the street. He resumed the questions. “He has no housekeeper?”
“Woman what comes and cooks and cleans a bit.” Innes marched sharply beside him. “She only does breakfast in the mornings. She saw the light on in the office and took it ’E was awake, so she made his meal and left it on the table without disturbing him. She just called out that it was ready, and weren’t bothered when she ’eard no answer. Apparently he weren’t given to pleasantries an’ it didn’t strike ’er as nothing wrong.” He dug his hands into his pockets and skipped a step to avoid tripping over a piece of refuse. It was a brilliant day and still hot. He squinted a trifle in the sun. “O’ course she fairly threw a fit when we told ’er as she’d cooked breakfast for a dead man, within yards of ’is corpse. ’ad ter fetch ’er two glasses o’ gin to bring ’er ’round.”
Pitt smiled. “Had she anything interesting to say about him, in general?”
“No love lost. On the other ’and, no particular grudge either, no quarrel as far as we can learn. But then she’d not likely mention it if there was.”
“Any callers of interest?” Pitt avoided a fat woman with two children in tow.
“Who knows?” Innes replied. “People don’t often make a big show o’ calling on a moneylender. Come in the back door, and leave the same. ’is establishment was designed to be discreet. Part of ’is trade, as it were.”
Pitt frowned. “It would be. He would discourage a good deal of his custom if he were obvious, but for precisely that reason I would have expected him to keep some sort of protection.” They stopped at the curb, waited a few moments for a space in the traffic, then crossed. “After all he must have had a lot of unhappy clients,” he said on the far side. “In fact a good many even desperate. Who was he receiving alone at night?”
Innes supplied the obvious answer. “Someone ’E weren’t frightened of. Question is, why wasn’t ’e? ’Cos ’E thought ’E were protected?” He sniffed. “Or ’E thought the person weren’t dangerous? ’Cos ’E was expectin’ someone else? ’Cos ’E were crossed by someone ’E knew? Gets interestin’, when you think about it a bit.”
Pitt would like to have agreed, but at the back of his mind was the spare, charming figure of Lord Byam. Would Weems have expected his lordship of the Treasury to commit murder over a sum of twenty pounds a month? Hardly. And if he were going to, then surely he would have at the beginning, not now, two years later?
“Yes it does,” he agreed aloud. “What about this clerk and errand runner? What sort of a man is he?”
“Very ordinary.” Innes shook his head. “Sort of gray little man you see ducking in and out o’ alleys, hurryin’ along the edge o’ pavements all ’round Clerkenwell, an’ can never bring ter mind again if yer try. Never know if it were the one you were lookin’ for, or just someone like ’im. Name’s Miller. They call ’im Windy, don’t know why, unless it’s because ’e’s a coward.” He pulled a face. “But then I’d say ’E was canny rather, more sense than ter stay and fight a battle ’E in’t fitted ter win.”
“Description fits half a million gray little men around London,” Pitt said unenthusiastically, passing a group of women arguing loudly over a basket of fish. A brewer’s dray lumbered by majestically, horses shining in the sun, harness bright, drayman immaculate and immensely proud. A coster in a striped apron and flat black hat called out his wares with no audible pause to draw breath.
They bore left from Compton Street into Cyrus Street, and within moments Innes stopped and spoke to a constable standing to attention on the pavement. He stood even more stiffly and stared straight ahead of him, his uniform spotless. His buttons gleamed and his helmet sat straight on his head as if it had been dropped on a plumb line.
Pitt was introduced.
“Yessir!” the constable said smartly. “No one come or gorn since I bin ’ere, sir. No one asked for Mr. Weems. I reckon as ’ow the word’s gorn out, and no one will now. Everyone pretendin’ as they never knew ’im.”
“Not surprisingly,” Pitt said dryly. “Murdered men are often unpopular, except with a few who love notoriety. But people ’round here won’t want that kind of attention; most especially those who actually did know him. His friends won’t want to own such a man for acquaintance now, and his enemies will make themselves as close to invisible as they can. As you say, the word will have gone out. We’d better go inside and have a look at the rooms where it happened.”
“Right sir,” Innes said, leading the way. The front of the house appeared to be an apothecary’s shop such as one might drop into to purchase a headache remedy or other such nostrum, but past the rows of dusty jars and bottles there was another door, much heavier and stronger than would be usual in such a place. At present it was unlocked and swung open easily on oiled hinges, but when they were through into the carpeted passage Pitt looked back and noticed the powerful bolts. This was certainly not an entrance anyone would force without several men behind a battering ram. William Weems had been well prepared to defend himself, it would seem. So who had gained his confidence sufficiently to obtain entry, and when Weems was alone?
The office was up the stairs along a short passage and had a pleasant window overlooking Cyrus Street. It was a room perhaps ten feet by twelve and furnished with an oak desk with several drawers, a large, comfortable chair behind it, three cabinets with drawers and cupboards, and a chair for visitors. The door on the far side led presumably to the kitchen and living quarters.
Weems had apparently been sitting in the chair behind the desk when he was shot. There was a large amount of blood spattered around and already in the heat a couple of flies had settled.
On the walls were three sporting prints which might or might not have been of value, a very handsome, brightly polished copper warming pan, and the hackbut Innes had mentioned in the morgue. It was a beautiful piece of workmanship, the metal butt engraved, the flaring barrel smoothed to a satin-fine gleam. Pitt reached out and took it down very carefully, holding it in his handkerchief and from the underneath, not to smudge any marks there might be on it, any threads of fabric, smears of blood, anything at all that would be of use. He looked at it carefully, turning it over and over. It was beautifully balanced. He peered down the barrel and sniffed it. It smelled of polish. Finally he held it as if to fire it, and tightened his finger, pointing it at the floor. Nothing happened. He pulled hard.
“The firing pin has been filed down,” he said at last. “Did you know that?”
“No sir. We didn’t touch it.” Innes looked surprised. “Then I suppose it can’t’ve bin that what killed ’im!”
Pitt looked at it again. The blind pin was not shiny. It had not been touched with a file or rasp recently. There was a dark patina of time over it.
“Not possible,” he said, shaking his head. “This is strictly ornamental now.” He replaced it on the wall where he had found it. On the shelf below there were half a dozen little boxes, three of metal, one of soapstone, one of ebony, one of ironwood. He opened them all one by one. Three were empty, one had two small shotgun pellets in it, the other two each had a few grains of gunpowder.
“I wonder when that was last full,” he said thoughtfully. “Not that it helps us a lot without a gun.” He looked down and saw with surprise the excellent quality of the carpet, which was soft and dyed in rich, muted colors. He squatted down and turned over the corner and saw what he expected, dozens of tiny hand-tied knots to every inch.
“Find something?” Innes asked curiously.
“Only that he spent a lot of money on his carpets,” Pitt replied, straightening up. “Unless, of course, he took it from someone in repayment of a debt.”
Innes’s eyebrows shot up. “ ’round ’ere? No one who borrows from the likes o’ Weems ’as carpets at all, let alone ones what are worth sellin’.”
“True,” Pitt agreed, straightening up. “Unless he had a different class of customer, a gentleman who got in over his head gambling, perhaps, and Weems had a fancy for the carpet.”
“That’d mean Weems went to ’is ’ome,” Innes pointed out. “An’ I can’t see any gentleman bein’ pleased ter entertain Weems in ’is ’ome, can you sir?”
Pitt grinned. “No I can’t. You may as well know, the reason the powers that be are so concerned in this case is that our Mr. Weems indulged in a little blackmail as well. He had some very important connections, through a relative who was a servant, we are told.”
“Well now.” Innes looked interested, and there was a flash of satisfaction in his sharp, intelligent face. “I was wondering, but I thought as maybe you wasn’t able ter say. We don’t usually get cases like this taken from us. After all, who cares about one usurer more or less? But a blackmailer is different. You reckon it were someone ’E ’ad the squeeze on as shot ’im?”
“I hope not. It’s going to be very embarrassing if it is,” Pitt said with sudden vehemence. “But it’s certainly not impossible.”
“An’ I suppose you can’t say as who it is?”
“Not unless I have to.”
