Bedford Square - Anne Perry [11]
Pitt was uncertain whether to ask again, or if that had been a polite way of evading the issue. Yet he was certain that Cornwallis was worried to a degree that it intruded into his thoughts even when he wished to put his entire mind to a present issue.
Cornwallis pushed back his chair and stood up. He walked over to the window and pulled it closed sharply.
“Terrible noise out there!” he said with irritation. “Keep me informed how you progress with this Bedford Square case.”
It was dismissal. Pitt stood up. “Yes sir.” He walked towards the door.
Cornwallis cleared his throat.
Pitt stopped.
“I …” Cornwallis began, then hesitated.
Pitt turned around to look at him.
There was a faint flush of color in Cornwallis’s lean cheeks. He was profoundly unhappy. He made the decision.
“I’ve … I’ve received a blackmail letter ….”
Pitt was astonished. Of all the possibilities that had come to his mind, this seemed the most outlandish.
“Words cut out from the Times,” Cornwallis went on in the prickling silence. “Pasted on a piece of paper.”
Pitt scrambled his thoughts together with difficulty.
“What do they want?”
“That’s it.” Cornwallis’s body was rigid, his muscles locked. He stared at Pitt. “Nothing! They don’t ask for anything at all! Just the threat.”
Pitt loathed asking, but not to would be to walk away from a man whose friendship he valued and who was obviously in profound need of uncritical help.
“Do you have the letter?”
Cornwallis took it out of his pocket and passed it over. Pitt read the pasted-on letters, most of them cut out singly, some in twos and threes or where a whole word had been found as the writer wished to use it.
I know all about you, Captain Cornwallis. Others think you are a hero, but I know differently. It was not you who was so brave on the HMS Venture, it was Able Seaman Beckwith, but you took the credit. He’s dead now and he cannot tell the truth. That is all wrong. People should know. I know.
Pitt read it again. There was no explicit threat, no request for money or any other form of payment. And yet the sense of power was so strong it leapt off the creased paper as if the thing had a malign life of its own.
He looked across at Cornwallis’s pale face and saw the muscles clenched in his jaw and the faint, visible pulse in his temple.
“I suppose you have no idea who it is?”
“None at all,” Cornwallis replied. “I lay awake half last night trying to think.” His voice was dry, as if he had held himself rigid so long his throat ached. He breathed in deeply. His eyes did not waver from Pitt’s. “I’ve gone over and over the incident I think he’s referring to, to remember who was there, who could have misinterpreted it to believe it that way, and I don’t know the answer.” He hesitated, acute embarrassment naked in his face. He was a private man who found emotion difficult to express; he vastly preferred the tacit understanding of action. He bit his lip. He wanted to look away, so he forced himself not to. He was obviously sensitive to Pitt’s discomfort and unintentionally made it worse. He was aware of foundering, of being indecisive, the very sorts of things he had meant to avoid.
“Perhaps you had better tell me about the incident,” Pitt said quietly. He moved to sit down, indicating his intention to stay.
“Yes,” Cornwallis agreed. “Oh … yes, of course.” He turned away at last, his face towards the window. The sharp daylight emphasized the depth of the lines about his eyes and mouth. “It happened eighteen years ago … eighteen and a half. It was winter. Bay of Biscay. Weather was appalling. I was a second lieutenant then. Man went up to shorten the mizzen royal—”
“The what?” Pitt interrupted. He needed