Callander Square - Anne Perry [108]
“We appreciate that you’ve done the best you can, Pitt,” Sir George Smithers said irritably. “But you just haven’t got anywhere, have you? We’re no nearer a conclusion now than we ever were! It was a pretty long shot in the first place.”
“And we need you for more important things,” Colonel Anstruther added rather more civilly. “Can’t waste a good man on a hopeless case.”
“What about Dr. Bolsover?” Pitt asked bitingly. “Is he to be marked ‘unsolved’ as well? Don’t you think it’s a trifle soon? The public might think we weren’t trying!” He was too angry to care if his tone offended them.
“There is no need to be sarcastic, Pitt,” Smithers said coldly. “Of course we must make some endeavor with regard to Bolsover, although it does look rather as if the bounder got no more than he deserved. Know Reggie Southeron myself; harmless chap. A bit fond of his pleasures, but no real spite in him.”
Pitt snorted at his private thought.
“Somebody stuck a knife into Bolsover,” he pointed out.
“Good heavens, man, you don’t imagine it was Reggie, do you?”
“No, Sir George, I don’t; which is why I need to know who else Bolsover was blackmailing.”
“I think that’s a dangerous line of inquiry,” Smithers shook his head disapprovingly. “Cause a lot of—er—embarrassment. Better leave it alone and concentrate on the facts, get the doctor to tell you things about the body, lie of the land, find witnesses, and that sort of thing. Get at the truth that way.”
“I don’t think it can be done, sir,” Pitt replied, meeting the man’s eyes.
Smithers colored angrily at the insolence, not of the words, but of the stare.
“Then you’ll have to admit defeat, won’t you! But give it a try; we’ve got to make some appearance of doing our best.”
“Even if we’re not?” Pitt’s temper gave way.
“Be careful, Pitt,” Anstruther warned quietly. “You’re sailing perilously close to the wind. Lot of important people in Callander Square. They’ve taken about as much as they’re going to of police noising around in their private lives.”
“I take it they’ve complained?” Pitt asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Several of them, naturally I cannot tell you precisely who, might prejudice you against them, quite unfairly. Now be a good chap, go and look at the facts again. You never know, if you ask all the servants, you may be able to find one who saw something, at least know who was in and who was out; alibis, and all that.”
Pitt acquiesced, because there was nothing else he could do. He left feeling angry, and close to defeat. Had it not been for the sure knowledge that Charlotte would warm him, strengthen him, and fight to the last ditch for him, he might well have considered obeying the order in spirit, as well as to the letter.
Balantyne knew nothing of the pressure that had been put upon Pitt, because he was the only man in the square who had not been party to instigating it. When Reggie came to see him, bubbling over with good cheer after his recent reprieve, he had no idea what it was that excited him.
“Damn good thing, what?” Reggie gulped a glass of sherry to which he had helped himself. “Be able to get back to normal soon; and about time. All that wretched business behind us.”
“Hardly,” Balantyne said a little stiffly. He found Reggie’s joviality distasteful. “There is still the matter of four murders, apart from anything else.”
“Four murders?” Reggie paled noticeably, but it was not the murders that upset him, it was the “anything else”: namely the change in Adelina. The emotional comfort of his home had vanished. He was living with a stange woman he discovered he did not know at all, but who knew him painfully well, and had done so for a long time. It was a very unpleasant feeling indeed.
“Had you forgotten?” Balantyne asked coolly.
“No, no. I just hardly thought of the babies as murders. Probably born dead, what? And who knows what happened with Helena? Can’t tell now, poor creature.