He passed her the small blue-and-white cup she usually put short-stemmed flowers in.
“Thank you,” she repeated, and filled the cup with water, all the time meeting his eyes. She put the cup in the middle of the table and Jemima immediately smelled the flowers too, holding them up to her nose and breathing in, eyes closed, with exactly the same expression.
“Let me!” Daniel reached for it and reluctantly she passed it over. He breathed in, then breathed in again, not sure what he was doing it for. Then he set the cup down, satisfied, and took up the jam jar again, and Jemima resumed her buttering.
Supper was conducted with the greatest good manners, but not with heads bent and eyes downcast as the previous evening, and intense concentration on the most trivial occupations as if it mattered enormously that every last pea should be chased into a corner and speared with the fork, every crumb of bread picked up. Now the food was barely glanced at. It could have been anything, and all the care that went into preparing it was wasted, but their eyes met and though nothing was said, everything was understood.
Pitt continued to investigate Urban without success for another two days, going through the cases on which he had worked in Bow Street and finding nothing untoward, no pattern that spoke of anything other than hard work and intelligence, sometimes intuition beyond the normal skills, but no questionable judgments, no hint of dishonesty. He kept his private life very much to himself, he mixed little with his colleagues, which earned him their respect but not their affection. No one knew what he did with his spare time and amiable inquiries had met with equally amiable rebuffs.
Finally Pitt decided to confront Urban with the frank question as to where he was on the night of Weems’s death. That at least would give him the opportunity to prove himself elsewhere, and make further pursuit unnecessary, at least as far as the murder was concerned. There was still the question of debt, and in Pitt’s own mind, the conviction that Urban was lying about something.
He arrived at Bow Street station later in the morning than usual to find an atmosphere of uncharacteristic tension. The desk sergeant looked harassed, his face was pink and he kept moving papers from one place to another without adding anything to them, or apparently reading them. His top tunic button was undone but still he looked as if the neck were too tight. Two constables glanced at each other nervously and shifted from one foot to another, until the sergeant barked at them to get out and find something to do. An errand boy came in with a newspaper and as soon as he was paid, fled out past Pitt, bumping into him and forgetting to apologize.
“What is it?” Pitt said curiously. “What’s happened?”
“Questions in the ’Ouse,” the desk sergeant replied with a tight lip. “ ’E’s ’oppin’ mad.”
“Who’s hopping mad?” Pitt asked, still with more curiosity than apprehension. “What’s happened, Dilkes?”
“Mr. Urban called the solicitors to bring up the case against Mr. Osmar again, and ’E got wind of it and complained to ’is friends in the ’Ouse o’ Commons.” Awe mixed with disgust in his face. “Now they’re askin’ questions about it, and some of ’em is sayin’ as Crombie and Allardyce lied ’emselves sick in court, an’ the police is corrupt.” He shook his head and his voice became anxious. “There’s some awful things being said, Mr. Pitt. There’s enough folk undecided as to if we’re a good thing or not as it is. an’ then all that bad business in Whitechapel last autumn, an’ we never got the madman what done it, an’ folks sayin’ as if we were any good we’d ’ave got ’im. an’ all the trouble over the commissioner too. an’ now this. We don’t need trouble like this, Mr. Pitt.” He screwed up his face. “What I don’t understand is how it all came up over summat so, beggin’ yer pardon, damn silly.”
“Neither do I,” Pitt agreed.
“So ’E was ’avin’ a bit o’ ’anky-panky in the park. ’E should ’a known better than to do it in public, like. But ’e’s a gennelman, and gennelmen is like that. Who cares, if ’e’d just said yes, ’E was a bit naughty, sorry, an’ it won’t ’appen again, me lud. Only now we got questions asked in the ’ouses o’ Parliament, an’ next thing the ’ome secretary ’isself will want ter know wot we bin doing.”
“I don’t understand it myself,” Pitt agreed. But he was thinking more of Addison Carswell, and becoming uncomfortably aware of the general feeling against the police, especially as the desk sergeant had said, since the riots in Trafalgar Square known as Bloody Sunday, and then last autumn the failure to catch the Whitechapel murderer, followed almost immediately by the hasty resignation of the commissioner of police after a very short term of office and amid some unpleasantness. The thought kept intruding into his mind that Carswell and Urban were both on Weems’s list for very good reasons, which only too probably spoke of blackmail. And he still had to find Latimer, the third name.
“Is Mr. Urban in?” he asked aloud.
“Yessir, but-”
Before the desk sergeant could add his caveat, Pitt thanked him and strode along the passage to Urban’s door and knocked.
“Come!” Urban said absently.
Pitt went in and found him sitting behind his desk staring at the polished and empty surface. He was surprised to see Pitt.
“Hello. Got your murderer yet?”
“No,” Pitt said, disconcerted that with his very first words Urban had made it impossible for him to be subtle or indirect. “No I haven’t.”
“Well what can I do for you?” Urban’s face was totally innocent. He regarded Pitt out of clear blue eyes, waiting for an answer.
Pitt had no alternative but to be completely frank, or else retreat altogether, and the whole exercise would become pointless if he were to do that.
“Where were you on Tuesday two weeks ago?” he asked. “Late evening.”
“Me?” If Urban were feigning amazement he was doing it supremely well. “You think I killed your usurer?”
Pitt sat down in the chair. “No,” he said honestly. “But your name was on his list, and the only way I can eliminate you is by your proving you were somewhere else.”
Urban smiled. It was charming and candid and there was a flicker of humor in the depths of his eyes.
“I can’t tell you,” he said quietly. “Or to be more accurate, I don’t wish to. But I was not in Cyrus Street, and I did not kill your usurer-or anyone else.”
Pitt smiled back.
“I’m afraid your word is not proof.”
“No, I know it isn’t. But I’m sorry, that’s all you’re getting. I assume you’ve tried the other people on this list? How many are there?”
“Three-and I’ve one man left.”
“Who were the other two?”
Pitt thought for a moment, turning over the possibilities in his mind. Why did Urban want to know? Was he being helpful, seeking some common denominator, or an excuse, someone else to lay the blame on? Urban had to know that he would rather be suspected than admit to it.
“I prefer to keep that confidential for a little longer,” Pitt replied, equally calmly and with the same frank smile.
“Was Addison Carswell one of them?” Urban asked, and then his wide mouth curled in a faint touch of humor when he saw Pitt’s face, the start of surprise before he formed a denial.
“Yes,” Pitt conceded. There was no point in pretending any more. Urban had seen it in his eyes and a lie would not be believed.
“Mm,” Urban grunted thoughtfully. He seemed not to find it necessary to ask who the third was, and that in itself had meaning. “You know that damned Osmar has put his friends up to raising questions in the House?” he said with anger and incredulity in his voice.
“Yes, Dilkes told me. What are you going to do?”
“Me?” Urban leaned back in his chair. “Carry on with the prosecution, of course. The law for ex-government ministers is the same as for anyone else. You don’t play silly beggars on the seats of public parks. If you must make an ass of yourself with a young woman, you do it in private where you don’t offend old ladies and frighten the horses.”
Pitt’s smile widened.
“Good luck,” he said dryly, and excused himself. He wondered how Urban knew the first name on Weems’s list had been Addison Carswell. From what reasoning did he deduce that?
He could not possibly follow Urban himself; they knew each other far too well by sight. Reluctantly he would
