“I think he was murdered,” Pitt replied. “I doubt there was an accident which timed itself to the hour to suit their purposes. I don’t know if an autopsy will prove that, but it is the only chance we have.”
Carlisle thought in silence for several minutes, and neither Pitt nor Vespasia interrupted him. They glanced at each other, and then away again, and waited.
Carlisle looked up. “If you are prepared to abide by the result, whatever it is, I believe I know a way to persuade the local coroner that it must be done.” He smiled a little sourly. “It will entail a certain elasticity of the truth, but I have shown a skill in that area before. I think the less you know about it, Thomas, the better. You never had any talent in that direction at all. In fact, it worries me more than a little that Special Branch is desperate enough to employ you. You are the last man cut out to succeed in this kind of work. I heard you may have been drafted merely to give them a more respectable face.”
“In that case they have failed spectacularly,” Pitt replied with a considerable edge to his voice.
“Nonsense!” Vespasia snapped. “He was dismissed out of Bow Street because the Inner Circle wanted one of their own men there. There is nothing subtle or devious about it at all. Special Branch was simply available, and not in a position to refuse.” She rose to her feet. “Thank you, Somerset. I assume that as well as the necessity for this autopsy, you are also aware of the urgency? Tomorrow would be good. The longer this slander against Thomas is around, the more people will hear it and the work of undoing it will become a great deal more difficult. Also, of course, there is the matter of the election. Once the polls close there are certain things it becomes very difficult to abrogate.”
Carlisle opened his mouth, and then closed it again. “You are utterly reliable, Lady Vespasia,” he said, rising also. “I swear you are the only person since I was twenty who can totally wrong-foot me, and you never fail to do it. I have always admired you, but it completely escapes me why I also like you.”
“Because you have no desire to be comfortable, my dear,” she replied without hesitation. “More than a month or two and you become bored.” She smiled at him, utterly charmingly, as if she had given him a great compliment, and extended her hand for him to kiss, which he did with grace. Then she took Pitt’s arm and, with head high, walked out into the corridor and the main foyer.
They were about halfway across when Pitt quite clearly saw Voisey excuse himself from a group of passersby and walk towards them. He was half smiling, supremely confident. Pitt knew from his face that he had come to taste victory, to savor it and roll it around his tongue. He had very possibly arranged to be here precisely for that purpose. What was revenge worth if you did not see your enemy’s pain? And in this instance he not only had Pitt, he had Vespasia as well.
Voisey could never have forgiven her for the crucial part she had played, not only in the Whitechapel defeat, but in using all her influence to gain him his knighthood. Perhaps ruining Pitt was as much to hurt her as it was to hurt him? And now he could watch them both.
“Lady Vespasia,” he said with extreme courtesy. “What a pleasure to see you. How loyal of you to take Mr. Pitt to luncheon so publicly at this unfortunate time. I do admire loyalty, and the more expensive it is, the more valuable.” Without waiting for her to reply, he turned to Pitt. “Perhaps you will be able to find a position away from London. I would advise it after your recent unfortunate behavior with poor Francis Wray. Somewhere in the country? If your wife and family have taken a liking to Dartmoor, perhaps that would do? Although Harford is much too small to require a policeman. It is barely a village, more of a hamlet, a mere two or three streets, and very isolated up there on the edge of Ugborough Moor. I doubt they have ever seen a crime, let alone a murder. It was murder you specialized in, wasn’t it? Still, I suppose that might change.” He smiled, turned to Vespasia, and then continued on his way.
Pitt stood frozen, the cold running through him like a tide, drowning from the inside. He was barely aware of the room around him, even of Vespasia’s hand on his arm. Voisey knew where Charlotte was! He could reach out at any time and destroy her. Pitt’s heart contracted inside him. He could barely breathe. He heard Vespasia’s voice from a long way off, her words indistinct.
“Thomas!”
Time had no meaning.
“Thomas!” The grip tightened on his arm, fingers digging into him. She spoke his name for the third time.
“Yes . . .”
“We must leave here,” she said firmly. “We are beginning to draw attention to ourselves.”
“He knows where Charlotte is!” He turned to look at her. “I’ve got to get her away! I’ve got to—”
“No, my dear.” Her hand held on to him with all her strength. “You have got to stay here and fight Charles Voisey. If you are here then his attention will remain here. Send that young man, Tellman, to take Charlotte and your family somewhere else, as discreetly as possible. Voisey needs to win the election, and he also needs to guard himself against your effort to find out the truth of Francis Wray’s death, and to watch and see what you learn about the man you have named as Cartouche. If Voisey is indeed connected with Maude Lamont’s death, he cannot afford to delegate that to someone else. You already know that he does not trust anyone to hold that power over him of having known the ultimate secret.”
She was right, and when Pitt’s mind cleared again and he faced reality, he knew it also. But there was no time to waste. He must find Tellman immediately and be sure that he would go to Devon. Even as the thoughts were in his mind he put his hand into his pocket to see what money he had. Tellman would need his rail fare to Devon and back again, certainly. And he would need money to move the family also, and to find a new and safer place for them. They could not come back to London yet. He had no idea when that would be. It was impossible to plan that far ahead, or to see how he could even make it safe for them.
Vespasia understood the gesture, and the need. She opened her reticule and took out all the money she had. He was startled how much it was, nearly twenty pounds. With the four pounds, seventeen shillings he had, plus a few odd pennies, it would be enough.
Wordlessly, she passed it to him.
“Thank you,” he accepted. This was no time for pride or burden of gratitude. She must know that he felt it more profoundly than could be conveyed.
“My carriage,” she directed. “We must find Tellman.”
“We?”
“My dear Thomas, you are not leaving me in the Savoy penniless to find my own way home while you go pursuing the cause!”
“Oh, no. Do you . . .”
“No, I do not,” she said decisively. “You may require every penny. Let us proceed. We also should use every minute. Where will he be? What is his most urgent task? We have not time to search half of London for him.”
Pitt disciplined his mind to remember exactly what Tellman had been sent to do. First he would have gone to Bow Street to speak with Wetron. That might have taken no more than an hour, at the most, unless Wetron were not there. Then, since ostensibly his greatest concern was the identity of Cartouche, he would have done something to appear to be following that. Pitt had not mentioned Bishop Underhill to Tellman. It was only a deduction based upon the Bishop’s attacks against Aubrey Serracold.
“Where to?” Vespasia enquired as he handed her up into her carriage and then climbed in after her and sat down.
He must answer with something. Would Tellman have told anyone in Bow Street where he was going? Perhaps not, but it was a chance he should not overlook. “Bow Street,” he replied.