A Scandal in Belgravia by Robert Barnard

autumn of that year. One was called Gerald Fraser-Hymes, and the other Lawrence Cornwallis. I have addresses for them at the time of the investigation, though I don’t imagine there’ll be a great deal of joy there. They were both in flat or bed-sitter territory, with a transient population.”
    â€œThe name of Lawrence Cornwallis seems to ring a vague bell,” I said, trying to make concrete vague memories of reports read rather than people met. Nothing definite came. “I suppose these two were, to put it frankly, the sort of young men whom people in Belgravia might know. Their mob.”
    â€œThat’s my impression. Or, more distantly, that someone had known someone who’d known the mother—that sort of thing, and then the names and details had gone the rounds of the Square.”
    I remembered the unblushing snobbery of Lady Charlotte Wray and smiled.
    â€œThat figures. Name, school, family tree—‘I knew his poorgrandmother’—that sort of thing. That’s how the Square was at that time.”
    â€œNo doubt there was a lot of that. Anyway, having those two names kept the police busy for a day or two, before they realized they had to look further.”
    â€œThe two had alibis?”
    â€œNo—at least, not very convincing ones. The fact was, it wasn’t either of their fingerprints all over the flat.”
    â€œBut surely they could have worn gloves, and the Forbes prints remain from an earlier visit?”
    He gave me the sort of pitying look that I probably give to people who show their ignorance of procedure in the House.
    â€œYou’re talking like an amateur, Mr. Proctor . . . Peter. There are fingerprints and fingerprints. You don’t hold a glass in the same way as you hold a crowbar. The police were pretty sure that the Forbes prints—as they turned out to be—were made in the course of the fight. Some were even bloody.”
    â€œI see. Yes, I can imagine you’d make a different sort of print, in different places than usual, in the course of a fight. At what stage, by the way, did the police realize that Tim was a practising homosexual?”
    â€œThe moment they began talking to people in the Square.”
    â€œOf course. Silly question.”
    â€œThey may even have had their eye on him earlier—I got a hint or two of that from the records. Remember when this was. In the early fifties there’d been a number of what you might call ‘show trials’: an actor, a peer, and so on.”
    â€œI remember. To encourage the others. The son of a government minister might have been a suitable follow-up. That was something I was always trying to impress on Tim at the time. He was convinced the police used their own men in plain clothes as bait.”
    â€œThey did. I’m not defending or apologising, just stating: they did.”
    â€œYou weren’t yourself involved?” I asked mischievously.
    â€œNot attractive enough by half!” Sutcliffe grinned as he got a mental picture of his youthful self. “And by the way it was the sort of job you could refuse, and I would have. Quite a lot rather enjoyed it.”
    â€œWhich says something about them.”
    â€œRight. Well that’s enough breast-beating. Let’s get back to Andrew Forbes. The police didn’t get hold of the name from the Belgrave Square mob, though later several confirmed that they’d seen a chap like that visiting the flat from time to time. As you say, Forbes wasn’t the sort whose mummy they knew back in the twenties. His name came from Fraser-Hymes, one of the two friends. No doubt both men were feeling pretty hard-pressed, and with reason, and Fraser-Hymes named names. In fact there was a whole list of people whom the police contacted and took prints and statements from.”
    â€œWhich led eventually to Andrew Forbes?”
    â€œOr rather to his flat. By then the bird had flown: he’d