Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [112]
Perhaps it was worse than that? He might have left the evidence in existence, with a trail that could be followed, precisely so Voisey and Pitt would send someone after it, and they would be caught. Pitt, at least, would do anything he could to extricate them, and be caught himself. He looked at Tellman quickly. “It’s too dangerous. He must have thought of it. He’ll be waiting for one of us to try. He’ll…”
“He’ll beat us if we don’t,” Tellman interrupted. “I’d rather be beaten trying than give up first.”
“If we give up first, we’d be alive to go on fighting,” Pitt pointed out angrily. It was not Tellman he was furious with; it was Wetron, the circumstances that brought them to this point, the corruption, the stupidity, the fact that he did not know who to trust.
“Not much purpose in fighting after you’ve lost,” Tellman said with a sour smile. “Do you really think he’s thought of us coming after it?”
“We can’t afford to assume he didn’t,” Pitt said. “But that means there will be a trail of some sort drawing us in.”
“What made Voisey think of it?”
“I don’t know. But it’s obvious, if you aren’t blinded by loyalty, assumptions of decency that we made—and he didn’t.”
“Is that all, just a deduction that happened to come now?”
“I don’t know.”
Tellman contemplated it for a few more moments. It was dark outside now, no light through the crack in the curtains. “If whatever proof there is is in his home, then it makes it obvious that he’s using it somehow. The other way, if it’s in his office in Bow Street, it could be something he has innocently kept. He could say he’d just come across it, and was about to investigate it. He could blame anyone.”
“And it could be far easier to find,” Pitt added. “But it could be in his desk, where no one else would see it. The last thing he actually wants is for anyone else to see it and prosecute his man. He can’t afford to have him questioned at all, let alone in court.”
Pitt felt more and more sure the document, or whatever it was, had been destroyed. They would be caught searching without there ever having been a danger they would find it. And yet to be too afraid even to try was to admit defeat.
“I could look in Wetron’s office,” Tellman said. “There’s only moderate danger in that. We’ve already proved the connection between the anarchists, the police and the bombings. It’s reasonable for me to go looking for other names, suspicions, charges possibly unproved but still interesting.”
“True. But if he wants to be sure he can keep on using it, it won’t be where anyone in his station could find it,” Pitt assumed.
Tellman considered that for a few moments. “No, but I’ll start there.”
“That’s all!” Pitt warned. “Search there, then leave it!”
“Right,” Tellman answered. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
But even as he said it, Tellman had no intention of stopping if he found nothing at Bow Street. Actually, he did not expect to find proof of any crime Wetron could use. What he did think possible was that Wetron would have left some clue as to where such proof might be, exactly as Pitt had said, so someone would get caught looking for it, preferably Tellman himself.
He lay in bed that night staring up at the wavering light on the ceiling. The scant traffic passed by, carriage lamps bright, and the boughs of the lime tree outside the window were blown back and forth across the streetlamp on the other side.
He would need help. There was no use asking any of his colleagues. Apart from the fact that they would not believe him, he dared not trust them, especially Stubbs. Even the honest ones could be hostages to fear and old loyalties. However, the first issue was that they would not have the skills that he was looking for. He needed a thief, a first-class housebreaker, someone who could go in and out without a soul being the wiser until it was too late. He needed a man who could break a window with the soundless “star-glazing” method, climb in and find the right room in moments, not wake a domestic dog or light-sleeping footman, then open the safe with the manipulation of skeleton