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putting a name to him may not help a great deal.”
    But diligent enquiry all around Bedford Square and the immediate neighborhood elicited nothing whatever of use. No one had heard anything, nothing was moved or missing. Everyone claimed to have slept through the night.
    In the late afternoon General Balantyne and his butler, Blisset, fulfilled their duty by going to the mortuary to look at the dead man, but neither knew him. Pitt watched Balantyne’s expression as the face was uncovered and saw the momentary flicker of surprise, almost as if Balantyne had expected to see someone else, possibly someone familiar.
    “No,” he said quietly. “I have not seen him before.”
    Pitt arrived home late, and a small domestic crisis kept Charlotte too occupied for there to be time to discuss the case with her more than briefly. He did not yet want to tell her of General Balantyne’s involvement. He remembered that she had liked him. She had actually spent some time in his house, helping him with something or other. Better to see if a simpler explanation appeared before he distressed her, perhaps unnecessarily. Last thing at night was not an appropriate time.
    In the morning Pitt went to inform Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis of the case, simply because it had occurred in a part of the City where such an event was remarkable. The crime itself might not have concerned any of the residents or their households, but they would certainly be inconvenienced by it.
    Cornwallis was fairly new to his position. He had spent most of his career in the navy and was well accustomed to command, but the natures of crime and of politics were both new to him, and politics in particular he found at times beyond his comprehension. There was no deviousness to his mind. He was unaccustomed to vanity and circular thinking. The sea did not permit such indulgences. It sorted the skilled from the clumsy, the coward from the brave, with a ruthlessness quite different from the impulses of ambition in the worlds of government and society.
    Cornwallis was of no more than average height, lean, as if physical occupation were more natural to him than sitting behind a desk. When he moved it was with grace and control. He was not handsome—his nose was too long, too prominent—but there was balance in his face, and an honesty. The fact that he was entirely bald became him. Pitt found it difficult to think of him any other way.
    “What is it?” He looked up from his desk as Pitt came into his room. It was a sultry day outside, and the windows were open, allowing in the noise of traffic from the street below, the rattle of carriage wheels, the occasional cry of a coachman or hansom driver, the heavy rumble of brewers’ drays, the sharper treble of crossing sweepers hoping for a penny, peddlers calling their wares: bootlaces, flowers, sandwaches, matches.
    Pitt closed the door behind him.
    “Found a body in Bedford Square early yesterday morning,” he answered. “Hoped it might be nothing to do with any of the houses there, but he had a snuffbox in his hand which belonged to General Brandon Balantyne, and it was actually on Balantyne’s doorstep that he was lying.”
    “Burglary?” Cornwallis asked, the assumption in his voice.There was a slight pucker between his brows, as if he were waiting for Pitt to explain why he had bothered to mention it, let alone to come in person.
    “Possibly he was burgling one of the houses and was caught in the act by a servant or the owner, there was a fight, and the thief was killed,” Pitt said. “Then, in fear of the consequences, they put him outside Balantyne’s door instead of leaving him where he was and sending for the police.”
    “All right.” Cornwallis bit his lip. “I take your point, Pitt. Not the actions of innocent people, even in panic. How was he killed?”
    “A blow to the head with a poker, or something like it, but there was a fight beforehand, to judge by his knuckles.” Pitt sat down in the