“I presume you are going to ask me what the matter was for which I was willing to pay a man like Weems to keep his silence. You have a right to know, if you are to help me.” He took a deep breath; Pitt saw his slender shoulders rise and fall. “Twenty years ago, before I was married, I spent some time at the country home of Lord Frederick Anstiss, and his wife, Laura.” His beautiful, well-modulated voice was husky. “Anstiss and I were good friends, indeed I may say we still are.” He swallowed. “But at that time we were almost as close as brothers. We had many interests in common, both in pursuits of the mind and in such physical pleasures as shooting, riding to hounds, and the raising of good horses.”
No one in the room moved. The clock on the mantel chimed the quarter hour, its intrusion making Pitt start.
“Laura, Lady Anstiss, was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,” Byam went on. “She had skin as pale as a lily, indeed an artist painting her portrait entitled it
Drummond murmured something inaudible.
“I suppose I paid court to her,” Byam continued, staring out of the window at the trees and the rhododendrons beyond. “I can hardly remember now, but I must have spent more time with her than was appropriate, and certainly I told her she was beautiful-she was, quite incredibly so.” He hesitated. “Only when it was too late did I realize she returned what she thought was my feeling for her, with a passion quite out of proportion to anything I had encouraged.”
He began to speak more rapidly, his voice a little breathless. “I had been foolish, extremely foolish, and far worse than that, I was betraying my friend and my host. I was horrified by what I had done, quite thoughtlessly. I had been flattered because she liked me, what young man would not be? I had allowed her to think I meant far more by my attentions than a slight romance, a few rather silly dreams. She was in love, and expected something dramatic to come of it.” He still had his back to them. “I told her it was not only hopeless, but quite morally wrong. I imagined she had accepted it-I suppose because I knew it so surely myself.” He stopped again, and even in the motionless aspect of his body his distress in the subject was obvious.
Pitt and Drummond glanced at each other, but it would be pointless and intrusive to interrupt. To offer sympathy now would be to misunderstand.
“She couldn’t,” Byam went on, his voice dropped very low. “She had never been denied before. Every man for whom she had had any regard, and many for whom she had not, had been clay in her hands. To her it was the uttermost rejection. We can only guess at what was in her thoughts, but it seemed to have destroyed everything she believed of herself.” He hunched his shoulders a little higher, as if withdrawing into some warmer, safer place. “I cannot believe she loved me so much. I did nothing to invite it. It was foolish, a flirtation, no more than that. No grand declarations of love, no promises… only”-he sighed-“only a liking for her company, and an enchantment with her marvelous beauty-as any man might have felt.”
This time the silence stretched for so long they could hear the sounds of footsteps across the hall and a murmur of voices as the butler spoke to one of the maids. Finally Drummond broke it.
“What happened?”
“She threw herself off the parapet,” Byam replied so softly they both strained to hear him. “She died immediately.” He put his hands up to his face and stood with his head bent, his body rigid and unmoving, his features hidden not only from them, but from the light.
“I’m sorry,” Drummond said huskily. “Really very sorry.”
Slowly Byam raised his head, but still his face was invisible to them.
“Thank you.” His words caught in his throat. “It was appalling. I would have understood it if Anstiss had thrown me out and never forgiven me as long as he lived.” He pulled himself straighter and reasserted his control. “I had betrayed him in the worst possible way,” he went on. “Albeit through blindness and stupidity rather than any intent, but Laura was dead, and no innocence or remorse of mine could heal that.” He took a deep breath and let it out with an inaudible sigh. He continued in a tone far less emotional, as if the feeling had drained out of him. “But he made the greatest effort a man can and he forgave me. He let his grief for her be sweet and untainted by rage or hatred. He chose to view it as an accident, a simple tragedy. He gave it out that she had gone onto the balcony of her room at night, and in the dark had slipped and fallen. No one questioned it, whatever they might have guessed. Laura Anstiss was deemed to have died by mischance. She was buried in the family crypt.”
“And William Weems?” Drummond asked. There was no way to be tactful.
Byam turned at last and faced them, his expression bleak and the faintest shadow of a smile touching his lips.
“He came to me about two years ago and told me he was related to someone who had been a servant in the hall at the time, and knew that Lady Anstiss and I had been lovers, and that she had taken her own life when I ended the affaire.” He came over towards the sofa opposite them. “I was taken aback that anyone should know anything about it, beyond what was public”-he shrugged very slightly-“that she had died tragically. I suppose my face reflected the feeling of guilt I still have, and he fastened onto it.”
At last he sat down. “Of course I denied that I was her lover, and he may have believed me or not, but he affected not to.” His smile became broader and more bitter. “No doubt to illustrate to me how unlikely it was that society would either. The general assumption would be that no woman as lovely and charming as Laura Anstiss would take her own life over something so trivial as the ending of a flirtation.” He crossed his legs. “It must have been a great passion to affect her so.” His face was filled with a dark, self-mocking humor. “It wasn’t, I assure you. It was so very far from it it is ridiculous! But who would believe that now?” He looked at Drummond. “I should be ruined, and I cannot bear to think what it would do to my wife-the pitying looks, the whispers, the quiet amusement and the doors that would be so very discreetly closed. And naturally my career would be ended, and in time I should be relieved of my position.” He moved one hand dismissively. “No reasons would be given, except a quiet murmur and an expectation that I should understand; but it would all be as relentless as the incoming tide, and as useless to fight against.”
“But it would be his word against yours,” Drummond pointed out. “And who would accept, or even listen to, such a man?”
Byam was very pale. “He had a letter, or part of a letter to be more precise. I had not seen it before, but it was from Laura to me, and very-very outspoken.” He colored painfully as he said it and momentarily looked downward and away from Drummond.
“So you paid him.” Drummond did not frame it as a question, the answer had already been given.
“Yes,” Byam agreed. “He didn’t ask a lot, twenty pounds a month.”
Pitt concealed his smile. Twenty pounds a month would have beggared him, and any other policeman except those like Drummond with private means. He wondered what Drummond thought of the yawning difference between Byam’s world and most men’s, or if he was even aware of it.
“And do you believe Weems might have kept this letter, and record of your payments in some way traceable to you?” Drummond said with slight puzzlement.
Byam bit his lip. “I know he did. He took some pains to tell me so, as a safeguard to himself. He said he had records of every payment I had made him. Whatever I said, no one would be likely to believe it was interest upon a debt-I am not in a position to require loans from usurers. If I wished further capital I should go to a bank, like any other gentleman. I don’t gamble and I have more than sufficient means to live according to my taste. No-” For the first time he looked at Pitt. “Weems made it very plain he had written out a clear record of precisely what I had paid him, the letter itself, together with all the details he knew of Laura Anstiss’s death and my part in it-or what he chose to interpret as my part. That is why I come to you for your help.” His eyes were very direct. “I did not kill Weems, indeed I have done him no harm whatever, nor ever threatened to. But I should be surprised if the local police do not feel compelled to investigate me for themselves, and I have no proof that I was elsewhere at the time. I don’t know precisely what hour he was killed, but there are at least ninety minutes yesterday late evening when I was alone here in the library. No servant came or went.” He glanced briefly at the window. “And as you may observe it would be no difficulty to climb out of this bay window into the garden, and hence the street, and take a hansom to wherever I wished.”
