“No,” Pitt replied cautiously. “Not that I am certain of. But it seems an unavoidable conclusion that Paterson may have reconsidered his investigation, after I questioned him about it, and in doing so discovered something, or realized a different interpretation for it. His letter to Livesey spoke—”
“Letter to Livesey?” James was startled and suddenly alarmed, his body stiff, his voice tight. “Judge Ignatius Livesey?”
“Yes—did I not mention it?” Pitt affected a blindness he did not feel. “I apologize. Yes, before Paterson was murdered—incidentally, he was hanged, with a noose, from the chandelier hook in the middle of the ceiling of his room.” James’s face was pinched with disgust and increasing distress. “Before he was murdered,” Pitt went on, “he wrote a letter to Judge Livesey, saying that he had discovered something appalling and must tell him as soon as possible. It was poor Livesey who found him, the morning after. Unfortunately he could not get there that evening.”
James remained silent for several moments, his face grave. Eventually he came to some decision.
“You did not tell me that. It puts a very different and very ugly complexion upon things.” He shook his head slightly. “I am afraid I can think of nothing whatever that might be of use to you, indeed, nothing even remotely relevant.”
“Neither Paterson nor Judge Stafford communicated with you in the matter?”
“Paterson certainly did not. I have not spoken to him since the trial.” He shifted very slightly in his chair. “Stafford did call on me, some weeks ago. Miss Macaulay had been writing to him, as she did to numerous people, attempting to generate interest in the case. She still hopes to clear Godman’s name, which of course is quite impossible, but she will not accept that.” His voice was growing more rapid. “She had progressed beyond reason on the subject. But I did not take any of it seriously. I was already aware of her … obsession. It was to be expected she might harass Stafford. I am surprised he took any notice, but she is a most … eloquent woman, and has a type of appeal which is difficult for some men to resist.”
“What did Judge Stafford wish you to do, Mr. James? Forgive me for asking, but he cannot tell me, and it may help to learn who killed him.”
“Much the same as you are asking, Inspector. And I regret I can help neither of you. I know nothing I did not know, and say, at the time.”
“Is that all? Are you certain?”
“Well.” James was still uncomfortable, but he did not evade the question. “He asked about Moorgate, the instructing solicitor, his reputation and so on.” He looked embarrassed. “Poor Moorgate has declined more than a little since then. I have no idea why. But he is still perfectly adequate, and at that time he was an excellent professional man.”
“But like you, he believed Godman guilty,” Pitt added.
James’s face darkened. “On the evidence in hand—still uncontested—there was no other reasonable conclusion to draw, Mr. Pitt. And you yourself have not produced anything yet to refute it. I have no idea who murdered Stafford, or Paterson; and I agree it does suggest itself that their connection with the Farriers’ Lane case has some part in it. But I have no idea what. Have you?”
It was a challenge.
“No,” Pitt said quietly. “Not yet.” He pushed his chair a fraction backwards. “But I intend to. Paterson was only thirty-two. I mean to know who hanged him by the neck—and why.” He rose to his feet.
James rose also, still courteous. He held out his hand.
“I wish you good fortune, Mr. Pitt. I look forward to hearing of your success. Good day to you.”
“Just one other thing.” Pitt hesitated. “Godman was severely beaten while he was in custody. Do you know how that happened?”
A spasm of acute distaste passed over James’s features.
“He said that one of the police beat him,” he replied. “I have no proof whatsoever, but I believed him.”
“I see.”
“Do you.” It was a challenge, and there was definite anger in it. “I did not mention it at the time because I could not prove it, and it would only have alienated the jury even further that he seemed to be maligning the forces of order, and thus indirectly the public in general. Besides which, it was irrelevant to the fact.” There were two spots of pink in James’s cheeks. “It would not have altered the verdict.”
“I know that,” Pitt said honestly. “I just wanted to know, for myself. It explains a little of Paterson’s attitude.”
“It was Paterson?” James demanded.
“I think so.”
“How very ugly. I presume you have automatically thought of revenge?”
“Not Tamar Macaulay. Not the way Paterson was killed. It had to have been a man of considerable strength.”
“With Fielding’s help? No? Well, it is a possibility you must consider. Thank you for your candor, Inspector Pitt. Good day to you.”
“Good day, Mr. James.”
Pitt reported to Micah Drummond, not because he expected any comment from him, and certainly not any specific help, but because his duty required it.
“Whatever you think appropriate,” Drummond said absently, staring at the rain lashing against the window. “Is Lambert being difficult?”
“No,” Pitt replied honestly. “The poor devil was extremely shaken by Paterson’s death.”
“It is a dreadful thing to have a junior killed,” Drummond said with tight lips. “That is an experience you have not yet faced, Pitt. If you do, you will have more sympathy for Lambert, I promise you.” He kept his face to the streaming glass. “You will feel just the same grief, self-doubt, even guilt. You will reexamine everything you said or did to find some fault in your orders, some oversight, anything that you could have done differently, and avoided it. You will lie awake and agonize, feel sick about it, even wonder if you are fit to have command.”
“I don’t have command,” Pitt said with a thin smile, not because he cared about it but because he could hear the weariness in Drummond’s voice, and the knowledge of Lambert’s pain.
“What did the medical examiner say?” Drummond asked. “Hanging, just as it seemed?”
“Yes,” Pitt replied carefully. “That’s all, just hanging. That is what killed him.”
Drummond turned around at last, frowning. “What do you mean, just hanging? That’s enough to kill anyone. What more did you expect?”
“Poison, strangling, a blow to the head …”
“Whatever for, for heaven’s sake? You hardly need to poison a man and then hang him.”
“Would you stand still while someone put a noose around your neck, threw it over the chandelier hook and hauled you up by it?” Pitt asked.
Several expressions flashed across Drummond’s face: comprehension, anger, impatience with himself, and then curiosity.
“Binding on his wrists?” he asked. “Ankles?”
“No—nothing. It requires some explanation, doesn’t it?”
Drummond’s frown deepened. “Where are you going next? You had better do something. I’ve had the assistant commissioner down here again. Nobody wants this thing dragged on any longer.”
“You mean they don’t want the Farriers’ Lane case opened up any further,” Pitt said bitterly.
Drummond’s face tightened. “Of course not. It’s extremely sensitive.”
“I’ll follow Paterson’s last few days, from the time I spoke to him until he died,” Pitt answered the urgent question.
“Let me know what you find.”
“Yes sir, of course.”
Lambert was little use. As Drummond had expected, he was still deeply shocked at the death in such a manner of one of his own men. He had questioned everyone in the lodging house, everyone in the street, all the men who had worked with Paterson or known him personally. He was no nearer finding who killed him.
But he did report to Pitt the record of Paterson’s police duties for the last week of his life, and after tedious piecing together of testimony, times, places, Pitt realized there were considerable gaps in the account of his days when no one knew where he had been.