Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [85]
Pitt leaned farther back in his large chair. The desk was between them, meticulously polished, and inlaid with green leather.
“And he waited six years to murder a prostitute and blame Finlay for it?” He raised his eyebrows.
“All right, that’s ridiculous, put like that. The cuff link’s an accident. Finlay was there once. The badge was put there deliberately by someone, for whatever reason we’ll discover in time.”
Pitt put forward Charlotte’s idea. “If someone really hated Augustus FitzJames enough, perhaps the badge we found was not the original one, but a copy someone had made in order to implicate him?”
Ewart’s face lit up. His clenched fist thumped very gently on the desktop. “Yes! Yes, that’s the most likely solution so far! It could well be what happened.” Then his eyes shadowed. “But how could we prove that? I’ll start my men searching for a jeweler straightaway, but he’ll probably have been well paid to keep silent.”
“We’ll start by searching Finlay’s rooms again for the original,” Pitt replied, although he had scant hope of succeeding. “I’ve no idea whether it’s the truth or not, but any good defense counsel would put it forward as a suggestion, to indicate reasonable doubt. That may be its main relevance to us.”
Far from being disheartened, Ewart was elated.
“But it is reasonable doubt!” he said fervently. “Unless we have more, there’s no point in arresting him, whatever we believe.”
“No,” Pitt conceded, and it was a concession. He could not help wondering how much Ewart’s unwillingness was belief in the possibility of Finlay’s innocence, and how much merely cowardice, a dread of the battle that lay ahead, even the threat to his own career, the myriad small struggles and unpleasantnesses which would lie ahead if they pursued Finlay FitzJames for the murder. Augustus would be fighting for his social and political life. There would be no mercy, and no rules, except those forced upon him by circumstance.
He went personally to supervise the further search of the FitzJames house for the original badge. He took two constables with him, and was admitted at first with reluctance, then with appreciable surprise when he explained his purpose.
It took them a little under three quarters of an hour, then the badge was discovered in the inside pocket of a jacket the valet said he could not remember Mr. Finlay’s having worn, which was extremely thin at the elbows and a little frayed at the collar. It was apparently kept only for sentimental reasons, and then at the back of the wardrobe. It was comfortable, something for him to use on summer walks, when it did not matter if it were to get torn or grass stained. He had not had opportunity for such indulgence in some time. It could have been there all the time. There was fluff caught on the pin, and a tiny scratch across the face of the enamel.
The explanation was given by Miss Tallulah FitzJames, who happened to be there that morning, writing letters to certain of her friends and answering invitations.
Pitt stood in the morning room turning it over in his hand. It was exactly like the one in police custody. Certainly as he looked he could see no difference, except a slight variation in the careful copperplate writing of the name, Finlay FitzJames, under the pin at the back. It was written by a different hand. But then it would be. What he really needed was one of the other club badges to compare it with, to see which was the original and which the copy. There was no other way of telling.
But the other members denied still having theirs.
“What’s the matter, Superintendent?” Tallulah asked, looking at him with a faint flicker of concern in her face.
“I now have two badges for your brother, Miss FitzJames. One of them is a duplicate. I need to know which one, and why it was made, and by whom.”
She stared at him without blinking. “This one is the original. The one you found in Pentecost Alley is a duplicate, made by one of my father’s enemies in order to ruin us.