to be about thirty and was fair skinned, dark haired. Death had not marred his features. He looked only slightly surprised.
Pitt took the lantern and shone it slowly over the rest of him. He was dressed in very ordinary cheap fabric trousers, plain cotton collarless shirt and poorly cut jacket. He could have been a laborer or factory worker, or even a young man come in from the country looking for employment. He was a little thin, but his hands were clean, his nails well cut.
Pitt wondered if he had a wife and children, parents, someone who was going to grieve for him with the deep, hurting pain of love, more than the respect this constable beside him felt.
“What station was he from?” he asked.
“Battersea, sir. That’s w’ere I knew ’im. ’E weren’t never in Bow Street, which is w’y you don’t know ’im, sir. But this in’t no ordinary murder. ’E’s bin shot, an’ street robbers don’ carry guns. They uses knives or a garrote.”
“Yes, I know that.” Pitt looked through the dead man’s pockets gently, his fingers searching. He found only a handkerchief, clean and mended carefully on one corner, and two shillings and nine-pence ha’penny in change. There were no letters or papers to identify the body.
“You’re sure this is Denbigh?”
“Yes sir, I’m sure. I know ’im quite well. Only for a short time, but I remember that mark wot ’e got on one ear. Unusual, that is. I remember people’s ears. Yer can make a lot of things look different, if yer wants ter pass unnoticed, but almost everyone forgets their ears stays the same. Only thing yer can do is get ’air wot ’ides ’em. I wish as I could say as it wasn’t, but that’s Denbigh, poor soul.”
Pitt straightened up. “Then you were right to call me, Constable. The murder of a policeman, even one off duty, is a very serious thing. We’ll start as soon as the surgeon comes and takes the body. I doubt you’ll find any witnesses, but try everyone. Try again tomorrow at the same time. People may pass regularly on their way home. Try the street traders, cab drivers, try the nearest public houses, and of course all the buildings around with a window onto the alley, any part of it.”
“Yes sir!”
“And you’ve no idea who Denbigh was working for now?”
“No sir, but I reckon as it were still some department o’ the police, or the gov’ment.”
“Then I think I had better find out.” Pitt rammed his hands into his pockets. He was cold standing still. The chill of the place, islanded in death as it was, only yards from the rattle and bustle of traffic, seeped into his bones.
The mortuary wagon pulled up at the end of the alley and turned awkwardly to come down, the horses whinnying and swinging shy at the smell of blood and fear in the air.
“And you’d better search the alley for anything that might be of meaning,” Pitt added. “I don’t suppose the gun is here, but it’s possible. Did the bullet go right through him?”
“Yes sir, looks like it.”
“Then look and see if you can find it. Then at least we’d know if he was shot here or brought here after he was dead.”
“Yes sir. Immediately, sir.” The constable’s voice was still harsh with anger and hurt. It was all too close, too very real.
“Denbigh.” Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis looked very unhappy. His strong features made him appear particularly bleak with his overlong nose and wide mouth. “Yes, he was still on the force. I can’t tell you precisely what he was doing, because I don’t know, but he was involved with the Irish Problem. As you know, there are a great many organizations fighting for Irish independence. The Fenians are only one of them, perhaps the most infamous. Many of them are violent. Denbigh was an Irishman. He’d worked his way into one of the most secret of these brotherhoods, but he was killed before he could tell us what he’d learned, at least more than the sort of thing we already know or take for granted.”
Pitt said nothing.
Cornwallis’s mouth tightened. “This is more than an ordinary murder, Pitt. Work on this one yourself, and use your best men. I would dearly like to find whoever did this. He was a good man, and a brave one.”
“Yes sir, of course I will.”
But four days later, with the investigation progressing only slowly, Pitt was visited in his office by Cornwallis again. He brought with him Ainsley Greville, a minister from the Home Office.
“You see, Inspector Pitt, it is of the utmost importance it should have every appearance of being a perfectly ordinary late-autumn country house party. Nothing that can be helped should detract from that, which is why we have come especially to you.” Ainsley Greville smiled with considerable charm. He was not a handsome man, but he had great distinction. He was tall with slightly receding, wavy hair, and a long, rather narrow face and regular features. It was his bearing and the intelligence in his eyes which made him unusual.
Pitt stared back at him, still without understanding.
Cornwallis leaned forward in his chair, his face grave. He had been in the position only a short time, but Pitt knew him well enough to realize he was uncomfortable in the role he was being required to play. He was an ex- naval captain, and the reasonings of politics were strange to him. He preferred ways far more direct, but he, like Greville, was answerable to the Home Office, and he had been given no alternative.
“There really is hope of some degree of success,” he said earnestly. “We must do everything we can to assist. And you are in the ideal position.”
“I am fully involved with the Denbigh case,” Pitt replied. He had no intention of handing it over to anyone else, regardless of this new issue.
Greville smiled. “I personally would appreciate your assistance, Superintendent, for reasons which I shall explain.” He pursed his lips slightly. “And which I regret profoundly. But if we can move even a single step forward in this matter, the whole of Her Majesty’s government will be in your debt.”
Pitt thought he was overstating the case.
