such a thing. And worst of all, whether anyone else knows, I know it of myself. I’m not what I thought I was … I haven’t the judgment or the courage. That’s what I hate the most.” He turned to face Pitt, his back against the light. “He’s shown me part of myself I would rather not have known, and I don’t like it.”
“It has to be someone who knows you,” Pitt answered quietly. “Or how would he have learned of that event sufficiently to twist it as he has?”
Cornwallis stood with his feet slightly apart, braced as if against the pitch of a quarterdeck.
“I’ve thought of that. Believe me, Pitt, in the small hours I’ve walked the bedroom floor or lain on my back staring at the ceiling and thought of every man I’ve ever known from schooldays to the present. I racked my brains to think of anyone to whom I might have been unjust, intentionally or not, anyone whose death or injury I could even have been perceived to have caused or contributed to.” He spread his hands jerkily. “I can’t even think of anything I have in common with the others. I barely know Balantyne to speak to. We are both members of the Jessop Club, and of a Services Club in the Strand, but I know a hundred other people at least as well. I don’t suppose I’ve spoken to him directly above a dozen times.”
“But you know Dunraithe White?” Pitt was searching his mind also.
“Yes, but not well.” Cornwallis looked mystified. “We’ve dined a few times. He’s traveled a little, and we fell into conversation about something or other. I can’t even remember what now. I liked him. He was agreeable. Fond of his garden. I think we spoke of roses. His wife is clever with space and color. He was obviously devoted to her. I liked it in him.” Cornwallis’s face softened for a moment as he recalled the incident. “I dined with him again another time. He was held in town late, some legal matter. He would have preferred to go home, but he couldn’t.”
“His decisions have been erratic lately,” Pitt said, remembering what Vespasia had told him.
“Are you sure?” Cornwallis was quick to question. “Have you looked into it? Who says so?”
With anyone else Pitt would have hesitated to answer, thinking discretion better, but with Cornwallis he had no secrets in this.
“Theloneus Quade.”
“Quade!” Cornwallis was startled. “Surely he is not another victim? God in heaven, what are we coming to? Quade is as honorable a man as any I know of-”
“No, he’s not a victim!” Pitt said hastily. “It was he who noticed White’s opinions lately and became concerned. Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould approached White because of it.”
“Oh … I see.” Cornwallis bit his lip. He frowned, walking back towards the desk and staring moodily at the tossed piles of paper. He turned to Pitt. “Do you think his erratic judgments are born of his anxiety over the blackmail, for fear of what will happen next, what he will be asked for? Or could it be the price he is paying to the blackmailer, and somewhere among the eccentric decisions is the one that matters, the one this is all about?”
Pitt considered it seriously. The thought had occurred to him before, briefly. He had given less weight to it only because he was so overwhelmingly concerned about Cornwallis.
“It could be the latter,” he replied. “Are you sure that is not the connection between you … a case in which you both have some part?”
“But if it is, then where are the others involved?” Cornwallis asked. “Is it political? Stanley is already ruined. His part hardly matters now … or does it? Was it always part of this plan to destroy his power, to prevent him from obtaining the position he sought?” He jerked his hands wide. “And Cadell? Is there a foreign power involved? Tannifer’s bank certainly deals with many European banks. Enormous amounts of money could be concerned. Balantyne fought in Africa. Could that be it?” His voice rose a tone, suddenly an edge of eagerness in it. “Could it be to do with the financing of diamonds or gold in South Africa? Or simply land, perhaps expeditions inland to claim whole new tracts, like Mashonaland or Matabeleland? Or some discovery we know nothing of.”
“Balantyne served most of his time in India,” Pitt said thoughtfully, turning it over in his mind. “His only African experience that I know of was Abyssinia, and that’s the other end of the continent.”
Cornwallis pulled his chair around and sat on it, staring at Pitt, leaning forward. “A Cape-to-Cairo railroad. Think of the money involved. It would be the biggest thing of the coming century. The African continent is an entire new world.”
Pitt caught a glimpse of the vision, but it stayed on the edge of his mind, just beyond clarity. But certainly it was a fortune, a power for which many men would kill, let alone blackmail.
Cornwallis was staring at him, his face dark with the enormity of what he perceived. His voice was urgent when he spoke.
“Pitt, we have to solve this … not just for me or for any of the individual men it may ruin. This could be far more widely reaching than a few lives made or lost; it could be a corruption which could alter the course of history for … God knows how many.” He leaned farther forward, his eyes intense. “Once any of us yields to the threat and does something that really is wrong, perhaps criminal, perhaps even treasonous, then his hold is complete and he could ask anything and we would have no escape … except death.”
“Yes, I know,” Pitt agreed, seeing an abyss of corruption open up in front of him, every man suffering alone, driven by fear, exhaustion, suspicion on every hand, until he could bear the pressure no longer. Simple murder would have been less cruel.
But rage was a waste of energy, possibly exactly what the blackmailer wanted; useless, time-consuming, clouding the mind.
Pitt composed himself with an effort. “I’ll look into all Dunraithe White’s cases over the last year or so, and all those scheduled to come before him as far in the future as is known.”
“Tell me!” Cornwallis demanded sharply. “You had better report every day, so we can compare what we know. At the moment we are in the dark. We don’t even know in which direction to begin. It could be fraud or embezzlement, or a simple murder that appears domestic. There must be money, or it wouldn’t involve Tannifer, and some foreign interest for Cadell, and possibly Balantyne …” His voice sharpened, and he raised his hand, banging his forefinger on the desk. “Mercenaries? A private army? Perhaps Balantyne knows the man who would recruit for it., or lead it? He might have knowledge he does not even realize … and some criminal case that White and I are both concerned with. Or that I may become concerned with. Perhaps we are beginning to understand something, Pitt?” There was hope in his eyes. “I could have asked White myself, but he’s resigned from the Jessop, and I don’t have the opportunity to speak to him casually anymore. And Balantyne only comes for the committee meetings. I think he hates it as much as I do. The man looks as if he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks.”
Pitt forbore from saying that Cornwallis looked the same.
“Cadell less so,” Cornwallis added, rising to his feet again. “But then I suppose it is a week or so since I saw him … before poor Stanley was ruined.”
“You know Cadell?” Pitt said quickly. He had not been aware of that, although it should not surprise him. Society was small. Hundreds of men belonged to a mere handful of clubs and associations.
Cornwallis shrugged. “Slightly. He was on the committee at the club. It’s a group who meet every so often, to do with a charity for orphans. It’s the only reason I go now. Can’t let them down.”
Pitt rose also. “I’ll start to look into Dunraithe White’s cases. I think that is where we’ll find the link. It must be something in the recent past or on the calendar for the future. I think the future is more likely.”
“Good. Let me know the moment you find anything, however tentative,” Cornwallis urged. “I might be able to see the connection before you do.”
Pitt agreed again, and left to begin, collecting a list of all the current investigations over which Cornwallis had a general authority. Then, armed with a brief note of introduction and explanation, he took a hansom to the Old Bailey Courthouse.
The afternoon had gained him a list of cases, but it was bare information and there were several pending with which both Cornwallis and White had some connection, even if tenuous. What he needed was an informed opinion, preferably that of someone who was aware of the situation. Theloneus Quade was the obvious choice. Pitt had no idea where he lived, and to approach him in court where he was presiding would be difficult, and possibly unwise.
Six o’clock in the evening found him on Vespasia’s doorstep.
“Have you news?” she asked him when he was shown into the withdrawing room where she was sitting in the late-afternoon sun reading the newspaper. She put the paper down immediately, not merely from good manners but from a very real concern. The small black-and-white dog at her feet opened one eye to make sure he was who
