Bedford Square - Anne Perry [152]
It took them a day and a half of painstaking, minute unraveling of buying and selling, of finding the names behind the names, all accomplished with savage deliberation, but by four o’clock in the afternoon, two days after their return from the orphanage, they could prove that the trail led to Sigmund Tannifer.
Tellman stood with the last piece of paper in his hand and swore viciously. “What’ll he get?” he said fiercely. “He’s sold little children to labor in the mines like they were animals. Some of them’ll never see the light of day again.” His voice caught with his emotion. “But we can’t prove he knew what Horsfall was doing. He’ll deny it. Say it was rents or something, surplus from other properties. He blackmailed innocent men and near drove them mad with fear … enough to make Cadell shoot himself and White resign … but we can’t prove that either. We’d have to show that he threatened to expose them, and that would only ruin them just like he said he would. We’d be doing it for him.” He swore again, his fists clenched white, his eyes blazing. He was demanding an answer from Pitt, expecting him to solve the injustice somehow.
“It wasn’t even blackmail,” Pitt said with a shrug. “He didn’t ask for anything. He would have … their silence over the orphanage, if they had ever found out … but it never came to that.”
“We’ve got to get him for something!” Tellman’s voice rose to a shout, his fist gripping the air.
“Let’s go and arrest him for taking the proceeds of Horsfall’s business,” Pitt answered. “No jury will believe he thought that it was profits from the kitchen garden.”
“That doesn’t matter a damn,” Tellman said bitterly.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Pitt pulled a face. “I think that officious little newspaper writer, Remus, could make a good story out of it.”
Tellman stared at him. “He couldn’t know … could he?”
“He could if I told him,” Pitt responded.
“We can’t prove that Tannifer knew what Horsfall did.”
“I don’t think that will bother Remus too much ….”
Tellman’s eyes widened. “You would tell him?”
“I don’t know. But I should enjoy letting Tannifer think I would.”
Tellman laughed, but it was an unhappy, mirthless sound.
Sigmund Tannifer received them in the ornate withdrawing room without the slightest indication in his smooth features that there was anything amiss or that he could be concerned over any matter but Pitt’s progress in concluding his case. He looked at Parthenope, who was standing beside his chair, her vivid face for once completely at peace, reflecting none of the anxiety that had so disturbed her on Pitt’s previous visits.
“Good of you to come, Superintendent,” Tannifer said, pointing to the chairs where Pitt and Tellman could be seated. “Miserable end to the matter. I admit, I never imagined Cadell could be so … I am at a loss for words ….”
“Vicious … cruel … utterly sadistic,” Parthenope supplied for him, her voice shaking and her eyes filled with anger and burning contempt. “I am so sorry for Mrs. Cadell; my heart aches for her. What could be more terrible than to discover the man you have loved, have been married to all your adult life and have given your loyalty and your trust …. is a total blackguard?” Her whole slender body shook with the force of her emotions.
Tellman glanced at Pitt, and away again.
“My dear,” Tannifer said soothingly, “you cannot bear the ills of the world. Theodosia Cadell will recover, in time. There is nothing you can do for her.”
“I know there isn’t,” she said desperately. “That’s what makes it so awful. If I could help …”
“I was quite shocked when I returned the day after his death and read the news,” Tannifer went on, looking at Pitt. “I admit, I would have believed it of almost anyone before him. Still … he deceived us all.”
“Returned from where?” Pitt asked, irrationally disappointed. He already knew no one had been to Cadell