Pitt knew that was true. A good gentleman’s coat would fetch enough for a month in a penny gaff, and bread and soup besides. It could be the difference between life and death for someone. A little blood would be nothing at all.
“And the necklace?” he asked.
“The necklace?” Lambert was surprised. “For heaven’s sake, man, no doubt she kept it. It was worth quite a lot, according to the dresser, who knew a diamond when she saw it. I suppose being an actress’s dresser she saw quite a lot of the imitation, and the real.” There was an inflection in his voice, a shadow across his face that showed his contempt for artifice, professional or amateur. He made no distinction between illusion designed to entertain, or to convey a deeper truth, and the merely bogus intended to deceive.
“Did you look for it?” Pitt asked.
“Yes, of course. But she’d have a hundred places to hide it if she wished. It wasn’t stolen; we could hardly institute a police search. She could simply have taken it to the nearest hock shop until the outcry died down.”
“Has she ever been seen with it since?”
“I’ve no idea!” Lambert’s voice rose in exasperation. “Blaine is dead and Godman’s hanged. Who’s to care?”
“Blaine’s widow. Apparently it should have been hers.”
“Well, I daresay she had larger losses to grieve over,” Lambert snapped. “She was a very decent woman, poor creature.”
Pitt kept his temper with difficulty, and only because it was in his own interest. A quarrel would achieve nothing, and in truth, he was finding Lambert difficult to like, even though not hard to sympathize with. It must have been a wretched, panicky, overwhelming time with public hysteria and superior officers crowding him, looking over his shoulders at every act, and demanding impossible results.
“What about the weapon?” Pitt asked.
Lambert’s face tightened again. “Not conclusively. There were half a dozen long farrier’s nails used to crucify him. The medical examiner concluded it was probably one of them.”
“May I see Sergeant Paterson now?” Pitt asked. “I think you have told me all I need to know. I can’t think of anything else you could have done, and I doubt anyone on the Stafford case will. The evidence against Godman seems conclusive so far. I don’t know what Stafford could have been looking into. No one found the necklace or the coat. No one has changed their testimony. You haven’t seen the flower seller again, or the urchin who gave the message to Blaine?”
“No, as you say, there’s nothing.” Lambert was mollified. “Sorry,” he said, slightly apologetically. “I suppose I was rather uncivil.” He forced a half smile. “It’s a bad memory, and this Macaulay woman keeping on raising the issue and insisting we got the wrong man is pretty hard to take. If Stafford was trying to silence her once and for all, I wish to God he had succeeded!”
“Perhaps I can,” Pitt said with an answering smile.
Lambert sighed, relaxing at last, his eyes lighting. “Then I wish you good luck. I’ll get Paterson for you.” And he rose to his feet and walked past Pitt, leaving him alone while he went out into the corridor and Pitt heard his footsteps receding.
Immediately Pitt rose to his feet and opened the window, gasping in the cold air with relief. He half closed it again after a moment and returned to his seat just as the door opened and a uniformed sergeant appeared, tunic immaculate, buttons gleaming. He was in his early thirties, of roughly average height and build, but his face was unusual. His nose was long and very aquiline, his mouth rather small, but the plainness of his features was redeemed by very good dark eyes and a fine head of hair waving back from a broad brow.
“Sergeant Paterson, sir,” he announced himself, and stood upright, not quite at attention, but in an attitude of respect.
“Thank you for coming,” Pitt said evenly. “Sit down.” He waved his arm towards Lambert’s chair.
“Thank you, sir,” Paterson accepted. “Mr. Lambert said you wanted to speak to me about the Blaine/Godman case.” His face shadowed, but there was nothing evasive in it.
“That’s right,” Pitt agreed. He did not owe the sergeant an explanation, but he gave it anyway. “A murder I am investigating seems to have some connection. Mr. Lambert has told me a great deal, but I would like to hear from you what you learned about Godman’s movements that night.”
Paterson’s face reflected his emotions transparently. Even the memory of it brought back the anger and the revulsion he had felt then. His body was tense, his shoulders knotted and his voice changed as he began his answer.
“I was one of the first to get to the yard in Farriers’ Lane. Blaine was quite a big man, and young.” He stopped, his face tight with pity, and it was painfully apparent that he could recall every detail. He took a deep breath and continued, his eyes on Pitt’s face, watching to see if he understood anything of the real horror of it. “ ’E’d been dead for quite a while. It was a cold night, only a little above freezing, and ’e was stiff.” His voice shook and he controlled it only with an effort. “I’d rather not describe ’im, sir, if you don’t need to know.”
“I don’t,” Pitt said quickly, sorry for the man.
Paterson swallowed. “Thank you, sir. Not that I ’aven’t seen corpses before—too many of ’em. But this was different. This was a blasphemy.” His voice thickened as he said the word and his body was rigid.
“Have you any ideas as to how a slight man like Godman could have got him up like that?” Pitt asked.
Paterson engaged his mind, leaving his emotions aside. His brow furrowed in concentration. “No sir. I wondered about that myself. But there was never any suggestion that anyone ’elped him. ’E was definitely alone, so far as we know. ’E came out of Farriers’ Lane by ’imself. Not the sort of thing you do with anyone else. I reckon Godman must’ve known ’ow to lift people. Maybe it’s part of his art as a actor. Like firemen.”
“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. “Go on. How did you trace his movements after he left Farriers’ Lane?”
“Just patience, sir. Asking people all ’round, street peddlers, crossing sweepers, costers and the like. Found a flower seller who saw ’im very plain. She was under a streetlight in Soho Square, and ’e stopped and spoke to ’er. And there’s no question it was ’im, ’e admitted it ’isself. ’E said it was quarter past midnight. She thought that was right at first, then when we questioned ’er closer, she agreed it was actually quarter to one, and she got it wrong the first time. Apparently ’e tried to tell ’er it was quarter past midnight. There’s a clock just over there, above one of the ’ouses, and she ’eard it strike. It gives just one bell on each quarter, and two at ’alf past, not like most, which do three at the quarter before.”
“Did it matter?” Pitt asked doubtfully. “You didn’t know what time Blaine was killed, did you? Exactly? Surely the layabouts at the end of Farriers’ Lane didn’t know the time.”
“No,” Paterson agreed. “But we knew close, because we knew what time Blaine left the theater, which was after quarter past midnight. If Godman had been at the flower seller’s then and ’eadin away from Farriers’ Lane, he couldn’t possibly ’ave delivered the message or killed Blaine in the stable yard, cos ’e took a cab straight after that, an’ the cabby swore ’e took ’im right from Soho Square to ’is ’ouse in Pimlico, which is miles away. And at that time ’e got ter Soho Square an’ the flower seller, ’e’d already got rid o’ the coat. We never could shift the cabby on that. ’E’d picked up other fares straight after ’oo knew the time exact.” Paterson’s face creased with disgust, almost as if he had smelled something which made him feel sick. “It was a good attempt at an alibi, and if the flower seller’d believed what ’e said and ’e’d stuck to it, it might ’a worked.”