Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [73]
“It looks more like passion than greed,” Pitt answered. “But all sorts of people are capable of that, not only Frenchmen and eccentrics.”
Tellman gave him a look of silent disdain.
“We’ll go back to the embassy in the morning,” Pitt conceded. “We need to know what happened to Henri Bonnard, even if it is only to exclude him from the investigation.”
“Or what happened to Cathcart,” Tellman added.
“I think we know what happened to him,” Pitt said sadly. “He was murdered in his own house, and then sent down the Thames on a last, obscure journey. What I don’t know is by whom, and exactly why.”
Tellman did not answer.
However, Monsieur Villeroche was just as adamant as he had been the first time they saw him, only on this occasion he managed to conduct the meeting in the privacy of his own neat office.
“No! No, absolutely!” he repeated. “He has not returned nor sent any word, so far as I know, and I am at my wits’ end to know what has happened to him.” His face was pink, and he waved his hands jerkily to emphasize his distress. “It is now well over a week and there is no account of him at all. His work is piling up, and I am simply told not to worry. I am worried sick! Who would not be?”
“Have you been in contact with his family in France?” Pitt asked him.
“In France? No. They live in the south—Provence, I believe. He would hardly go all the way there without telling me. If a crisis arose it would be simple enough to ask for leave. The ambassador is not unreasonable.”
Pitt did not pursue it. Tellman had already ascertained that Bonnard had not taken the packet boat across the Channel but had returned from Dover to London.
“Could it be a romantic affair?” he said instead.
Villeroche shrugged. “Then why not simply say so?” he asked reasonably. “He has not taken a normal leave of absence, a holiday, that is certain. What kind of a man pursues a secret romantic affair by abandoning his position, where he is trusted and respected, and disappearing into . . . God knows where? . . . and without a word to anyone?”
“A man who is pursuing someone he should not be,” Pitt said with a slight smile. “A man in the grasp of a passion so intense he loses all sense of propriety or duty towards his colleagues.”
“A man who does not desire to keep his position,” Villeroche responded. “And thus be in a situation to afford to marry this secret love.” He bit his lip. “So I suppose we must speak of an illicit affair, a woman who is already married or is the daughter of someone who does not find him an acceptable suitor. Or, I suppose, a woman of low class he could not marry? Or . . .” He did not name the last alternative, but both Pitt and Tellman knew what he was thinking.
“Is that likely?” Pitt asked, avoiding Tellman’s eye. The green velvet gown was sharp in his memory.
Villeroche frowned. “No!” He was obviously surprised that it should even be considered. “Not in the least. I know that one seldom understands a person as well as one imagines, but Bonnard seemed as natural a man as any I know.” He shook his head slightly. “But I wish you could find him. He was distressed before he left, laboring under some . . . some difficulty, some pressure, although I have no idea what. I am afraid some harm has come to him.”
Pitt obtained a list of clubs and other places Bonnard frequented, and where he would almost certainly call were he in London. Then he thanked Villeroche and he and Tellman took their leave.
“Well, what do you reckon, then?” Tellman said as soon as they were out in the windy street again.
An omnibus clattered past them, women on the open top deck clasping their hats. A man on the footpath jammed his bowler on more firmly.
A newspaper seller shouted headlines about a government bill and the forthcoming visit of some minor royalty to London, doing his best