Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [57]
“Ours, Innes,” Pitt said flatly. “He is police.”
Innes’s face would have been comical were the situation not so painful. All the ugly possibilities flickered through his mind and across his wildly expressive face, debt, gambling, blackmail and corruption.
“Ah,” he said at last. “I see. Yes sir. Let’s dispose o’ Mr. Carswell first then. I’ll see to it that ’e’s followed all night, every night, sir.” And with that he turned on his heel and went out, leaving Pitt alone in the small, cramped room.
During the next four days Pitt followed Addison Carswell from the Bow Street court to his home; to Kensington, Chelsea and Belgravia to dine with acquaintances; to his club, where he had to remain outside, unable to learn if he gambled, won or lost, whom he owed or with whom he spoke. It was almost a waste of time, since all he could learn of use was closed to him, but he had not yet any grounds to go in and demand information with any authority.
He followed Carswell to his tailor, who seemed to receive him without the rather stiff, hostile familiarity tailors employed if they were owed money. Indeed the man was all smiles when he came to the door to bid Carswell good-day.
It was not until the fifth day, when Pitt was losing heart, that Carswell finally went somewhere of interest. Shopping of itself held no particular meaning, nor even what he purchased. A pretty hat and a lace parasol, all wrapped in tissue and pink boxes, were not remarkable purchases for a man with a wife and four daughters, three of them unmarried. It was the fact that when he emerged from the shop, Pitt close behind him, he hurried along the footpath, head down, occasionally glancing sideways. Once when he saw ahead of him someone he seemed to know, he pulled his hat forward and leaped over the gutter to dart across the street in front of a brougham, almost under the horse’s hooves, startling the animal and causing the driver to jerk on the reins and swear violently, then draw up his vehicle, shaking with fear that he had so nearly killed a man.
Pitt had lost sight of Carswell and felt a twinge of uncertainty. The sweat broke out on his skin as he struggled to find a space between the broughams, barouches, landaus, phaetons and victorias to go over himself. He danced on the curb in impatience as a brewer’s dray went past him, with huge bay horses, flanks gleaming, manes braided and ribboned, hard followed by a hansom, then a clarence. At last he ran out into the street, defying an open landau with two women taking the air, raced in front of a barouche going the other way, and reached the opposite side amid a group of fashionable idlers. Carswell was nowhere in sight. He brushed past three men talking, calling out apologies, and ran along the path, only catching up with Carswell as he was about to climb into a cab.
Pitt hailed a hansom immediately behind.
“Follow that cab that just pulled out!” he ordered.
“What?” The cabby was suspicious, turning on his box to stare at him.
“I’ma policeman,” Pitt said urgently. “A detective. Follow that cab!”
“A detective?” The man’s face brightened with sudden interest.
“Get on with it!” Pitt said exasperatedly. “You’ll lose him.”
“No I won’t!” The cabby caught the spirit of it. “I can follow anybody anywhere in London.” And with enthusiasm and some skill he urged his horse and turned into the traffic, butting ahead of a victoria and across the path of a berline. They were going westward towards Curzon Street, but south, which made Pitt at last feel that he was about to discover something of Carswell that was not utterly predictable and totally innocent.
He sat upright in the cab, wishing he could see forward as well as sideways as they went over the river at Westminster Bridge, then turned south into Lambeth.
They traveled up Westminster Bridge Road and Pitt could see couples out walking, the women in pastels and flowers and laces in the late afternoon sunshine. One or two carried parasols, more for elegance than to protect them from the soft light, and the heat was gone. He wondered who Carswell’s gifts were