Belgrave Square

“Whatever for? Not because that girl Morden jilted him, surely? Don’t care what he did, you don’t blackball a fellow for that sort of thing. Good God, if they started doing that, there’d be precious few of us left, what.”

“No, of course not. Something else. Don’t know what exactly. Word went out. That’s all I know. But I’ll tell you this: White’s follows-and then all the other clubs worth belonging to.”

“You think so? But what’s he done?”

“Doesn’t really matter, poor fellow. Don’t need to know, people just follow suit. Too bad. Liked him. Nice chap, always agreeable, and generous.”

“Can’t be that Hilliard girl, can it?”

“Don’t be an ass. Who the devil cares if a fellow sees a lady of dubious reputation? Long as you don’t insult your wife, or expect decent people to treat her like one of the family…”

“Oh really? Does the Prince of Wales know that?”

“What? Oh-Mrs. Langtry? Well what the Marlborough House set do isn’t really the pattern for all of us. Can’t get away with it just because they do. Anyway, all he did, as I hear, was flirt with the girl a bit. No harm in that. No-no, it’s something else. No idea what.”

Jack did not know that it was Anstiss, but he feared it. He remembered the anger in his eyes, the sudden hard line of his mouth. It had changed from being an amiable, intelligent face into one that held a ruthlessness that was final.

He heard other remarks, saw the change in people’s expressions when Fitz’s name was mentioned.

“It is a curious comment on one’s acquaintances,” he said to Emily and Charlotte one afternoon as they were sitting in Charlotte’s garden in the sun. They had called briefly to tell her of their change in plans. He smiled with an uncharacteristic twist of cynicism. “I think I can almost divide them into two classes: those I admire and those I don’t, according to their reactions. It is a very sour thing to discover how many people are prepared to condemn a man without knowing even what it is he is supposed to have done, let alone whether he is guilty of it or not.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised, my dear,” Emily said with a sad little grimace. “Society is all about influence and fashion. Someone with influence has blackballed Fitz, and suddenly he is no longer fashionable. Everyone, or almost everyone, is a follower, trying desperately to climb a little higher. And since no one knows where they are going, it is imperative one follows the right people.”

Charlotte shot her a glance to see if she were as bitter as her words, but saw the flicker of amusement in her eyes, and was reassured that it was a tolerant understanding and not a matter of self-pity, or worse, of hatred.

“What are you going to do?” Charlotte asked, looking at Jack.

“Tell Lord Anstiss that I will seek selection, but that I will not enter the society to which he has invited me,” Jack answered with sudden deep seriousness. And looking at him more closely Charlotte saw the gravity in him, and a flicker of fear. She knew then that he believed it was Anstiss at the back of Fitz’s disfavor. They were all aware of his real power, not the money, the philanthropy, the open counsel, patronage and hospitality, but the influence that made or broke people according to his wish. He was a Mend one could not do without, he was also an enemy one could not afford.

“He will not like it,” Charlotte said quietly, but inside she was immensely relieved. No hope of failure Anstiss could threaten was anything like the horror that the Inner Circle visited on its members, the twisting of conscience, the tearing of loyalties, the secrecy and uncertainty, not knowing who to trust, and thus in the end the distrust of everyone, and the final utter loneliness.

“I know,” Jack agreed. “And I don’t know whether it is the same secret society that Thomas mentioned, but just in case, I should prefer not to.”

“But you will still stand?”

“Of course. But independently, if that is the price.” His smile was a little bleak. Perhaps already he had some idea that indeed that was the price, and in the end without the help of Anstiss and people like him, he would have no better a chance than Fitz.

Charlotte felt an overwhelming rush of sadness for all that he might have accomplished, and a pride in him that he would not do it at such a cost. She glanced across at Emily, and saw the answering pride in her eyes, and a happiness that was brighter than ambition, even for the opportunity to serve.

“I’m glad,” Charlotte said quietly. “No one can please everyone. It is very important indeed to know whose approval matters in the end.”

11

PITT STOOD in Micah Drummond’s office in the hazy sun. It was mid-afternoon and he had come to the point in his thoughts when he could no longer put off asking Drummond further about Byam. He was sinking in a morass of facts and suppositions, few of which he could fit into any coherent order. He did not even know fully how Weems had been killed, let alone by whom. Someone had visited him that night, found the blunderbuss and the powder, either seen or brought with him the coins, and had loaded the gun and fired it. But why had Weems sat still and permitted him to do that? From all he had learned, it seemed that Weems was a cautious man and well familiar with the danger he might be in from desperate clients pushed beyond endurance.

Drummond was standing by the window as he so often did. Pitt, hands in his pockets, was close to the desk, his thoughts still racing.

Surely Weems’s other occupation as a blackmailer would have made him even more careful still? The bars on the door to the single entrance testified to that. Who would he permit to visit him at that hour, and for what purpose?

If they knew that, Pitt felt they would be a great deal closer to knowing who killed him.

And why? Was it debt? That seemed less and less likely. Or blackmail? If blackmail, then was it Byam, in a double bluff, or Carswell, or Urban, or Latimer? He thought not Urban, for all the excellent motive. Or was that simply because he liked the man? He had not yet told anyone about the picture frame in the Stepney music hall.

Charlotte was convinced it was not Carswell, and he was disposed to agree. Latimer? Or Byam himself, after all?

Or was it not blackmail, but some other motive, a more deep and ugly personal reason to do with Weems. Or perhaps his death was simply a necessary part of some other plan, and someone else was the real victim.

If that was true, they might be as far from a solution now as they had been when Byam first sent for them, which was a frightening thought.

“What is it?” Drummond said aloud, his face creased with anxiety. This case troubled him as very few before, and in an entirely different way. Pitt understood it, but he could do nothing to ease it; in fact it was probable he would make it worse.

He hitched himself sideways a little to sit on the desk. It was a very disrespectful attitude, but neither of them noticed. Drummond was sitting on the windowsill, his back to the sun.

“What if the motive was not debt or blackmail, but something else?” Pitt said aloud. “What if it was part of something personal…”

Drummond frowned. “But you said you had already investigated that, and you could find no personal relationships at all. He had no family of any sort, his only employees were the errand runner and the housekeeper, neither of whom seemed suspects, and no connection with any woman that you could find. Who would feel violently enough about him to kill him? There isn’t even an heir.”

“He must have had a collaborator of some sort,” Pitt pointed out. “He didn’t learn all his blackmail information himself. Someone told him.”

Drummond looked up quickly, his eyes sharp.

“A backer? Perhaps Weems was only the person who actually contacted the victims and took the money, but he paid it on to someone else?” He straightened up a fraction as new hope caught him. “And that person murdered him? Maybe he got greedy, or even threatened a little pressure of his own, do you think?”

“He may have got greedy,” Pitt said slowly. “He’d be a fool to try twisting the arm of whoever it is; and I don’t