Bedford Square - Anne Perry [92]
She spat on the narrow pavement. “ ’Oo cares!” She took a step back, her voice hard.
“I do!” He reached out and snatched her arm. “I gotter find Ernie Wallace. It’s worth something to me to know for sure what happened.”
“Well, Joe won’t tell yer!” she said derisively. “ ’e got the worse of it, I know fer sure.”
“How do you know?” he insisted.
“ ’Cos I saw it, o’ course! ’ow d’yer think?”
“Did Slingsby say he’d get back at Wallace? Where’d he go after?”
“I dunno. ’e never went anyw’ere.” She pulled her arm away roughly. “ ’e could a’ bin dead, fer all I know.” Suddenly her face changed. “Jeez! Mebbe ’e were dead! Nobody in’t seen ’im since then.”
“In that case,” Tellman said very slowly, looking straight at her, “if it can be proved, then Ernie Wallace murdered him, and he’ll swing for it.”
“Oh, it can be proved ….” She stared back at him, wide-eyed. “I’ll see ter it. I swear ter that, I do. I’ll get it fer yer!”
She was as good as her word. The evidence was all he needed. He took two constables and together they found and arrested Ernest Wallace and charged him with the murder of Josiah Slingsby. But regardless of the subtlety or persistence of questioning, or the threats or promises made to him, Wallace was adamant that he had left the body of Slingsby in the alley where he had fallen, and himself left the scene with all the speed he could muster.
“W’y the bleedin’ ’ell should I a’ took ’im ter bleedin’ Bedford Square?” he demanded with amazement. “Wo’ for? D’yer fink I’m gonna carry a corpse wot I done in ’alfway ’roun’ Lunnon in the middle o’ the night, jus’ so as I can leave ’im on someone else’s bleedin’ doorstep? Wo’ fer?”
The notion of placing Albert Cole’s bill for socks in the pocket of the corpse had him seriously questioning Tellman’s sanity.
“Yer bleedin’ mad, you are!” He snorted, his eyes wide. “Wot the ’ell are yer on abaht—socks?” He guffawed with laughter.
Tellman left the Shoreditch police station deep in thought. Unconsciously, he pushed his hands farther into his pockets, not realizing how he was mimicking Pitt. He believed Wallace, simply because what he said made sense. He had killed Slingsby in a fight which was violent, stupid, born of an un-governed temper and a quarrel over money. There was no forethought in it, no planning either before or after.
So who put the socks receipt in Slingsby’s pocket and where had he got it from? Where was Albert Cole now … alive or dead? And above all, why?
There was only one answer that came to his mind: in order to blackmail General Brandon Balantyne.
The street was shimmering with heat. It rose in waves from the stones, and the sheer brick walls on either side seemed to hem him in. The horses trotting briskly between the shafts of hansoms and drays alike were dark with sweat. The smell of manure was sharp in the air. He preferred it to the stale, clinging odor of drains.
A running patterer stood on the corner with a small group of listeners gathered around him. He was spinning a doggerel poem about the Tranby Croft affair and the Prince of Wales’s affection for Lady Frances Brooke. His version of the tale reflected rather better on Gordon-Cumming than on the heir to the throne or his friends.
Tellman stopped and listened for a minute or two, and gave the man a threepenny bit, then crossed the street and went on his way.
What did the blackmailer want? Money, or some corrupt action? And there had to be more to it than merely Slingsby’s body, even if it were believed to be that of Albert Cole, or Balantyne would never submit. The answer to those questions must lie with Balantyne. He would do as Pitt had told him and investigate the General more thoroughly, but he would be highly discreet about it. And he would tell Gracie nothing. His face burned at the thought, and he was surprised and angry at how guilty it made him feel that he would be keeping it from her, after he had given her his word, at least implicitly, to help.
He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and strode along the pavement with his shoulders hunched and his lips in a thin