Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [94]
Urban smiled. It was charming and candid and there was a flicker of humor in the depths of his eyes.
“I can’t tell you,” he said quietly. “Or to be more accurate, I don’t wish to. But I was not in Cyrus Street, and I did not kill your usurer—or anyone else.”
Pitt smiled back.
“I’m afraid your word is not proof.”
“No, I know it isn’t. But I’m sorry, that’s all you’re getting. I assume you’ve tried the other people on this list? How many are there?”
“Three—and I’ve one man left.”
“Who were the other two?”
Pitt thought for a moment, turning over the possibilities in his mind. Why did Urban want to know? Was he being helpful, seeking some common denominator, or an excuse, someone else to lay the blame on? Urban had to know that he would rather be suspected than admit to it.
“I prefer to keep that confidential for a little longer,” Pitt replied, equally calmly and with the same frank smile.
“Was Addison Carswell one of them?” Urban asked, and then his wide mouth curled in a faint touch of humor when he saw Pitt’s face, the start of surprise before he formed a denial.
“Yes,” Pitt conceded. There was no point in pretending any more. Urban had seen it in his eyes and a lie would not be believed.
“Mm,” Urban grunted thoughtfully. He seemed not to find it necessary to ask who the third was, and that in itself had meaning. “You know that damned Osmar has put his friends up to raising questions in the House?” he said with anger and incredulity in his voice.
“Yes, Dilkes told me. What are you going to do?”
“Me?” Urban leaned back in his chair. “Carry on with the prosecution, of course. The law for ex-government ministers is the same as for anyone else. You don’t play silly beggars on the seats of public parks. If you must make an ass of yourself with a young woman, you do it in private where you don’t offend old ladies and frighten the horses.”
Pitt’s smile widened.
“Good luck,” he said dryly, and excused himself. He wondered how Urban knew the first name on Weems’s list had been Addison Carswell. From what reasoning did he deduce that?
He could not possibly follow Urban himself; they knew each other far too well by sight. Reluctantly he would have to hand it over to Innes.
He went home earlier than usual. There was not much more he could do unless he began to investigate Latimer, and that could wait until tomorrow. He felt no guilt at putting off what would almost certainly be another extremely distasteful task, and after his discoveries about Carswell and Urban, he dreaded what he would find.
The following day Pitt took over Innes’s duties pursuing the investigations of the people on Weems’s first list, the long catechism of misery, ill education, illiteracy, humble employment, sickness, debt, drunkenness and violence, more debt, falling out of work, small loans, larger loans, and finally despair. Innes had already found all of them and questioned them. Most of them had been where they could easily be vouched for: in public houses, brawling in the streets or alleys, some even in police charge. The more respectable-men quietly despairing—had been at home sitting silent and hungry, worrying about the next day’s food, the next week’s rent, and what their neighbors would think, what else there was left to pawn.
It was bitterly miserable and all the pity in the world would change none of it. He was pleased to get home again in the heavy, sultry evening and find Charlotte had been visited by Emily and was full of colorful and superficial gossip.
“Yes, tell me,” he urged when she brushed it all aside and dismissed it as too trivial to bother him with. “I should like to hear.”
“Thomas.” She looked at him with wide, laughing eyes. “Don’t be so terribly agreeable. It’s unnatural and it makes me feel nervous, as if we were not quite at ease with each other.”
He laughed and leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the small stuffed pouffe, something which he did regularly, and which always annoyed her because his heels scuffed it.
“I would love to hear something totally