Bedford Square - Anne Perry [28]
Or for that matter, a daughter. Why not? A woman was as capable as any man of cutting out letters from newspapers and framing a threat.
While he was there, Pitt decided, he should find all he could of the rest of Cornwallis’s naval career, and all there was available on Samuel Beckwith as well, particularly if he had a family still alive, and where they might be now.
More argument and more persuasion were necessary before he was given a very abbreviated summary of Cornwallis’s career, only those things which were largely a matter of public knowledge anyway, such as any other naval personnel might know from their own observation.
He had been promoted and changed ship within two years. In 1878 and 1879 he had been in the China Seas, involved with distinction in the bombardment of Borneo against the pirates.
Within a year after that he had had his own command. He had sailed in the Caribbean and been involved in several actions of a minor nature, largely skirmishes to do with slavers still operating out of West Africa.
He had retired from the sea in 1889 with distinction and an unblemished record. There was a list of ships on which he had served and the ranks he had held, nothing more.
Pitt compared it with Samuel Beckwith’s career, which had been cut short by death at sea, carried overboard by a spar broken loose in a gale. He had never married, and left behind a sister, living in Bristol at the time of his death. His effects and his back pay had been sent to her. She was listed as a Mrs. Sarah Tregarth. Her address was given.
But Beckwith had been unable to read or write. The letter sent to Cornwallis was quite articulate and contained several complex words. Had Sarah Beckwith learned such an art in spite of her brother’s inability?
A discreet letter to the Bristol police would confirm that.
Now Pitt looked at the names of the ships on which Cornwallis had served and copied down a dozen or so names of other men who had served at the same times, including the captain of the Venture and the first lieutenant.
Next he showed his list to the man who had so far assisted him and asked for the addresses of all those who were not currently at sea.
The man looked at Pitt narrowly, then read through them.
“Well, he was killed in action about ten years ago,” he said, biting his lip. He moved to the next one. “He’s retired and gone to live in Portugal or somewhere. He’s in Liverpool. He’s here in London.” He looked up. “What do you want all these men for, Superintendant?”
“Information,” Pitt replied with a tight smile. “I need to know the truth about an incident in order to avert a considerable wrong … a crime,” he added, in case the man should miss the urgency of it or doubt his right to involve himself.
“Oh. Oh, yes sir. It’ll take me a little while. If you’d come back in an hour or so?”
Pitt was hungry, and even more he was thirsty. He was delighted to accept the suggestion and go out and buy himself a ham sandwich from a stall, and a cup of strong tea. He stood in the sun on the street corner enjoying them, watching the passersby. Nursemaids in starched aprons wheeled perambulators. Their older charges rolled hoops or pretended to ride sticks with horses’ heads. A small boy played with a spinning top and would not come when he was told. Little girls in frilly pinafores mimicked their elders, walking daintily, with heads high. He thought with a wave of tenderness of Jemima and how quickly she had grown up. Already she was beginning to be self-conscious, aware of coming womanhood. It felt like only months ago she had been struggling to walk, and yet it was years.
When he had first met Balantyne she had not even been born. And she had been stumbling with speech, often unintelligible to anyone but Charlotte, when Balantyne had lost his only daughter in the most fearful way possible.
Memory of that turned the sandwich in his mouth to sawdust. How could a man bear such grief and survive?