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He dug his hands into his pockets and skipped a step to avoid tripping over a piece of refuse. It was a brilliant day and still hot. He squinted a trifle in the sun. “O’ course she fairly threw a fit when we told ’er as she’d cooked breakfast for a dead man, within yards of ’is corpse. ’ad ter fetch ’er two glasses o’ gin to bring ’er ’round.”
    Pitt smiled. “Had she anything interesting to say about him, in general?”
    “No love lost. On the other ’and, no particular grudge either, no quarrel as far as we can learn. But then she’d not likely mention it if there was.”
    “Any callers of interest?” Pitt avoided a fat woman with two children in tow.
    “Who knows?” Innes replied. “People don’t often make a big show o’ calling on a moneylender. Come in the back door, and leave the same. ’is establishment was designed to be discreet. Part of ’is trade, as it were.”
    Pitt frowned. “It would be. He would discourage a good deal of his custom if he were obvious, but for precisely that reason I would have expected him to keep some sort of protection.”They stopped at the curb, waited a few moments for a space in the traffic, then crossed. “After all he must have had a lot of unhappy clients,” he said on the far side. “In fact a good many even desperate. Who was he receiving alone at night?”
    Innes supplied the obvious answer. “Someone ’E weren’t frightened of. Question is, why wasn’t ’e? ’Cos ’E thought ’E were protected?” He sniffed. “Or ’E thought the person weren’t dangerous? ’Cos ’E was expectin’ someone else? ’Cos ’E were crossed by someone ’E knew? Gets interestin’, when you think about it a bit.”
    Pitt would like to have agreed, but at the back of his mind was the spare, charming figure of Lord Byam. Would Weems have expected his lordship of the Treasury to commit murder over a sum of twenty pounds a month? Hardly. And if he were going to, then surely he would have at the beginning, not now, two years later?
    “Yes it does,” he agreed aloud. “What about this clerk and errand runner? What sort of a man is he?”
    “Very ordinary.” Innes shook his head. “Sort of gray little man you see ducking in and out o’ alleys, hurryin’ along the edge o’ pavements all ’round Clerkenwell, an’ can never bring ter mind again if yer try. Never know if it were the one you were lookin’ for, or just someone like ’im. Name’s Miller. They call ’im Windy, don’t know why, unless it’s because ’e’s a coward.” He pulled a face. “But then I’d say ’E was canny rather, more sense than ter stay and fight a battle ’E in’t fitted ter win.”
    “Description fits half a million gray little men around London,” Pitt said unenthusiastically, passing a group of women arguing loudly over a basket of fish. A brewer’s dray lumbered by majestically, horses shining in the sun, harness bright, drayman immaculate and immensely proud. A coster in a striped apron and flat black hat called out his wares with no audible pause to draw breath.
    They bore left from Compton Street into Cyrus Street, and within moments Innes stopped and spoke to a constable standing to attention on the pavement. He stood even more stiffly and stared straight ahead of him, his uniform spotless. His buttons gleamed and his helmet sat straight on his head as if it had been dropped on a plumb line.
    Pitt was introduced.
    “Yessir!” the constable said smartly. “No one come or gorn since I bin ’ere, sir. No one asked for Mr. Weems. I reckon as ’ow the word’s gorn out, and no one will now. Everyone pretendin’ as they never knew ’im.”
    “Not surprisingly,” Pitt said dryly. “Murdered men are often unpopular, except with a few who love notoriety. But people ’round here won’t want that kind of attention; most especially those who actually did know him. His friends won’t want to own such a man for acquaintance now, and his enemies will