Bedford Square - Anne Perry [5]
“I’m not arguing,” Pitt said dryly. He shivered. He was getting cold. “Can you say anything about time?”
“Nothing you can’t deduce for yourself,” the surgeon replied. “Or about the poor devil here,” he added. “If I can improve on that, I’ll send you a message. Bow Street good enough?”
“Certainly. Thank you.”
The surgeon shrugged slightly, inclined his head in a salute and went back to the mortuary wagon to instruct his men in the removal of the body.
Pitt looked at his pocket watch again. It was just after quarter to five.
“I suppose it is time we started waking people,” he said to Tellman. “Come on.”
Tellman sighed heavily, but he had no option but to obey. Together they walked up the steps of the house where the body had been found, and Pitt pulled the brass doorbell. Tellman rather liked Pitt’s refusal to go to the tradesmen’s entrance, as someone of the social order of policemen should do, but while he approved the principle, he also loathed the practice. Let Pitt do it when Tellman was not with him.
It was several long, uncomfortable minutes before they heard the bolts slide and the lock turn. The door swung inward and an extremely hastily dressed footman, not in livery but in ordinary dark trousers and jacket, stood blinking at them.
“Yes sir?” he said with alarm. He was not yet practiced enough to have the really superior footman’s supercilious air.
“Good morning,” Pitt replied. “I am sorry to disturb the household so early, but I am afraid there has been an incident which necessitates my making enquiries of both the staff and the family.” He held out his card. “Superintendent Pitt, of the Bow Street Station. Would you present it to your master and ask him if he will spare me a few moments of his time. I am afraid it concerns a very serious crime, and I cannot afford the pleasantries of waiting until a more civilized hour.”
“A crime?” The footman looked startled. “We haven’t been burgled, sir. There’s been no crime here. You must have made a mistake.” He started to close the door again, relieved to shut the whole matter outside on the street. It was somebody else’s problem after all.
Tellman moved forward as if to put his foot in the doorway, then resisted. It was undignified. He hated this. Give him ordinary people to deal with any day. The whole notion of being in service to someone else was abomination to him. It was no way for a decent man, or woman, to make a living.
“The burglary is incidental, if indeed there was one,” Pitt said firmly. “The murder is my concern.”
That stopped the footman as if frozen. The blood fled from his face.
“The … the what?”
“Murder,” Pitt repeated quietly. “Unfortunately, we found the body of a man on your doorstep about an hour ago. Now, would you please be good enough to waken your master and inform him that I need to speak to everyone in the house, and I would like his permission to do so.”
The footman swallowed, his throat jerking. “Yes … yes sir. If … I mean …” His voice trailed off. He had no idea where one left policemen to wait at five o’clock in the morning. Normally one would not permit them on the premises at all. If one had to, it would be the local constable, perhaps for a hot cup of tea on a cold day, and that in the kitchen, where such people belonged.
“I’ll wait in the morning room,” Pitt said to assist him, and because he had no intention of being left shivering on the step.
“Yes sir … I’ll tell the General.” The footman backed in, and Pitt and Tellman followed him.
“General?” Pitt asked.
“Yes sir. This is General Brandon Balantyne’s home.”
The name was familiar. It took Pitt a moment to place it. It must be the same General Balantyne who had previously lived in Callander Square when Pitt was investigating the deaths of the babies, nearly a decade before, and who had also been involved in the tragedies in the Devil’s Acre three to four years later.
“I didn’t know that.” It was a foolish remark, and he realized it the moment it had crossed his