Southampton Row - Anne Perry [124]
“I’ve no idea,” Pitt replied, too lost in his own unhappiness to catch the emotion in the other man’s voice.
Further discussion was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell again. Cornwallis stood up immediately and went to answer it without giving Pitt the opportunity. He returned a few moments later with Tellman behind him, looking like the chief mourner at a funeral.
Pitt waited for one of the other two to speak.
Tellman cleared his throat, then sank back into a wretched silence.
“What did you come for?” Pitt asked him. He heard his voice edgy and accusing, but it was beyond his control.
Tellman looked at him, glaring. “Where else would I be?” he challenged. “It was my fault! I told you to go to Teddington! You’d never have heard of Wray if it weren’t for me!” His face was filled with anguish, his body rigid, his eyes hot.
Pitt saw with a rush of surprise that Tellman really did blame himself for what had happened. He was scalded with a shame too deep to find words. At another time, if Pitt were hurting even a little less himself, he would have been moved by Tellman’s loyalty, but now his own fear was too deep. It all stemmed back to his evidence before Whitechapel. If only he hadn’t been so sure of himself, so pigheaded in giving evidence because he wanted his idea of justice served!
He had been right, of course, but that was not going to help now.
“Who told you about Francis Wray?” Cornwallis asked Tellman. “And for heaven’s sake sit down. We’re standing around as if we were at the graveside. The battle is not over yet.”
Pitt wanted to believe that, but there was no rational hope that he could grasp.
“Superintendent Wetron,” Tellman answered. He glanced at Pitt.
“Why?” Cornwallis persisted. “What reason did he give? Who suggested Wray to him? He didn’t know him himself, so who told him about Wray? Who made the connection between Wray and the unknown man who visited Maude Lamont?”
Absentmindedly, Pitt thought how Cornwallis had grown in his knowledge of detection. He looked at Tellman.
“He never said,” Tellman replied, his eyes widening. “I did ask him, but somehow he never really answered. Voisey? It must have been.” There was a thin thread of hope in his voice. “All the information about Wray came from Superintendent Wetron, so far as I know.” His mouth tightened. “But if he believes in Voisey, or . . . or maybe he is Inner Circle himself?” He said it with disbelief, as if even now the thought of his superior’s being one of that terrible society was too monstrous to be more than a bad idea, something to be said and discarded.
Pitt thought of Vespasia. “When we disgraced Voisey we may have fractured the Inner Circle,” he said, looking from Cornwallis to Tellman and back again. Tellman knew all about the Whitechapel matter; Cornwallis knew something, but there were still large gaps in his knowledge, although even as Pitt watched him he saw his understanding leap forward. He asked no questions.
“Fractured?” Tellman said slowly. “You mean like in two parts?”
“At least,” Pitt answered.
“Voisey and someone else?” Cornwallis’s eyebrows rose. Wetron?”
Tellman’s sense of decency was outraged. “Oh no! He’s a policeman!” But even as he protested he was entertaining the idea. He shook his head, pushing it away. “A small member, maybe. People do, to get on, but . . .”
Cornwallis chewed his lip. “It would make a lot of sense. Someone with a great deal of power, a very great deal, had you dismissed from Bow Street a second time,” he said to Pitt. “Perhaps it was Wetron? After all, he was the one who took charge from you. Superintendent of Bow Street is a very nice place for the head of the Inner Circle.” He looked rueful, even for an instant aware of fear. “There’ll be no end to his ambition.”
No one laughed, and no one denied it.
“He’s an ambitious man,” Tellman said very seriously.
Cornwallis leaned forward a little across the table. “Could they be rivals?”
Almost as if he had spoken it aloud, Pitt knew what he was thinking. It was the first spark of real hope, wild as it was. “Use