looking a little beyond Innes’s stiff face. “We’ll need another man. Can you see to that?”
“Why would a magistrate borrer money from a swine like Weems, sir?” Innes said without relaxing in the slightest. “It don’t make no sense.”
“He probably didn’t,” Pitt agreed. “I expect it was blackmail.”
“Is that wot ’appened to your nob?” Innes asked baldly, his stare unwaveringly in front of him.
“Yes,” Pitt admitted equally baldly. “But there’s no crime involved, only a misjudgment of character. A woman became infatuated with him and took her own life. It would be a scandal, and unpleasant for his family.”
“ ’Ardly compares wiv what I’ve seen.” Innes was still grudging. He stood stiffly beside the table. Pitt was leaning on the only chair.
“No-which is why I don’t think he killed Weems. He didn’t have enough to lose. But maybe Carswell did.”
“I’ll see ter gettin’ ’im followed.” Innes relaxed a little at last. “What times do yer want ter do it yerself, sir? Or would yer like two men so they can do it all?”
“One will do,” Pitt conceded. “I’ll do it during the day. I’ve nothing better to do.”
Innes forgot himself for a moment.
“What about the nob o’ yours, sir? Even though ’e’s not afraid o’ scandal, if ’E were prepared to pay, maybe ’E got tired of it, and decided to get rid o’ Weems. ’Specially if Weems got greedier and upped ’is price?”
“I have thought of that,” Pitt said very levelly, his voice not exactly cold, but very precise. “I will pursue it if I exhaust the other possibilities.”
Innes opened his mouth, about to apologize, then some element of pride intruded-or perhaps it was a sense of dignity and a desire to maintain a certain relationship-and he remained silent.
“Then we’ll look at the other debtors on the second list,” Pitt went on. “Mr. Urban and Mr. Latimer.”
“I could start on them right away, sir,” Innes offered.
“No,” Pitt said rather too quickly, then seeing Innes’s face, felt obliged to explain. “We’ll leave them till we have to-Urban at least. He’s a colleague.”
“Whose colleague?” Innes did not yet understand.
“Ours, Innes,” Pitt said flatly. “He is police.”
Innes’s face would have been comical were the situation not so painful. All the ugly possibilities flickered through his mind and across his wildly expressive face, debt, gambling, blackmail and corruption.
“Ah,” he said at last. “I see. Yes sir. Let’s dispose o’ Mr. Carswell first then. I’ll see to it that ’e’s followed all night, every night, sir.” And with that he turned on his heel and went out, leaving Pitt alone in the small, cramped room.
During the next four days Pitt followed Addison Carswell from the Bow Street court to his home; to Kensington, Chelsea and Belgravia to dine with acquaintances; to his club, where he had to remain outside, unable to learn if he gambled, won or lost, whom he owed or with whom he spoke. It was almost a waste of time, since all he could learn of use was closed to him, but he had not yet any grounds to go in and demand information with any authority.
He followed Carswell to his tailor, who seemed to receive him without the rather stiff, hostile familiarity tailors employed if they were owed money. Indeed the man was all smiles when he came to the door to bid Carswell good-day.
It was not until the fifth day, when Pitt was losing heart, that Carswell finally went somewhere of interest. Shopping of itself held no particular meaning, nor even what he purchased. A pretty hat and a lace parasol, all wrapped in tissue and pink boxes, were not remarkable purchases for a man with a wife and four daughters, three of them unmarried. It was the fact that when he emerged from the shop, Pitt close behind him, he hurried along the footpath, head down, occasionally glancing sideways. Once when he saw ahead of him someone he seemed to know, he pulled his hat forward and leaped over the gutter to dart across the street in front of a brougham, almost under the horse’s hooves, startling the animal and causing the driver to jerk on the reins and swear violently, then draw up his vehicle, shaking with fear that he had so nearly killed a man.
Pitt had lost sight of Carswell and felt a twinge of uncertainty. The sweat broke out on his skin as he struggled to find a space between the broughams, barouches, landaus, phaetons and victorias to go over himself. He danced on the curb in impatience as a brewer’s dray went past him, with huge bay horses, flanks gleaming, manes braided and ribboned, hard followed by a hansom, then a clarence. At last he ran out into the street, defying an open landau with two women taking the air, raced in front of a barouche going the other way, and reached the opposite side amid a group of fashionable idlers. Carswell was nowhere in sight. He brushed past three men talking, calling out apologies, and ran along the path, only catching up with Carswell as he was about to climb into a cab.
Pitt hailed a hansom immediately behind.
“Follow that cab that just pulled out!” he ordered.
“What?” The cabby was suspicious, turning on his box to stare at him.
“I’ma policeman,” Pitt said urgently. “A detective. Follow that cab!”
“A detective?” The man’s face brightened with sudden interest.
“Get on with it!” Pitt said exasperatedly. “You’ll lose him.”
“No I won’t!” The cabby caught the spirit of it. “I can follow anybody anywhere in London.” And with enthusiasm and some skill he urged his horse and turned into the traffic, butting ahead of a victoria and across the path of a berline. They were going westward towards Curzon Street, but south, which made Pitt at last feel that he was about to discover something of Carswell that was not utterly predictable and totally innocent.
He sat upright in the cab, wishing he could see forward as well as sideways as they went over the river at Westminster Bridge, then turned south into Lambeth.
They traveled up Westminster Bridge Road and Pitt could see couples out walking, the women in pastels and flowers and laces in the late afternoon sunshine. One or two carried parasols, more for elegance than to protect them from the soft light, and the heat was gone. He wondered who Carswell’s gifts were for. The married daughter in the pictures in Curzon Street? She might live south of the river. But it seemed more likely Carswell would visit her later, with his wife and in his own carriage, not alone in a hired vehicle.
They turned into Kennington Road. It was full of people taking the evening air, open carriages, street peddlers with all manner of food: pies, eels, peppermint water, fruit sherbets, cordials, sandwiches. Girls offered bunches of flowers, matches, packets of lavender, little dolls. An organ grinder played hurdy-gurdy music and in the summer street it sounded unexpectedly pleasing, all its harshness and tawdriness sweetened by the open air, the clopping of horses’ feet and the hiss of wheels.
Pitt’s cab stopped and the driver leaned out.
“Yer fare’s got out, sir,” he said quietly. “ ’E went inter the coffee’ouse on yer left.”
“Thank you.” Pitt climbed out and paid him. “Thank you very much.”
“Who is ’e?” the cabby asked. “Is ’E a murderer?”
“I don’t know,” Pitt said honestly.
The other cab had moved away so presumably Carswell intended remaining where he was for some time. “Thank you, that’s all,” Pitt said, dismissing the cabby, to his acute disappointment. He moved away reluctantly, still giving the occasional glance backwards over his shoulder to see what was happening.
Pitt smiled to himself and pulled his coat even further open and took his tie off altogether, then followed Carswell into the coffeehouse.
Inside was warm, stuffy and full of chatter, clinking glass and rustling skirts, and the smell of coffee beans, pastry and sugar. On the walls were colorful theater posters, and now and again someone roared with laughter.
In a corner over to the right Addison Carswell was being greeted by a slender, pretty girl with a mass of soft honey-brown hair which was piled on her head in the very latest fashion, the short ends curling onto her neck as only nature can and no art has learned to imitate. In spite of her youth her features were strong and her face full of vitality, her eyes wide and clear. Pitt judged her to be in her early twenties.
Carswell was looking at her with a smile he could not mask and an anticipation in his eyes as he gave her the hatbox and the parcel containing the parasol. She opened them with quick fingers, tearing at the paper, every few moments glancing up at him, then down again. When she finally took off the last pieces and let them flutter to the ground she held up the parasol with unfeigned delight, and then the hat.
Carswell put out his hand and touched her wrist, restraining her before she could swing the hat up and try it on. She smiled, blushing as if she suddenly remembered her foolishness, and put her hand down again.
