Bedford Square - Anne Perry [124]
“Yes, your ladyship,” Woods said hastily. “I’ll … I’ll have them ironed ….”
“Don’t bother.” She realized that with the master dead the usual duties in this respect had been abandoned. “I’ll look at them as they are.” And without waiting for argument, she passed him and went to the breakfast room.
He brought them on a tray, smoothed but unironed, and she took them from him. They were uniformly dreadful. One of them summed up everything that was worst in all three and added a great deal of speculation that was both cruel and destructive. It was written by Lyndon Remus. He had done his own investigation into the corpse found in Bedford Square and its possible connection with General Balantyne. He must have followed Pitt because he also was aware of his visits to Dunraithe White, Tannifer and Sir Guy Stanley.
In his article on Cadell’s suicide he suggested a conspiracy that Pitt had discovered and that he had been on the brink of arresting Cadell.
Superintendent Thomas Pitt refused to comment, but Bow Street police station did not deny that Mr. Cadell was being investigated in connection with a very serious matter involving extortion and murder, and figures in the establishment, both financial and military, as well as in the government.
Since Mr. Cadell, who shot himself to death in his study yesterday morning, held a high position in the Foreign Office, one cannot but wonder if the conspiracy concerned the interests of Great Britain abroad, and even treason may have been narrowly averted by swift action from the police.
It is to be hoped that if there are other guilty parties they will not now be protected from answering for their crimes, whether carried out or simply intended. Lesser men have been exposed for lesser offences, and paid the cost.
He continued for several paragraphs in a similar vein, and by the time Vespasia came to the end of it she was so angry she could hardly hold the paper still enough to read it. She set it down on the table. Lyndon Remus might have begun as a sincere journalist intending to expose corruption, but he had allowed ambition to warp his judgment. The chance of his own fame and the power that the pen afforded had prompted him to make unfounded assumptions. All of them had a marked lack of compassion for the results of his speculation upon the bereaved, who might have been innocent but for whom proof of that would come too late to undo the pain or the ostracism that went hand in hand with suspicion.
“I have read them,” she said to Woods when he returned to see if she was ready to have the table cleared. “You may burn them now. There is no need for Mrs. Cadell to see them.”
“Yes, your ladyship,” he said quickly. His opinion was clear in his face, and his hands, when he took the papers, shook a little.
“How are the staff?” Vespasia asked him.
“We are managing, your ladyship,” he replied. “I regret to say there are persons outside in the street attempting to ask questions … for the newspapers. They are … most … ill mannered. They are intrusive and have no respect for … death.”
“Have you locked the areaway doors?” she asked. “We can do without deliveries today.”
“I … I hadn’t,” he admitted. “With your permission I shall do so.”
“You have it. And no one is to answer the front door unless they have first ascertained who is outside and sought either my permission or Mrs. Cadell’s. Is that clear?”
“Yes, indeed. Cook asked me to enquire what you would like for luncheon, Lady Vespasia. I assume you will be remaining?” He looked a little desperate.
“Most certainly,” she answered him. “I think whatever Cook cares to prepare will be excellent. May I suggest something very light. An egg custard would be a suitable pudding, or a fruit fool.”
“Yes, thank you, your ladyship.”
Vespasia went to the withdrawing