“Yes.”
“And of course you believe him!” Now Lessing’s voice was derisive again. “Isn’t that a little…gullible…sir?”
“Well, Lezant didn’t have it,” Pitt pointed out. “His possessions were carefully listed when he was arrested, on the spot! The gun, a pocket handkerchief, one pound, seventeen shillings and sixpence in change. No money to buy opium, and no opium itself. If there was no one else there, no dealer, no companion, where was the money, or the opium?”
“Tyndale…” The moment he had said it Lessing realized his error.
“Really?” Pitt widened his eyes in amazement. “Did he have the opium, or the money, or both? I wonder why it never turned up. And the police failed to mention it. You did not see fit to inquire into that, I see.”
Lessing was fuming, but the point was just.
“I have no idea. It was two years ago now. Mistakes happen now and then…” he protested.
“Resulting in a man being hanged?” Pitt let all his sarcasm show. “That’s rather more than a ‘mistake,’ Mr. Lessing. I think you owe a considerable explanation as to why you did not examine it at the time.”
Lessing’s mouth drew into a thin, hard line. “Well, if their lordships request it, no doubt we will do what we can,” he said grimly. “In the meantime, I have other work to do.”
Pitt made a note on the bottom of his page, and closed his notebook. “Indeed, as have I,” he answered with a bleak smile. “Quite a lot of it!”
Pitt went to see all of the people Alexander had listed in his attempt to get anyone at all to reconsider Dylan Lezant’s case. Few of them were as hostile as Lessing, but the pattern was all the same in the end.
“I felt sorry for him,” Green, the clerk at Hayman’s chambers said sadly. “He seemed a decent young man, terribly cut up about his friend’s death and sure that he was innocent.” He shook his head. “Hope if I’m ever in trouble I have a friend as loyal. But there wasn’t anything we could do. He offered to pay us all he had, which was considerable. But there really were no grounds for appeal. I wish there had been. I would like to have helped him, simply because he was so desperate.”
“There was no merit to the case?” Pitt pressed.
“Legally not. Once a man has been convicted, there has to be a fault in the way the case was conducted, which there was not, or some overwhelming new evidence, which also there was not. I’m sorry.” He looked as if it grieved him. Pitt wondered how many desperate relatives he had had to turn away, people who could not bear to believe that one of their own, a husband, a son, even a wife, could be guilty of a crime so grave they would pay for it with their lives.
All the accounts, compassionate or not, sad or dismissive, even angry, when put together painted a picture of a lonely young man, idealistic, emotional, and in both physical and mental pain, driving himself to exhaustion in the effort to save his friend. And after Lezant’s death, he strove at least to retrieve his reputation.
Every name and office that Alexander had given him, Pitt checked and found that he had been there, and in one manner or another had been turned away. Everyone had been either unwilling or unable to help. No one had taken it higher. No one had felt the need to reconsider the issue or question the police report.
Should they have questioned further, reexamined the facts, questioned the witnesses again? Lessing, definitely. He had chosen to believe the easiest account and ignore the inconsistencies. At the other end of the spectrum, Green had regretted the fact that he could do nothing. The loopholes were with the police, possibly with the conduct of the case, but not with the law itself.
By the end of the third day Pitt was sitting beside the fire in his own parlor, weighing up all he knew. It had begun at the level of the five police: Ednam, Newman, Hobbs, Yarcombe, and Bossiney. It had been covered up by those immediately above, and questioned by no one.
Where else was such a thing happening? That was a question he would much rather not have to ask, but it was now unavoidable.
He was thinking of this when there was a knock on the front door. Since Charlotte was upstairs talking to Jemima, Pitt answered and found Jack Radley on the doorstep. He was wearing a heavy winter overcoat and yet his shoulders were hunched, spoiling his usual highly fashionable appearance.
Pitt let him in, took his coat and hat and hung them in the hall, then invited him into the parlor. He offered him whisky rather than tea, but Jack declined it anyway. He sat in Charlotte’s chair by the fire, his feet close to the hearth. He came straight to the point of his visit.
“You’ll remember that I have been working with Godfrey Duncannon on this contract for a British free port on the China coast…?” he began.
Pitt nodded without interrupting.
Jack smiled with bleak humor. “I haven’t forgotten my past misjudgments of character. Only a fool gets caught in the same mistake twice, and I would expect to be thrown out if I do it again. It may be totally trivial, and I’m being too easily alarmed. I suppose that’s as bad a fault in the opposite direction. But there are small things that worry me. If I speak to you, is it in confidence?”
Pitt could see the tension in him, very little hidden by his attempt at lightness.
“Of course it is. But if I have to act, I can’t guarantee that no one will guess my source. What is it that disturbs you?”
“Emily noticed it before I did,” Jack said almost as an apology. “Duncannon and Josiah Abercorn are both very keen for this contract to succeed, for different reasons. For Duncannon it would be the crowning achievement of his career. For Abercorn, who is at least twenty years younger, it would be an investment that would probably make his fortune for the rest of his life and guarantee his political career, with a good deal of independence. He’s well on the way to getting a safe seat in Parliament.”
Pitt was puzzled. “You don’t need Emily to tell you that. What bothers you?”
Jack looked down at his hands. “I used to think that it was just a difference in age, and social background. Abercorn has no family to speak of, only a mother, who is now dead…”
“The point, Jack,” Pitt reminded him.
“Abercorn hates Duncannon.” He raised his head again. “Hate is a very extreme word, but I mean it. Emily noticed it. I didn’t take it seriously at first, but once she told me, I started to see it in small things. It sounds petty, but it builds up. A tone of voice, a facial expression when he assumes no one is looking at him, double-edged remarks that seem civil until you realize the alternative meaning. I thought at first that he was just less sophisticated with words, until I caught the look in his eyes, the slight sneer, gone the instant he knows you are looking at him. I know, it sounds absurd. But Abercorn knows I’ve seen it, and now he avoids me, and he’s much more careful when the three of us are in the same discussion.”
“Is Duncannon aware of it? Does he feel the same?”
Jack smiled. “Godfrey Duncannon really doesn’t care what anyone else thinks of him, as long as they do what he wishes. And Abercorn is certainly doing that, at least at the moment.”
“People dislike each other for all sorts of reasons,” Pitt pointed out. “Could it be a debt? A woman? Could Duncannon have done something as simple as blackball Abercorn from some club he wants to, or needs to, be a member of? People can care passionately about these things. It matters a lot to a social or political career. And usually those two are linked. They shouldn’t be, but they are.”
“Not dislike, Thomas,” Jack corrected. “I wouldn’t give a damn about that. I don’t trust Abercorn. There’s malice in him, a deep pain. I can’t help thinking he knows something about Duncannon that I don’t, and when it suits him, he’s going to use it. I would love it if you could tell me for certain that I’m wrong.”
“What are you afraid of, Jack? Specifically?”
Jack took a deep breath. “That Abercorn knows something about these bombings, and he’ll produce it when it can most damage Duncannon.”