An’ ’e ’ad mittens on ’is ’ands, I remember that.”
“Thank you.” Pitt turned to Narraway. “Have you got a guinea?”
Narraway also swore, rather more fluently, but he produced the guinea.
They returned to the police station and mustered all the men they could, from that station and the two on either side. They spent all night asking, probing, questioning to trace the passage of the cart from Bessborough Street to Buckingham Palace. By dawn they were certain of it.
Pitt and Narraway stood by the magnificent wrought-iron railings, the first light tipping the gold on them, the wind rustling in the leaves across the park. Pitt was so tired his limbs ached, and his eyes felt full of hot grit.
A troop of Horse Guards came out of the Palace yard, uniforms magnificent, harness and spurs gleaming in the broadening light, horses’ hoofs crisp on the road. They looked like a cavalry from some heroic dream.
Was that what the Cape-to-Cairo railway was: a heroic dream? Or just single-minded, oppressive empire- building at the expense of a more primitive people? Who was right, Cahoon Dunkeld or Julius Sorokine?
“Where did the carter go from here?” he said aloud.
Narraway dragged his attention back to the present. He was so tired his face was seamed with lines, dragging down his features and hollowing his eyes. It was clear it cost him an intense effort to control his mind and focus it. “It must have been about this time of day, possibly a little earlier,” he replied. “But some of the same people will be about. I suppose we’d better begin asking.”
Pitt nodded and led the way across the street toward the nearest sentry. He asked the man if he had been on duty a week ago.
The man ignored him. Only then did Pitt remember that they were not allowed to speak. They were trained to ignore all comments or actions unless they constituted a threat. He turned and saw Narraway smiling behind him. It gave his face life again.
“All right,” Pitt said, shaking his head. “You ask him.”
Narraway produced his identification as the head of Special Branch. After a moment’s doubt, the sentry replied that he had been on duty.
Narraway asked him about the carter, and if he had seen him, which way he had gone.
“To the right, up the Buckingham Palace Road, sir,” was the unhesitating reply.
Narraway thanked him, and he and Pitt set out, footsore and hungry. A sandwich from a peddler, a cup of hot tea from a group of cabbies around a brazier, and sixpence worth of bootlaces from a one-armed soldier on the corner of Buckingham Palace Road traced the carter at least that far.
They asked around Wilton Place, Chester Street, and Belgrave Square, then into Lowndes Street and beyond. No one had seen him.
“Probably all still in bed,” Narraway said miserably, shivering with exhaustion. “He could have gone anywhere.”
“Servants wouldn’t be in bed at this hour,” Pitt replied, moving his weight from one foot to the other to ease the ache. “There was somebody putting out rubbish, beating a carpet, or carrying coals.
Look around you.”
Narraway turned obediently. There were sounds of movement everywhere. A sleepy scullery maid fetched a scuttle of coal, her hands dirty, apron crumpled. A message boy strode along the pavement, whistling cheerfully.
