Belgrave Square - Anne Perry [97]
He was lost in tangled thoughts and memories when the cabby drew up at the Clerkenwell station and announced his arrival.
Pitt climbed out, paid him, and went in to find Innes.
As soon as he saw Innes’s face he knew the news was disturbing. Innes’s thin features were twisted in unhappiness and there were dark circles under his eyes as if he had been up too long and slept badly.
“Mornin’, Mr. Pitt,” he said glumly, rising to his feet. “You’d better come out.” And without explaining himself any further he pushed past an overweight sergeant and a constable chewing on a peppermint stick, and led the way out again into the street.
Pitt followed close behind him and then fell into step on the pavement where there was room to walk side by side. He did not ask. The sun was bright again the morning after the previous night’s rain and everything looked cleaner and there was a crispness in the air.
“I followed ’im,” Innes said, looking down at the stones beneath his feet as if he must watch his step in case he tripped, although the way was perfectly smooth.
Pitt said nothing.
“If Weems were blackmailing ’im, I know what it were for,” Innes went on after another few yards. He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed hard. Still he did not look at Pitt. “ ’E spent the evenin’ at a music ’all in Stepney.”
“That’s not an offense,” Pitt said, knowing there must be more. An evening at a music hall was a perfectly acceptable type of relaxation for a busy man. There were tens of thousands in the city who spent their time so. His remark was pointless; it was only a rather futile way of putting off the moment when Innes would tell him the real discovery. He could almost hear the words before they were spoken. There would be a woman, pretty, probably buxom, perhaps a singer, no doubt wooed by many, and Urban, like countless men before him, had got into debt trying to outdo his rivals.
“Get on with it,” Pitt said abruptly, stepping off the pavement for a couple of yards to avoid a peddler.
“ ’E worked there,” Innes answered equally abruptly, catching up with him.
“What?” Pitt could scarcely believe him. “In the halls? Urban! I can’t see him as a turn on the boards. He’s too—too sober. He likes fine paintings—probably classical music, given the chance.”
“No sir—not on the stage. As a bouncer, throwin’ out them as gives trouble.”
“Urban!”
“Yessir.” Still Innes stared down at his pacing feet on the pavement, face straight ahead. “Quite good at it, ’E is. Big feller, and got the kind of air of authority as people don’t argue wiv. I saw ’im break up a nasty quarrel between a couple o’ gents what ’ad ’ad a bit too much, and ’E did it quick and quiet like, and only them closest ’ad any idea it’d been nasty.” He moved aside to allow a woman with three children in tow to pass. “Paid ’im quite nice fer it, the management,” he continued when she was gone. “ ’E could ’a saved quite a bit over the years if ’e’s bin doin’ it long. Wouldn’t ’a needed Weems’s money to do quite nice fer ’isself. But o’ course if Weems knew, ’e’d ’ave ’ad a nice ’old over ’im. Rozzers moonlighting. Thrown off the force. an’ I don’t suppose Mr. Urban wants to do bouncin’ for a livin’.”
“No,” Pitt said slowly. A small part of him was relieved because it was so much less pathetic than making a fool of himself over a woman he would never have married anyway. But it was far more serious. As Innes said, he would have been dismissed from the force. The mounting sense of relief was darkened over and with thoughts much uglier and more painful. If Weems knew of it, then it was motive for murder.
They walked side by side in silence for