“You’ll take it to Superintendent Pitt?” Theodosia urged.
“Of course.”
“Immediately?”
“I shall call on him before I return home,” Vespasia promised. “Now, my dear, I am far more concerned about you. Will you be all right alone tonight? I can return if you wish me to. It is not an inconvenience in the slightest. I can send for a change of linen without any trouble at all.”
Theodosia hesitated. “No … I shall have to learn … to become used to it … I think …” She tailed off.
Vespasia made the decision for her. “I shall return when I have seen Thomas. I do not know how long it shall be, as I may not find him immediately. Please do not wait supper for me. I shall be perfectly happy with whatever Cook can make for me then.”
“Of course,” Theodosia agreed, her face filled with gratitude. “I … thank you!”
In the event, Vespasia did find Pitt in his office in Bow Street. As far as anyone could tell, the case was closed, and he was now obliged to deal with a great many other matters that had arisen while he was wholly occupied with the Bedford Square murder and the blackmail. He was delighted to see her and welcomed her with enthusiasm.
She regarded his piled desk critically.
“I can see that I am interrupting you,” she said with very gentle sarcasm. “Perhaps I should wait, and call upon you at home?”
“Please!” He readjusted the chair he was holding for her. “There could be nothing more urgent than seeing you.”
“It looks extremely urgent,” she observed with a dry smile, sitting carefully in the chair. “But perhaps also rather arduous. I shall not keep you for very long.”
“Never mind.” He smiled back at her, his eyes alight for the first time in weeks. He returned to his own seat. “I shall have to make do with what time you can spare. What is it?”
She sighed, her humor vanishing. “Almost certainly nothing. But in going through Leo Cadell’s papers I have discovered one thing which all the blackmail victims had in common and which was a cause of concern to at least one among them … the one who was most viciously accused, by implication.”
“Balantyne?” He looked surprised. “What is it?”
She took the letter and the memorandum on the Jessop Club paper from her reticule and passed them both over to him.
He read them carefully and then looked up. “An orphanage? What about those other two people, Bairstow and Cameron? Are they victims as well?”
“I have no reason to suppose so; in fact, every reason to believe they are not, and could not be,” she replied. “Bairstow is senile, according to Theodosia, and Cameron has left England to live abroad. That leaves of the committee members only those we know.” She watched his face closely. She saw the lift of interest and the slight change in his expression. “Will you do me the favor of investigating it, Thomas, for Theodosia’s sake? I appreciate that it is extremely unlikely to be anything other than what it seems, a worthy cause assisted by a group of gentlemen who happen to belong to the same club. But I am extremely fond of Theodosia, and I, too, find it difficult and painful to believe that Leo was guilty of blackmail and of suicide. I am compelled to explore any possibility that it is not so, however remote.”
She hated asking favors, and she saw the understanding of that in his face.
“Of course,” he agreed. “I shall go out to Kew tomorrow and require to see their books, and send men to check on Bairstow and Cameron. Cornwallis will give me all the excuse I need.”
“Thank you, Thomas. I am most grateful.” She rose to leave. It had been an exhausting two days, and now suddenly the grief overtook her and she found it difficult to muster the strength to face returning to Theodosia and staying awake long into the night to offer her what comfort and companionship she could. She could not lessen Theodosia’s pain, only share it. But she could hardly love her and do less.
The next day was beautiful. The heat wave continued, bright and hot, but there was a clarity to the air and every now and then a breeze. People were out in the streets and parks, and on the river were scores of little boats, pleasure steamers, ferries, barges and every other kind of vessel that could take to the water. The sounds of singing, barrel organs and penny-whistles drifted on the air. Children shouted to one another, and every so often there was a burst of laughter.
Pitt took the boat up the river to Kew. It seemed not only the pleasantest way to travel but also probably the fastest.
As he stood on the deck between a fat woman in a striped blouse and a man with a red face, he wondered if he should really be doing this at all. It was an escape from the paperwork that had piled up while he was occupied with the blackmail case, and he did not want to refuse Vespasia. She had looked unusually tired. Grief had taken none of her spirit or her determination, but there was an acceptance of defeat in her which was the profoundest change he could have imagined. It troubled him enough to justify this trip up the river with the sun and the breeze on his face as the steamer made its way up past Battersea and turned south towards Wandsworth. There was another complete S bend before Kew. He would enjoy it.
He found himself smiling as he watched the rowing boats plying back and forth, narrowly avoiding getting in everyone’s way. Little boys in sailor suits stood up precariously and anxious women held them by the britches. Little girls with ribboned straw hats waved excitedly. Fathers bent their backs to the oars with proprietorial satisfaction.
On the shore people picnicked on stretches of grass. He thought idly that a few of them were going to be burned by this evening. At the water’s edge they did not realize how strong the sun was.
He was wasting his time going to an orphanage. Even if there had been petty pilfering, and Balantyne had suspected it, it was not the same degree of crime as the sort of blackmail they had been dealing with. It could only be a few hundred pounds at the very most, and that would have to have been over years or it would have been noticed long before now.
Why had Balantyne questioned it instead of requiring an audit of the books? He had written to Cadell about his concerns. Cadell would hardly be blackmailing him with something as extreme as a murdered man on the doorstep in order to stop him from pursuing such a request.
But that did raise a genuine question to which Pitt had seen no satisfactory answer … who had moved the body of Josiah Slingsby from Shoreditch to Bedford Square? Who had put Albert Cole’s receipt for socks in Slingsby’s pocket? How had he had it in the first place?
For that matter, where was Albert Cole now? If he was alive, where had he gone and why? And if he was dead, why had Slingsby’s body been left on Balantyne’s step and not Cole’s body? Had he coincidentally died of natural causes?
That seemed to be stretching unlikelihood too far.
And it did not answer the questions about Slingsby’s body and how Cadell had even heard of it, let alone how he’d moved it to Bedford Square.
Did any of it matter now, except that it was a puzzle?
A pleasure steamer went by, its passengers shouting and waving, its wake setting the ferry rocking. The sun was dazzlingly bright on the water.
Was he being self-indulgent, expecting every case to have a complete solution, wanting to understand exactly what had happened? Or was he being diligent, making sure of the truth?
What he was really doing was taking a trip up the river instead of sitting in Bow Street doing his paperwork, and trying to help Vespasia a little … although she would have to accept in the end that Leo Cadell was the blackmailer. He had confessed it … in a letter exactly like all the others. Possibly he had gained his knowledge of the lives of the other victims through knowing them in the Jessop Club. One could learn a great deal about people from casual conversation, expanded by a little questioning as if from interest or admiration. The rest he could have gleaned from public records; army and navy details he could easily have asked for on the pretext of having some need to know in his position at the Foreign Office.
But the question remained, how did he know Slingsby at all, let alone remark his resemblance to Cole?
Pitt put it out of his mind for a while and enjoyed the river and the brilliance of the day. All around him people were having fun.
The orphanage at Kew Green was a large, rambling old house with a garden walled around and overhung
