Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [170]
“And Weems took it from her, because presumably you knew he had it or you would not have paid him?” Pitt went on.
Byam was very pale. “Yes. He had half of it. He showed it to me.”
“We didn’t find it.”
“No. I assume if you had you would not be asking me these questions. What can I tell you that is of any purpose now?”
“Do you know the name of this servant?”
Byam was quite motionless, but his eyes widened. “No—can it matter?”
“It may.”
“For heaven’s sake why?”
“Do you believe that whoever stole the letter did so by chance, sir?”
Byam’s face drained of every last vestige of blood. He swayed on his feet so that for a moment it seemed almost as if he might fall. He put his tongue over dry lips and made no sound.
Pitt waited, wondering if he would say something, anything at all to reveal what terrible thought had come to him. But the seconds ticked by and still he said nothing.
“The maid?” Pitt prompted at last. “She may have told someone else. Perhaps if she married, her husband might be a greedy or ruthless man?”
“I—I have—I have no idea,” Byam said at last. “It was twenty years ago. You will have to ask in Lord Anstiss’s house. Perhaps his butler has some record of past servants—or the housekeeper? Do you really think it could be that? It seems … farfetched.”
“It is farfetched that a man like Weems should have the means to blackmail a person of your position and standing,” Pitt pointed out. It was somewhat less than honest, but he did not wish Byam to have any idea that he suspected Anstiss, even as a remote possibility.
Byam smiled bitterly, but he seemed to accept it as an answer.
“Then you’d better go and see Lord Anstiss’s butler,” he said, as if weariness had suddenly overcome him and he were exhausted with it all. “I presume you know his address?”
“Not of the country house, sir, which is where I suppose I will find the appropriate butler?”
“No, not at this time of the year. Some domestic staff stay in the country, housekeepers probably, and maids, and so on, and a cook of sorts, and naturally all the outside staff, but the butler and valet travel with his lordship. You’ll find the butler in London.”
“Thank you. I shall call upon him and see if he has any record.”
“Please God you find something useful! This matter is—” he stopped, either not wanting to put words to it, or not finding any powerful enough to express his emotions.
“Thank you, sir,” Pitt said quietly.
“Is that all?”
“Yes, thank you sir, for the time being.” And Pitt excused himself and left Byam standing by the cold grate, staring outside at the garden and the fading light.
He preferred to visit Anstiss’s house during the day, when his lordship would more probably be out. He was not an easy man to bluff, or a man who would accept a partial explanation.
However on this occasion, although it was ten o’clock in the morning, Anstiss was at home, and he received Pitt in the morning room of his very elegant and imposing house. The style was Queen Anne, gracious and substantial, but with all the clean brilliance of that period. The curtains were forest-green velvet, the wood mahogany, and the one ornament Pitt had time to observe was an Irish silver chalice of utter simplicity and a beauty so exceptional he found it hard to refrain from staring at it, in spite of the urgency of his business and the fact that Anstiss made him less sure of himself than usual.
Anstiss stood beside a mahogany table with a large bronze of horses and surveyed Pitt with mild curiosity.
“What can I do for you, Inspector?” His blue-gray eyes were unflinching and he seemed vaguely amused. Certainly there was no apprehension in him at all. He was a spectator of this petty tragedy, no more.
Pitt had to treat him as if he knew nothing whatever about any part of the affair, except what anyone might know from the headlines in the newspapers.
“I am investigating the murder of a blackmailer, my lord,” Pitt began.
“How unpleasant. But I imagine such people frequently come to