Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [106]
“I am not concerned with the property,” Pitt answered, still sitting where he was. “Only with the use made of it, to try to incriminate you.” He looked at Finlay. “You appear to have a very powerful and very bitter enemy, sir. The police would like to give you all possible assistance in discovering who that is and, if necessary, prosecuting them.”
Finlay was white, a fine beading of sweat on his skin. He swallowed as if he had something caught in his throat.
“I have many enemies, Superintendent,” Augustus cut across him, but his tone was guarded. “It is the price of success. It is unpleasant, but I am not afraid of it. The attempt to ruin my son has failed. Should they try anything further, I will deal with it myself with whatever defense is appropriate to its nature. I always have. I appreciate your concern for our well-being and your interest in justice.” This time he reached the bell. “The footman will show you out. Good day to you.”
Pitt remained unsatisfied about the issue, but he could not afford the time to pursue it any further, nor could he think of any useful line of enquiry. If Augustus had had the second badge made, that was explained, but not how the first one had been put in the bed in Pentecost Alley, or how it had come into the possession of whoever had left it there. Pitt could not believe both that and the cuff link had ended in the same room accidentally.
Possibly it was an enemy of Augustus FitzJames who sought this brutal and devious way to have his revenge, but it seemed more likely the opportunity had arisen for an enemy of Finlay. The other members of the Hellfire Club seemed the obvious choice. Why had they disbanded? Tedium? A sudden maturity? Some opportunity for one of them to advance himself, for which sobriety and a better reputation were necessary, and that had brought all of them to a realization that it was time to abandon such self-indulgence?
Or had there been a quarrel?
Pitt could not get rid of the idea that it was a quarrel, and that Jago Jones was the one with the obvious opportunity to leave anything in Ada’s rooms. Yet Jago’s face when he had first questioned him about the murder still sprang to his eye, and the horror in it when he had told him that Finlay’s badge had been found in the bed.
Did Finlay actually know who had tried to incriminate him, and did he also know why? Was it possible that he planned his own revenge, perhaps with his father’s help?
Why would he not simply tell Pitt and allow him to deal with it? A prosecution for theft, or even for simply leaving another man’s belongings in a prostitute’s room, would ruin Jago Jones. It would ruin Helliwell. His very proper parents-in-law would be scandalized by such a thing. Polite society would cease to know him. It would be long, drawn out and acutely painful. The victim would suffer every moment of it, both in anticipation and in retrospect. What punishment could be crueler or more effective than that?
If Augustus did not choose to effect it, then there must be some reason. To stay his hand and hold the threat forever over someone? To ask for some favor in return, something so big it would be worth forgoing the present pleasure?
Could taking his vengeance rebound upon himself or his family? Was the glamorous and flighty Tallulah in some way vulnerable?
It did not occur to Pitt as a possibility that Augustus would forgive the offense.
August ended in suffocating heat and passed into early September. The trial of Albert Costigan was due to begin. Two evenings before it opened, Pitt went