Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [137]
Landsborough came forward. “Good afternoon, Mr. Pitt. It is good of you to come in person to inform us.”
“I thought you would wish to know,” Pitt replied. “We now have sufficient evidence to arrest the man who killed your son.”
Landsborough turned to Cordelia who let out a gasp, her face flooding with relief.
“Thank you!” she said with a crack in her voice. “It…it has been very hard waiting.”
Landsborough kept his composure with difficulty. “I am deeply obliged to you, Pitt. It is a great burden lifted, especially among so much bad news. I see from the afternoon papers that Sir Charles Voisey is dead.” His face looked pinched as he said it, the disappointment in his eyes profound. He looked at Pitt, desperate for some shred of hope to defeat the bill. His son was dead and the liberal, tolerant, enlightened world he loved seemed about to be submerged in a tide of corrupt tyranny. He knew of no way to fight it, let alone to win.
There was one last, terrible blow Pitt could not prevent. He could not even deliver it now, in front of Denoon. Wetron was too clever and too deadly a foe.
“Yes,” Pitt said. “It appears that he was corrupted in a way we had no idea of.”
“The newspapers are full of it,” Landsborough agreed with acute distaste. “Superintendent Wetron is the hero.”
“He’s a good man,” Denoon said sharply. “We owe him a great deal. He acted with supreme courage and decision. I admire a man who has the forthrightness of his convictions and goes to face the enemy himself, instead of sending his juniors to do it.” He smiled bleakly. “Good thing he did. A lesser man might have ended in arresting Voisey, with injuries to everyone, and then a messy trial with a lot of scandal coming out. This way he’s unmasked Simbister and gotten rid of Voisey as swiftly and surgically as possible. We can begin to recover. Get rid of the corruption and suppress the anarchy.”
Cordelia looked at him icily. “Mr. Pitt came to tell us that he is about to arrest the man who murdered Magnus, Edward, not to praise Wetron for shooting Sir Charles Voisey, much as we may have disagreed with him politically.”
“I didn’t disagree with him politically,” Enid said, staring at Cordelia. “Personally I thought he was a fearful man, cruel and greedy and careless of people’s welfare, but I thought politically he was absolutely right.”
“For heaven’s sake, Enid, you don’t know what you are talking about!” Denoon retorted. “He was against the Police Bill! Now we know why; he was totally corrupt, and he had corrupted Simbister as well.”
“That isn’t the reason,” she argued.
Denoon’s face was dark with anger.
“Of course it is. He couldn’t afford to have the police investigated, he was in it up to his neck.” He turned to Pitt. “Isn’t that what you’ve come to say?”
“Were you investigating the police corruption?” Landsborough asked Pitt.
“Yes,” Pitt replied. “And it didn’t at any point implicate Sir Charles Voisey.”
“Then you are incompetent,” Denoon snapped back. “Superintendent Wetron’s evidence shows that Voisey was in it, in fact he was behind it. If you were any good at your job you would have known, and proved it, not had to have Wetron do it for you.”
Sheridan Landsborough froze. “Edward, Mr. Pitt is a guest in my home,” he said stiffly. “And as such you will treat him with courtesy, or if that is beyond you, then at least with civility. He has come here to tell me he is about to arrest the man who murdered my son. Will you at least respect my wife’s feelings, and mine, if you cannot respect the fact that you also are a guest here, even if you are family.” He invested the last word with such a desperate irony that Pitt had a sudden, agonizing certainty that Landsborough knew the truth about Magnus’s birth.
Denoon saw Pitt’s face and flushed scarlet. There was rage, and now fear as well in his eyes.
Cordelia glared at her husband, but she also said nothing.
Enid stood