Tellman made himself smile. “Yes sir. I don’t know why Special Branch got involved with it at all. Unless, of course, it was because of Sir Charles Voisey?”
Wetron sat very still. “What has it to do with Voisey? You’re not imagining the man implicated by the cartouche was Voisey, are you?” There was heavy ridicule in his tone, and the curl of his smile was bitter, tinged with mockery and regret.
“Oh no, sir,” Tellman said quickly. “We’re pretty sure that Maude Lamont was blackmailing at least some of her clients, certainly the three that were there the night she was killed.”
“Over what?” Wetron asked carefully.
“Different things, but not for money, for certain behavior in the present political campaign that was helpful to Sir Charles Voisey.”
Wetron’s eyes widened.
“Indeed? That’s a rather odd accusation, Tellman. I suppose you are aware of exactly who Sir Charles is?”
“Yes sir! He’s a most distinguished appeal court judge who is now standing for a seat in Parliament. He was recently knighted by Her Majesty, but I don’t know exactly what for, except word has it that it was something remarkably brave.” He said it with reverence, and watched Wetron’s lips tighten and the muscles stand out cord-hard on his neck. Perhaps Lady Vespasia was right?
“And has Pitt got some reason to believe all this?” Wetron asked.
“Yes sir.” Tellman kept his voice perfectly level, not too assured. “There is some very definite connecting link. It all makes a lot of sense. We’re that far from it!” He held up his finger and thumb about an inch apart. “We just need to flush this man out, and then we can prove it. Murder’s a very nasty crime indeed, any way you want to look at it, and this one especially. Choked the woman. Looks like he put his knee in her chest and forced this stuff down her throat until she died.”
“Yes, you don’t need to be graphic, Inspector,” Wetron said tartly. “I’ll call the press and tell them. You get on with finding the proof you need.” He bent to the paper he had been reading before he was interrupted. It was dismissal.
“Yes sir.” Tellman stood to attention, then turned on his heel. He did not breathe a sigh of relief, or allow his body to let go of the tension and shiver until he was halfway down the stairs again.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Pitt returned immediately to Vespasia, this time writing a note which he handed to the maid, then he waited in the morning room. He believed Vespasia was one person who would refrain from judging his part in Wray’s death, but he could not bring himself to assume it before he had seen her. He waited, pacing the floor, his hands sweating, his breath ragged.
He spun around when the morning room door opened, expecting the maid to tell him either that Lady Vespasia would see him or that she would not. But it was Vespasia herself who was there. She came in and closed the door behind her, shutting out the servants and, from the look on her face, the rest of the world.
“Good morning, Thomas. I assume you have come because you have some plan of battle, and a part in it for me? You had better tell me what it is. Are we to fight alone, or do we have allies?”
Her use of the plural was the most heartening thing she could have said. He should never have doubted her, regardless of what the press wrote or what the odds against them might be. It was not modesty on his part, it was lack of faith.
“Yes, Captain Cornwallis and Inspector Tellman.”
“Good, and what are we to do?” She sat down in one of the large rose-pink morning room chairs and indicated another for him.
He told her the plan, such as it was, which they had formulated around his kitchen table. She listened in silence until he had finished.
“An autopsy,” she said at last. “That will not be easy. He was a man not only revered but actually loved. No one, apart from Voisey, will wish to see him named a suicide, even though that is already the assumption. I imagine the church will endeavor to leave the exact verdict open, and at least tacitly assume some kind of misadventure, in the belief that the less that is said the sooner it will be forgotten. And there is considerable discretion and kindness in that.” She looked at him very steadily. “Are you prepared for the discovery that he did, in fact, take his own life, Thomas?”
“No,” he said honestly. “But nothing I feel about it is going to alter the truth, and I think I need to know it. I really don’t believe he took his own life, but I admit it is possible. I think Voisey contrived his death, using his sister, almost certainly without her knowledge.”
“And you believe an autopsy will indicate that? You may be right. Anyway, as you will no doubt agree, we have little else.” She rose to her feet stiffly. “I do not have the influence to force such a thing myself, but I believe Somerset Carlisle does.” The faintest smile flickered over her face and lit her silver-gray eyes. “You no doubt remember him from that farcical tragedy in Resurrection Row among the thugs.” She did not go on to mention his bizarre part in it. It was something neither of them would forget. If any man on earth would be willing to risk his reputation for a cause in which he believed, it was Carlisle.
Pitt smiled back, for a moment memory erasing the present. Time had bleached the horror from those events and left only the black humor, and the passion which had compelled that extraordinary man to act as he had.
“Yes,” he agreed with fervor. “Yes, we’ll ask him.”
Vespasia rather liked the telephone. It was one of several inventions to have become generally available to those with the means to afford it, and it was reasonably useful. In a mere quarter of an hour she was able to ascertain that Carlisle was at his club in Pall Mall—where, of course, ladies were not admitted—but that he would leave forthwith and go to the Savoy Hotel, where he would receive them as soon as they arrived.
Actually, with the state of the traffic as it was, and the time of the day, it was almost an hour later when Pitt and Vespasia were shown into the private sitting room that Carlisle had engaged for the purpose. He rose to his feet the instant they were shown in, elegant, a little gaunt now, his unusual eyebrows still giving his face a faintly quizzical look.
As soon as they were seated and appropriate refreshments had been ordered, Vespasia came straight to the point.
“No doubt you have read the newspapers and are aware of Thomas’s situation. You may not be aware that it has been carefully and extremely cleverly arranged by a man whose intense desire is to be revenged for a recent very grave defeat. I cannot tell you what it was, only that he is powerful and dangerous, and has managed to salvage from the wreck of his previous ambition a new one only slightly less ruinous to the country.”
Carlisle asked no questions as to what it might be. He was well acquainted with the need for absolute discretion. He regarded Pitt levelly for several moments, perhaps seeing the weariness in him and the marks of the despair so close under the surface. “What is it you want from me?” he asked very seriously.
It was Vespasia who answered. “An autopsy of the body of the Reverend Francis Wray.”
Carlisle gulped. For an instant he was thrown off balance.
Vespasia gave a tiny smile. “If it were easy, my dear, I should not have needed to ask for your assistance. The poor man is going to be regarded as a suicide, although of course the church will never permit it to be said in so many words. They will speak of unfortunate accidents, and bury him properly. But people will still believe he took his own life, and that is necessary to the plan of our enemy, otherwise his revenge upon Thomas fails to have effect.”
“Yes, I see that,” Carlisle agreed. “No one can have driven him to suicide unless there is believed to have been one. People will assume the church is concealing it as a matter of loyalty, which will probably be the truth.” He turned to Pitt. “What do you believe happened?”