Farrier's Lane (6 page)

Pitt looked at him long and steadily, then reached out his hand and took the flask.

“Keep me informed,” Drummond commanded. “If it is murder, we’d better deal with it pretty rapidly.”

“We had better be right!” Pitt corrected fiercely. Then he smiled suddenly and widely, seeing Drummond’s shadow of anxiety. “And diplomatic!” he added.

“Get out!” Drummond grinned, not because there was anything remotely amusing in the case, murder or not, but because quite unreasonably, he felt a lift of warmth inside himself, a reassertion that the odd, the eccentric, the unruly, the honest, that which would laugh and would pity, that which was essentially human, was infinitely more important than political expediency or social rules. Unbidden, Eleanor’s face came to his mind, but with so much less pain than before, and none of the bleak hopelessness.

    Pitt was surprised to have been given the case, although on reflection he should not have been. Drummond had been frank with him when Pitt had declined promotion because he did not want to sit behind a desk and tell other men how to do a job he was so eminently gifted for himself, and loved in spite of the relatively lower pay. An increase in salary would have meant so much. He would have taken it, for Charlotte’s sake, and their children, and the difference it would have made to them, but it was Charlotte who had refused, knowing how much the work meant to him.

But from that time on Drummond had said he would give Pitt all the most delicate and political cases, a sort of lateral promotion, Drummond’s way of rewarding him in
spite of himself, and possibly also making the best use of his skills.

The medical examiner was a new man whom Pitt had not met before. When Pitt went into his laboratory he was standing behind a microscope at a huge marble-topped bench, an intense expression screwing up his face, bottles, retorts and vials all around him. He was huge, as tall as Pitt, and far heavier, but probably no more than thirty-five. His bright ginger hair stood out in a shock of tight little waves, and his beard looked like a fallen bird’s nest.

“Got it!” he said with great enthusiasm. “Got it, by heaven! Come in and make yourself comfortable, whoever you are, and compose your soul in patience. I shall be with you in a moment.” He spoke in a high voice with a soft Highland Scots accent, and never once did he take his eyes from his instrument.

It would have been churlish to be offended, and Pitt did as he was requested with good humor, taking the flask out of his pocket, ready to hand it over.

Several moments of silence passed by while Pitt stared around him at the chaotic wealth of jars, slides and bottles containing all manner of substances. Then the medical examiner looked up and smiled at Pitt.

“Yes?” he said cheerfully. “And what is it I can do for you, sir?”

“Inspector Pitt,” Pitt introduced himself.

“Sutherland,” the medical examiner responded. “I’ve heard of you. Should have recognized you—sorry. What is it? A murder?”

Pitt smiled. “For the moment, a flask. I’d like to know what is in it.” He handed it over.

Sutherland took it and opened it up, holding it gingerly to his nose.

“Whiskey,” he replied, looking at Pitt over the top of it. He sniffed again. “A very moderate malt—expensive, but still very moderate. I’ll tell you what else, when I’ve had a look at it. What do you expect?”

“Perhaps opium?”

“Funny way to take it. Thought it was usually smoked. Not too difficult to get hold of.”

“Don’t think he took it intentionally,” Pitt answered.

“Murder! Thought so. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” He held up the flask and looked at it, reading the name engraved. “Samuel Stafford.” His face sharpened. “Didn’t he die last night? Heard the newsboys shouting something about it.”

“Yes. Let me know as soon as you can.”

“Most certainly. If it is opium, I’ll know by tonight. If it’s something else, or nothing, it’ll take longer.”

“The autopsy?” Pitt asked.

“It’s the autopsy I’m talking about now,” Sutherland replied quickly. “The whiskey’ll only take a moment. Not complicated. Adulterate even a moderate whiskey and it’s not hard to find.”

“Good. I’ll be back for it,” Pitt said.

“If I’m not here, there is my home,” Sutherland said vigorously. “I’ll be there from about eight.” And without adding anything further he resumed his study of the microscope. Pitt placed his card on the marble bench top, with the Bow Street station address printed on it, and set out to begin his investigation.

    The first thing to determine was whether Stafford had intended to reopen the Blaine/Godman case or not. Surely if he had taken the time to go and see both Joshua Fielding and Devlin O’Neil, then he must at least have considered it. Would he have bothered to tell anyone other than Tamar herself if the matter must remain closed?

Or was Livesey right, and he intended only to prove once and for all that Godman was guilty and there could be no more question raised on the matter, or suggestions that somehow justice had miscarried? Constant doubts, however trivial or based in emotion, old loyalties and loves, still disturbed public confidence in justice and the administration of the law. When the law itself was not held in respect, then everyone suffered. It would be a natural and honorable thing for Stafford to do.

In seeking to establish Godman’s guilt, and justify the law, even to Tamar herself, had he unwittingly stumbled on some irregularity? Had he frightened someone guilty of—what? Another crime? A private sin? A complicity of some nature?

The place to begin, regrettable as it was, had to be with the widow. Accordingly he strode along the pavement past elegant ladies on their way to see dressmakers and milliners, servants on errands, petty clerks and tradesmen about their business. It was a brisk, chilly morning and the streets were clattering with noise of horses’ hooves, carriage wheels, shouts of drivers and costermongers, crossing sweepers, newsboys, running patterers singing the ballads of scandal and folk drama.

He hailed a hansom and gave the Staffords’ home address in Bruton Street, off Berkeley Square, which he had obtained from the desk sergeant in Bow Street. He sat back as the cab bowled west along Long Acre, and began to contemplate the questions to which he must find answers.

It was an unpleasant thought that if the judge’s death had nothing to do with the Blaine/Godman case, then since Stafford was not presently involved in any other plea, it might prove to be a personal matter, a private vengeance or fear, very probably to do with his family—his widow—perhaps money.

Tomorrow he would know more, at least if Sutherland found opium in the body and in the flask. But if Stafford had in fact died of some disease no one else had been aware of, if his private physician could offer some explanation, then he could happily forget the whole matter. But it was a hope that hovered beyond the edge of his mind, not a solution he expected.

The Staffords’ house was easy to find. There were dark wreaths hung on the door and black crepes over the drawn curtains on the windows. A pale-faced maid in a hat and coat came up the areaway steps and set out along the footpath on some task, and a footman with a black armband carried a coal scuttle inside and closed the door. It was a house conspicuously in mourning.

Pitt alighted, paid the cabby, and went to the front door.

“Yes sir?” the answering parlormaid asked dubiously. She regarded Pitt with disfavor. He looked like a peddler at first glance, except that he carried nothing to sell. But there was a confidence in his manner, even an arrogance, which belied any attempt to ingratiate. She was flustered and overwhelmed with the drama of events. The housemaids were all in tears, the cook had fainted twice, the butler was more than a trifle maudlin, after a long time in his own pantry with the cellar keys, and Mr. Stafford’s valet looked as if he had seen a ghost.

“I am sorry to disturb Mrs. Stafford at such a time,” Pitt said with all the charm he could muster, which was considerable. “But I require to ask her a few questions about events last night, in order that everything may be settled as quickly and decently as possible. Will you please ask her if she will see me.” He fished in his pocket and presented her with one of his cards, an indulgence which had rewarded him many times.

The maid took it, reading it for his occupation and not finding it. She put it on the silver tray used for such purposes and told him to wait while she delivered his enquiry.

He was not long in the dim hallway with its hastily placed crepes before the maid returned to conduct him to the room towards the back of the house where Juniper Stafford received him. It was expensively decorated in warm colors, with stenciled patterns around the doors lending an individual touch. A carved chaise longue had a woven rug draped on it in reds and plums, and no one had changed the bowl of late chrysanthemums on the polished table.

Juniper looked very tired this morning, and shocked, as if the realization of her husband’s death was beginning to come to her, with all the changes in her life that it would mean. In the harsher daylight her skin looked papery and the tiny natural blemishes more pronounced, but she was still a handsome woman with excellent features and very fine dark eyes. Today she was dressed in unrelieved black, but the excellence of the cut, the perfect drape of the fabrics
across the hips and the swath of the bustle made it a garment of fashion, and most becoming.

“Good morning, Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said formally. “I am truly sorry to disturb you again so soon, but there were questions I could not ask you last night.”

“Of course,” she said quickly. “I understand, Mr. Pitt. You do not need to explain to me. I have been a judge’s wife long enough to appreciate the necessities of the law. Surely they have not done the …” She hesitated to use the word, it was so ugly.

“No, not yet.” He saved her from having to say “autopsy.” “I hope for it this evening. But in the meantime I should like to confirm for myself what Mr. Stafford’s purpose was in going to see Mr. O’Neil and Mr. Fielding.” He pulled a rueful face. “I am in some confusion as to whether he did intend to reopen the Blaine/Godman case, or simply to find further evidence to convince Miss Macaulay of the futility of her crusade.”

“You are in charge of the matter, after all?” she asked, still standing, one hand resting on the back of the tapestried chair.

“I was given it this morning.”

“I am glad. It would have been harder to face someone I did not know.”

It was a delicate compliment and he accepted it as such, thanking her by expression rather than words.

She walked over towards the fire and the mantel shelf, above which was a particularly fine Dutch oil painting of cows in an autumn field, the sky warm with golden light behind them. She looked at it for a moment or two before turning to face him.

“What can I tell you, Mr. Pitt? He did not confide his intentions to me, but I assumed from what he did say that he had found some grounds on which to re-enquire into the case. If indeed he was … killed”—she swallowed, finding the word difficult—“then I have to assume it had some connection with that. It was a hideous case—bestial—blasphemous. There was terrible public outcry at the time.”
She shivered and her lips tightened at the memory. “You must remember it. It was in all the newspapers, I am told.”

“Who was Kingsley Blaine?” he asked. He could still recall the sense of horror he had felt when she had spoken of Farriers’ Lane, but very little else came back to him, no details, no people behind the names.

“A fairly ordinary young man of good enough family,” she replied, standing close to the mantel and staring beyond Pitt towards the window. The curtains were drawn closed now because of the mourning of the house. “Money, of course, but not of the aristocracy. He and his friend, Devlin O’Neil, went to the theater that night. Some say they had a difference of opinion, but it proved later to be of no importance. It was only money, a small debt or something. Nothing very large.” She looked at the garnet ring on her finger and turned it slowly in the light.

“But Mr. O’Neil was suspected for a while?” Pitt asked.

“Only as a matter of course, I think,” she replied.

“But Mr. Stafford went to see him yesterday?”

“Yes. I don’t know why. Perhaps he thought he might know something. After all, he was there that evening.”

“How did Aaron Godman come into the story?”

She let her hands fall and stared towards the window again, as if she could see through the curtains to the garden and the street beyond.

“He was an actor. He was playing in the theater that night. They say he was gifted.” Her voice altered very slightly but it was an expression he could not gauge. “Blaine was having an affaire with Tamar Macaulay, and he stayed late backstage. As he was leaving someone handed him a note asking him to go and meet O’Neil at some gambling club. He never got there, because as he was passing through Farriers’ Lane, on the way, he was murdered, and crucified to the door in the stable yard—with farrier’s nails.” She shuddered and swallowed as though there were an obstruction in her throat. “They said he was pierced in the side, as Our Lord was,” she went on very quietly indeed. “One of the newspapers said that they had made a crown of old nails and placed it on his head.”

“I recall it now,” Pitt confessed. “But I had forgotten that particular horror.”

She spoke very quietly, her voice subdued, full of fear, and close, with a drawing in of her body as if the emotion were still as sharp in her as it must have been five years ago.

“It was very ugly, Mr. Pitt. It was as if something had come out of a nightmare and taken living form. Everyone I know was just as appalled as we were.” Unconsciously she included her husband. “Until Godman was hanged, we could think of little else. It intruded into everything like a darkness, as if it could come out of Farriers’ Lane and that hideous yard, and slash and crucify us all!” She shuddered as though even this room were somehow not safe.

“It is finished, Mrs. Stafford,” Pitt said gently. “There is no need to be concerned anymore, or to let it disturb you.”