Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [179]
“I don’t know.” Pitt shook his head. “Valerius will bring proof of the financial connection, which will be sufficient to go and question him. Then we can find the stick, or prove he has recently lost one. I don’t suppose we’ll ever find the blunderbuss, or that he will have kept Weems’s half of the letter.”
“The main thing will be to see if we can place him in Cyrus Street,” Drummond pointed out. “Or if he can prove he was somewhere else. When do you expect this Valerius?”
“Some time this evening.”
“No more accurate than that?”
“No—he said it would not take him long, but I did not press him to a particular hour.”
Drummond rose to his feet slowly, as though his body were stiff.
“Then I’ll go and see Byam, at least tell the poor devil he is no longer suspected. He will be very shocked if it is Anstiss. They have been friends most of their lives.”
“He won’t be so very shocked when he realizes Anstiss has read Laura’s letters,” Pitt said dryly.
Drummond made no comment, but picked up his hat from the stand at the door, and his cane from the rack below.
Drummond walked well over a mile before he hailed a hansom and directed it towards Belgrave Square. It was a cool evening with a breeze off the river and the mist was rising. By dusk it could well be foggy. He needed time to think, although all the time in the world would not alter the facts. He would be able to give Eleanor the one thing she really wished: her husband’s innocence, even his release from the second blackmail. Drummond would always know what the letter contained, the evidence that Byam’s involvement with Laura Anstiss was not as innocent as he had claimed, but he would not tell her that.
He passed a group of ladies and tilted his hat politely as they inclined their heads.
What Byam chose to tell Eleanor was his affair, and if she guessed he had lied it was still between them. She might well put it from her mind and forgive him. It had been twenty years ago, and before he knew her.
Then Drummond would never see her again, unless their paths crossed socially, and he was torn as to whether he even wanted that or not. It was a decision he would not make now.
An acquaintance passed in an open carriage and he acknowledged him absently. Why was it when you most wished to be alone that you passed so many people you knew?
He hailed a hansom and climbed in.
Belgrave Square came all too quickly. He alighted and paid. There was nothing more to decide, nothing more to think about. He went up the steps and pulled the bell.
The butler let him in and mistook his grave face for a portent of bad news.
“Shall I call Lord Byam, sir?” he said grimly.
Drummond forced a pleasanter look.
“If you please. I have word he will wish to hear.”
“Indeed, sir.” The man’s eyebrows rose. “I am very relieved.” And after conducting Drummond to the library, he disappeared about his errand.
The fire was lit this evening, in spite of its being summer and still many hours of daylight left. The mist was heavier now and there was a dampness to the air outside. The fire’s glow was welcome. Automatically Drummond went over to it.
Byam came almost immediately. Drummond was half glad Eleanor had not come with him. It would be easier, and perhaps more appropriate, if he were able to tell Byam without her there.
“What have you heard?” Byam did not even pretend to courtesies. His face was pale with spots of color high in his cheeks and his eyes looked feverish. He had closed the door behind him, cutting off the servants, Eleanor and the rest of the house. “Do you know who killed Weems?”
“Yes, I believe I do,” Drummond replied. He was taken by surprise that Byam should have asked so bluntly. He had expected to govern the conversation himself, to approach the subject and choose his words.
Byam tried to be casual, but his body under its elegant clothes was rigid and he drew his breath as though his lungs were compressed and his throat tight.
“Is it