Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [110]
“It’ll be very dangerous,” she said a little huskily, but she too spoke half under her breath, afraid that Gracie might hear. There was nothing to be served by her knowing, and worrying. She knew too well what that fear was like to wish it upon anyone else, least of all someone she cared for. “What sort of proof is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe he’s lying?” she said. “Maybe there’s nothing at all, and what he wants is for Tellman to get caught. That would be a perfect revenge, and you couldn’t even really blame him. There’s…” She caught his sleeve as he stood in the doorway, already half-leaving.
He put his hand over hers. “I’m going to ask Voisey what it is before I speak to Tellman,” he answered.
“And if he doesn’t tell you?” She would not let go.
“Then I can’t ask Tellman to look for it.”
“You won’t ask him just even…”
“No.” He smiled. “No, I won’t.”
As it turned out, Voisey was quite specific. He simply was unwilling to commit it to paper, even sealed and in the hands of a messenger.
“I should have seen it before,” Voisey said angrily. He and Pitt were in the small sitting room in his house in Curzon Street. It was a room of extremely pleasing proportions, painted in dark reds with white sills and deep windows that looked out onto a terrace. Climbing vines half obscured the tops of two of them, softening light and adding a touch of cool green to the warmth of the walls. The furniture was simple, the wood so well polished it reflected the grain as if it had been made of silk. He was surprised to note quickly that the pictures were pen-and-wash sketches of trees, exquisite in winter starkness.
“Seen what?” he asked, accepting a seat on a deep-red-and-gold-velvet armchair.
Voisey remained standing. “Police deal in crime. It’s the obvious answer.”
“To what?” Pitt asked, masking his irritation with difficulty.
Voisey smiled, savoring the irony. “The police detect crime, of all sorts, low and high. Then we assume they prosecute it in the courts, and the accused, if found guilty, are sentenced.”
Pitt waited.
Voisey leaned forward a little. “What if they found a crime of which there is no proof, except to them? Or a crime where the victim is unlikely to speak? Then, instead of prosecuting, they quietly store this proof and blackmail the offender? I am surprised I have to explain this to you, Pitt.”
Pitt felt a sharp stab of realization, like a knife in the mind.
“You have very carefully saved the evidence against my sister, in order to make me do as you wish,” Voisey went on. “Why has it not occurred to you that Wetron may have done exactly the same thing? I would have, in his position. What’s more useful than a cat’s paw to do your bidding: buy dynamite, place it judiciously, ignite it at the right time, even murder Magnus Landsborough, if that’s what you need?”
It was so incredibly simple they should both have thought of it. Pitt could never have concealed a genuine crime. He knew as well as Voisey did that Mrs. Cavendish had had no idea she carried poison in the food she gave Reverend Rae. If Pitt could have had Voisey condemned for it he would have, even had it included her part in it. As it was, to use the evidence would have condemned her and allowed Voisey to walk away—saddened certainly, lonelier, possibly even plagued by guilt, but still free.
And would Pitt have had Mrs. Cavendish hanged for her brother’s crime, even if Voisey had hurt Charlotte? He did not know. The only thing that mattered was: Did Voisey believe that he would?
Of course Wetron was in the ideal position to find evidence of such a crime that he could use like that. “It could be anything, theft, arson, murder, anytime over the last…” he hesitated.
“Two or three years,” Voisey answered for him.
“Why so short a time?” Pitt questioned. “He’s been in the police all his adult life.”
“Consider it!” Voisey said impatiently, stepping back till the sunlight fell from the window across the carpet between