there would be the major challenge of either dissuading Emily from pursuing it any further or discouraging Radley himself. Pitt suspected that it might well take all Charlotte’s skill to bring the affair to the conclusion that would cause Emily the least pain. Therefore he did not mention the York burglary or Robert York’s death to Charlotte again, nor keep her up to date on his own pursuit of a solution.
Ballarat was evasive about the precise reason for opening the case again; it was unclear whether they hoped to discover who had murdered Robert York at this late date, or whether learning the motive was the real purpose of the investigation. Perhaps they wanted to establish beyond a doubt that it had been no more than a simple robbery that had erupted into unplanned violence, putting an end to the rumors of treason once and for all. Or were they really concerned that Veronica York was somehow involved, the unwitting catalyst of a crime of passion inexpertly covered to look like robbery? Or did they know the truth, and simply wish to make doubly sure it was successfully concealed forever by having the police test it, and if it did not break, then they could rest easy that it was buried beyond anyone’s recall?
Pitt found this last possibility acutely distasteful, and possibly he wronged his superiors by letting it enter his mind, but he was determined to think it through until he could present Ballarat with an answer that was beyond denial or dispute.
He began with the stolen articles, and the curious fact that none of them had turned up in the places one might have expected despite the vigorous search the police had kept up throughout the following year. All the well-known fences, pawnbrokers, and less fastidious collectors of objects d’arts had been questioned at regular intervals as a matter of course, and on each occasion the York pieces had been on the list of goods mentioned.
But Pitt had been in the Metropolitan Police for nearly twenty years and he knew people Ballarat had never heard of, secretive, dangerous people who tolerated him for past and future favors. And it was to these he went while Charlotte was arranging her visit to the drawing rooms of Hanover Close.
He left Bow Street and walked sharply eastward towards the Thames, disappearing into one of the vast dockland slums. He passed crowded, warped buildings, dark under the lowering skies and filled with the sour reek of the fog that crept up from the slow, gray-black water of the river. There were no carriages with lamps and footmen here, only dim wagons laden with bales for the wharves and carts with a few limp vegetables for sale. A tinker with pans clattered as he jiggled over the uneven cobbles, an old-clothes seller shouted, “Ol’ clo’! Ol’ clo’!” in a mournful, penetrating voice. His horse’s hooves had no echo in the drenching gloom.
Pitt walked quickly, his head down and his shoulders hunched. He wore old boots with loose soles and a grimy jacket, torn at the back, which he kept for such visits. He pulled the thin collar up round his ears now, but still the rain trickled down his neck to his back, a wandering, icy finger that made him shudder. No one paid him any attention apart from the occasional glance when a peddlar or coster half hoped he might buy something. But he did not look like a man who had the means to purchase, and with face averted and body tight with the knowledge of the warmth he had left behind, he hurried deeper into the alleys and passages of the warren.
Finally he found the door he sought, its wood black with age and dirt, metal studs worn smooth by countless hands. He knocked sharply twice, and then twice again.
After a moment or two it opened six inches on a chain, stopping with a clunk as it reached its limit. Even though it was midmorning the daylight scarcely penetrated these narrow alleys, their jettied stories almost meeting overhead, eaves forever dripping in incessant, uneven rhythm. A rat squeaked and scuttled away. Someone tripped over a pile of rubbish and swore. In the distant street the wail “Ol’! clo’!” came again, and down on the river the moan of a foghorn. The smell of rot filled Pitt’s throat.
“Mr. Pinhorn,” he said quietly. “A matter of business.”
There was a moment’s silence, then a candle flame appeared in the gloom. He could see little beyond it but the outline of a large, sharp nose and the black sockets of two eyes. But he knew Pinhorn always answered the door himself, afraid that his apprentices would keep the trade for themselves and do him out of a few pence.
“It’s you,” Pinhorn said sourly, recognizing him. “Wotcher want? I got nuffink for yer!”
“Information, Mr. Pinhorn, and a warning for you.”
Pinhorn made a sound deep in his adenoids as if he were going to spit, then changed it into a bark. It expressed ineffable contempt.
“Robbery’s one thing, and murder’s another,” Pitt said carefully, not at all disturbed. He had known Pinhorn for over a decade and this reception was exactly what he expected. “And treason is a third thing, nastier than both.”
Again there was silence. Pitt knew better than to push his case. Pinhorn had fenced stolen goods for forty years; he understood his risks perfectly, or he would not still be alive, a prisoner only of poverty, ignorance and greed. He would be in one of Her Majesty’s prisons, like Coldbath Fields, where labor such as the treadmill or passing the shot would have broken even his thick, hard body.
The chain rattled as he took it off and the door swung wide noiselessly on oiled hinges.
“Come in, Mr. Pitt.”
He locked the door behind him and led the way down a passage piled with old furniture and smelling of mold, round a corner, and into a room that was surprisingly warm. A fire in an open grate shed a flickering light on the stained walls. A piece of heavy red carpet, no doubt garnered from some burglary, lay before the grate between two plush-covered armchairs. All the rest of the room apart from that cleared space was piled with dimly perceived objects: carved chairs, pictures, boxes, clocks, pitchers and ewers, piles of plates. Balanced at a crazy angle, a mirror caught the firelight and winked a red eye.
“Wotcher want, Mr. Pitt?” Pinhorn asked again, eyeing Pitt narrowly. He was a big man, barrel-chested, bullet- headed, his gray hair in a terrier crop such as prisoners wore, although he had never actually been caught or tried. In his youth he had enjoyed something of a reputation as a bareknuckle fighter, and he was still capable of beating a man senseless if he lost his temper, which happened suddenly and violently from time to time.
“Have you seen a pair of miniature portraits?” Pitt asked. “Seventeenth-century, man and a woman? Or a silver vase, a crystal paperweight carved with a design of scrolls and flowers, and a first edition of
Pinhorn looked surprised. “That all? You come all the way ’ere ter ask me vat? Vat lot in’t worf much.”
“I don’t want them; I just want to know if you’ve heard of them. About three years ago, probably.”
Pinhorn’s eyebrows shot up incredulously. “Free years ago! Yer bleedin’ eejut! D’yer fink I’d ’member vat sort of ’aul fer free years?”
