Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [1]
“Another one of your scandals, Pitt?” he said dryly. “I don’t envy you unraveling this one. Do you know who he is?” He let out a sigh as he reached the bottom step, standing precariously only a foot above the sucking water. “Well, well. Didn’t think there was much about human nature I didn’t know, but I swear it’s beyond me what some men will do to entertain themselves.” Very carefully, he balanced his weight and moved over to stand in the punt. It rocked and pitched him forward, but he was ready for it. He knelt down and started to examine the dead man.
Pitt found himself shivering in spite of the fact that it was not really cold, only damp. He had sent for his assistant, Sergeant Tellman, but he had not yet arrived. He looked back at the constable.
“Who found this, and what time?”
“I found it meself, sir. This is my beat along ’ere. I were goin’ ter sit on the steps an’ have a bite to eat when I saw it. That were about ’alf past five, sir. But o’ course it could ’a bin there a lot longer, ’cause in the dark no one’d ’ave seen it.”
“But you saw it? A bit dark, wasn’t it?”
“More like ’eard it, bumpin’, an’ went ter see what it was. Shone me light on it, an’ near ’ad a fit! I don’t understand the gentry, an’ that’s a fact.”
“You think he’s gentry?” Pitt was vaguely amused in spite of himself.
The constable screwed up his face. “Where’d a working bloke get fancy clothes like that dress? It’s velvet. An’ you look at ’is ’ands. Never done a day’s work wi’ them.”
Pitt thought there was a strong element of prejudice in the constable’s deductions, but he was probably right anyway, and it was good observation. He told him so.
“Thank you, sir,” the constable said with pleasure. He had aims of being a detective one day.
“You had better go to the French Embassy and fetch someone to see if they can identify him,” Pitt went on.
“Who—me, sir?” The constable was taken aback.
Pitt smiled at him. “Yes. After all, you were the one alert enough to see the likeness. But you can wait and see what the surgeon says first.”
There were a few moments’ silence, then the punt rocked a little, scraping against the stone. “He was hit on the head with something very hard and rounded, like a truncheon or a rolling pin,” the surgeon said distinctly. “And I very much doubt it was an accident. He certainly didn’t tie himself up like this.” He shook his head. “God knows whether he put the clothes on or someone else did. They’re torn enough to indicate a struggle. Very difficult to do anything much with a dead body.”
Pitt had been expecting it, but it still came as a blow. Some part of him had been hoping it was an accident, which would be ugly and stupid, but not a crime. He also hoped profoundly it was not the missing French diplomat.
“You’d better see for yourself,” the surgeon offered. Pitt clambered inelegantly into the rocking punt and in the now clear, white light of sunrise, bent to examine the dead man carefully, detail by detail.
He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, very clean and well nourished but without any surplus flesh. He was a trifle soft, fat on his limbs rather than muscle. His hands were fine and soft. He wore a gold signet ring on his left hand. There were no calluses, no marks of ink, but there was a fine scar on the first finger of the left hand, as if a knife or similar blade might have slipped in his grasp. His face was expressionless in death, and it was hard to judge anything of character. His hair was thick and finely barbered, far better than Pitt’s had ever been in his life. Unconsciously he put his hand up and pushed it off his own brow. It fell back immediately. But then it was probably six inches longer than that of the man on his back in the punt.
Pitt looked up.
“Be diplomatic, Constable. Just say we’ve found a body and would like his help in identifying it. There is some urgency.”
“Do I tell ’im it’s murder, sir?”
“Not unless you have to, but don’t lie. And for heaven’s sake, don’t tell him any of the details. You won’t get