Bedford Square

3

PITT WAS CONCERNED with the murdered man who had been found in Bedford Square, but Cornwallis’s problem preyed more urgently upon his mind. For the time being there was not a great deal he could accomplish that could not be done equally as well by Tellman as far as discovering who the man was and, if possible, what had taken him to Bedford Square in the middle of the night. He still thought it most likely to be a burglary which had in some disastrous way gone wrong. He hoped profoundly that Balantyne was not involved, that the man had burgled Balantyne first, taking the snuffbox, and then gone on elsewhere and been caught in the act and killed, perhaps accidentally. The killer had removed his own belongings but had not taken the snuffbox in case the possession of it incriminated him.

It was probably a footman or butler in one of the other houses. When it was discovered which, then great tact would be necessary, but all the discretion in the world would not much alter the final outcome. And he had confidence in Tellman’s ability to pursue the trail quite as well as he would have himself. Meanwhile, he would do all he could to help Cornwallis.

He set out from home in the morning as usual, but instead of going either to Bow Street or to Bedford Square, he caught a hansom and requested the driver to take him to the Admiralty.

It took considerable argument and persuasion to obtain the naval records of H.M.S. Venture without explaining why he wanted them. With much use of words like tact, reputation, and honor, but mentioning no names, by mid-morning he finally sat alone in a small, sunlit room and read what he had asked for.

The record was simple: Lieutenant John Cornwallis had been on duty when a seaman had been injured attempting to reef the mizzen royal in rising bad weather. According to his own account, Cornwallis had gone up to help the man and had brought him down, half conscious, the last few yards assisted by Able Seaman Samuel Beckwith.

Beckwith was illiterate, but his verbal account, taken down by someone else, was largely the same. Certainly he had not contradicted any part of the official version. The words recorded were bare, just a few sentences on white paper. There was no sense of the people behind it, none of the roaring wind and sea, the pitching deck, the terror of the man trapped up the mast, one minute over the wooden boards which would break his bones if he were to fall on them, the next over the howling, cavernous depths of water which would swallow him beyond any human power to rescue. Any man who fell into that would be gone forever, as completely as if he had never existed, never had life or laughter or hope.

There was no sense of what manner of men they had been, brave or cowardly, wise or foolish, honest or lying. Pitt knew Cornwallis, at least knew him as he was now, an assistant commissioner in the police force, taciturn, painfully honest, out of his depth with politicians, having no conception of their deviousness.

But he did not know how he had been fifteen years before as a lieutenant, faced with physical danger, the chance of admiration and promotion. Had this been an otherwise honorable man’s one mistake?

He did not believe that. Such deceit would surely have left a deeper mark. If Cornwallis had profited from stealing another man’s reward, praise for someone else’s act of courage, would it not have stained everything else he touched? Would he not have spent the rest of his career looking backward over his shoulder, fearing Beckwith’s telling of the truth? Would he not have built guards for himself against just this eventuality, knowing there was always a chance? And would that not have shown in all else that he did?

Would he have allowed Pitt to know of it?

Or was he so arrogant he thought he could use Pitt, and Pitt would never realize?

That was such a distortion of the man Pitt perceived that he discarded the notion as close to impossible.

That left the question, did the blackmailer believe it was true or did he simply know that Cornwallis could not prove its untruth?

Beckwith was dead, according to Cornwallis. But had he relatives alive, someone to whom he had told the story, perhaps boasting a little, elaborating on his own part until he appeared the hero, and this person had taken him at his word, as perhaps a son or a nephew might do?

Or for that matter, a daughter. Why not? A woman was as capable as any man of cutting out letters from newspapers and framing a threat.

While he was there, Pitt decided, he should find all he could of the rest of Cornwallis’s naval career, and all there was available on Samuel Beckwith as well, particularly if he had a family still alive, and where they might be now.

More argument and more persuasion were necessary before he was given a very abbreviated summary of Cornwallis’s career, only those things which were largely a matter of public knowledge anyway, such as any other naval personnel might know from their own observation.

He had been promoted and changed ship within two years. In 1878 and 1879 he had been in the China Seas, involved with distinction in the bombardment of Borneo against the pirates.

Within a year after that he had had his own command. He had sailed in the Caribbean and been involved in several actions of a minor nature, largely skirmishes to do with slavers still operating out of West Africa.

He had retired from the sea in 1889 with distinction and an unblemished record. There was a list of ships on which he had served and the ranks he had held, nothing more.

Pitt compared it with Samuel Beckwith’s career, which had been cut short by death at sea, carried overboard by a spar broken loose in a gale. He had never married, and left behind a sister, living in Bristol at the time of his death. His effects and his back pay had been sent to her. She was listed as a Mrs. Sarah Tregarth. Her address was given.

But Beckwith had been unable to read or write. The letter sent to Cornwallis was quite articulate and contained several complex words. Had Sarah Beckwith learned such an art in spite of her brother’s inability?

A discreet letter to the Bristol police would confirm that.

Now Pitt looked at the names of the ships on which Cornwallis had served and copied down a dozen or so names of other men who had served at the same times, including the captain of the Venture and the first lieutenant.

Next he showed his list to the man who had so far assisted him and asked for the addresses of all those who were not currently at sea.

The man looked at Pitt narrowly, then read through them.

“Well, he was killed in action about ten years ago,” he said, biting his lip. He moved to the next one. “He’s retired and gone to live in Portugal or somewhere. He’s in Liverpool. He’s here in London.” He looked up. “What do you want all these men for, Superintendant?”

“Information,” Pitt replied with a tight smile. “I need to know the truth about an incident in order to avert a considerable wrong … a crime,” he added, in case the man should miss the urgency of it or doubt his right to involve himself.

“Oh. Oh, yes sir. It’ll take me a little while. If you’d come back in an hour or so?”

Pitt was hungry, and even more he was thirsty. He was delighted to accept the suggestion and go out and buy himself a ham sandwich from a stall, and a cup of strong tea. He stood in the sun on the street corner enjoying them, watching the passersby. Nursemaids in starched aprons wheeled perambulators. Their older charges rolled hoops or pretended to ride sticks with horses’ heads. A small boy played with a spinning top and would not come when he was told. Little girls in frilly pinafores mimicked their elders, walking daintily, with heads high. He thought with a wave of tenderness of Jemima and how quickly she had grown up. Already she was beginning to be self-conscious, aware of coming womanhood. It felt like only months ago she had been struggling to walk, and yet it was years.

When he had first met Balantyne she had not even been born. And she had been stumbling with speech, often unintelligible to anyone but Charlotte, when Balantyne had lost his only daughter in the most fearful way possible.

Memory of that turned the sandwich in his mouth to sawdust. How could a man bear such grief and survive? He wanted to rush home and make doubly, triply sure Jemima was all right … even hold her in his arms, watch her all the time, make any decisions for her, decide where she should go and who befriend.

Which was ridiculous. It would make her hate him—rightly so.

How did anyone endure having children and watching them grow up, make mistakes, get hurt, perhaps even destroyed, suffer pain worse, more inexplicable, than death? Had Augusta been any help to Balantyne, any comfort at all? Had their common grief brought them closer together at last or merely driven them each into greater isolation, even more alone in their grief?

What was this new tragedy? Perhaps he shouldn’t have left it to Tellman to investigate. And yet he could not abandon Cornwallis.

He threw away the rest of his sandwich, drank the last of his tea, and strode back to the Admiralty. There was no time for standing around.

He began with Lieutenant Black, who had served as first officer with Cornwallis in the China Seas. He was home on shore leave and might be called back to sea quite soon. He lived in South Lambeth, and Pitt took a hansom over the river.

He was fortunate to find Lieutenant Black at home and willing to speak with him, but unfortunate in that what Black had to say was so punctiliously honorable it conveyed very little at all. His professional loyalty to a brother officer was so great as to rob his comments, even his memories, of any individuality or meaning. It conveyed much of Black himself, his perception of events, his fierce patriotism and allegiance to the service in which he had spent all his adult life, but Cornwallis remained only a name, a rank and a series of duties well performed. He never became a man, good or bad.

Pitt thanked him and looked for the next name on his list. He took another hansom and went north over the Victoria Bridge to Chelsea, watching the pleasure boats in the river full of women in pale dresses with bright hats and scarves and men with bare heads in the sun, children in sailor suits, eating toffee apples and striped peppermint sticks. The music of a hurdy-gurdy drifted loudly on the air, along with shouts, laughter and the swish of water.

He found Lieutenant Durand a very different man, lean, sharp featured, roughly the same age as Cornwallis, but still a serving officer.

“Of course I remember him,” he said sharply, leading Pitt into a very pleasant room filled with naval memorabilia, probably from several generations, and overlooking a garden full of summer flowers. It was obviously a family home, and judging from the portraits Pitt had glimpsed in the hall, he came from a long and distinguished line of naval officers, going back long before Trafalgar and the days of Nelson.

“Sit down.” Durand indicated a well-worn chair and sat in one opposite it himself. “What do you want to know?”

Pitt had already explained his reasons, but this time he must phrase it more skillfully and learn something of the man. “What qualities made him a good commanding officer?”

Durand was obviously surprised. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not this.

“You assume I thought he was a good commander,” he said with raised eyebrows, looking at Pitt very directly and with amusement. His face was burned by wind, his eyebrows fair and sparse.

“I assumed you would say so,” Pitt replied. “I was wanting something a little less dry. Was I mistaken?”

“Loyalty before honesty. Is that no use to you?” The faint thread of humor was still there. He sat with his back to the window, leaving Pitt to face the garden and the sunlight.

“None at all.” Pitt sat back in the chair. It was very comfortable. “Sometimes it is all I can find.”

“A naval failing, at times,” Durand observed, a flicker of bitterness in his voice. “And the sea has no such sentimentality. She forgives nothing. She’ll find the measure of a man faster than anything else. In the end the only honor is the truth.”

Pitt watched him carefully, already aware of strong undercurrents of emotion, perhaps of anger or a belief of injustice or tragedy somewhere.

“And was Cornwallis a good commander, Lieutenant?”

“He was a good sailor,” Durand answered. “He had a feeling for the sea. In a way I would say he loved it, insofar as he loved anything.”

It was an odd remark, said without affection. His face was shadowed, difficult to read.

“Did his men trust him?” Pitt pursued. “Have confidence in his ability?”

“Ability to do what?” Durand was not going to answer anything lightly. He had decided to be frank, and that meant no evasions simply to satisfy.

Pitt was obliged to think harder, more clearly. What did he mean?

“To make the right judgments in bad weather, to know the tides, the wind, the …”

Durand smiled. “You are not a seaman, are you.” It was a statement, not a question, and made with patience, even condescension, the amusement returned. “I think the questions you want to ask are, for example, was he thorough? Yes, extremely. Was he competent to read a chart, take a ship’s position, and judge the weather? Yes, to all of those. Did he think ahead and plan accordingly? As much as any man. Occasionally he made mistakes. When he did, could he think quickly, adapt, get out of the danger? Always, but sometimes more successfully than at other times. He had his share of losses.” His voice was dry, the emotion carefully controlled.

“Of ships?” Pitt was horrified. “Men?”

“No, Mr. Pitt, if he had done that he’d have been retired ashore a long time before he was.”

“He wasn’t retired for loss?” Pitt demanded too quickly.

“Not so far as I know,” Durand said, leaning back a little, still staring at Pitt. “I think he simply realized his career was going no further, and he got tired of it. Wanted to come ashore, and somebody offered him a comfortable option, so he took it.”

A tart response about the reality of Cornwallis’s present job was on Pitt’s lips, but he could not afford to alienate Durand if he were to gain any useful information, strong as his impulse was to do so. And Durand obviously had not liked Cornwallis. Perhaps the fact that Cornwallis had reached captaincy while Durand was still serving, and only a lieutenant, had much to do with it.

“What other questions would I ask, if I knew something of the sea?” Pitt said a little stiffly, trying to mask his own feelings.

Durand seemed quite unaware of it. There was a concentration apparent in the angle of his head and shoulders against the light. He was eager to talk.

“Was he a good leader?” he started. “Did he care for his men, know them individually?” He gave a slight shrug. “No, he never gave that impression. If he did, they did not believe it. Did his officers like him? They barely knew him. He was private, withdrawn. He had a captain’s dignity, but he had a cold man’s isolation, and there is a difference.” He was studying Pitt’s face as he spoke, watching his reaction. “Did he have the art to communicate to the crew his belief in them, in the mission the ship was bound on?” he continued. “No. He had no humor, no common touch, and no visible humanity. That was what lifted Nelson above all the rest, you know, his mixture of genius and humanity, sublime courage and foresight, with a complete vulnerability to the ordinary aches and losses of other men.” His voice hardened. “Cornwallis had none of that. The men respected his naval ability, but they did not love him.” He drew in his breath. “And to be a really good commander, you must be loved … that is what inspires a crew of men to go beyond their duty, beyond even what can be expected of them, to dare, to sacrifice, and to achieve what to a lesser crew, with the same ship, would be impossible.”

It was a masterly summary, and Pitt was obliged to admit it to himself, whether it was true or not. It was not how he saw Cornwallis, or how he wished to. Honesty and fear both forced him to stay and listen. He was afraid they showed in his face, and he resented the thought that Durand could read them there.

“You mentioned courage,” Pitt said, clearing his throat, trying to keep his voice from betraying his dislike of the man and his own loyalties. “Was Cornwallis brave?”

Durand’s body stiffened. “Oh yes, undoubtedly,” he conceded. “I never saw him show fear.”

“That’s not quite the same thing,” Pitt pointed out.

“No—of course it isn’t. In fact, I suppose it’s almost the opposite,” Durand agreed. “I imagine he must have been afraid at times. Only a fool would not be. But he had the sort of icy self-control which hides all emotion. One never saw the humanity in him,” he repeated. “But no, he was not a coward.”

“Physically? Morally?”

“Certainly not physically.” He hesitated. “Morally, I cannot say. There are few great moral decisions at sea. Such judgments of command as he made were not in the time that I knew him. I think he is too orthodox in his thinking, too unimaginative to be a moral adventurer. If you are asking if he ever got drunk and behaved with abandon … no! I don’t think he ever even behaved with indiscretion.” There was a curious contempt in that remark. “Rethinking your question, yes, perhaps he was a moral coward … afraid to take life by the horns and …” He lost his metaphor and shrugged, a gesture of inner satisfaction. He had painted the picture he wanted, and he knew it.

“Not a man to take risks,” Pitt summed it up. Durand’s judgment had been cruel, intended to injure, but perhaps in his ignorance of the issues he had said precisely what Pitt wanted to hear—not that Cornwallis was too honest to take credit for another man’s act of courage but that he was too much the moral coward to take the chance. The fear of discovery would have crippled him.

Durand sat comfortably with the sunlight at his back.

Pitt stayed for another fifteen minutes, then thanked him and left, glad to escape the claustrophobic feeling of envy that permeated the comfortable house with its family portraits of men who had succeeded and who had expected future generations to follow in their steps and provide even more glittering pictures with their gold braid and proud faces.

The following day Pitt found two able seamen and a naval surgeon. The first was MacMunn, retired after a pirate raid on Borneo, having lost a leg. He lived with his daughter in a small, neat house in Putney where the carpet was patched and the furniture gleamed and smelled of wax. He was more than willing to talk.

“Oh, yeah! I ’member Mr. Cornwallis well. Strict, ’e were, but fair. Always very fair.” He nodded several times. “ ’Ated a bully, ’e did. Couldn’t stand ’em. Punish ’em summink ’or-rible. Weren’t free wi’ the cat, but ’e’d see a man wot bullied them wot was beneath ’im flogged raw, ’e would.”

“A hard man?” Pitt asked, afraid of the answer.

MacMunn laughed a rich, happy sound. “Nah! Not ’im. You in’t seen nuffink! Mr. Farjeon, now ’e were wot yer’d call ’ard.” He pulled a face, turning his mouth down at the corners. “I reckon as ’e’d ’ave keel’auled yer if ’e could. He’d a’ liked the days o’ floggin’ through the fleet!”

“What was that?” Pitt’s naval history was shallow.

MacMunn squinted at him. “Put a man in a longboat an’ ’ave ’im rowed ’round an’ flogged on the deck o’ every ship in the fleet. Wot yer think?”

“It would kill him!” Pitt protested.

“Yeah,” MacMunn agreed. “Mind yer, a good ship’s surgeon’d see a man numbed ter the point ’e’d not know. Die pretty quick, so me grandpa told me. ’e were a gunner at Waterloo, ’e were.” Unconsciously, he straightened up as he said it, and Pitt found himself smiling at him without knowing quite why, except a heritage shared, and a knowledge of courage and sacrifice.

“So Cornwallis wasn’t hard or unjust?” Pitt said quietly.

“Gawd no!” MacMunn waved the idea away. “ ’e were just quiet. I never fancied bein’ an officer meself. Lonely kind o’ way o’ doing things, I reckon.” He slurped his tea. “Everybody got their place, an’ w’en there’s dangers o’ yer in one rank, all the same, yer got companions like. But w’en there’s only one o’ yer, yer can’t talk ter them above, an’ they can’t talk ter you, an’ yer can’t talk ter them below. Can’t make a fool o’ yerself if yer an officer, ’cos people expect yer ter be right all the time. An’ Mr. Cornwallis took ’isself very serious. Didn’t know ’ow ter unbend ’isself, if yer know wot I mean.”

“Yes, I think I know.” Pitt recalled a dozen times when Cornwallis had hovered on the brink of candor and at the last moment retreated self-consciously. “A very private man.”

“Yeah. Well, I suppose if yer want ter be captain, yer gotta be. Make a mistake, show a weakness, an’ the sea’ll ’ave yer. Makes men ’ard, but makes ’em loyal too. An’ yer could always rely on Mr. Cornwallis. Bit stuck kind o’ by the book, ’e were, but honest to a fault.” He shook his head. “I ’member one time w’en ’e ’ad ter punish a feller wot done summink wrong, don’t rightly recall wot now. But it weren’t much, but regulations said ’e ’ad ter be lashed wi’ the cat … answered back the bo’sun or summink. Yer could tell Mr. Cornwallis din’t wanna do it. Bo’sun were a right bastard. But yer can’t break ship’s discipline or ye’re all lost.”

He twisted up his face, thinking back to the incident. “But Mr. Cornwallis, ’e made ’ard work of it. Paced the quarterdeck all by ’isself fer days, ’e did. Mad as ’ell. Then suffered like ’e were the one wot ’ad bin beat.” He took a deep breath. “Bo’sun got lost overboard an’ Mr. Cornwallis bust a gut tryin’ ter find if ’e were pushed.” He grimaced. “Never did find out, though.”

“And was he?” Pitt asked.

MacMunn grinned at Pitt over the top of his mug.

“Yeah, ’course ’e were! But we all reckoned as Mr. Cornwallis din’t really wanter know that.”

“So you didn’t tell him?”

“S’right! Good man, Mr. Cornwallis. Wouldn’t wanter make things ’ard fer ’im. An’ if ’e’d a’ know’d, ’e’d a’ ’ad the poor sod ’anged from the yardarm, no matter ’ow much ’e’d a’ felt fer ’im, an’ like ter ’ave pushed the bo’sun over ’isself.” He shook his head. “Got ’is imagination all in the wrong places. Feels for folk summink terrible, but takes everythin’ too exact, if you know wot I mean?”

“Yes, I think I do,” Pitt answered. “Would he ever take credit for another man’s act of bravery, do you think?”

MacMunn looked at him incredulously.

“More likely ’ang for another man’s crime, ’e would! ’Oo-ever said that’s both a liar and a fool. ’Oo is ’e?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Can you help me, Mr. MacMunn?”

“ ’Oo, me?”

“If you will. For example, did Captain Cornwallis have any personal enemies, people who were envious or who cherished a grudge?”

MacMunn screwed up his face, his tea forgotten. “ ’Ard ter say, if ye’re honest like. Nothin’ as I knows of, but ’oo can say wot goes on in a man’s mind w’en ’e’s passed over in the ranks, or w’en ’e ’as ter be told orff fer summink. Honest man knows it’s ’is owndoin’ … but …” He shrugged expressively.

But no matter how hard Pitt pressed, MacMunn had few practical suggestions to make, and Pitt thanked him again, and left him feeling considerably lighter in spirits, as if he had met with something essentially clean which had washed away the sense of oppression which had weighed him down after speaking with Durand. A fear inside him had eased.

The early afternoon found him in Rotherhithe with Able Seaman Lockhart, a taciturn man rather the worse for drink who gave him no information of value and seemed to remember Cornwallis as a man to be feared, but respected for his seamanship. He disliked all senior officers, and said so. It was the only subject upon which he would offer more than single-word replies.

By late afternoon, when the air was hot and still and a haze had settled over the City, the river winding below in a glittering ribbon, Pitt walked up the hill from the landing stage towards the Greenwich Naval Hospital to see the onetime ship’s surgeon, Mr. Rawlinson.

Rawlinson was busy, and Pitt had to wait in an anteroom for over half an hour, but he was reasonably comfortable and the unaccustomed sights and sounds held his interest.

When Rawlinson came he was dressed in a white shirt with the neck open and the sleeves rolled up, as if he had been hard at work, and there were bloodstains on his arms and several places on his body. He was a big man, well muscled, with a broad, amiable face.

“Bow Street police station?” he said curiously, eyeing Pitt up and down. “Not one of our people in trouble, surely? Not over the river and on your patch, anyway.”

“Not at all.” Pitt turned from the window, where he had been watching the water and the traffic going up to the Port of London. “I wanted to ask you about an officer who served with you in the past … John Cornwallis.”

Rawlinson was incredulous. “Cornwallis! You can’t mean he’s come to your attention. I thought he was in the police himself. Or was it the Home Office?”

“No, police.” It seemed explanations were unavoidable. He had promised discretion. How could he honor that and still be of any use? “This is an incident in the past that has been … misinterpreted,” Pitt replied tentatively. “I am looking into it on Captain Cornwallis’s behalf.”

Rawlinson pursed his lips. “I was a ship’s surgeon, Mr. Pitt. I spent a great deal of my time in the orlop.”

“The what?”

“The orlop. The lower deck, aft, where the wounded are taken and we do our operating.”

Below them on the river a clipper with canvas full set was drifting up tide towards the Surrey Docks, its magnificent sails white in the sun. There was something sad about it, as if its age were already dying.

“Oh. But you did know Cornwallis?” Pitt insisted, dragging his mind back.

“Certainly,” Rawlinson agreed. “Sailed under his command. But being the captain of a ship is not a very sociable position. If you haven’t been at sea you probably haven’t much of an idea of the power a captain has and the necessary isolation that requires.” Unthinkingly, he wiped his hands on the sides of his trousers, unaware of smearing them with traces of blood. “You can’t be a good commander without keeping a certain distance between yourself and the men, even the other officers.” He turned and led the way into a wide gallery through a glass-paned door and down the steps to the grass, the panorama of the river beyond the sloping ground.

Pitt followed, listening.

“The whole structure of the crew is built on a very tight hierarchy.” Rawlinson waved his hands as he spoke. “Too much familiarity and men lose that edge of respect for the captain. He has to be more than human to them, close to infallible. If they see his vulnerability, his doubt, ordinary weaknesses or fears, something of the power is lost.” He glanced at Pitt. “Every good captain knows that, and Cornwallis did. I think much of it came naturally to him. He was a quiet man, solitary by choice. He took his position very seriously.”

“Was he good?”

Rawlinson smiled, leading the way across the grass in the sun. The breeze from the river smelled of salt. The tide was running sharply. Overhead, gulls circled, crying loudly.

“Yes,” he answered. “Actually, he was very good.”

“Why did he come ashore?” Pitt asked. “He’s comparatively young.”

Rawlinson stopped, his expression guarded, defensive for the first time. “Forgive me, Mr. Pitt, but why does that concern you?”

Pitt struggled for the right reply. Surely only some element of the truth would serve Cornwallis now?

“Someone is endeavoring to hurt him,” he replied, watching Rawlinson’s face. “Damage his reputation. I need to know the truth in order to defend him.”

“You want to know the worst they could say, with any honesty?”

“Yes.”

Rawlinson grunted. “And why should I not suspect that the enemy you speak of is you yourself?”

“Ask Cornwallis,” Pitt responded.

“In that case, why don’t you ask him what the worst or the best is of his career?” It was said with wry amusement, no ill will at all. He stood in the sun with his bloodstained arms folded, a smile on his face.

“Because we don’t always see ourselves as others do, Mr. Rawlinson,” Pitt replied. “Does that need explaining?”

Rawlinson relaxed. “No, it doesn’t.” He began to walk again, waving his hand in invitation to Pitt to accompany him. “Cornwallis was a brave man,” he answered. “Both physically and morally; perhaps a trifle short in imagination. He had a sense of humor, but it didn’t show very often. He took his pleasures quietly. He liked to read … all manner of things. He was a surprisingly good artist with watercolors. Painted light on water with a sensitivity that astounded me. Showed a completely different side of the man. Made one understand that sometimes genius is not in what you put in but what you leave out. He managed to convey”—he circled his hands in a sweeping motion—“air! Light!” He laughed. “Would never have thought he had such … daring … in him.”

“Was he ambitious?” Pitt tried to phrase it to earn an honest answer, not one motivated primarily by loyalty.

Rawlinson considered for a moment before he replied. “In his own way, yes, I think so. But it wasn’t readily observable, not as it was in many men. He did not want to seem excellent so much as actually to be so. The pride in him, the hunger, was not for appearances but for reality.” He looked at Pitt quickly, to see if he understood. “It made him …” He searched for a way to express what he was looking for. “It made him seem remote at times. Some people even thought him evasive, where I think he was only complex, and different from them. He was his own hardest taskmaster. He was driven, but not in order to please or impress anyone else.”

Pitt walked beside him in silence, thinking that if he did not speak, then the other man would continue.

He was right.

“You see,” Rawlinson went on, “he lost his father when he was quite young, eleven or twelve, I think. Old enough to know him, from a boy’s eye, not old enough to be disillusioned or challenge him in any way.”

“Was his father in the navy?”

“Oh, no!” Rawlinson said swiftly. “He was a nonconformist minister, a man of profound and simple belief, and the courage both to practice and to preach it.”

“You knew him better than you intimated.”

Rawlinson shrugged. “Perhaps. It was only one night, really. We’d had a bad skirmish with a slaver. Boarded them and took the ship all right, but it was teak and burned.” He glanced at Pitt. “I see that means nothing to you … how could it? Teak splinters are poison, not like oak,” he explained. “We had a few men hurt, but our first officer, a good man—Mr. Cornwallis had a great affection for him—was in a bad way. He helped me remove the splinters and do all we could for him. But he went into a fever and we sat up all night, spelled each other the next day and the next night.” He reached the gravel path and turned to walk back up the slope, Pitt keeping pace with him.

“Not a captain’s job, you’ll say, and neither was it. But we were well away from the coast by then and the slaver was dealt with. He took one watch on deck, the other with me.” His mouth pulled tight. “God knows when he slept. But we saved Lansfield. Lost a finger, that’s all. I suppose we talked a bit then. Men do, in the watches of the night, when they’re desperate and there’s nothing they can do to help. Didn’t see much of him after that, except as duty required. I suppose I always think of him as he was then, the lamplight yellow in his face, gaunt with worry, angry and helpless, and so tired he could hardly keep his head up.”

Pitt did not bother to ask if he would have taken credit for another man’s act of courage; there was no need. He thanked Rawlinson and left him to go back to his patients. He walked in the bright, late-afternoon light down towards the river and the landing stage where he could catch a ferry back up past Deptford, Limehouse, Wapping, the Tower of London, under London Bridge, Southward Bridge, and probably get off at last at Blackfriars.

He knew far more of Cornwallis, and if anything he was even more determined to defend him from the blackmailer, but he had little more idea of who that might be, except that it was even harder to think it was anyone who had served with him and genuinely believed the charge to be true.

He remembered the way the letter was written, the grammatical correctness, not to mention the spelling and the choice of words. It was not an ordinary seaman, nor was it likely to be one of their dependents, such as a wife or sister. If it was the son of a seaman, then he had definitely improved his position in the world since childhood.

As he reached the river’s edge the smells of salt and weed sharp in his nostrils, the slap of water, the damp air, the cry of gulls, light on their wings, he knew he still had a very long way to go.

That morning Charlotte opened the first delivery of mail and found a letter addressed to her in handwriting which swept away the years like leaves on the wind. Even before she opened it she was certain it was from General Balantyne. What was written inside was very brief:

My dear Mrs. Pitt,

It was most generous of you to be concerned for my welfare, and to offer your renewed friendship in this present unpleasantness.

I thought of taking a brief walk around the British Museum this morning. I shall be in the Egyptian exhibit at about half past eleven. If you should find yourself free, and passing that way, I should be delighted to see you.

I remain your obedient servant,

Brandon Balantyne

It was a stiff and very formal way of saying that he very much needed the friendship she had offered, but the fact that he had written at all made his feelings most plain.

She folded the paper with a quick movement and rose from the kitchen table to lift the lid from the stove and put it in. The flames consumed it with an instant flare, and it was gone.

“I shall be going out this morning,” she told Gracie. “I have a desire to look at the Egyptian exhibit in the British Museum. I cannot say when I shall be back.”

Gracie shot her a look of fierce curiosity, but she forbore from asking any questions.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said with wide eyes. “I’ll see ter everythink.”

Charlotte went upstairs and took out her second-best summer morning dress, not the pale yellow which was her best—she had worn that the first time—but a pink-and-white muslin she had been given by Emily, whom it had not become as she had hoped.

The British Museum was in comfortable walking distance, which was presumably why he had selected it, and she set out at ten past eleven in order to be at the exhibit by half past. This was a meeting of friendship, not a romantic or society appointment where lateness could be considered fashionable or a suitably modest reluctance.

She was there by twenty-five minutes past, and saw him immediately, standing upright, shoulders straight, hands behind his back, the light on his head, catching the fair hair turning to gray. He looked extraordinarily lonely, as if the other people passing by were all part of some great unity which excluded him. Perhaps it was his stillness that marked him apart. He was very obviously waiting for someone, because his gaze did not appear to move as it would were he actually looking at the mummified figures in front of him or at the intricate carving and gold of the sarcophagus.

She walked over to him, but for a moment he was unaware of her.

“General Balantyne …”

He turned quickly and his face filled with delight, and then embarrassment at his betrayal of emotion.

“Mrs. Pitt … how kind of you to have come. I hope I do not presume … I …”

She smiled. “Of course not,” she assured him. “The Egyptian exhibit is something I have always wished to see, but no one else I know has the least interest in it, and if I came down and stood around looking at it alone, I might be taken for a most undesirable kind of woman and attract attention I do not wish.”

“Oh!” He obviously had not thought of that. Being a man gave him a freedom he had taken for granted. “Yes … indeed. Well … let us look at it.”

He had misunderstood. She could have seen it any time—with Emily, or Great-Aunt Vespasia, or Gracie, for that matter. She was trying to make him feel a little less ill at ease by making a joke of it.

“Have you ever been to Egypt?” she asked, staring at the sarcophagus.

“No. Well … only to pass through.” He hesitated, then, as if making a great decision, he continued. “I have been to Abyssinia.”

She glanced at him. “Have you? Why? I mean, was it to do with interest in the country or were you sent there? I didn’t know we had ever fought Abyssinia.”

He smiled. “My dear, we have fought just about everywhere. You would be hard put to name a place on the face of the earth where we have not meddled at some time or other.”

“Why did we meddle in Abyssinia?” she asked with genuine interest, as well as a desire to make him speak of something in which he was comfortable.

“It is a preposterous story.” He was still smiling.

“Good,” she encouraged. “I love preposterous stories, the more so the better. Tell me.”

He offered her his arm, and she took it as they walked slowly around the exhibits one after another, without seeing any of them.

“It was in January of 1864,” he began, “that it really came to a head. But it started long before. The Emperor of Abyssinia, whose name was Theodore—”

“Theodore!” she said with disbelief. “That doesn’t sound like an Abyssinian name. It should be … I don’t know … African! At least foreign. I’m sorry—please go on!”

“He was born of very humble family,” he resumed. “His first calling was as a scribe, but he earned very little at it, so he took to banditry instead, at which he did so well that by the time he was thirty-seven he was crowned Emperor of Abyssinia, King of Kings, and Chosen of God.”

“I have obviously underrated banditry!” She giggled. “Not only its social acceptability but its religious significance.”

He was smiling broadly now. “Unfortunately, he was quite mad. He wrote a letter to the Queen—”

“Our Queen, or his own queen?” she interrupted.

“Our Queen! Victoria. He wished to send a delegation to England to see her, in order to let her know that his Muslim neighbors were oppressing him and other good Christians in Abyssinia. He asked her to form an alliance with him to deal with them.”

“And she wouldn’t?” she asked. They were now in front of a magnificent stone carved with hieroglyphics.

“We will never know,” he answered. “Because the letter reached London in 1863 but someone in the Foreign Office mislaid it. Or else they could not think what to say in reply. So Theodore became very angry indeed, and imprisoned the British consul in Abyssinia, one Captain Charles Cameron. They stretched him on a rack and flogged him with a hippopotamus hide whip.”

She stared at him, uncertain if he was absolutely serious. She saw from his eyes that he was.

“So what happened then? Did they send the army to rescue him?”

“No … the Foreign Office looked very hastily for the letter, and found it,” he answered. “They wrote a reply requesting Cameron’s release and gave it to a Turkish Assyriologist named Rassam and asked him to deliver it. The letter was written in May of 1864, but it did not reach the Emperor in Abyssinia until January nearly two years later, when Theodore welcomed Rassam warmly … and then threw the poor man into prison with Cameron.”

“Then we sent in the army?” she said.

“No. Theodore wrote to the Queen again, this time asking for workmen, machinery and a munitions manufacturer.” The corners of his lips twitched with wry humor.

“And we sent the army?” she concluded.

He glanced sideways at her. “No, we sent a civil engineer and six workmen.”

In spite of herself, her voice rose. “I don’t believe it!”

He nodded. “They got as far as Massawa, waited there for half a year, and were finally sent home again.” Then his expression became serious again. “But in July of that year, 1867, the Secretary of State for India telegraphed the Governor of Bombay asking how long it would take to mount an expedition, and in August the cabinet decided on war. In September they sent Theodore an ultimatum. And we set sail. I came from India and joined General Napier’s forces: Bengal Cavalry, Madras sappers and miners, Bombay native infantry and a regiment of Sind horse. We were joined by a British regiment, the 33rd Foot, although actually half of them were Irish and there were almost a hundred Germans, and when we landed near Zula, there were Turks and Arabs and all kinds of Africans. I remember a young war correspondent named Henry Stanley writing about it. He loved Africa, fascinated by it.” He stopped. He was looking at the exhibit in front of them now, an alabaster carving of a cat. It was exquisite, but there was no pleasure in Balantyne’s face, only embarrassment and pain.

“You fought in Abyssinia?” she asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Was it very bad?”

He moved slightly, with just a flinch of the body, a gesture of denial. “No worse than any fighting. There is always fear, mutilation, death. You care about people and see them reduced to the least—and rise to the most—a man can be: terror and courage, selfishness in some, nobility in others, hunger, thirst, pain … fearful pain.” He kept his face away from her, as if to meet her eyes would make him incapable of saying what he felt. “It strips away all pretense … from others and from yourself.”

She was not sure whether to interrupt or not. She tightened her fingers on his arm a little. He stood silently.

She waited. People moved past them, some of them turning to stare for a moment. She wondered fleetingly what they thought, and did not care.

He took a deep breath and let it out silently.

“I did not wish to talk about battle. I’m sorry.”

“What did you wish to say?” she asked gently.

“I … perhaps …” He faltered again.

“I can forget it afterwards if you would rather I did,” she promised.

He smiled, a harsh curling of the lips. He remained facing forward, not looking at her. “There was one action in that campaign where we were ambushed. Thirty men were injured, my commanding officer among them. It was something of a fiasco. I was shot in the arm, but not badly.”

She waited for him to continue without prompting him.

“I have received a letter.” He said it with great difficulty, his words coming as if forced out of him, his face stiff. “It accuses me of being the cause of that rout … of—of cowardice in the face of the enemy, of being responsible for the injuries of those men. It says … that I panicked and was rescued by a private soldier, but that that fact was covered up to save the honor of the regiment, and for morale. It is not true, but I cannot prove that.” He did not tell her that such a charge, if known, would ruin him. He expected her to know.

And she did. Anyone would, especially just at the moment, with the Tranby Croft affair all over the newspapers and on everyone’s tongue. Even those who would not normally take the slightest interest in such people were now talking about them and awaiting the next development, eager for disaster.

She must answer with intelligence. Sympathy was fine, but it was of no practical use, and he needed help.

“What did they ask for?” she said quietly.

“A snuffbox,” he answered. “Just as a token of good faith.”

She was surprised. “A snuffbox? Is it valuable?”

He gave a sharp bark of laughter, raw, self-mocking. “No … a few guineas. It’s pinchbeck, but it is beautiful. Highly individual. Anyone would know it was mine. It is a token of my willingness to pay. Some would say it is a sign of guilt.” His hands clenched, and she could feel the muscles of his arm hard under her fingers. “But it’s only a mark of my panic … exactly what he accused me of.” The bitterness in his voice was close to despair. “But I never turned my back on the enemy of the body … only of the mind. Odd … I had not imagined I lacked moral courage.”

“You don’t,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “It is a delaying tactic … until we know the strength of the enemy and a little more of his nature. Blackmail is a cowardly thing … perhaps the most cowardly.” Her anger was so burning hot, she had not even been aware of using a plural that included herself.

He moved his other hand and very gently, just for a moment, touched her fingers where they lay on his arm, then turned away and began to walk towards the next exhibit, several pieces of ancient glass in a case.

She followed after him swiftly. “You cannot become involved in this,” he said. “I told you simply because … because I needed to share it with someone, and I knew I could trust you.”

“You can trust me!” she said urgently. “But not to stand by and watch you tortured for something you did not do. Not that I would stand by even if you had. We all make mistakes, are weak or frightened or stupid sometimes, and that in itself is usually punishment enough.” She stood next to him but did not link her arm in his this time. He was not looking at her. “We are going to fight!”

Now he did face her. “How? I have no idea who he is.”

“Then we must find out,” she retorted. “Or else we must contact someone who was there and can disprove what this person is saying. Make a list of everyone who even knows about it.”

“The army,” he said with the ghost of a smile.

She was determined. “Come, now! It was a skirmish in Abyssinia … it was hardly Waterloo! And it was twenty-three years ago. They will not all even be alive.”

“Twenty-five,” he corrected with a sudden softness in his eyes. “Shall we begin over luncheon? This is not the most convenient place for writing anything.”

“Certainly,” she agreed. “Thank you.” She took his arm again. “That would be an excellent beginning.”

They ate together at a most agreeable small restaurant, and were she less preoccupied with the problem, she would have luxuriated in delicious food in whose preparation she had taken no part. But the matter in hand was far too serious, and it had her entire attention.

Balantyne struggled to remember the names of all the men he knew who had been involved in the action in Abyssinia. With a little effort he managed all the officers, but when it came to the private soldiers he could bring to mind only about half.

“There will be military records,” he said somewhat glumly. “Although I doubt they will be able to help. It was so long ago.”

“Somebody remembers,” she pointed out. “Whoever sent that letter is connected one way or another. We’ll find these people.” She looked down the page from the small notebook he had purchased before coming to dine. There were fifteen names. “The army will know where they live, won’t it?”

He looked deeply unhappy. “After this length of time they may well have settled anywhere in the country—or the world, for that matter. Or, as you pointed out, they may no longer be alive.”

She felt his misery and understood his fear. She had certainly felt it herself several times, not the sharp, sick terror of physical pain or destruction, but the cold, creeping fear of loss, hurt to the mind and the heart, loneliness, shame, guilt, the desert of being unloved. She was not threatened by this. She must be strong for both of them.

“Well, the person we are looking for is definitely alive, and I imagine living here in London,” she said firmly. “Where did you send the snuffbox to?”

His eyes widened. “A messenger called for it, a boy on a bicycle. I spoke to him, but he had no idea where it was going, except that a gentleman had paid him and would meet him in the park at dusk. He couldn’t describe this gentleman at all, except that he was wearing a checked coat and a cloth cap, also with checks. It is presumably a disguise. No one would dress like that for any other reason. Whether he was the blackmailer or not, I don’t know. He might have been passing it on again.” He took a deep breath. “But you are quite right. He is here in London. There is something I did not tell you … the man who was found dead on my doorstep had my snuffbox in his pocket.”

“Oh …” She realized with a drenching coldness how that could be read by any investigating police, even Pitt. “Oh … I see.” Now Balantyne’s fear was better explained.

He was watching her, waiting for the anger, the blame, the changed perception.

“Do you know who he is?” she asked, meeting his eyes.

“No. I expected to, when I went to the mortuary to look at him for Pitt, but so far as I know I have never seen him before.”

“Could he have been a soldier?”

“Certainly.”

“Could he have been the blackmailer?”

“I don’t know. I half wish he were, and then he would be dead.” His fingers on the tablecloth were stiff. It took him a deliberate effort of will not to clench them. She could see it in the knotting and then relaxing of his hand. “But I did not kill him … and who else would … on my doorstep? Except the real blackmailer—to draw police attention to me!” He was shaking now, very slightly. “I watch every delivery of the post for another letter, telling me what he wants. I shall not give it to him. And then he will spread the story—perhaps to the police as well.”

“Then we must find someone who was there and can disprove the story,” she said with more anger and hope than conviction. “You must have friends, connections, who can tell you where to find these people.” She indicated the list. “Let us begin now!”

He did not argue, but the misery in his face and the weariness in the angles of his body betrayed the fact that he did not hope to succeed. He was doing it simply because it was not in his nature to surrender, even when he knew he was beaten.

Tellman was convinced that in some way Albert Cole was connected with General Balantyne, and he was determined that he would discover what it was. Having exhausted the immediate avenues of knowledge regarding Balantyne, he returned to Cole’s military career. That was the most obvious possibility.

It was in reviewing the history of Cole’s regiment, the 33rd Foot, that he saw that it had served in the Abyssinian Campaign of 1867-68. That was where it crossed Balantyne’s Indian service, when he, too, had been briefly sent to Africa. That was it! Suddenly it made sense. They had served together. It was something in that campaign which had brought Cole to Bedford Square, and led to his murder.

He could feel his pulse quicken and a thin thread of excitement stir inside him. He must go to Keppel Street to report this vital piece of news to Pitt.

He took the omnibus and got off at Tottenham Court Road and walked across the few hundred yards to Pitt’s house.

He rang the bell and stepped back. Of course it would be Gracie who would answer. Unconsciously, he ran his fingers around inside his collar, as if it were too tight, then ran his hands over his hair, pushing it back quite unnecessarily. His mouth was a little dry.

The door opened. Gracie looked surprised. She smoothed her apron over her hips while looking at him very directly.

“I’ve come to report to Mr. Pitt,” he said rather too abruptly.

“I s’pose yer’d better come in,” she said before he had a chance to explain himself more graciously. She moved to allow him past her.

He accepted, hearing his boots clattering over the linoleum all along the corridor to the kitchen. Gracie’s feet behind him sounded light, tapping, feminine. But she was as small as a child.

He went into the kitchen expecting to see Pitt sitting at the table, then realized his mistake. He would be in the parlor, naturally. Gracie would fetch him in here to see Tellman, not at the front of the house. It was not a social call.

He stood stiffly in the middle of the room, smelling the warmth, the flour from baking, the clean linen, the steam from the kettle on the stove, the faint grit of coal. The early-evening sun shone through the window onto the blue-and-white-ringed china on the dresser. Two cats lay by the fire, one ginger and white, one black as the coal in the scuttle.

“Don’t just stand there like a lamppost,” Gracie said sharply. “Sit down.” She pointed to one of the wooden chairs. “D’yer want a cup o’tea?”

“I’ve come to report some very important information to Mr. Pitt,” he said stiffly. “Not to sit in your kitchen drinking cups of tea. You’d better go and tell him I’m here.” He did not sit.

“ ’e in’t ’ere,” she told him, moving the kettle onto the center of the hob. “If it’s that important then yer’d best leave a message wif me. I’ll see as ’e gets it as soon as ’e comes in.”

He hesitated. It was important. The kettle was steaming nicely. It was a long time since he had sat down, let alone had anything to eat or drink. His feet were hot and aching.

The black cat stretched, yawned, and went back to sleep.

“I made some cake, if yer like?” Gracie offered, moving quickly around the kitchen, fetching the teapot down and then trying hard to reach the tea caddy, which had been pushed to the back of the shelf. She stretched, then tried jumping. She really was very small.

He went over, reaching it effortlessly. He handed it to her.

“I can get it meself!” she said tartly, taking it from him. “Wot d’yer fink I do w’en yer in’t ’ere?”

“Drink water,” he replied.

She shot him a razor-sharp look, but took the caddy in her hand and went over to the stove. “Yer’d best get some plates down too, then,” she instructed. “T want some cake, whether you do or not.”

He obeyed. He might as well leave the message with her. It would get to Pitt the fastest way.

They sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table, stiff and very formal, sipping tea that was too hot and eating the cake, which was excellent.

He told her about Albert Cole and the 33rd Foot Regiment, and the Abyssinian Expedition, and that Balantyne had been there too, seconded from India.

She looked very serious indeed, as if the news upset her.

“I’ll tell ’im,” she promised. “D’yer think as General Balantyne did this feller in, then?”

“Could have.” He would not commit himself too far. If he said yes, and was then proved mistaken, she would lose respect for him.

“Wot’ll yer do next?” she asked gravely, her eyes steady on his face.

“Learn everything else I can about Cole,” he told her. “He must have had a reason for finding Balantyne again after all this time. It’s nearly a quarter of a century since then.”

She leaned forward. “It must be summink terrible important. If yer find it, yer’ll ’ave ter tell Mr. Pitt … w’erever ’e is or whatever ’e’s doin’. Yer’d best come ’ere an’ leave a message wif Mrs. Pitt or me. It can get real serious w’en it’s quality, like generals. Don’t you go doin’ nothin’ by yerself.” She looked at him with deep anxiety. “In fact … yer’d better let Mrs. Pitt know afore yer tell anyone else, ’cos she’s quality ’erself, so she can ’elp. She’d stop you an’ the Master from goin’ about it wrong, jus’ ’cos yer in’t the same kind o’ persons.” She looked at him with deep concern that he should understand.

She was just a maid, she had only very recently learned to read and write and she came from the back street of … he did not know where. Probably the same sort of place as he had himself, somewhere like Wandsworth or Billingsgate, or any of a hundred other downtrodden, overcrowded warrens of the poor. But she was a girl, and therefore not given even the rudiments of an education. Tellman, on the other hand, had definitely bettered himself.

But her suggestion did make a certain amount of sense.

She refilled his cup and cut him another slice of cake.

He accepted both with pleasure. She was a good cook, which surprised him. She looked too small and thin to know anything about food.

“You come an’ tell me,” she repeated. “An’ I’ll make sure the Mistress keeps the Master from gettin’ inter trouble ’cos o’ folks wot ’ave influence an’ could ’urt ’im, if it in’t done right.”

He was getting more and more comfortable in the kitchen. He disagreed with Gracie about all sorts of things. She had a great deal to learn, especially about social issues and fairness, and justice for people, but she was well-meaning, and no one could say she wasn’t brave and prepared to fight for her beliefs.

“I suppose that would be quite a good idea,” he conceded. He did not want Pitt to get into political trouble if it could be avoided, not necessarily entirely from loyalty to Pitt, about whom he told himself he was still ambivalent. But there was the matter of justice. If General Balantyne thought himself above the law, it would take skill, as well as good detective work, to catch him and prove it.

“Good,” Gracie said with satisfaction, taking a large piece of cake. “So yer’ll come ’ere an’ tell me, or the Mistress, wot yer know, an’ she’ll tell the Master, an’ at the same time ’elp ’im ter not go chargin’ in an’ mebbe the real truth’ll never get told. Back stairs and front stairs is different, yer know.” She watched him carefully to make sure he understood.

“Of course I know!” he said. “But they shouldn’t be. Rich men don’t make any better soldiers than poor men. In fact, worse!”

She squinted at him. “Wot yer talkin’ about?”

“General Balantyne is only a general because his father bought his commission for him,” he explained patiently. Perhaps he was expecting her to grasp too much. “He probably never did any real fighting, only ordering others around.”

Gracie jiggled in her seat as if she were making such a mighty effort at self-control that she could not keep still.

“If ’e’s got enough money ter do that, then we gotta be very careful,” she said crossly, and without looking at him. Then she raised her head, her eyes blazing. “Are yer sure yer can buy bein’ a general? An’ if anybody were that rich, why’d ’e buy bein’ a soldier? That’s daft.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said loftily. “People like that are different from us.”

“They’re not any different if they get shot,” she said instantly. “Blood’s blood, ’ooever’s it is.”

“I know that, and you know that,” he agreed. “But they think theirs is different, and better.”

She sighed very patiently, as she did with Daniel when he was obstructive and deliberately disobedient just to see how far he could push her.

“I daresay yer know more about it than I do, Mr. Tellman. I spec’ Mr. Pitt’s very lucky ter ’ave someone like you ter ’elp keep ’im straight an’ out o’ mistakes.”

“I do my best,” he agreed, accepting a third piece of cake and allowing her to refill his cup yet again. “Thank you, Gracie.”

She grunted.

But when he left half an hour later, without having seen either Pitt or Charlotte, he was overtaken by acute anxiety as to exactly what he had promised. It had been a long and very busy day. It was hot. His feet ached. He had walked miles and not had more to eat than a cheese-and-pickle sandwich and Gracie’s cake. She had made him welcome, and without realizing it, he had given his word that he would tell her what he uncovered in the Albert Cole case before he told Pitt. He must be losing his wits! He had never done anything so totally foolish in his life before. It was contrary to everything he had been taught.

Not that that was normally a reason. He was not a man to follow anyone’s commands against his own judgment.

He was too tired to think clearly, he just had a terrible feeling of being out of his depth, of following impulse more than his own nature and habit, all the path he was used to.

But he had given his word … and to Gracie Phipps, of all people.