Traitors Gate

9

PITT ARRIVED HOME late after a day which was exhausting both physically and emotionally. He was looking forward to putting the whole matter out of his mind for a space, and sitting in the parlor with his feet up and the doors to the garden open to let in the late spring evening air. It was fine and balmy, the sort of day when the smells of the earth linger heavily and overtake the awareness of a mighty city beyond the garden walls. One could think only of flowers, cut lawns, shady trees and moths drifting lazily in the stillness.

However as soon as he entered the hallway he knew that was not to be. Charlotte came out of the parlor, her face grave, a warning in her eyes.

“What is it?” he said with apprehension.

“Matthew is here to see you,” she replied softly, aware of the open door behind her. “He looks very worried, but he wouldn’t tell me anything about it.”

“You asked him?”

“No, of course I didn’t. But I made … listening noises.”

He smiled in spite of himself, touched her gently as he passed and went into the parlor.

Matthew was sitting in Pitt’s favorite chair, staring out of the open French windows across the lawn towards the apple tree. As soon as he felt Pitt’s presence in the room, even though there had been no sound, he turned around and stood up. His face was pale and there were still shadows around his eyes. He looked as if he had suffered a long illness and was only barely well enough to be out of his bed.

“What’s happened?” Pitt demanded, closing the door behind him.

Matthew seemed startled, as though the directness of the question had been unexpected.

“Nothing, at least nothing new. I … I wondered if you had been able to learn anything more about Father’s death.” He opened his eyes wide and stared at Pitt questioningly.

Pitt felt guilty, even though he had every reason for having been unable to even think of the matter.

“No, I … I am afraid not. The assistant commissioner has given me the murder of Susannah Chancellor, and it has driven—”

“I understand. Of course I do,” Matthew interrupted. “You don’t need to explain it to me, Thomas. I am not a child.” He walked towards the French doors as if he meant to go outside into the evening air. “I just … wondered.”

“Is that what you came for?” Pitt asked doubtfully. He joined Matthew in the doorway.

“Of course.” Matthew stepped across the threshold and out onto the paved terrace.

Pitt followed, and together they walked very slowly over the grass towards the apple tree and the shaded section of the wall. There was deep green moss on the stones, rich as velvet, and low down near the ground a creeping plant with yellow starlike flowers.

“What else has happened?” Pitt repeated. “You look dreadful.”

“I had a crack on the head.” Matthew pulled a face and winced. “You were there.”

“Is it worse? Have you had the doctor back?”

“No, no it’s getting better. It’s just slow. This is a fearful business about Chancellor’s wife.” He frowned and took another step across the soft grass. It was thick within the shade of the tree and spongy under the feet. The white drift of the apple blossom was faintly sweet in the air, a clean, uncloying smell. “Have you any idea what happened?”

“Not yet. Why? Do you know anything?”

“Me?” This time Matthew looked genuinely surprised. “Nothing at all. I just think it’s a dreadful stroke of fate for a man so brilliant, and whose personal life was so unusually happy. There are many politicians who could have lost their wives and been little the worse for it at heart, but not Chancellor.”

Pitt stared at him. The remark was curiously uncharacteristic, as if only half his mind were on his words. Pitt was becoming more and more certain that there was in fact something troubling him.

“Did you know Chancellor well?” he asked aloud.

“Moderately,” Matthew replied, continuing to walk, and not looking at Pitt. “He’s one of the most accessible men of high rank. Agreeable to talk to. He comes from a fairly ordinary family. Welsh, I believe, at least originally. They may have been in the Home Counties a while now. It wasn’t political, was it?” He turned to Pitt, curiosity and puzzlement in his face. “I mean, it couldn’t be, surely?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied candidly. “At the moment I have no idea at all.”

“None?”

“What did you have in mind when you asked?”

“Don’t play games with me, Thomas,” Matthew said irritably. “I’m not one of your damned suspects!” Then a moment later he was struck with contrition. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I meant. I’m still plagued by Father’s death. Part of my mind is convinced he was murdered, and by the Inner Circle, both to keep him from saying anything more about them and as a warning to other would-be traitors to the oaths. Loyalty’s a hell of a thing, Thomas. How much loyalty can you demand of anyone? I’m not even sure I know what loyalty is. If you had asked me a year ago, or six months ago, I would have been quite convinced it was a stupid question, not even worth asking because the answer was so obvious. Now I can’t answer it.” He stood still on the grass, his face full of confusion, his eyes searching Pitt’s. “Can you?”

Pitt thought for a long time before he replied, and even then it was tentative.

“I suppose it is honoring your promises,” he said slowly. “But then it is also honoring your obligations, even if there have been no specific promises made.”

“Exactly,” Matthew agreed. “But who sets out what those obligations are, or to whom? Whose is the first claim? What when people assume you have some obligation to them, and you don’t assume it? They can, you know.”

“Sir Arthur and the Inner Circle?”

Matthew lifted his shoulders in a gesture of vague assent. “Anyone. Sometimes we take for granted things, and imagine that other people do too … and perhaps they don’t. I mean … how well do we know each other, how well do we even know ourselves, until we are tested? You imagine you will behave in a certain way if you are faced with a choice, but when the time comes, you find you don’t.”

Pitt was even surer that Matthew had something specific in mind. There was too much passion in his voice for it to be mere philosophizing. But equally obviously, he was not yet ready to speak of it openly. Pitt did not even know if it was actually to do with Sir Arthur, or if he had merely mentioned that as something they had in common from which to begin.

“You mean a division of loyalties?”

Matthew moved a step away. Pitt knew he had touched a nerve, and it was too soon.

Matthew waited a moment before he replied. The garden was silent. Somewhere beyond the hedges a dog barked. A tortoiseshell cat walked along the wall and dropped soundlessly into the orchard.

“Some of those men at the inquest genuinely felt as if he had betrayed a trust,” Matthew said at last. “A loyalty to their secret society, perhaps in a way to their class. Somebody in the Colonial Office is betraying their country, but perhaps they don’t see it like that.” He took a deep breath, his eyes on the wind in the apple leaves. “Father felt that to keep silent about the Inner Circle was to betray all that he felt most important in life, although he might never have thought to give it a name. I’m not sure I like giving things names. Does that sound like evasion? Once you give things a name and promise allegiance, you’ve given part of yourself away. I’m not prepared to do that.” He looked at Pitt with a frown. “Can you understand that, Thomas?”

“Most things don’t ask for an unlimited allegiance,” Pitt pointed out. “That is what is wrong with the Inner Circle; it asks men to promise loyalty in advance of knowing what will be asked of them.”

“A sacrifice of conscience, Father called it.”

“Then you have answered your own question,” Pitt pointed out. “You didn’t need to ask me, and you shouldn’t care what my answer would have been.”

Matthew flashed him a sudden, brilliant smile. “I don’t,” he confessed, putting his hands into his pockets.

“Then what still troubles you?” Pitt asked, because the shadow and the tension were still in Matthew, and the smile faded as quickly as it had come.

Matthew sighed, turning away from the orchard wall and beginning to walk slowly along it. “Yes, you and I can say that comfortably because we have no issue between us that we see differently. But how would you feel if my course led me to do something which you felt betrayed you? Wouldn’t you hate me for it?”

“Are you talking about all this in theory, Matthew, or is there something specific you are trying to find the courage to say?” Pitt fell in step beside him.

Matthew looked away, facing back towards the house. “I don’t even know of anything about which I believe all that differently from you. I was thinking of Father, and his friends in the Inner Circle.” He glanced sideways for a moment at Pitt. “Some of them were his friends, you know? That is what he found so terribly difficult”

Nothing that Matthew said was untrue, but Pitt still had the feeling that in some way Matthew was lying. They walked up the lawn towards the house together but they did not touch on the subject again. Charlotte invited Matthew to stay and dine with them, but he declined, and took his leave, his face still shadowed with anxiety, and Pitt watched him go with a sadness he could not rid himself of all evening.

Charlotte looked at Pitt enquiringly when Matthew was gone. “Is he all right? He looked …” She searched for a word.

“Troubled,” Pitt supplied it for her, sitting down in his chair and leaning back, stretching a little. “Yes, I am almost sure there is something else, but he cannot bring himself to say it.”

“What sort of thing?” She looked at him anxiously. He was not sure whether she was concerned for Matthew or for both of them. He could see in her eyes the knowledge of his own regret mixed so heavily with his loss.

He turned his gaze away. “I don’t know, something to do with loyalties….”

She drew in her breath sharply, as if to speak, then changed her mind tactfully. He almost laughed, it was so unlike her, but it would too easily have broken into misery.

“I suppose it is to do with the Circle,” he said, although he was not at all sure that was what had gnawed at Matthew so painfully. But either way, this evening he preferred not to think of it any further. “What is for dinner?”

“That’s not much,” Farnsworth said grimly when Pitt reported to him next. “The wretched man cannot have disappeared from the face of the earth.” He was referring to the driver of the hansom cab which had picked up Susannah Chancellor in Berkeley Square. “Who did you say you had on it?”

They were in his own office rather than Pitt’s room in Bow Street, and he stood by the window looking towards the Embankment of the river. Pitt sat in the chair opposite. Farnsworth had invited him to sit when he had first come in, and then a moment later had risen himself. It gave him a physical advantage he seemed to prefer.

“Tellman,” Pitt replied, sitting back a little farther. He did not in the least mind looking up. “And I tried myself. I know the man may be crucial, but so far we have found no trace of him, which leads me to—”

“If you are going to say Chancellor was lying, then you are a fool,” Farnsworth said irritably. “You surely cannot be so out of touch with reality as to imagine Chancellor would—”

“The whole question is irrelevant,” Pitt interrupted in his turn. “Chancellor went straight back to his house and was seen within ten minutes of having put her in the hansom. I already know that from his own household staff. Not that I suspected him anyway. It is merely a matter of form to ascertain where everyone was at the relevant time.”

Farnsworth did not reply to that.

“Which leads me to suppose,” Pitt finished the sentence Farnsworth had broken into, “that the driver was in some way implicated. Possibly he was not a regular cabby at all, but someone dressed as one.”

“Then where did he get the hansom from?” Farnsworth demanded. “Chancellor said it was a hansom. He would know the difference between a cab and a private carriage.”

“I’ve got Tellman looking into that now. So far we don’t know, but it must have come from somewhere, either hired or stolen. He’s going around to all the companies.”

“Good. Good. That could be the break we are needing.”

“Kreisler thought it might have been an attempt at kidnapping that went wrong,” Pitt suggested.

Farnsworth was startled and a flicker of irritation crossed his face.

“What? Who the devil is Kreisler?”

“Peter Kreisler. Something of an expert on African affairs.” Pitt spoke thoughtfully. “He seems to be very concerned about the case. In fact he has spent a lot of time pursuing it himself.”

“Why?” Farnsworth demanded, coming back to his desk and sitting opposite Pitt. “Did he know her?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s a suspect, dammit!” His fist clenched. “I assume you are investigating him very thoroughly indeed?”

“Yes, of course I am.” Pitt’s voice rose in spite of his efforts to keep it level. “He says he was at home that evening, but he cannot prove it. His man had the evening off.”

Farnsworth relaxed. “Well that may be all there is to it! It may be as simple as that, no abduction, nothing political, simply a jealous man, infatuated and rejected.” There was considerable satisfaction in his voice. It would be an ideal solution.

“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. “Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould saw them in a heated discussion the previous night. But that is a long way from proving that Kreisler is violent and unstable enough to have murdered her simply because she refused him.”

“Well find out, man!” Farnsworth said sharply. “Look into his past. Write to Africa, if you have to. He must have been attracted to other women at some time or another. See how he behaved then. Learn everything about him, his loves, hates, quarrels, debts, ambitions, everything there is to know about him! I am not going to allow the murder of a cabinet minister’s wife to remain an unsolved case … and neither are you!”

It sounded like a dismissal. Pitt rose to his feet.

“And the Colonial Office,” Farnsworth went on. “How are you progressing with that? Lord Salisbury asked me only yesterday if we had learned anything of use.” His face tightened. “I did not inform him of your machinations to pass various different versions of false figures. God knows what he would have said if I had. I assume you have achieved nothing with that ploy or you would have told me?”

“It is too early yet,” Pitt replied. “And the Colonial Office is in something of an upheaval with Chancellor himself not present.”

“When do you expect that little piece of deception to bear fruit?” Farnsworth asked, not without sarcasm.

“In the next three or four days at the outside,” Pitt replied.

Farnsworth frowned. “Well, I hope you are right. Personally I think you are a little too sanguine about it altogether. What do you propose to do next, if it fails?”

Pitt had not thought that far. His mind was taken up with Susannah Chancellor, and always at the back of his thoughts, intruding at every opportunity, was the death of Arthur Desmond—and, since he had seen Dr. Murray, the near certainty that he had been murdered by the Inner Circle. He still intended to prove that, as soon as the urgency of the Chancellor case allowed.

“I have no further ideas,” he admitted. “Beyond continuing with usual police routine, to learn all I can of every possible suspect, in the hope that some fact, or lie, will prove who is guilty, both in the Colonial Office and in the Treasury. A connection that is not openly acknowledged would be indicative.”

“Not very satisfactory, Pitt. What about this woman Pennecuick?” He stood up again and walked restlessly over towards the window. “It still looks to me as if Aylmer is your man.”

“Possibly.”

Farnsworth put his hands into his pockets and looked thoughtful. “You told me Aylmer could not account for his time that evening. Is it possible Mrs. Chancellor had in some fashion discovered his guilt, and that he was aware of this, and that he murdered her to protect himself? And had he, for example, any connection with Kreisler?”

“I don’t know….” Pitt began.

“Then find out, man! That shouldn’t be beyond your wit to do.” He looked at Pitt coldly, regret in his eyes.

Pitt was sure he was thinking of the Inner Circle, and how much easier such investigations might be with the help of a widespread, covert network to call on. But who would know, with all the interlocking covenants and obligations, the hierarchy of loyalties, who was bound to whom, what lies or silences were promised? Even which officers in the police might be involved, a thought which was peculiarly frightening. He met Farnsworth’s stare with bland denial.

Farnsworth grunted and looked away.

“Then you had better be about it,” he said, then turned to the river again, and the bright light on the water.

“There is another possibility,” Pitt said quietly.

Farnsworth did not look around, but kept his back to the room and to Pitt.

“Yes?”

“That she did in fact visit the Thorne house,” Pitt replied. “We are still looking for her cloak. She was wearing it when she left, but it was not with her body. If we find it, it may tell us something.”

“Depending on where, I suppose,” Farnsworth conceded. “Go on. What if she did visit the Thorne house?”

Farnsworth’s shoulders tightened.

“Then either Thorne murdered her,” Pitt answered, “or he and his wife did together, although I find that harder to believe. I think Mrs. Thorne was genuinely grieved and shocked when I told her.”

“Why on earth would Thorne kill Mrs. Chancellor? You’re not suggesting an affair, are you?” This time there was mockery in Farnsworth’s voice.

“No.” Pitt did not bother to add how unlikely he thought it.

Farnsworth turned to look at him. “Then what?” His eyes widened. “The Colonial Office treason? Thorne?”

“Possibly. But there is another solution, which may not be unconnected….”

“What do you mean, not unconnected?” Farnsworth frowned. “Explain yourself, Pitt. You are talking in circles. Do you mean it is connected, or don’t you?”

Pitt gritted his teeth. “I think the death of Arthur Desmond may have been connected with his beliefs—”

He got no further. Farnsworth’s face darkened and his eyes narrowed. “I thought we had already dismissed that, and put it to rest. Arthur Desmond was a good man who unfortunately, tragically if you like, became senile towards the end of his life and suffered from serious delusions. The kindest thing one can assume is that he accidentally took an overdose of his sleeping draft.”

His lips tightened. “Less kindly, one might conclude that he knew he was losing his mind and had already seriously compromised his reputation and slandered many of his erstwhile friends, and in a moment of lucid realization of just what was happening to him, took his own life.”

He swallowed. “Perhaps I should not say that is an unkind solution. On second thoughts it was a highly honorable thing to do, and most like him.” His eyes met Pitt’s for a moment. “Yes, I’m sure that is the man you knew also. It required a considerable courage. If you have the regard for him that you profess, you will leave it at that and let him rest in peace. By keeping on raking up the matter you are prolonging the pain for his family and seriously misadvising them. I cannot warn you more gravely that you are making a profound mistake. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Pitt agreed, staring back at him, sensing the power of his resolve, and driven to ignore it. “But none of that is relevant to what Mrs. Chancellor may have thought, which is what we are concerned with.”

“You didn’t discuss this farrago of nonsense with Mrs. Chancellor, for God’s sake!” Farnsworth was aghast. He was still standing with his back to the window, his face in his own shadow from the sunlight, throwing its lines and planes into sharp relief.

“No I didn’t,” Pitt replied steadily. “But I am aware that Mrs. Chancellor knew Sir Arthur and thought very highly of him, and that he discussed his beliefs about Africa with her. Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould told me so.”

Farnsworth pulled a face at the mention of Vespasia’s name again. He was beginning to dislike her intensely.

“And how did she know that, pray? I suppose she is acquainted with Mrs. Chancellor? She is something of a busybody, and I think not to be taken seriously.” The moment he had said that he regretted it. It was a mistake, and he not only saw it in Pitt’s face, but his own social background was sufficient to have heard her name before, and to have recognized a true aristocrat when he met one. His temper had spoken before his intellect.

Pitt merely smiled, which was patronizing. Losing his own temper would have placed him in an equal position; this was superior.

“Well?” Farnsworth snapped. “Are you suggesting on the strength of that, that Mrs. Chancellor believed Mr. Thorne murdered Desmond, and that in fact he did, and felt compelled to murder her to keep her silent about it? Wouldn’t simply denying it have been just as effective, and a great deal less trouble?” His voice was dripping sarcasm.

Put as baldly as that, it did sound absurd. Pitt felt the color rush up his face, and saw the satisfaction in Farnsworth’s eyes. Farnsworth’s shoulders relaxed and he turned back towards the window.

“You are losing your grip, Pitt. That was unworthy of you.”

“That was your suggestion, not mine,” Pitt denied it. “What I am suggesting is that possibly Sir Arthur knew something about the missing information from the Colonial Office. After all, he often went in to the Foreign Office, and still had close connections there at the time of his death. He may not have realized the full importance of what he knew, but if he mentioned it to Susannah Chancellor, and she did understand it, because of Standish, and her family background in African finance, and Chancellor’s knowledge in the Colonial Office, and her friendship with Mrs. Thorne, then …”

“She put it all together and tackled Thorne with it?” Farnsworth was staring at him with growing interest. “And if Thorne is the traitor after all … yes, yes, you have a possibility!” His voice lifted a little. “Look into that, Pitt, but very carefully. For heaven’s sake remain discreet, both not to offend Thorne if he is innocent, and possibly more important, not to warn him if he is guilty.”

He made an effort of will. “I apologize to you, Pitt. I should not have leapt to such a hasty conclusion as to what you were saying. This does indeed make sense. You’d better get to it straightaway. Go and see the servants at the Thorne household. And keep on looking for that cabdriver. If he delivered her there, then he has nothing to fear, and will be a witness at Thorne’s undoing.”

“Yes, sir.” And Pitt rose from the chair to obey. It was what he had been intending to do anyway.

But the servants in the Thorne household could tell him nothing of use. He questioned them each, but no one had seen or heard Susannah Chancellor on the evening of her death. He pressed them as to the possibility of her having called without their knowledge. But it required a stretch of the imagination beyond reason to suppose that she had, unless she had specifically been asked to alight short of the house and not to present herself at the front door; instead to walk around the side, through the garden to the doorway to the back, and then make her way across the lawn to the French doors of the study and let herself in that way. Or possibly someone had been waiting for her.

Of course that was perfectly possible, but why should she do such a thing? If anyone had asked her to come secretly, without any of the servants seeing her, what explanation could they give for such an extraordinary request? Had it been Thorne, or Christabel, or both?

If indeed they had anything to do with it, it seemed far more likely one of them had gone out and met her in the street and taken her to wherever she had been killed, then left and returned to the house through the side entrance.

But looking at Christabel Thorne’s clear, wide eyes, full of intelligence, anger and grief, he could not imagine that she had taken part in anything so duplicitous.

But then again, if she loved her husband, perhaps he had persuaded her it was necessary, either for some higher good politically or morally, or simply to save him from discovery and disgrace.

“I really am sorry to be of so little assistance, Superintendent,” she said earnestly. They were in the study, where the doors led into the garden and he could see the flowering shrubs beyond her from where he sat. “Believe me,” she continued, “I have racked my brains to think of anything that could possibly be relevant. Mr. Kreisler was here, you know, and asked me all the same questions you are doing, and I could offer him nothing.”

“Kreisler was here?” he said quickly.

Her eyes widened.

“You didn’t know? He seems most concerned to learn the truth. I confess, I had not realized he cared so much for Susannah.” Her expression was difficult to read; there was confusion, surprise, sadness, even a faint shred of wry, hurt amusement.

Pitt had other thoughts on the subject. He was beginning to wonder which motives lay behind Kreisler’s enquiries. Was it a passion to avenge Susannah, either through assisting the police or privately? Or was it in order to learn how much they knew, so he might guard either himself or someone else? Or was it to lay false information, to mislead and even further confuse the search? The more he knew of Kreisler, the less certain he was about him.

“No,” he said aloud. “I think there is a lot yet to be learned on that matter.”

She looked at him with a sudden quickening of interest. “Do you suspect him, Superintendent?”

“Of course, Mrs. Thorne.”

There was a flash of humor across her face, this time undisguised. “Oh no,” she replied. “I am not going to give words to any speculation. You must imagine what you will. I enjoy trivial gossip, but I abhor it when it touches on things that matter.”

“And Mr. Kreisler matters?”

Her high eyebrows arched. “Not in the slightest, Superintendent. But accusations of complicity in murder matter very much.” Her face darkened. “And Susannah mattered, to me. I liked her profoundly. Friendship matters, almost as much as honor.”

She had spoken with intense seriousness, and he answered her in equal vein.

“And when the two conflict, Mrs. Thorne?”

“Then you have one of life’s tragedies,” she replied without hesitation. “But fortunately I am not placed in that situation. I know nothing about Susannah to her dishonor. Or about Linus either, for that matter. He is a man of deep conviction, and he always openly and honestly proclaimed both his intent and the means by which he would bring it to pass.

“And believe me, Superintendent, he has never entertained the slightest improper intentions towards another woman.” It was a simple and rather obvious statement, one any friend might make in the circumstances, and frequently did. Normally it sounded trite, it was merely an exercise in loyalty, but looking at Christabel’s face with its fierce intelligence and almost disdainful pride, he was unable to dismiss it so lightly. There was no sentimentality in her; it was not an emotional response, but one born of observation and belief.

They were both oblivious of the quiet room or the sunlit garden beyond, even of the wind moving the leaves to cast the occasional shadows on the glass.

“And Mr. Kreisler?” he asked.

“I have no idea. A contentious man,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “I had thought him attracted to Miss Gunne, which would be most understandable. But certainly he pursued Susannah as well, and even with his undoubted arrogance, I doubt he can have deluded himself he could achieve anything of a romantic nature with her.”

Pitt was less certain. No matter how much Susannah might still be in love with her husband, people were capable of all sorts of strange acts where passion, loneliness and physical need were concerned. And Susannah had certainly gone somewhere she preferred not to tell anyone about.

“Then what?” he asked, watching her expression as she sought for an answer.

The veil came down over her thoughts again. Her eyes were bright and direct, but no longer revealing anything unguarded of herself.

“That is your profession to find out, Superintendent. I know nothing that would help you, or I should already have told it to you.”

And Pitt learned nothing further from Thorne himself when he visited him at the Colonial Office. Garston Aylmer was more forthcoming.

“Absolutely frightful,” he said with deep emotion when Pitt said that he was now here in connection with Susannah’s murder. “Quite the most personally shocking thing I have ever heard.” And indeed he looked very shaken. Seeing his pale face, slightly sunken eyes and yet the steadiness of his gaze when he met Pitt’s, it would be difficult to imagine it was assumed, or indeed that it had anything to do with guilt.

“I knew her quite well, naturally,” Aylmer went on, his short thick fingers playing absently with a pencil on the desk in front of him. “One of the most charming of women, and with an unusual integrity.” He looked up gravely, the pencil frozen in mid-motion. “There was an inner honesty in her which was both very beautiful and at times quite disconcerting. I really am profoundly sorry she is gone, Superintendent.”

Pitt believed him entirely, and felt naive even while he did so.

“What do you know of the relationship between her and Mrs. Thorne?” Pitt asked.

Aylmer smiled. “Ah—Christabel. A very rare type of lady … thank goodness! A couple of dozen of her, and London would be revolutionized and reformed to within an inch of its life.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “No, Superintendent, that is unfair. Christabel is charming at times, and always interesting. But women with quite such a driving force for good terrify me. It is a little like finding oneself accidentally in the path of a tornado.”

“Tornados are destructive forces,” Pitt pointed out, looking clearly at Aylmer to see if he intended the analogy.

“Only to one’s peace of mind.” Aylmer smiled ruefully. “At least as far as Christabel is concerned. She has a passion for educating women which is most disturbing. It genuinely frightens a great many people. And if you know her at all, you will know she does nothing in half measures.”

“What is it she wishes to reform?”

Aylmer spread his hands in a gesture of abandonment. “Just about everything. Attitudes, beliefs, the entire role of women in the world, which of course means of men as well.” He smiled. “Specifically? Improve radically the role of the odd women …”

“The odd women?” Pitt was totally confused. “What odd women?”

Aylmer’s smile grew broader. “All odd women. My dear fellow, odd women are all women who are not ’even,’ that is to say, married. The women, of whom there are a large and ever-increasing number who have no man to provide for them financially, make them socially respectable and give them something to do, namely to care for him and whatever children there may be.”

“What on earth does she propose to do about it?”

“Why, educate them! Have them join the professions, the arts, the sciences, anything they wish. The odd women, if that is where their abilities or their desires lead them. If Christabel succeeds, next time you call your dentist, your plumber, your banker or your architect, you may find it is a woman. Heaven help us when it is your doctor or your priest!”

Pitt was dumbfounded.

“Precisely,” Aylmer agreed. “Apart from women’s complete unsuitability both emotionally and intellectually—not to mention physically—for such tasks, that will throw thousands of men out of work. I told you, she is a revolutionary.”

“And … people allow it?” Pitt was amazed.

“No of course they don’t. But have you ever tried to stop a truly determined woman? Any woman, never mind Christabel Thorne?”

Pitt thought of trying to stop Vespasia, and knew precisely what Aylmer meant.

“I see,” he said aloud.

“I doubt it.” Aylmer shook his head. “To see the full enormity of it, you would have to know Christabel. Incredible courage, you know. Doesn’t give a damn about the scandal.”

“Was Mrs. Chancellor also involved?” Pitt asked.

“Good gracious, what an appalling thought! I have no idea. I don’t think so. No … Susannah’s interests were all to do with her family, banking, investment, finances and so on. If she had any radical ideas, it was about that sort of thing. But she was far more conventional, thank God.” His brow darkened suddenly. “That is what she quarreled with Kreisler about, so far as I can recall. Curious man. He was here, you know, asking me questions about her. In fact, Superintendent, he was rather more pressing than you are!”

Pitt sat a little farther upright. “About Mrs. Chancellor’s death?”

“Yes. Yes, he seemed most concerned. I couldn’t tell him anything I haven’t told you … which is almost nothing at all. He also wanted to know about both Mr. and Mrs. Thorne.” He laughed a little self-consciously. “And about me. I am not sure if he suspected I might have some involvement, or if he was simply desperate enough to pursue anything at all.”

Pitt was wondering the same thing, both about Aylmer and about Kreisler. This information that he had been to see Aylmer was most disquieting.

He was further disturbed when he saw Ian Hathaway, ostensibly to ask if there had been any progress with the falsified figures, but also to see if he could learn anything more about either Mr. or Mrs. Thorne and their possible connection with Susannah or with Arthur Desmond.

Hathaway looked puzzled. He sat in his quiet, discreet office with its slightly faded good taste and solidity.

“No, Superintendent. That is what is so very curious, and, I admit, beyond me to understand. I would have called you this afternoon had you not come here to see me. We do have information from the German Embassy….”

Pitt drew in his breath involuntarily, his heart beating a little faster, in spite of his effort to remain perfectly composed.

Hathaway saw it and smiled, his small, clear blue eyes steady.

“The message includes figures quite specifically, and this is what is incomprehensible. They are not any of those which I distributed, nor are they the genuine figures which I retained and passed to Lord Salisbury.”

“What?” Pitt could scarcely believe what he had heard. It made no sense whatever. “I beg your pardon?”

“Precisely,” Hathaway agreed. “I can see no sense in it at all. That is why I delayed contacting you.” He sat motionless. Even his hands on the desk were quite still. “I made doubly sure that I had received the message correctly. It was my first thought that somehow figures had been transposed or misunderstood; but it was not so. The message was clear and correct, the figures are quite different, and indeed if acted upon, seriously misleading. I have no desire whatever to disabuse the German Embassy of its error. I am also, at this stage, at a loss to understand what has happened. I did take the liberty of informing Lord Salisbury of the matter, to be sure he had the correct figures himself. I need hardly say that he has.”

Pitt sat in silence, digesting what Hathaway had told him and trying to think of some explanation. None came to his mind.

“We have failed, Superintendent, and I confess to total confusion,” Hathaway said ruefully, leaning back in his chair again and regarding Pitt steadily. “I am perfectly prepared to try again, if you think there is any purpose to it?”

Pitt was more disappointed than he cared to admit. He had been counting on this producing some result, however small or difficult to follow. He had no idea where to turn next, and he dreaded confessing to Farnsworth that what had seemed such an excellent plan had failed so completely. He could already imagine his response, and the contempt with which it would be delivered.

“About the death of Mrs. Chancellor,” Hathaway said quietly. “I fear I can be of little help there either. I wish I knew something of service to you. It seems such a pointless tragedy.” He looked totally sincere, a decent man expressing a profoundly felt regret for grief, and yet Pitt also sensed in him a reasoning in his brain that superseded emotion. Was he distinguishing between pointless tragedies and those which were necessary, and had meaning?

“Did she ever mention Sir Arthur Desmond to you, Mr. Hathaway?” Pitt asked.

Not a flicker crossed Hathaway’s face.

“Sir Arthur Desmond?” he repeated.

“Yes. He used to be at the Foreign Office. He died recently at his club.”

“Yes, yes I know who you mean.” He relaxed so slightly it was barely noticeable, a mere shift of the muscles in his shoulders. “Most unfortunate. I suppose such things tend to happen from time to time, when a club’s membership is on the elderly side. No, I cannot recall her having mentioned him. Why? Surely he can have nothing whatever to do with this latest business? His death was a very ordinary sort of misfortune. I was at the club that afternoon myself, in the writing room with a business colleague.”

He let out his breath in a very gentle sigh. “As I understood it from the newspapers, Mrs. Chancellor was attacked very violently, presumably while in her hansom cab, and then put in the river afterwards. Is that so?”

“Yes, that is correct,” Pitt conceded. “It is simply that Sir Arthur was vehemently against the development of Central Africa as planned by Mr. Rhodes, and so is Mr. Kreisler, who …” He stopped. Hathaway’s face had changed noticeably.

“Kreisler?” Hathaway said slowly, watching Pitt very closely. “He came to see me, you know? Also regarding Mrs. Chancellor’s death, although that was not the reason he gave. He concocted some story about mineral rights and leases and so on, but it was Mrs. Chancellor and her opinions which seemed to concern him. A most unusual man. A man of powerful passions and convictions.”

He had a curious habit of stillness which conveyed an intense concentration. “I assume you have naturally considered him as a possible suspect, Superintendent? I don’t mean to tell you your business, but anyone who asks as many questions as to detail as does Mr. Kreisler has a far more than passing interest in the outcome.”

“Yes, Mr. Hathaway, I have considered him,” Pitt replied with feeling. “And by no means discounted the possibility that they quarreled, either about Africa and Mr. Chancellor’s backing of Mr. Rhodes, or about something else, possibly more personal, and that that quarrel became a great deal more savage than either of them intended. I imagine Mr. Kreisler is well able both to attack and to defend himself as the situation may require. It is possible he may do either instinctively when aroused to uncontrolled rage, and far too late to realize he has committed murder.”

Hathaway’s face pinched with distress and distaste.

“What a very grave and uncivilized way to behave. Temper of such violence and complete lack of control is scarcely a characteristic of a human being, let alone a man of honor or intellect. What a dismal waste. I hope that you are not correct in your assumption, Superintendent. Kreisler has real possibilities for better ends than that.”

They spoke a little further, but ten minutes later Pitt rose to leave, having learned nothing about Susannah Chancellor, and in a state of confusion about the information from the German Embassy.

“And what has that to do with anything at all?”

Charlotte was paying a duty call upon her grandmother, who, now that Charlotte’s mother was recently remarried (a fact which Grandmama disapproved of with almost apoplectic fury), was obliged to live with Charlotte’s sister and her husband. Emily and Jack found this arrangement displeasing; the old lady was of an exceedingly difficult temperament. But she could no longer remain at Cater Street with Caroline and Joshua—in fact she had refused point-blank to do so, not that the opportunity had been offered. And there was certainly no room in Charlotte’s house, although in fact she had refused to consider that either. She would not dream of living in the house of a person of the police, even if he was recently promoted and now on the verge of respectability. That, when all was said and done, was only marginally better than being on the stage! Never in all the history of the Ellison family had anyone married an actor until Caroline had lost her wits and done so. But then of course she was an Ellison only by marriage. What poor Edward, Charlotte’s father, would have said could only be guessed at. It was a mercy he was in his grave.

Charlotte had pointed out that were he not, the question of Caroline’s remarrying anyone would not have arisen. She was told curtly not to be impertinent.

Now since Emily and Jack were on holiday in Italy, and Grandmama was thus alone, apart from the servants, Charlotte felt duty-bound to call upon her at least once a fortnight. She had kept a treat for herself after honor was satisfied. She was going out with Harriet Soames to visit the flower show.

Grandmama was keen to hear all the gossip Charlotte could think of. In fact, with Caroline living in Cater Street and seldom calling (being newly married and much occupied with her husband), and Emily and Jack abroad, she was starved for something to talk about.

Charlotte had idly mentioned Amanda Pennecuick and Garston Aylmer’s pursuit of her, and that Mr. Aylmer was unusually homely.

“It has quite a lot to do with many things, if one is to consider marrying him,” Charlotte replied candidly. They were sitting in Emily’s large, airy, rather ornate withdrawing room. There were portraits of past Ashworths on all the walls and an Aubusson carpet specially woven for the room.

“Stuff and nonsense!” the old lady snapped. “That just goes to show how light-minded you are! A man’s looks do not matter in the slightest.” She glared at Charlotte. “Anyway, if they did, why on earth did you marry Thomas? He is hardly handsome, or even graceful. Never seen a man so badly dressed in my life! He could make the best Saville Row suit look like a rag bag, once he had it on his back. His hair is too long, he keeps enough to stock a curiosity shop in his pockets, and I’ve never seen him with his tie on straight since the day he arrived.”

“That is not the same thing as being homely!” Charlotte argued.

“Then I should like to know what the difference is,” Grandmama retorted. “Except, of course, that a man cannot help his features, whereas he can most certainly help his dress. Untidy clothes are the sign of a slovenly mind, I always say.”

“You don’t always say it. In fact you’ve never said it before.”

“Only to save your feelings, but since you raised the matter, you have brought it upon yourself. Who is this Amanda Shilling, or Sixpence, or whatever her name is?”

“Pennecuick.”

“Don’t quibble. That is not an answer. Who is she?” the old lady demanded.

“I don’t know, but she’s extremely pretty.”

“That also is totally immaterial. Who are her family? Has she any breeding, any manners, any money? Does she know how to behave? Has she any relations worth mentioning?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t suppose Mr. Aylmer cares. He is in love with her, not her relatives,” Charlotte pointed out. “He will make quite sufficient money of his own. He is a senior official in the Colonial Office, and much is expected of him.”

“Then you have answered your own question, you stupid girl. What on earth does it matter what he looks like? He has good breeding and excellent prospects. He is a very good catch for the Penny-whatever girl, and she has enough sense to see it. Is he of agreeable temperament?” Her small, black eyes were bright with interrogation. “Does he drink to excess? Does he keep bad company?”

“He seems very agreeable, and I have no idea whether he drinks or not.”

“Then as long as he is satisfactory in those areas, he is not to be dismissed.” She spoke as if that were an end to the matter. “I don’t know why you mentioned it. It is not remarkable in any way.”

Charlotte tried again. “She is interested in astronomy.”

“In what? Why can you not speak plainly? You are mumbling badly these days. You have become slipshod in your speech since you married and left home. It must be associating with poor types. You can always tell a person’s breeding by their speech.”

“You have just contradicted yourself,” Charlotte pointed out, referring to the fact that the old lady was her direct ancestor.

“Don’t be impudent!” the old lady said tartly, but from the flush of annoyance in her face, Charlotte knew that she had perceived the flaw in her argument. “Every family has its occasional black sheep,” she added with a vicious glare. “Even our poor dear Queen has her problems. Look at the Duke of Clarence. I ask you. He doesn’t even choose well-bred women to keep as his mistresses, or so I’ve heard. And you come here wittering on about some wretched girl, who is nobody at all, marrying a man who is well bred, has an excellent position, and even better prospects. Just because he is unfortunate enough to be a little plain. What of it?”

“She is not marrying him.”

The old lady snorted fiercely. “Then she is a fool, that is all I can say! Now why don’t you talk about something sensible? You have barely asked me how I am. Do you know that that wretched cook of Emily’s sent me boiled fowl for my dinner last night. And baked mackerel the night before. And there was no forcemeat stuffing, and very little wine. It tasted of fish, and precious little else. I should have liked baked lobster. We have that when Emily is at home.”

“Perhaps there were no good lobsters at the fishmongers’,” Charlotte suggested.

“Don’t tell me she tried, because I shan’t believe you. I should have liked a little jugged hare. I am very partial to a well-jugged hare.”

“It is out of season,” Charlotte pointed out. “Jugged hare doesn’t begin until September.”

The old lady looked at her with acute disfavor and dropped the subject. She returned instead to Amanda Pennecuick. “What makes you suppose she is a fool, this Moneyfast girl?”

“You said she was a fool, not I.”

“You said she was not marrying the man because he was homely, in spite of being in every way that matters an excellent catch. That makes her a fool, on your description. How do you know she is not marrying him? That she may have said so is neither here nor there. What else would she say, I ask you! She can hardly say that she is. That would be premature, and vulgar. And vulgarity, above all things, is unforgivable. And extremely unwise.”

“Unwise?” Charlotte questioned.

The old lady looked at her with open disgust. “Of course it would be unwise, you stupid girl. She does not wish him to take her lightly.” She sighed noisily with impatience. “If she allows him to undervalue her now, it will set the pattern for the rest of their lives. Let him think her reluctant. Let him woo her so diligently that when he finally wins her he feels he has achieved a great victory, not merely picked up something no one else wished for anyway.

“Really, there are times when I despair of you, Charlotte. You are clever enough at book learning, but what use is that to a woman? Your career is in your home, married to the best man you can find who will have you. You should make him happy, and see that he rises as high in his chosen profession as his abilities, and yours, will allow him. Or if you are clever enough to marry a gentleman, then see that he rises in Society and does not run into debt.”

She grunted, and shifted her position with a rustle of skirts and creak of stays. “No wonder you had to settle for a policeman. A girl as naturally unintelligent as you are was fortunate to find anyone at all. Your sister Emily, on the other hand, has all the brains for both of you. She takes after her father, poor man. You take after your fool of a mother.”

“Since you are so clever, Grandmama, it is really a great misfortune we don’t have a title, an estate in the country and a fortune to match,” Charlotte said waspishly.

The old lady looked at her with malicious delight. “I had not the advantages of your good looks.”

It was the first compliment Charlotte could ever recall the old lady paying her, especially on such a subject. It quite robbed her of a reply, which—she realized a moment later—had been the intention.

Nevertheless in leaving her and riding in a hansom to Harriet Soames’s house, in order to go together to the flower show, she did wonder if Amanda Pennecuick was doing what the old lady had suggested, and actually intended in due course to accept Mr. Aylmer’s attentions.

She mentioned it to Harriet as they admired some magnificent early blooms arranged in a crystal bowl.

At first Harriet looked amazed, then as the thought took firmer hold in her mind, her attitude changed.

“You know …” she said very slowly. “You know that is not as absurd as it sounds. I have noticed in Amanda a certain inconsistency in disclaimers about Mr. Aylmer’s attentions. She says she has nothing in common with him but an interest in the stars. But I never before suspected it was powerful enough to induce her to accept the company of anyone she genuinely disliked.” She giggled. “What a delicious thought. Beauty and the Beast. Yes, I do think you might be right. In fact I hope so.” She was beaming with pleasure as they walked in to admire a bowl of gaudy tulips whose petals opened like lilies in brilliant scarlets, oranges and flames.

Pitt arrived home late and tired to find Matthew Desmond there waiting for him, pale faced, his fair streaked hair flopping forward as if he had been running his fingers through it in nervous distraction. He had declined to sit in the parlor with Charlotte but had begged to be allowed to walk alone in the garden, and seeing his distress so plainly in his face, she had not tried to dissuade him. This was obviously not a time for the usual rigors of courtesy.

“He has been here nearly an hour,” she said quietly when Pitt stood in the parlor looking out of the French doors at Matthew’s lean figure pacing back and forth, under the apple tree. Obviously he had not yet realized Pitt was there.

“Did he say what has happened?” Pitt asked. He could see that it was something that caused Matthew keen torment of mind. Had it been merely grief he would have sat still in the parlor; probably he would have shared it with Charlotte, knowing Pitt would certainly tell her afterwards anyway. He knew Matthew well enough to be certain that this was no longer the indecision which he felt had touched him last time he had been there, but something far stronger, and as yet unresolved.

“No,” Charlotte replied, her face puckered with concern, probably for Matthew, but also for Pitt. Her eyes were tender and she seemed on the verge of saying something else, and then realized it would not help. Whatever the matter was, it could not be avoided, and to make suggestions that it could or should would make it harder, not easier.

He touched her gently in a silent acknowledgment, then went out through the door and over the lawn. The soft grass masked his footsteps so that Matthew did not know he was there until he was only three yards away.

Matthew turned suddenly. His face for an instant registered something close to horror, then he masked his feelings and tried to compose himself to his more usual courtesy.

“Don’t,” Pitt said quietly.

“What?”

“Don’t pretend. Something is very seriously wrong. Tell me what it is.”

“Oh. I …” Matthew made an attempt to smile, then closed his eyes. His face flooded with pain.

Pitt stood by helplessly, filled with apprehension and the sort of fierce protectiveness one feels only towards a younger child whom you have watched and known through all the vulnerable years. Standing together under the apple tree it was as if all the intervening time had fled away and left them as they were a quarter of a century ago, when his single year’s advantage had meant so much. He ached to do something, even as elemental as reaching out his arms to hold him, as if they were still children. But there were too many years between them, and he knew it would be unacceptable. He could only wait.

“The Colonial Office …” Matthew said at last. “You don’t know who it is yet, do you?”

“No.”

“But some of the information comes …” He stopped as if even now he hesitated on the verge of whatever it was he was compelled to say, and could not bear to.

Pitt waited. A bird was chirping in the apple tree. Somewhere beyond the wall a horse whinnied.

“From the Treasury,” Matthew finished.

“Yes,” Pitt agreed. He was about to add the names of the men to whom Ransley Soames had narrowed it down, then he realized that would be an intrusion, and not helpful. Better to allow Matthew to say uninterrupted whatever it was.

Matthew stared at a twig of apple blossom which had fallen on the grass, his back half turned towards Pitt.

“Two days ago Harriet told me that she had overheard her father, Ransley Soames, in a conversation. She went to speak to him in his study, not aware that he was using the telephone.” Again Matthew stopped.

Pitt did not speak.

Matthew took a deep breath and continued in a quiet, husky voice, as if his throat were so tight he could barely get the words through it.

“He was speaking to someone about government finances for the exploration and settlement of Zambezia, and as Harriet recounted it, it concerned several aspects, from Cecil Rhodes to MacKinnon, Emin Pasha and the Cape-to-Cairo possibilities, and the importance of a naval base at Simonstown. What it might cost Britain if we were to lose it.”

So far what Matthew was saying was what Soames might have been expected to say to a colleague, and not of itself remarkable.

Matthew was still staring at the apple twig on the grass.

“Then he went on to say, ‘This is the last time I can tell you anything. That man Pitt from the police has been here, and I dare not continue. You will have to do all you can with what you already have. I’m sorry.’ And then apparently he replaced the receiver. She did not realize what she was telling me—but I knew.” At last Matthew turned and faced Pitt, his eyes agonized, as if waiting for a blow to be strack at him.

Now it was only too obvious why. Ransley Soames was the traitor in the Treasury. Unwittingly his daughter had betrayed him to Matthew, and after torment of indecision, Matthew had come to Pitt. Only he had not come in ignorance; he knew all that it meant, and could foresee the consequences of his act, and yet he felt unable to do otherwise.

Pitt did not speak. It was not necessary to say that he must use the knowledge he had. Matthew had known that when he came. It was also pointless to say that he would keep Matthew’s name, or Harriet’s, out of the issue, because Matthew knew that was impossible also. Nor did he need to make any sympathetic sounds of understanding. He knew what it meant. What Matthew was feeling, or what it would cost him, no one would know, or ever do more than guess.

He simply held out his hand in companionship for a brother, and in admiration for a man whose integrity was brighter than any comfort of his heart.