Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [168]
“He may have got greedy,” Pitt said slowly. “He’d be a fool to try twisting the arm of whoever it is; and I don’t have the feeling that Weems was a fool. He wouldn’t have lasted long in that business if he were.”
Drummond bit his lip. “No—but greedy. He wouldn’t have been in the business in the first place otherwise.”
Pitt smiled. “I’ll grant you that.”
Drummond went on thoughtfully. “But if as you say Weems got his information from someone else, we have to find out who it was. In fact we ought to find out anyway. That someone will surely take up the blackmail—” He stopped, comprehension of something coming into his face and as quickly being masked.
But Pitt saw it.
“Again,” he finished for him. “And is he? Is someone being blackmailed again?”
Drummond hesitated.
Pitt saw his indecision and understood it. He had every compassion with Drummond’s feelings for Eleanor Byam, and thus the complex emotions over Byam himself, but he could not permit it to interfere with their pursuit of the truth.
“Byam,” he said aloud.
“I believe so.” Drummond did not look at him.
Pitt thought for a few moments before continuing.
“Byam,” he said at last. “I wonder why him, and so far as we know, not the others.”
Drummond lifted his face. “You have an idea?”
“Perhaps …”
“Well what is it? For heaven’s sake don’t equivocate. It’s not like you, and it doesn’t serve anyone.”
Pitt smiled for an instant, then was totally serious.
“What if Anstiss did not forgive him as openly and generously as Byam supposed? What if in fact he never got over Laura’s death, and above all her betrayal of him—and he is taking a subtle and vicious revenge on Byam for it?”
“But why now?” Drummond asked, his brows drawn together in doubt. “Laura Anstiss has been dead for twenty years, and Anstiss himself always knew the truth about it.”
“I don’t know,” Pitt confessed. “Perhaps something happened that they haven’t told us.”
“What, for example? A quarrel Byam would know about himself, and then he would hardly have drawn us in.”
“If he realized Anstiss was behind it,” Pitt argued. “Perhaps Weems was used as a cover precisely to prevent that.”
“Have you found any connection between Anstiss and Weems?” Drummond asked slowly. “Anything at all?”
“No—but it occurs to me that we may have been looking in the wrong area for the motive to murder Weems. It’s worth considering.”
Drummond remained silent for several moments, his face dark with thought.
Pitt waited some time before he interrupted him.
“Is it still money?” he said at last.
“What?”
“That Byam is being blackmailed for this time?”
“I think not,” Drummond said miserably. He drew in a deep breath then let it out. “I think this time it is influence in office—a matter of changing his mind over certain foreign investments and loans. At least it seems likely, from what Lady Byam says. I don’t know.”
“You asked him?”
“Of course I asked him.” Drummond colored very faintly. “He said it was partly a political decision, pressed upon him by fellow members of the Inner Circle, and for reasons he could not explain to me, but he said he was persuaded by them. He denied it was blackmail.”
“But you did not believe him?”
“No—I don’t think so. I’m not sure. But you’ll have to prove some connection between Anstiss and Weems, to make that even remotely believable. I can’t see Lord Anstiss as a petty blackmailer behind a wretch like Weems. How would he even come to know Weems in the first place?”
Pitt hitched himself a little further onto the desk.
“Maybe Weems found him. After all Weems had the love letter Laura Anstiss wrote to Byam. Maybe he tried to sell it to Anstiss first.”
“Then surely Anstiss would have killed him then, if he were going to do it at all,” Drummond reasoned. “No Pitt, I can’t see it. I agree there is someone behind Weems, apart from the servant who came up with the letter, someone who provided his other information.” He looked up suddenly. “Maybe one of Weems’s debtors? Perhaps some wretched beggar was desperate