Bedford Square - Anne Perry [27]
It was probably a footman or butler in one of the other houses. When it was discovered which, then great tact would be necessary, but all the discretion in the world would not much alter the final outcome. And he had confidence in Tellman’s ability to pursue the trail quite as well as he would have himself. Meanwhile, he would do all he could to help Cornwallis.
He set out from home in the morning as usual, but instead of going either to Bow Street or to Bedford Square, he caught a hansom and requested the driver to take him to the Admiralty.
It took considerable argument and persuasion to obtain the naval records of H.M.S. Venture without explaining why he wanted them. With much use of words like tact, reputation, and honor, but mentioning no names, by mid-morning he finally sat alone in a small, sunlit room and read what he had asked for.
The record was simple: Lieutenant John Cornwallis had been on duty when a seaman had been injured attempting to reef the mizzen royal in rising bad weather. According to his own account, Cornwallis had gone up to help the man and had brought him down, half conscious, the last few yards assisted by Able Seaman Samuel Beckwith.
Beckwith was illiterate, but his verbal account, taken down by someone else, was largely the same. Certainly he had not contradicted any part of the official version. The words recorded were bare, just a few sentences on white paper. There was no sense of the people behind it, none of the roaring wind and sea, the pitching deck, the terror of the man trapped up the mast, one minute over the wooden boards which would break his bones if he were to fall on them, the next over the howling, cavernous depths of water which would swallow him beyond any human power to rescue. Any man who fell into that would be gone forever, as completely as if he had never existed, never had life or laughter or hope.
There was no sense of what manner of men they had been, brave or cowardly, wise or foolish, honest or lying. Pitt knew Cornwallis, at least knew him as he was now, an assistant commissioner in the police force, taciturn, painfully honest, out of his depth with politicians, having no conception of their deviousness.
But he did not know how he had been fifteen years before as a lieutenant, faced with physical danger, the chance of admiration and promotion. Had this been an otherwise honorable man’s one mistake?
He did not believe that. Such deceit would surely have left a deeper mark. If Cornwallis had profited from stealing another man’s reward, praise for someone else’s act of courage, would it not have stained everything else he touched? Would he not have spent the rest of his career looking backward over his shoulder, fearing Beckwith’s telling of the truth? Would he not have built guards for himself against just this eventuality, knowing there was always a chance? And would that not have shown in all else that he did?
Would he have allowed Pitt to know of it?
Or was he so arrogant he thought he could use Pitt, and Pitt would never realize?
That was such a distortion of the man Pitt perceived that he discarded the notion as close to impossible.
That left the question, did the blackmailer believe it was true or did he simply know that Cornwallis could not prove its untruth?
Beckwith was dead, according to Cornwallis. But had he relatives alive, someone to whom he had told the story, perhaps boasting a little,