Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [7]
Byam was watching them. “You see, Drummond, I am in a predicament. In the name of fellowship”—he invested the word with a fractionally heavier intonation than usual—“I ask you to come to my aid in this matter, and use your good offices to further my cause.” It was a curious way of phrasing it, almost as if he were using a previously prescribed formula.
“Yes,” Drummond said slowly. “Of course. I—I’ll do all I can. Pitt will take over the investigation from the Clerkenwell police. That can be arranged.”
Byam looked up quickly. “You know through whom?”
“Of course I do,” Drummond said a trifle sharply, and Pitt had a momentary flash of being excluded from some understanding between them, as if the words had more meaning than the surface exchange.
Byam relaxed fractionally. “I am in your debt.” He looked at Pitt directly again. “If there is anything further I can tell you, Inspector, please call upon me at any time. If it has to be in my office in the Treasury, I would be obliged if you exercised discretion.”
“Of course,” Pitt agreed. “I shall simply leave my name. Perhaps you could answer a few questions now, sir, and save the necessity of disturbing you again?”
Byam’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly as if the immediacy took him aback, but he did not argue.
“If you wish.”
Pitt sat forward a little. “Did you pay Weems on request, or on a regular and prearranged basis?”
“On a regular basis. Why?”
Beside Pitt, Drummond shifted position a fraction, sitting back into the cushions.
“If Weems was a blackmailer, you may not have been the only victim,” Pitt pointed out courteously. “He might have used the same pattern for others as well.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Byam’s face at his own stupidity.
“I see. Yes, I paid him on the first day of the month, in gold coin.”
“How?”
“How?” Byam repeated with a frown. “I told you, in gold coin!”
“In person, or by messenger?” Pitt clarified.
“In person, of course. I have no wish to raise my servants’ curiosity by dispatching them with a bag of gold to a usurer!”
“To Clerkenwell?”
“Yes.” Byam’s fine eyes widened. “To his house in Cyrus Street.”
“Interesting—”
“Is it? I fail to see how.”
“Weems felt no fear of you, or he would not have allowed you to know both his name and his whereabouts,” Pitt explained. “He could perfectly easily have acted through an intermediary. Blackmailers are not usually so forthright.”
The irritation smoothed out of Byam’s expression.
“No, I suppose it is remarkable,” he conceded. “I had not considered it. It does seem unnecessarily rash. Perhaps some other victim was not so restrained as I?” There was a lift of hope in his voice and he regarded Pitt with something close to appreciation.
“Was that the only time you went to Cyrus Street, sir?” Pitt pursued.
Drummond drew in his breath, but then changed his mind and said nothing.
“Certainly,” Byam replied crisply. “I had no desire to see the man except when it was forced upon me.”
“Did you ever have any conversation with him that you can recall?” Pitt went on, disregarding his tone and its implications. “Anything at all that might bear on where he obtained information about you, or anyone else? Any other notable people he might have had dealings with, either usurious or extortionate?”
A shadow of a smile hovered over Byam’s lips, but whether at the thought or at Pitt’s use of words it was impossible to tell.
“I am afraid not. I simply gave him the money and left as soon as I could. The man was a leech, despicable in every way. I refused to indulge in conversation with him.” His face creased with contempt—Pitt thought not only for Weems, but for himself also. “Now I suppose it might have been an advantage if I had. I’m sorry to be of so little use.”
Pitt rose to his feet. “It was hardly foreseeable,” he said with equally dry humor. “Thank you, my lord.”
“What are you going to do?” Byam asked, then instantly his features reflected annoyance, but it was too late to withdraw