“Yes sir, I know.” Urban’s expression did not change. “There was no explanation, simply a formal letter; the director of public prosecutions seems to be taking it all quite seriously. We have to make a proper response, sir, a formal answer, and then I presume there will be an investigation and possibly charges.”
Drummond put his hands up to his face. “If this wasn’t happening I would find difficulty believing it. What on earth is the man dreaming of?” He looked up at Urban. “I suppose you are quite sure? There’s no possibility Crombie and Allardyce were mistaken, saw something a bit odd and leaped to a conclusion without grounds?”
“No sir,” Urban replied without hesitation. “I asked them that. They are quite sure he had his trousers undone and she had her blouse open at the front and they were struggling around with each other in a way likely to cause offense to anyone passing. Whatever they were actually doing, there is no doubt what it looked like to an average person close enough to see them at all.”
“What a damned nuisance no one thought to ask the fellow who brought in the case. He might have corroborated it.”
“Or not,” Urban pointed out.
“Well if he hadn’t we’d have dropped the charges in the first place,” Drummond said testily. “All right. I’ll deal with it. You were involved from the beginning, you’d better leave it alone now. I’ll see they send someone from another station.”
“Yes sir.” Urban still sounded angry, but he accepted the inevitable.
“Damn!” Drummond said softly when he had gone. Why were they wasting good men’s time on such idiotic things when there were real and dreadful crimes to solve, and even rising violence to try to prevent. Although thank heaven there had been nothing this year to equal the horror and subsequent panic of the Trafalgar Square riots two years ago which had come to be known as Bloody Sunday. But the ugly rumors of anarchists and other fomenters of treason were still there just under the surface.
Drummond tried to think of anything he knew about Horatio Osmar. There was little enough, an undistinguished government career. His name had seldom been mentioned in connection with any major legislation, and even when it had it was only as a supporter or opponent, never as having innovated anything. He was a rather self-important little
What on earth made him think he could get away with it? Why was he now having questions asked in the House, and the Home Secretary upsetting the director of public prosecutions and the police commissioner and trying to raise a scandal about police perjury? Why did anyone take any notice of him? Many people protested innocence; it was instinctive. Others were not able to pursue it this far. Why Osmar?
What would Eleanor Byam think if she knew he was spending his time not pursuing the murderer of William Weems as he had promised her, but trying to find out beyond doubt whether two of his young constables had witnessed an ex-junior minister behaving indecently on a park bench, or if they had perhaps overreacted to a rather silly scene of scuffling around trying to open a locket around a young woman’s neck?
Byam had brought Drummond in to help him in case he were accused of murder. Osmar had brought the D.P.P. in for a case of public indecency. But had it been done in the same fashion, in the name of the same brotherhood? It was a thought which brought a chill to his body and a rising feeling that was not unlike sickness. What was he, or any of them, being used for? He had assumed that Osmar was guilty. He had equally assumed that Byam was not. In his own mind Osmar’s use of influence was corrupt. He had considered himself to be helping a brother in extreme difficulty.
But what else did the Inner Circle do? These were only two very dissimilar instances. What were all the others? Who judged what was corrupt and what was honorable? And who was at the heart of it?
A little before three in the afternoon there was another knock on his door. As soon as he spoke, it opened to admit a youngish man, perhaps in his late thirties, handsome in a most unusual fashion. His face in repose might have been considered very ordinary, nose much too bony and prominent, eyes wide set and very fine, thick hair waving back from a good brow, cheeks very lean. It was his mouth which was remarkable, delicate lipped, sensuous, and when he smiled possessed of extraordinary, illuminating charm. It was a face about which Drummond instinctively had profound reservations, and yet he wanted to like it. It should have been a strong face, with those remarkable bones, and yet there was something in the balance of it that made him doubt.
“Superintendent Latimer,” the man introduced himself. “I have been sent over from the Yard to look into this miserable matter of the two constables who say they saw Horatio Osmar misbehaving on a park bench.”
“Latimer?” Drummond said with a chill passing through him like a sudden shiver. “Clarence Latimer?”
The man’s face remained perfectly bright. “Yes. Do you know me?”
Drummond swallowed and forced himself to smile. “Heard your name.” He shrugged. He was stung by the man’s imputation that the constables’ word was doubtful, but he kept his voice level.
“If they say they saw him, then I accept that they did,” he said with only a hint of sharpness. “They are both reliable men who have never previously overstated their case.”
“Oh personally I don’t doubt it,” Latimer agreed easily. “But officially I have to look into it. I’ll begin by speaking to them. Are they around the station, or should I send to have them come in?”
“No need.” Drummond’s mind was still racing with thoughts to tell Pitt. It was his worst fear about the list realized. “We were expecting you. They are on duties around the station, and you can see them as you wish. I’ll be surprised if they tell you anything beyond what they have said all along.”
“So shall I, but I have to ask.” Latimer shrugged. “Never know, they might come up with some detail that pushes it a little one way, or the other. Then I’ll find this wretched girl, what’s her name?”
“Beulah Giles.”
“Right. May I send someone to bring her here?”
“Certainly.”
“Good. From what I’ve heard, nobody has really questioned her so far. Is that really so?”
Drummond kept his mind on the subject with difficulty. “Yes. The magistrate threw the case out before she was called to the stand.”
“Well, well. Pity. She might have cleared up the whole matter.”
“Quite. That is very possibly why she was not called,” Drummond said acidly.
Latimer flashed him a broad, beautiful smile. “No doubt.” And he excused himself and left.
Drummond took a piece of paper and wrote a brief note to Pitt with Clarence Latimer’s name, rank and whereabouts. He left it sealed, with the desk sergeant, to be given to Pitt the first moment he set foot in the station.
At four o’clock the hansom arrived carrying Miss Beulah Giles, this afternoon dressed in a cotton print gown considerably lower at the bosom than the one she wore on her visit to the courtroom. By then, the Bow Street station was more than fully occupied with three recently arrested street robbers, with violence, a pickpocket caught in the act with his accomplice, and a man who had been charged with setting up an illegal cock fight. There was no room in which Latimer could interview Miss Giles, and he declined to keep her waiting for an indefinite period until there should be a suitable space. He considered the best alternative was to get back into another hansom and take her to Scotland Yard where his own office would be available, and he could be assured of quiet and suitable surroundings. At the time no one thought anything further about the matter.
When Pitt arrived at Bow Street after having spent a miserable morning at Clerkenwell, he was immediately handed Drummond’s note. He read it with a sinking in the bottom of his stomach, but no surprise. He knew there was a Latimer at the Yard, he had not known his given name. Now he had no alternative but to begin his investigation of him.
As with the others, he started with his home. He already knew from the list where he lived; the difficulty was to think of an acceptable excuse for calling. Latimer was his senior. If he was clumsy or offensive he could very well find himself in a very unpleasant situation. Duplicity would inevitably be discovered unless he were extremely fortunate, and could find evidence to clear Latimer almost straightaway. The only alternative he could think of was to tell a great deal of the truth, simply to twist his own part in it a little.
Accordingly he arrived at Beaufort Gardens in Knights-bridge. It was a discreet residential area, quiet in the patchy afternoon sun, parlormaids in stuff dresses and crisp aprons making ready to receive callers, children out walking with nursemaids, little girls very pretty and sedate in white, lace-trimmed pinafores over their dresses, little boys in sailor suits, hopping up and down, itching to be allowed to run.
A fishmonger’s boy pushed a cart along the roadway, whistling cheerfully. A postman came past with the third delivery of mail. Pitt crossed the street just before an open landau came around the corner, its mistress on her way
