Bedford Square - Anne Perry [9]
No one had heard anything in the street outside.
There had been no caller or tradesman other than those who had dealt with the household for years, no vagrants, no followers after the female servants that anyone would acknowledge, no beggars, peddlers or new deliverymen.
Pitt and Tellman left Bedford Square at half past nine and caught a hansom back towards the Bow Street Station, stopping just short of it to buy a hot cup of tea and a ham sandwich from a stall on the pavement.
“Separate bedrooms,” Tellman said with his mouth full.
“People of that social status usually have,” Pitt replied, sipping his tea and finding it too hot.
“Hardly seems worth it.” Tellman’s face was eloquent of his opinion of them. “But it means no one in the house is accounted for. Could have been any of them, if the fellow did get in and was caught stealing.” He took another mouthful of his sandwich. “One of the maids could have let him in. It happens. Anyone could have heard him and got into a fight … even the General himself, come to that.”
Pitt would have liked to dismiss that suggestion, but the expression in Balantyne’s eyes when he had seen the snuffbox was too sharp in his mind to allow it.
Tellman was watching him, waiting.
“Early to speculate,” Pitt answered. “Get a little more evidence first. Go ’round the rest of the square, see if any of the other houses were broken into, anything moved, any disturbance.”
“Why would he move something rather than take it?” Tellman argued.
“He wouldn’t.” Pitt looked at him coolly. “If he were caught in the act and killed, presumably whoever killed him would take back what belonged to that house, but not the snuffbox, because it wasn’t theirs and would require some explanation. And we’ll see what the surgeon can tell us when he’s looked more closely. And there’s the bill for the socks.” He sipped his tea now it was cooler. “Although putting a name to him may not help a great deal.”
But diligent enquiry all around Bedford Square and the immediate neighborhood elicited nothing whatever of use. No one had heard anything, nothing was moved or missing. Everyone claimed to have slept through the night.
In the late afternoon General Balantyne and his butler, Blisset, fulfilled their duty by going to the mortuary to look at the dead man, but neither knew him. Pitt watched Balantyne’s expression as the face was uncovered and saw the momentary flicker of surprise, almost as if Balantyne had expected to see someone else, possibly someone familiar.
“No,” he said quietly. “I have not seen him before.”
Pitt arrived home late, and a small domestic crisis kept Charlotte too occupied for there to be time to discuss the case with her more than briefly. He did not yet want to tell her of General Balantyne’s involvement. He remembered that she had liked him. She had actually spent some time in his house, helping him with something or other. Better to see if a simpler explanation appeared before he distressed her, perhaps unnecessarily. Last thing at night was not an appropriate time.
In the morning Pitt went to inform Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis of the case, simply because it had occurred in a part of the City where such an event was remarkable. The crime itself might not have concerned any of the residents or their households, but they would certainly be inconvenienced by it.
Cornwallis was fairly new to his position. He had spent most of his career in the navy and was well accustomed to command, but the natures of crime and of politics were both new to him, and politics in particular he found at times beyond his comprehension. There was no deviousness to his mind. He was unaccustomed to vanity and circular thinking. The sea did not permit such indulgences. It sorted the skilled from the clumsy, the coward from the brave, with