tightened. “Nor is it ideal … especially for children. I thought Cadell at least considered the possibility of examining the situation.”
“I see,” Pitt replied with a sudden and profound sense of disappointment. What had he hoped for? It was never going to be a motive for blackmail, far less murder. “Thank you for giving me your time, General. I really should let this subject go.”
“The orphanage at Kew?” Balantyne asked.
“No … no, I meant the possibility of it being connected with Cadell’s blackmail attempts or his death. Even if you are right, it is hardly a motive.”
Balantyne’s surprise showed in his face. “Had you thought it was?”
“I don’t know. It seemed to be the one thing you all had in common, but I realize now it was membership of the committee, not its purpose, that counted.”
“What happened to the real Albert Cole?” Balantyne asked.
“I don’t know. But we shall go on looking for him.” Pitt held out his hand. “Thank you. I hope I shall not need to disturb you again.”
Balantyne clasped Pitt’s hand warmly, but he said nothing further.
Pitt walked home in the warm twilight, still filled with unease, trivial questions unanswered, pricking his mind, leaving him no sense of completion.
12
Find Albert Cole, Pitt had said to Tellman. Alive or dead. If he is alive, find out why he disappeared from his lodgings and from Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and if he is dead, find out how he died, naturally or otherwise. If he was killed, who killed him and why, and also when. And where.
Tellman had made a sarcastic reply, wondering why Pitt had bothered to trail all the way out to Kew and what on earth an orphanage, very satisfactorily run, could have to do with any of it.
Pitt had had no answer for that, and left Tellman to go about his search. He himself had begun with more about Cadell’s movements. Could he have transported Slingsby’s body from Shoreditch himself, and if not, which was probably the case, then who had? He had told Tellman of his intention to visit Cadell’s widow and enquire from the valet and coachman, and see if he could trace Cadell to Shoreditch from that end.
Tellman acknowledged the instruction tersely, but if he were honest, he was not unwilling to obey. He thought that suicide was a frustrating way to conclude a case. Too much was unexplained. They would probably never learn what had made a man like Leo Cadell jeopardize everything he had, which was a vast amount, wealth and happiness beyond Tellman’s dreams … although his dreams had included some happiness lately, and he blushed hot at the thought.
But he did not expect to understand the man, only the facts of the case, the logical, material details. And finding Albert Cole was part of that. He set out with a profound determination.
Pitt addressed himself to the task of learning how Slingsby’s body had been moved from Shoreditch to Bedford Square, and more importantly, by whom. Naturally, he began with Cadell. Since he was dead, the Foreign Office would not protect him in the way it had previously.
Pitt had little trouble in tracing Cadell’s movements on the day before the body had been found. He had worked either in his office or at various meetings with officials from the German embassy. At the time Slingsby and Wallace were fighting in Shoreditch, Cadell had actually been in negotiation with the German ambassador himself.
Like almost anyone else, he could have gone to Shoreditch in the small hours of the morning, presuming someone had moved Slingsby’s body from the street where it had fallen, kept it in a safe place, and Cadell had known where that was. Which would be to assume a great deal, including that Slingsby had been murdered intentionally and that Wallace had conspired with Cadell to that end because Slingsby resembled Albert Cole.
How did Cadell know a ruffian like Wallace?
He quickened his pace, striding along the footpath between the crowds of shoppers, clerks and errand boys and sightseers. He must go and talk to Wallace again, before he stood trial and was in all probability executed. Why had he not said he had moved the body when Tellman questioned him before? It would hardly make any difference to his sentence to plead that it had been a fight rather than a deliberate attack. He would be hanged either way.
Or did he expect to come up before Dunraithe White … and believe he would be acquitted? Was that why White was a victim?
And why kill anyone to have Balantyne suspected? Why was the blackmail over the Abyssinian affair not enough? What extra was wanted from Balantyne more than the others?
Pitt found himself almost running, and he hailed a cab with waving arms, shouting at the driver as he leapt in, “Newgate Prison!” He felt the cab thrust forward, throwing him against the seat.
But by the time he reached Newgate he had changed his mind. He leaned forward and rapped on the cab wall, raising his voice.
“Sorry! Forget about Newgate. Take me to Shoreditch.”
The driver grunted something unintelligible, which, considering its nature, may have been as well, and changed direction abruptly.
Pitt began in the public house where Tellman had said Wallace and Slingsby had started their quarrel, then progressed to the regular denizens of the immediate area. He had to part with a good few coins to assist memory and goodwill, and he ended the day with nothing which would have served as proof in a court, but he was quite certain in his own mind that Wallace could have come back within half an hour of the murder and taken the body of Slingsby. Certainly the body had disappeared within that time. There was no knowledge or indication that anyone else had moved it, and opinion seemed to be that it had been Wallace’s problem and he had dealt with it. They had supposed it would be into the river, but that was only because it was the most obvious thing to do. Taking a cart and carrying the body to Bedford Square would be too outlandish, and utterly pointless, to have occurred to them.
The best and final thing to do was to see if anyone had lent, or had stolen from them, such a vehicle.
With a little more generosity and a certain number of threats and promises, he succeeded in discovering that one Obadiah Smith had indeed had his vegetable cart removed without his permission, so he claimed, and to his great inconvenience. It had been returned in the morning.
He left Shoreditch elated. It was hardly worth going to Newgate. Wallace would probably deny it, but Pitt was now convinced that Wallace had murdered Slingsby with the quite deliberate intention of moving his body and placing it on Balantyne’s doorstep, with the snuffbox in his pocket, and the receipt for the socks, perhaps obtained by Wallace himself, pretending to be Cole. And this had been done on Cadell’s instructions. It would be very satisfying to see Wallace’s face when he heard that Cadell was dead and could not possibly rescue him.
But why Slingsby and not the real Cole? Where was Cole now? Was Tellman having any success in finding him?
However, when Tellman reported to Pitt that evening, within twenty minutes of Pitt’s arriving home himself, he had nothing to offer at all. They sat around the kitchen table in deep gloom. Charlotte had made a large pot of tea, and Gracie had abandoned even pretending to be peeling potatoes or cutting the strings off the beans. She was not going to be occupied in such things when there were really important matters to talk about.
“Nobody has any idea,” Tellman said defensively. “He could have gone anywhere. If he had any family, no one heard him mention them. They could be in Wales, for all anyone knew. Or Scotland.”
“Army records would know where he came from,” Pitt pointed out.
Tellman flushed. He was furious with himself because he had not thought of that.
“Well, if someone were arter ’im, ’e wouldn’t go back there, would ’e?” Gracie said defensively. “If we can work that out, mebbe they could too … stands ter reason, don’t it?” She looked from Pitt to Tellman and back again. “ ’E’d a’ gorn somewhere as nob’dy knows ’im. I would.”
“Why would anybody be after him?” Pitt asked. “He didn’t do anything, or know anything, so far as we can tell.”
