Uttley cleared his throat. “What—what are you going to do about it? I … suppose you have no proof, or you would arrest the fellow, wouldn’t you? After all, it’s an offense—isn’t it!”
“I don’t know whether Mr. Radley will prefer charges or not,” Pitt said offhandedly. “That is up to him. Since he didn’t report it in the regular way, maybe he considers it will rebound upon the perpetrator sufficiently that justice will be served without his taking any hand in it.”
“But you?” Uttley said, taking a step forward. “What about you? You … didn’t say whether you had proof or not.” He was watching Pitt very closely.
“No, I didn’t, did I?” Pitt agreed.
Uttley was beginning to gain confidence. His shoulders straightened a little.
“Sounds rather like guesswork to me, Superintendent,” he said, pushing his hands back into his pockets. “I imagine that is what you would like it to be. The assistant commissioner would be less … critical of your performance.”
Pitt smiled. “Oh, Mr. Farnsworth had very strong feelings about it indeed,” he agreed. “He was furious.”
Uttley froze.
“But I rather think he would like to deal with it in his own way,” Pitt continued lightly. “That is the one reason I have not bothered to make a case. The proof is there. I don’t think Mr. Farnsworth would have accepted my word for it otherwise. After all, it is so incredibly … inept! Isn’t it?”
Uttley forced a sickly smile, but words failed him.
“I thought you should know,” Pitt concluded, smiling back at him. “The next time you write an article, I’m sure you will wish to be fair.” And with that he put his own hands in his pockets. “Good day, Mr. Uttley.” He walked past him and out of the front door into the sun.
Pitt arrived home with no sense of elation. The satisfaction of having bested Uttley had worn off, and all he could think of was Carvell’s shocked and despairing face. Even with his eyes closed he could see his hunched shoulders as he walked out beside Tellman, and the slightly spiky hair at the back of his head when the light caught it as he went down the steps.
For once Charlotte was home. She had been away so often in the last few months, organizing one thing or another for the new house, he had fully expected to find the place silent and nothing but a message on the kitchen table. However, there was the cheerful noise of bustle, kettle hissing, pans bubbling and the clink of china and swish of skirts. When he pushed open the kitchen door the room was bright with late sun and filled with the aroma of fresh bread, clean linen on the rack above him hanging from the high ceiling, steam from the kettle, and a faint savor of cooking meat from the oven.
Gracie was finishing tidying away after the children’s supper and she whisked the last dishes off the table and put them on the dresser before dropping him a hasty bob and fleeing upstairs. A passing thought occurred to him to wonder why, but Jemima launched herself at him with cries of delight and demands that he listen to her account of the day. Daniel pulled faces and tugged at his sleeve to show him a paper kite he had made.
Charlotte dried her hands on her apron and came over to him immediately, poking her hair back into its pins, then smiling as she kissed him. For several minutes he was involved in giving everyone due attention before Daniel and Jemima departed, satisfied, and they were left alone.
“You look very tired,” Charlotte said, looking at him closely. “What’s happened?”
He was glad not to have to find a way of cutting through her stories of the house and its triumphs and disasters in order to catch her attention and tell her. Too often if he had to seek for her to listen, there was no sense of sharing and no release in it.
“I arrested Jerome Carvell,” he replied. He knew she was watching his face and would read the emotions in him. She knew him far too well to imagine it would please him or give him any sense of victory.
“Why?” she asked.
It was not the response he had expected, but it was a good one. He told her everything that had happened during the day, including his visit to Uttley. She listened in silence, but she did smile towards the end.
“You are not sure Carvell did it, are you?” she said at last.
“I suppose my head tells me he must have, at least Scarborough, even if not the others. It was certainly his gig that was used to take him from the house to the park, and he had an excellent reason if the man was blackmailing him.”
“But?” she asked.
“But I find it so hard to think he would kill Arledge. I cannot help but believe he loved him.”
“Is it possible he killed Scarborough but not Arledge?” she asked.
“No. His only reason would be if Scarborough knew something that would damn him. The relationship itself doesn’t seem enough after all this time. He must have known about it before. And servants who betray confidences about their masters’ private lives don’t find another position. He would have to make enough out of his blackmail to live on for the rest of his life. No—it—” He fell silent. There was really nothing more to say.
She finished cooking the dinner and they ate it in companionable silence. He went up to see the children, and read a very short story, before saying good-night, then came back down again and sat in the parlor, thinking that for all the pleasure of moving to a larger house, a beautiful house with a garden in which he would take intense delight, if he ever had the time, still there had been so much of his happiness here in this house, rich memories, and he would not leave it without regret and a sense of tearing.
Charlotte sat on the floor beside him, her sewing idle, her thoughts who knew where, but the warmth of her close to him gave him a sense of peace so sweet he eventually fell asleep in his chair, and she had to waken him to go to bed.
At noon the following day Bailey came into the Bow Street station looking worried and out of breath, his long face flushed and his eyes filled with a strange mixture of anxiety and determination.
Pitt was downstairs with Tellman and le Grange, discussing the final details of evidence.
“You’ve still got to find the weapon, or at least—”
“He could have thrown it anywhere,” Tellman argued.
