“Not unless you have to, but don’t lie. And for heaven’s sake, don’t tell him any of the details. You won’t get the ambassador himself, but get a senior attache, not a clerk. This will have to be handled with some care.”
“Yes sir. You don’t think, in view o’ the. . the dress, and the like, that mebbe Sergeant Tellman should go?” he asked hopefully.
Pitt knew Tellman very well. “No, I don’t,” he replied.
“ ’E’s ’ere!”
“Good. Send him down. And take a hansom to the French Embassy. Catch!” He tossed up a shilling for the fare. The constable caught it and thanked him, hesitating a moment longer in the vain hope that Pitt would change his mind, then reluctantly obeyed.
The mist was lifting off the river. Here and there water shone silver and the dark shapes of barges were no longer softened and blurred but sharp, mounded with bales of goods bound for all the corners of the earth. Upriver on Chelsea reach the parlormaids would be setting breakfast tables, valets and kitchen maids would be carrying bath-water and putting out clothes for the day. Downriver all the way to the Isle of Dogs dockers and boatmen would be lifting, hauling, guiding. The first markets at Bishopgate would have started hours ago.
Tellman came down the stairs, lantern jaw set, hair slicked back, his disgust written already in his expression.
Pitt turned back to the body and started to look more carefully at the extraordinary clothes the man was wearing. The green dress was torn in several places. It was impossible to tell if it had happened recently or not. The silk velvet of the bodice was ripped across the shoulders and down the seams of the arms. The flimsy skirt was torn up the front.
There were several garlands of artificial flowers strewn around. One of them sat askew across his chest.
Pitt looked at the manacle on the man’s right wrist and moved it slightly. There was no bruising or grazing on the skin. He examined the other wrist, and then both ankles. They also were unmarked.
“Did they kill him first?” he asked.
“Either that or he put them on willingly,” the surgeon replied. “If you want my opinion, I don’t know. If a guess will do, I’d say after death.”
“And the clothes?”
“No idea. But if he put them on himself, he was pretty rough about it.”
“How long do you think he’s been dead?” Pitt had little hope of a definite answer. He was not disappointed.
“No idea beyond what you can probably deduce for yourself. Sometime last night, from the rigor. Can’t have been floating around the river for long like this. Even a bargee would notice this a little odd.”
He was right. Pitt had concluded it would have to have been after dark. There had been no mist on the river the previous evening, and on a fine day, even up to dusk, there would be people out in pleasure boats or strolling along the embankment.
“Any signs of struggle?” he asked.
“Nothing I can see so far.” The surgeon straightened up and made his way back to the steps. “Nothing on his hands, but I daresay you saw that. Sorry, Pitt. I’ll look at him more closely, of course, but so far you’ve got an ugly situation which I am only going to make even uglier, I imagine. Good day to you.” And without waiting for a reply, he climbed up the steps to the top of the embankment, where a small crowd had gathered, peering curiously over the edge.
Tellman looked at the punt, his face puckered with incomprehension and contempt. He pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself. “French, is he?” he said darkly, his tone suggesting that that explained everything.
“Possibly,” Pitt answered. “Poor devil. But whoever did this to him could be as English as you are.”
Tellman’s head came up sharply, and he glared at Pitt.
Pitt smiled back at him innocently.
Tellman’s mouth tightened, and he turned and looked up the river at the light flashing silver on the wide stretches clear of mist and the dark shadows of barges materializing from beyond. It was going to be a beautiful day. “I’d better find the river police,” Tellman said grimly. “See how far he would have drifted since he was put in.”
“Don’t know when that was,” Pitt replied. “There’s very little blood here. Wound like that to the head must have bled quite a lot. Unless there was some kind of blanket or sail here which was removed after, or he was killed somewhere else and then put here.”
“Dressed like that?” Tellman said incredulously. “Some kind of a party, Chelsea sort of way? Some. . thing. . went too far, and they had to get rid of him? Heaven help us, this is going to be ugly!”
“It is. But it would be a good idea to see the river police anyway and get some idea how far he could have drifted if he went in around midnight, or an hour or two either side of it.”
“Yes sir,” Tellman said with alacrity. That was something he was willing to do, and a great deal better than waiting around for anyone from the French Embassy. “I’ll find out everything I can.” And with an air of busyness he set off, taking the steps two at a time-at considerable risk, given the slipperiness of the wet stone.
Pitt returned his attention to the punt and its cargo. He examined the boat itself more closely. It was lying low in the water and he had not until then wondered why. Now he realized on handling and touching the wood that it was old and many of the outer boards were rotted and waterlogged. It had foundered against the stairs rather than simply catching against them. It was obviously not a pleasure boat which anyone currently used on the river. It must have lain idle somewhere for a considerable time.
Pitt looked again at the body with its manacled wrists and chained ankles, its grotesque position. An overriding passion had driven his murderer, a love, or hate, a terror or need, had made this disposition of the corpse as much a part of the crime as the killing itself. It must have been a tremendous risk to wait long enough to take off whatever clothes the dead man was wearing, dress him in this torn silk and velvet gown and chain him onto the punt in this obscene position, then set the boat adrift out in the water, getting himself wet in the process. Why had anyone bothered?
The answer to that might be the answer to everything.
He stood in the faintly rocking stern, adjusting his balance to keep upright as the wash of a string of barges reached him. Had the murderer brought the green dress and the manacles and chains with him, and the artificial flowers cast around? Or had they already been at hand wherever he had killed him? Certainly he had not brought the boat. That would have been impossible to move far.
Which also meant it had not come more than a few miles at most now.
His thoughts were interrupted by the noise of a carriage up on the embankment, horses’ hooves on the stone, and footsteps on the top of the stairs.
He moved across to the bottom step, which was now slimy and well clear of the water as the tide receded. He looked up to see an immaculate and very anxious man, his polished boots gleaming in the early sun, his head bent, his face very pale.
“Good morning, sir,” Pitt said quietly, climbing up towards him.
“Good morning,” the man replied with scarcely the trace of an accent. “Gaston Meissonier,” he introduced himself, deliberately keeping his eyes on Pitt’s face and averted from the figure in the boat.
“Superintendent Pitt. I’m sorry to bring you out so early in the morning, Monsieur Meissonier,” Pitt replied, “but your embassy reported one of your diplomats missing, and unfortunately we have found the body of a man who answers the description you gave us.”
Meissonier turned and stared at the punt. The skin across his face tightened, his lips drawn a little closer together. For several moments he did not speak.
Pitt waited.
The last mist was evaporating from the river, and the far bank was now clearly visible. The sound of traffic increased along the embankment above them.
“ ‘Unfortunate’ is hardly an adequate word, Superintendent,” Meissonier said at last. “What an extremely distressing circumstance.”
Pitt stood aside, and Meissonier went gingerly down the steps until he was only a couple of feet above the tide. He stopped and stared across at the body.
“That is not Bonnard,” he said fiercely. “I am afraid I do not know this man. I cannot help you. I’m
