Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [84]
He arrived at the Clerkenwell police station in a poor mood and went straight through to the small back office. Innes’s sharp, intelligent face was little cheer. This case was every bit as unpleasant and intractable as he had feared at the outset. There were too many elements in it that worried him. How had Byam heard of the murder so quickly? What was there in it that distressed Micah Drummond, and yet he could not speak of it and kept on through his embarrassment and obvious discomfort? Why had William Weems sat behind his desk and allowed someone to bring in a gun? A gun capable of firing the gold pieces would have to be a muzzle loader. Who walks through the streets carrying such a thing? It argued a very careful premeditation. Where were the incriminating papers and the letter Byam had said were there? If Byam was guilty, and he had removed them, why had he bothered to call Drummond and admit any connection at all? And what about Addison Carswell?
“Mornin’ sir,” Innes said cheerfully. “Lovely day again.”
“Yes,” Pitt agreed dourly. “Going to be hot.”
“Got anything further?” Innes was relentlessly optimistic, although his quick eyes had taken in Pitt’s expression. “Any of them other people look hopeful? We got nothing ’ere, an’ I can’t ’elp wonderin’ ’ow any o’ these people would get ’old o’ the kind o’ gun that killed the poor devil.” He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, a comfortable and informal gesture.
“I wish we could find that, Mr. Pitt,” he said with a frown. “I’d feel a lot closer if we could. I bin ’round all the cabbies, like you said, but no one remembers a fare carryin’ anything like a gun big enough ter blow Weems’s ’ead off.” He screwed up his face. “You sure it couldn’t ’a bin the one wot was already there on the wall? They couldn’t ’a used it then taken the pin down after, to confuse us, like?”
“No,” Pitt said grimly. “It was filed down and there was a patina of use on the metal. You don’t fake that in a few minutes. And who would think to bring a file—or hang around with that corpse to use it?”
Innes shrugged. “Yer right. It don’t make no sense. an’ there weren’t ’anging space fer another gun, nor there weren’t one moved on the wall, I looked fer that.”
“Did we ask the cleaning woman—what’s her name?”
“Mrs. Cairns.”
“Did we ask her if she’d seen another gun any time?”
“Yes—she said she ’adn’t seen nothing—but I don’t know whether to believe ’er or not. She’d no love fer ’im, as she don’t want ter get involved with any part of it.”
“You think she’d lie?” Pitt sat on the windowsill, this time leaving the chair for Innes, if he wished.
“I think she’d deliberately forget,” Innes said judiciously. “The local opinion is pretty well on the side of ’oever done it. ’E weren’t liked, weren’t Mr. Weems.”
“What a surprise,” Pitt said sarcastically. “Still, I think I’ll go and take another look at his rooms. Are all the papers still there?”
“Yes sir. Place is locked. I’ll get the key. Mind, I’m beginning ter think it were one o’ your nobs. Sorry sir, but I do.”
“So do I,” Pitt admitted. “But I’m often surprised.” He stood up again. “Come on—get that key and we’ll look again.”
Half an hour later they were methodically sorting through sheets of paper and putting them from one pile to another, uncertain what they were looking for. They found the closed office with its stale air, and their knowledge of what was done there, heavily oppressive, even to the rise of nausea if they stopped to imagine that night, the despair, the violence and the sudden horror of blood, an act irretrievable, and the fear afterwards.
“Got it!” Innes said suddenly in triumph, his voice ringing out in the heavy silence. “ ’Ere!” He held up a sheet of paper with a name in capitals on the top, and figures and dates and amounts all down it, finishing at the bottom with a line of handwriting.
“What?” Pitt said, puzzled as to what it could be and afraid to hope.
“ ’Ere!” Innes was not to be dampened in his victory. “Look!” He thrust the paper forward. “Walter ’Opcroft, paid ’is last installment of interest in ’is debt with