Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [154]
But Pitt was not satisfied. According to the river police, if she had been put into the water within an hour or so of having been killed, which the medical examiner had said could be no later than eleven, or at a stretch half past, then the incoming tide could only have carried her from the Limehouse area, at the farthest It was more likely to have been closer, except that that made it Wapping, right on the Pool of London.
Tellman had already tried the Thames police, whose station was on the river’s edge. They were extremely helpful, in an utterly negative way. Their patrols were excellent. They knew every yard of the waterfront, and they were sure no woman of Susannah Chancellor’s description and status had been put into the river there that night. It was an extravagant claim, but Pitt was inclined to believe them. The Port of London was always busy, even as late as midnight. Why should anyone take such a risk?
Which always brought him back to the question as to why anyone should murder Susannah Chancellor anyway. Was it an abduction that had gone tragically wrong?
Then was it simply greed, imagining Chancellor would pay a fine ransom? Or was the motive political … which brought him back to Peter Kreisler again.
Tellman had already spent fruitless days in Limehouse and learned nothing of use. If anyone had seen a body put into the water, they were not saying so. If they had seen a hansom, and a man carrying a woman, they were not saying that either. He had even been south of the river to Rotherhithe, but that yielded no conclusion, except that it was not impossible that someone could have taken a small boat from one of the hundred wharves or stairs and carried a body in it. He had even considered if Tellman could be part of the conspiracy, a subtle and brilliant Inner Circle member. But looking at the anger in his face, hearing the brittle edge in his voice, he could not believe his own judgment to be so wrong.
“What now?” Tellman said cynically, interrupting Pitt’s thoughts. “You want me to try the Surrey Docks?”
“No, there’s no point.” An idea was forming in Pitt’s mind from what Charlotte had said about betrayals and Traitors Gate. “Go and see what you can find out about her brother-in-law.”
Tellman’s eyebrows rose. “Mrs. Chancellor’s brother-in-law—Francis Standish? Why? Why in the name of Hell would he want to murder her? I still think it was Kreisler.”
“Possibly. But look at Standish anyway.”
“Yes sir. And what will you be doing?”
“I shall try upriver, somewhere like the stretch between Westminster and Southwark.”
“But that would mean someone’d waited with her after she was dead and before they put her into the water,” Tellman pointed out incredulously. “Why would anyone do that? Why take that risk?”
“Less chance of being seen, closer to midnight,” Pitt suggested.
Tellman gave him a look of total scorn. “There’s people up and down the river all the time. Anything after that’d be as good. Better get rid of it as soon as possible. Easier to travel about in a hansom when they’re all over the streets,” he said reasonably. “Who’d notice one in the many? Notice one at one o’clock in the morning. Too late for theaters. People who go to late parties and balls have their own carriages.”
Pitt was uncertain whether to share Charlotte’s idea with Tellman or not. On the face of it, it sounded absurd, and yet the more he thought of it, the more it seemed possible.
“What if he intended her to be washed ashore at Traitors Gate?”
Tellman stared at him. “Another warning to anyone minded to betray the Circle?” he said with a spark of fire in his eyes. “Maybe. But that’d take some doing! No reason why she should come ashore at all. Often they don’t. And even if he knew the tides, she could have been dragged; as it happens, she was! He’d have to wait for the ebb, in case she washed off again.” His voice was gathering enthusiasm. “So he waits somewhere, and puts her in at high