Midnight at Marble Arch (45 page)

Unwillingly but without question, the Home Secretary could be persuaded to grant a stay of execution to Alban Hythe. Pitt could make his alternative far too painful for him to refuse. He had the upper hand.

But it was a terrible abuse of power. If he did this, would he no longer be capable of knowing where to draw the line? A little pressure, a little force, a little twisting of the fear. How was this so different from rape, in essence?

No, he acknowledged, there had to be another way.

He leaned forward and rapped on the partition to attract the driver’s attention. “Changed my mind,” he said. He gave the man Townley’s address instead.

“Yes, sir,” the driver agreed wearily, adding something else less courteous under his breath.

Pitt leaned back in the seat, Sweat was running over his skin, and yet he felt cold enough to shiver. Was it so easy to misuse power, and to let it misuse you?

T
OWNLEY
’
S FOOTMAN PERMITTED HIM
in only because he insisted.

“I’m sorry,” Pitt said to the man. “Time is short and I am fighting for a man’s life, otherwise I would not disturb you at this hour of the evening. I need to speak to Mr. Townley and very possibly the rest of his family. Please inform him so.”

Townley came out of the sitting room to where Pitt was waiting in the hall. The man’s face was grim and anger lay as close to the surface as good manners and a level of fear would allow it. He did not bother with a greeting.

Pitt was uncomfortable, wretchedly aware of how close he had come to exercising the power he possessed in a way he would ever after regret.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Townley,” Pitt said quietly. “I need your help—”

“I cannot give it to you, sir,” Townley interrupted him. “I have a good idea of what it is you wish of me. My answer is the same as before. I don’t know what can have made you imagine it would be different.”

“The conviction of Alban Hythe of a crime he did not commit,” Pitt said simply. “In three weeks they will hang him, then any evidence that proves his innocence will be of little use to him, or to his young widow. I shall pursue it, eventually I will prove our terrible mistake, and in so doing shake everyone’s faith in our system of justice, and I daresay ruin a few men’s careers in the process. Then I may also catch the man who is actually responsible, but not before he will have raped other young women and, unless they are very fortunate, ruined their lives as well—perhaps even taken them. I am sure you understand why I would very much prefer to correct it while I still can, rather than try to mitigate the disaster afterward.”

“I cannot help you,” Townley repeated. “Neville Forsbrook violated my daughter and there is nothing I can do about it, except protect her from public ruin. Now will you please leave my house, and allow my family to have what little peace we may.”

Pitt clenched his fists by his sides, trying to control his voice.

“Will you come and watch the hanging?” he asked levelly, even though he was trembling. “Will you try to console the man’s wife afterward? She is not so very much older than your daughter. And speaking of your daughter, how will you comfort her in the years to come, when she wakens in the night knowing that it was possible she could—”

“Get out of my house before I strike you, sir!” Townsley said between his teeth. “I don’t care a jot who you are, or what office you hold.”

The sitting-room door opened and Mrs. Townley came out, her face stiff, eyes wide.

Townley swung around. “Mary! Go back to the withdrawing room. Commander Pitt is leaving.”

Mrs. Townley looked past her husband, her eyes meeting Pitt’s.

“I don’t think he is, Frederick,” she said quietly. “I think he will remain here until we act, because we are standing in the path of justice, and I do not choose to do that.”

“Mary …” Townley began. “For heaven’s sake, think of Alice!”

“I am,” she said with gathering confidence. “I think she would rather speak to Mr. Pitt and gain some kind of justice than believe that her experience has so damaged her that she would see a man die wrongly rather than tell him the truth.”

“You have no right to make that decision for her, Mary,” Townley said quietly, struggling to be as gentle as possible.

“Neither have you, my dear,” she pointed out. She turned to Pitt. “If you will be good enough to wait, sir, I shall ask my daughter whether she will hear you out or not.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, the sudden release of tension rippling through him like an easing warmth.

Five minutes later Pitt was in the withdrawing room facing Alice
Townley, who was pale, clearly very apprehensive, but waiting with her hands folded in her lap, knuckles white.

“I am sorry to ask you again,” Pitt began, sitting opposite her. “But events have not gone at all as I would have liked. Mr. Alban Hythe has been convicted of raping and beating Mrs. Quixwood and causing her to take her own life.” He did not shrink from using the appropriate words. “I believe he is not guilty, and I have only three weeks in which to prove it—”

“Mama told me,” Alice interrupted. “Do you think Mr. Forsbrook did it? He wasn’t anything like so—violent with me. He did not … beat me. Although … although I did feel pretty dreadful.” She moved her right hand off her lap, lifted it, then let it fall again. “It was revolting.” She blushed scarlet. “It wasn’t anything like love.”

“No, he did not act out of love,” Pitt said gently. “Can you tell me exactly what he did?”

She looked at the floor.

“Perhaps you would prefer to tell your mother, and she could tell me?” he suggested.

She nodded, not raising her eyes.

Pitt stood up and left the room, Townley, still angry, on his heels.

They waited in silence in the morning room, chilly, fire unlit at this time of the year. After just over a quarter of an hour Mary Townley came in.

Pitt rose to his feet as a matter of courtesy.

“I think it would be a good idea if you were to go and sit with her,” Mrs. Townley said to her husband. “I’m sure she would find your presence comforting. She doesn’t want to feel that you disapprove of her decision, as if she has defied you. She is doing what she believes is right, and brave, Frederick.”

“Of course … of course.” He stood up and left without even glancing at Pitt.

Mary Townley sat down, inviting Pitt to do the same. She was very pale and clearly found the matter embarrassing. Hesitantly, in a voice so carefully controlled as to be almost expressionless, she told him
exactly what had happened, in Alice’s words, including that Forsbrook had bitten her painfully hard on the left breast.

That was it, the connection with Catherine Quixwood, and with Pamela O’Keefe, perhaps with Angeles Castelbranco too, although they would never know that now, unless Isaura knew and would testify to it. It might also prove to the Church that Angeles was a victim, not a sinner. Pitt would not rest until he had done that.

“Thank you, Mrs. Townley. Please tell Alice that her courage may have saved a man’s life. Did you see the bite mark yourself?”

“Yes.” She touched her own left breast lightly.

“If it should be necessary, would you swear to that? I ask because Mrs. Quixwood was bitten in exactly the same place, and so was another girl, one who was killed. I think perhaps he killed her accidentally, when he lost his temper, and was more violent with her than he meant to be. She might have fought with him, as Mrs. Quixwood did. That seems to enrage him beyond control.”

“Yes. I would swear to it. Are you going to see that he is put in prison?” Mrs. Townley asked with fear in her voice.

“At the least,” he replied. “At the very least.” He was making a rash promise and he knew it, but in this quiet, modest home it seemed the only possible answer.

He thanked her again and went out into the silent street. Now it was time to go to the Home Secretary, and ask, respectfully, for a reprieve.

N
ARRAWAY SAT AT THE
dining room table at Pitt’s house the following day. Charlotte and Pitt were there, and Vespasia, and also Stoker, who was looking slightly uncomfortable. The Home Secretary had granted a temporary stay of execution, but that was all it was. Symington was working on an appeal. He had refused to accept any payment from Narraway, although Narraway had offered it again. He had said that victory itself would be enough reward.

Now the five of them sat around the table over a plain but excellent luncheon, for which Minnie Maude had been duly praised.

“We can’t let it go,” Charlotte insisted as the dessert was being served and the last of the main dishes removed. “They may arrest him in a month or two, but what if he gets wind of it and leaves the country again.” She looked at Narraway. “Are you sure Quixwood himself killed Catherine?” Her face was troubled, bitterly aware of the unfinished nature of the case.

“I am,” Pitt interjected gravely.

Charlotte looked at Pitt. “So it was all started by Eleanor Forsbrook having an affair with Rawdon Quixwood? Do we know that was true? I mean know it, not based on a deduction but a fact? Is there really anything to anchor it to reality?”

She turned to Narraway. “Is Rawdon Quixwood as terrible as Symington said? Did he deliberately create this whole appalling tragedy?”

“Yes,” Narraway said with some embarrassment. “I’ve never made such a serious complete misjudgment of anyone in my life as I have of Quixwood.”

Charlotte smiled at him. “We might respect you, but we wouldn’t like you very much if you had withheld your compassion until he had proved himself innocent or guilty. You can’t go through life always guarding against the most awful thing you can think of. You’d be miserable, and worse than that, you’d push away every possible good thing there is.”

Narraway looked down at his plate. “It was not a slight error. I was rather seriously wrong.”

“It was a magnificent one,” Charlotte agreed, glancing at Vespasia, and seeing her smile. “I hate halfheartedness,” she added.

Narraway smiled in spite of himself.

It was Pitt who brought them back to the business at hand.

“The affair between Eleanor and Quixwood is fact. We have witnesses to that now. And the surgeon who examined her body after the accident said some of the bruises predated her death, so Pelham did beat her. And I’ve heard from Rafael Castelbranco that Elmo Crask also added to the story about Neville Forsbrook and the prostitute he
beat. Biting seems to be a weakness of Neville’s. That story is also provable, and is even uglier than we first assumed. Neville Forsbrook is a very violent young man with an uncontrollable, and evidently increasing, disposition to rape women. Who knows what has caused him to be that way. I’m sure having a father like Pelham didn’t help him much.”

“What are we going to do?” Vespasia asked, looking from one to the other of them.

“I’ve been thinking,” Pitt said to no one in particular. “We know of Eleanor’s affair and can prove it beyond reasonable doubt. We know that Quixwood advised Forsbrook to invest in the British South Africa Company, with almost certain knowledge of the Jameson Raid, and that it would fail, and that reparations would be enormous. It was worth the risk because for him the worst that could happen would only be that the raid succeeded and Forsbrook made money. Even then, he could always try something else in the future.”

“Did he know of Neville Forsbrook’s situation with the prostitute?” Narraway asked.

Stoker came to attention. “Yes, sir. He was friendly with Sir Pelham Forsbrook at that time, and he helped get Neville out of the country. Still can’t find out exactly where the boy went, but he started out in Lisbon, then seems to have gone on by sea.”

Narraway was surprised. “Lisbon? Not Paris?”

“Apparently not. Paris might have been the first place anyone would have looked for him. It was a pretty nasty business,” Stoker replied. “And Quixwood had connections in Lisbon.”

Narraway nodded slightly. “Interesting. So unquestionably Quixwood knew of Neville Forsbrook’s nature. Isn’t there a way we can hang him?” he asked, looking up at Pitt.

“Only if we can prove he poisoned his wife intentionally,” Pitt replied. “In truth, I’d rather hang Forsbrook for raping her.”

“Why?” Stoker demanded. “Quixwood murdered her.”

“Because Forsbrook is as much a monster,” Pitt answered. “I want him not just for Catherine, but for Angeles and Alice and Pamela.”

“You can’t get him for Angeles,” Charlotte said miserably. “Quixwood swears he was with him, so unless we can prove he’s lying … they’re both protecting themselves by protecting each other!”

“That’s it!” Pitt sat upright with a jolt.

“What’s it?” Narraway was weary.

“That’s the way to catch them!” Pitt said urgently, turning slightly to face him. “It’s dangerous, very, but it might work.” He went on without being prompted, leaning forward a little, his voice anxious. “Quixwood doesn’t really need Neville anymore. But what if we could persuade Neville of that, tell him Quixwood is preparing to give him up now that Hythe’s conviction isn’t certain anymore and we are still desperately looking for the true attacker, in order to prove Hythe’s innocence!”

Narraway was staring at him. “And what? Neville would go after Quixwood to silence him?”

“Wouldn’t you?” Pitt said. “Persuade Neville that Quixwood now needs to protect himself, and he can only do it by giving Neville up.”

“Dangerous,” Narraway warned, but the light was back in his face and there was a keen edge to his voice. “Very dangerous.” He did not look at either Charlotte or Vespasia, or even at Stoker. “How would we do it? If you tell him yourself he’ll instantly suspect a trap.”

Pitt’s mind was leaping forward. “Crask,” he answered. “Elmo Crask. Neville would believe him; he is impartial, and doesn’t have anything to gain by lying. Can you think of a better way—or any other way at all, for that matter?”

“No, I can’t,” Narraway admitted. “But we must plan this very carefully indeed. We can’t afford to have Neville succeed in killing Quixwood.”

“Or the other way around,” Pitt said with a twist of his mouth. “If Quixwood kills Neville he can legally, and morally, claim self-defense, and still walk away, and there’d be nothing we could do to touch him.”