Bedford Square - Anne Perry [24]
He needed to know more about General Brandon Balantyne, and also about Lady Augusta.
He did not really suspect her of anything, certainly not alone, and he had very little idea of how to go about investigating her. He was not a cowardly man and held no innate respect for anyone because of their position or wealth, but he still quaked at the thought of addressing Augusta.
The General was different. Tellman understood men far better, and it would be a relatively easy business to check the General’s military career. Much of that would be public knowledge through the army. Similarly, he could find and check Albert Cole’s record of service.
“Albert Cole?” the military clerk repeated. “Middle name, Sergeant?”
“No idea.”
“Where was ’e born?”
“Don’t know.”
“Don’t know much, do you!” He was a middle-aged man who was bored by his job and made as much of it as possible, particularly in this instance of its complication and its inconvenience. Tellman was civil only with difficulty, but he needed the information.
“Only that he’s been murdered,” he replied.
“I’ll see what I can do.” The man’s face tightened and he went away to search, leaving Tellman sitting on a wooden bench in the outer office.
It was the best part of an hour before he returned, but he had the information.
“Albert Milton Cole,” he said with great importance. “This’ll be your man. Born May 26, 1838, in Battersea. Served in the 33rd Foot, it says here.” He looked up at Tellman. “That’s the Duke of Wellington’s regiment! Got a bullet wound in 1875. Left leg, ’igh up. Broke the bone. Sent ’orne and pensioned off. Nothing after that. Nothing against him though. Never married, according ter this. Any ’elp?”
“Not yet. What can you tell me about General Brandon Balantyne?”
The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Generals now, is it? That’s a different kettle o’ fish altogether. You got some authority for that?”
“Yes. I’m investigating the murder of a soldier who was found with his skull broken … on General Balantyne’s doorstep!”
The clerk hesitated, then decided he was curious himself. He had no particular love for generals. If he had to do this, and he thought he probably did, then he would look less unimportant if he did it willingly.
He went away again and came back fifteen minutes later with several sheets of paper and presented them to Tellman.
Tellman took them and read.
Brandon Peverell Balantyne had been born on March 21, 1830, the eldest son of Brandon Ellwood Balantyne of Bishop Auckland, County Durham. Educated at Addiscombe, graduated at sixteen. When he was eighteen, his father had purchased him a commission and he had sailed for India as a lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers, and was immediately involved in the Second Sikh War, where he was present at the siege of Multan and served with distinction, although wounded, at the battle of Gujrat. In 1852 he had led a column in the First Black Mountain Hazara Expedition on the Northwest Frontier, and the year after he was with an expedition against the Jowaki Afridis in Peshawar.
During the Indian Mutiny he had been with Outram and Havelock in the first relief of Lucknow, and then in its final capture. There he had served brilliantly, chasing rebel bands in Oudh and Gwalior in ’58 and ’59. He had gone on to command a division in the China War of 1860, where he had been decorated for valor.
He was in the Bombay army with General Robert Napier when Napier had been ordered to command the expedition to Abyssinia in ’67. Balantyne had gone with him.
After that Balantyne had been promoted to command himself, and remained in Africa, fighting with continued distinction in Ashantiland in ’73 and ’74, then in the Zulu Wars of ’78 and ’79. After that he retired and returned home to England permanently.
It was a career of apparent distinction and honor, and undeserved privilege, paid for in the first place by his father.
That was a deep offense to Tellman, an injustice inherent in a social system he despised. On the surface, he was more angered that apparently Balantyne’s path had never crossed that of