Bedford Square - Anne Perry [109]
“Which case?” Pitt asked, waiting for him to say the embezzlement that Springer commanded.
“This case!” Cornwallis frowned. “The blackmail investigation. The truth about Slingsby and the Bedford Square murder … who put the body on Balantyne’s steps. What in God’s name does the man want from us?” His voice was rising in spite of himself, a note of panic creeping in.
The room seemed to swim with the sunlight blazing in through the open window, the noise of traffic in the street below rose like thunder.
“But you won’t …” Pitt said, forcing the words through stiff lips.
A faint patch of color blushed up Cornwallis’s haggard cheeks. Something in his mouth softened.
“No! Of course not,” he said with intense, choking emotion. It seemed to take him by surprise, as if he had not thought he could feel so passionately about anything. “No, Pitt, of course I won’t.” He seemed about to add something more, a word of thanks for having assumed so much, but at the last moment the words were too open, too intimate an acknowledgment of friendship, of vulnerability. It was all better understood, where it could be glossed over later. Men did not say such things to each other.
“Naturally.” Pitt shoved his hands down inside his pockets. “At least it gives us something further to look into, a better place to begin.” He must say something trivial and matter-of-fact. It did not really matter what. “I think I’ll go and see Cadell again.”
“Yes,” Cornwallis agreed. “Yes, of course. Let me know what you learn.”
Pitt went to the door. “I might see Balantyne too,” he added as he went out. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything.”
9
PITT HAD BEEN late home the previous evening, but even so he had wanted to tell Charlotte what he had learned and the troubling thoughts he could not still in his mind. She had been more than willing to listen, not only in concern for his feelings but because she wished intensely to know for herself. They had sat talking long after midnight, unable to let go of the anxiety and the need to share it with each other.
This morning she was more than ever concerned for General Balantyne. It seemed he was targeted by the blackmailer in a more personal and specific way than any of the other victims. Pitt had very carefully refrained from saying that had the murder of Josiah Slingsby been blamed upon him, he would have been effectively removed from complying with the blackmailer’s demands, either for money or for the exercise of influence. Nevertheless, she had understood it perfectly clearly. Therefore it followed that what he wanted might not be anything Balantyne could give but rather his destruction, not an act but the inability to act. And either ruin or death would serve the same end. Pitt had skirted around it, being so careful, trying not to hurt her, but the thought was inevitable once the train of ideas was begun.
It was a brilliantly sunny day, but fortunately a little cooler. At last there was a breath of breeze to break the suffocation of the heat wave. It was too pleasant to be inside if one did not have to. She had agreed to meet Balantyne in the British Museum as before, but was delighted when a boy on a bicycle brought a note to the door asking if she would find it acceptable to meet at the gate of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Regents Park instead.
She wrote a hasty answer that she would be happy to.
Accordingly, at eleven o’clock, dressed in deep pink and wearing one of Vespasia’s most extravagant hats, she was standing in the sun just inside the gates, watching the passers-by. It was an occupation which in small amounts she found most interesting. She imagined who they were and what sort of homes and lives they had left this morning, why they might have come here, whom to meet.
There were the obvious lovers, strolling arm in arm, whispering to each other and laughing, seeing no one else. There were those less open, pretending