Treason at Lisson Grove

by Anne Perry

  Charlotte followed after him, barely having time to close the door behind her, and needing to run a few steps to keep up. She had a shawl on and her reticule with her, and sufficient money for as long a fare as she would be likely to need.

  He disappeared around the corner into the main street. She had to hurry to make sure she saw which way he went. As she had expected, he went straight to the first carriage waiting, spoke to the driver, then climbed in.

  She swung around with her back to the road and pretended to look in a shop window. As soon as he had passed she darted out into the street to look for a second carriage. It was long, desperate moments before she found one. She gave the driver the address of Cormac O’Neil’s house and urged him to go as fast as possible. She was already several minutes behind.

  “I’ll pay you an extra shilling if you catch up with the carriage that just left here,” she promised. “Please hurry. I don’t want to lose him.”

  She sat forward, peering out as the carriage careered down the street, swung around the corner, and then set off again at what felt like a gallop. She was tossed around, bruised, and without any sense of where she was for what felt like ages, but was probably no more than fifteen minutes. Then finally they lurched to a stop outside the house where she had been the previous evening.

  She stepped out, taking a moment to find her balance after the hectic ride. She paid him more than he had asked for, and an extra shilling.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Please wait.” Then without ensuring that he did, she walked up the same path she had trod in the evening light such a short time ago. Somehow at midday the path looked longer, the bushes more crowding in, the trees overhead cut out more of the sunlight.

  She had not reached the front door when she heard the dog barking. It was an angry, frightening sound, with a note of hysteria to it, as if the wag were out of control. It had certainly not been like that yesterday evening. It had been calm, resting its head on O’Neil’s feet and barely noticing her.

  She was surprised Cormac did not come to see what the fuss was. He could not possibly be unaware of the noise.

  She touched the door with her fingers and it opened.

  Narraway was standing in the hall. He swung around as the light spread across the floor. For a moment he was startled, then he regained his presence of mind.

  “I should have known,” he said grimly. “Wait here.”

  The dog was now throwing itself at whatever barrier held it in check. Its barking was high in its throat, as if it would rip someone to shreds the moment it could reach them.

  Charlotte would not leave Narraway alone. She stepped inside and looked for the umbrella stand she had noticed yesterday. She saw it, picked out a sharp-ferruled black umbrella, and held it as if it were a sword.

  The barking was reaching a crescendo.

  Ahead of her Narraway went to the sitting room door, to the right of where the dog was hurling itself at another door, snarling in a high, singing tone as if it scented prey close at last.

  Narraway opened the sitting room door then stopped motionless. She could see over his shoulder that Cormac O’Neil was lying on the floor on his back, a pool of blood spreading on the polished wood around what was left of his head.

  Charlotte gulped, trying to stop herself from being sick. Yesterday evening he had been alive, angry, weeping with passion and grief. Now there was nothing left but empty flesh lying waiting to be found.

  Narraway went over and bent down, touching the skin of Cormac’s face with his fingers.

  “He’s still warm,” he said, turning back to look at Charlotte. He had to raise his voice above the noise of the dog. “We must call the police.”

  He had barely finished speaking when there came the bang of the front door swinging open again and hitting the wall, then footsteps.

  There was no time to wonder who it was. A woman screamed with a short, shrill sound, and then seemed to choke. Charlotte swiveled to stare at Talulla Lawless. She was ashen-faced, her hand to her mouth, black eyes staring wildly past Charlotte and Narraway to the figure of Cormac on the floor.

  Behind her a policeman tried to catch his breath as a wave of horror overtook him.

  Talulla glared at Narraway. “I warned him,” she gasped. “I knew you’d kill him, after yesterday. But he wouldn’t listen. I told him! I told him!” Her voice was getting higher and higher and her body was shaking.

  The policeman regained control of himself and stepped forward, looking at Charlotte, then at Narraway. “What happened here?” he asked.

  “He murdered my uncle, can’t you see that?” Talulla shouted at him. “Listen to the dog, damn it! For God’s sake don’t let it out, it’ll tear that murderer apart! That’s what brought me here. I heard it, poor creature.”

  “He was dead when we got here!” Charlotte shouted back at her. “We don’t know what happened any more than you do!”

  Narraway stepped forward to the policeman. “I came in first,” he said. “Mrs. Pitt waited outside. She has nothing to do with this. She never met Mr. O’Neil until very recently. I’ve known him for twenty years. Please allow her to leave.”

  Talulla thrust out her hand, finger pointing. “There’s the gun! Look, it’s lying right there on the floor. He hasn’t even had time to take it away.”

  “Of course he hasn’t,” Charlotte retorted. “We only just got here! If you ask the …”

  “Charlotte, be quiet,” Narraway said with such force that she stopped speaking. He faced the policeman. “I came into the house first. Please allow Mrs. Pitt to leave. As I said before, she had no acquaintance with Mr. O’Neil, beyond a casual introduction. I have known him for years. We have an old enmity that has finally caught up with us. Is that not true, Miss Lawless?”

  “Yes!” she said vehemently. “The dog just started to bark. I can hear it from my house. I live only a few yards away, over there. If there’d been anybody else, she’d have raised this row before. Ask anyone.”

  The policeman looked at Cormac on the floor, at Narraway, and the blood on his shoes, then at Charlotte, white-faced by the door. The dog was still barking and trying to break down the barrier that held it in check.

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come with me. It’ll be best for you if you don’t give me any trouble.”

  “I have no intention of giving you trouble,” Narraway told him. “None of this is your fault. Will you permit me to make certain that Mrs. Pitt has sufficient funds to pay a cabdriver? She has had a very ugly shock.”

  The policeman looked confused. “She was with you, sir,” he pointed out.

  “No,” Narraway corrected him. “She came after me. She was not here when I arrived. I went in and O’Neil and I quarreled. He attacked me, and I had no choice but to defend myself.”

  “You came deliberately to kill,” Talulla accused. “He showed you for the liar and the cheat you are. He got you dismissed from your position and you wanted your revenge. You came here and shot him.” She looked at Charlotte. “Can you deny that?”

  “Yes, I can,” Charlotte responded heatedly. “I did arrive after Mr. Narraway was already here, but only seconds behind him. He had not gone farther than the hallway. The sitting room door was closed. We discovered Mr. O’Neil’s body at the same moment.”

  “Liar!” Talulla shouted. “You’re his mistress. You’d say anything.”

  Charlotte gasped.

  A look at once of humor and pain flickered in Narraway’s eyes. He turned to the policeman. “That is not true. Please allow her to go. If you can find the cabbie who brought her, he will affirm that Mrs. Pitt arrived after I did, and he must have seen her come into the house. O’Neil was shot, as you observe. Ask the driver if he heard the shot.”

  The policeman nodded. “You’re right, sir. Don’t take the lady down with you.” He turned to Talulla. “And if you’d go back home, ma’am, I’ll take care o’ this. An’ you, ma’am.” He looked at Charlotte. “You’d better go an’ find a cab
back to your lodgings. But don’t leave Dublin, if you please. We’ll be wishing to talk to you. Where are you staying?”

  “Number twelve, Molesworth Street.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. That’ll be all. Now, don’t stop me doing my duty, or it’ll be the worse for you.”

  Charlotte could do nothing but watch helplessly as another policeman arrived. Narraway was manacled and led away, to Talulla’s intense delight.

  Charlotte walked back down the pathway and along the road, dazed and alone.

  PITT CEASED TO STRUGGLE. At first, in the heat of the moment, there was no point. He was in the grasp of two burly constables, both convinced they had apprehended a violent lunatic who had just hurled two men, possibly strangers to him, off a fast-moving train.

  The irate and terrified passengers who had witnessed half the events had seen Pitt on the platform with the first man who had gone over, and then alone with Gower just before he had been pitched over as well.

  “I know what I saw!” one of them stated. He stood as far away from Pitt as he could, his face a mask of horror in the railway platform gaslight. “He threw them both over. You want to watch yourselves or he’ll have you too! He’s insane! He has to be. Threw them over, one after the other.”

  “We were fighting!” Pitt protested. “He attacked me, but I won!”

  “Which one of them would that be, sir?” one of the constables asked him. “The first one, or the second one?”

  “The second one,” Pitt answered but he heard the note of desperation in his own voice. It sounded ridiculous, even to him.

  “Maybe he didn’t like it that you’d thrown the first man off the train,” the constable said reasonably. “ ’e was tryin’ to arrest you. Good citizen doin’ ’is duty.”

  “He attacked me the first time,” Pitt tried to explain. “The other man was trying to rescue me, and he lost the fight!”

  “But when this second man attacked you, you won, right?” the constable said with open disbelief.

  “Obviously, since I’m here,” Pitt snapped. “If you undo the manacles, I’ll show you my warrant card. I’m a member of Special Branch.”

  “Yes, sir,” the constable said sarcastically. “They always go around throwin’ people off trains. Very special, they are.”

  Pitt barely controlled his temper. “Look in my pocket, inside my coat, up at the top,” he said between his teeth. “You’ll find my card.”

  The constables looked at each other. “Yeah? An’ why would you be pitchin’ people off trains, sir?”

  “Because the man attacked me,” Pitt said again. “He is a dangerous man planning violence here.” He knew as he spoke how absurd that sounded, considering that Gower was dead on the track, and Pitt was standing here alive and unhurt, apart from a few bruises. “Look,” he went on, trying anew. “Gower attacked me. The stranger came to my rescue, but Gower was stronger and he lost the fight. I couldn’t save him. Then Gower attacked me, but this time I was ready. I won. Look for my warrant card. That’ll prove who I am.”

  The constables exchanged glances again. Then one of them very gingerly approached Pitt and held his coat open with one hand, while the other felt inside his inner pocket.

  “There in’t nothin’ there, sir,” he said, removing his hand quickly.

  “There’s my warrant card and my passport,” Pitt said with a sense of rising panic. It had to be. He had had them both when he got onto the train at Shoreham. He remembered putting them back, as always.

  “No, sir,” the constable repeated. “Your pocket’s empty, sir. There in’t nothin’ in it at all. Now, why don’t you come quietly? No use in causing a lot o’ fuss. Just gets people ’urt, as I can promise you, sir, it’ll be you as comes off worst.” He turned to the other passenger. “Thank you for yer trouble, sir. We got yer name and address. We’ll be in touch with yer when we needs more.”

  Pitt drew in his breath to try reasoning further, and realized the futility of it. He knew what must have happened. Either his warrant card and passport had fallen out of his pocket in the fight, which didn’t seem likely—not from a deep pocket so well concealed—or else Gower had taken the precaution of picking it during the struggle. They had stood very close, struggling together. He had been thinking of saving his own life, not being robbed. He turned to the constable closest to him.

  “I’ve just come in from France, through Southampton,” he said with sudden hope. “I had to have my passport then, or they wouldn’t have let me in. My warrant card was with it. Can’t you see that I’ve been robbed?”

  The constable stared at him, shaking his head. “I only know as you’re on the train, sir. I don’t know where you got on, or where you was before that. You just come quietly, and we’ll get you sorted at the police station. Don’t give us any more trouble, sir. Believe me, yer got enough already.”

  “Do you have a telephone at the police station?” Pitt asked, but he made no protest as they led him away. It would be pointless. As it was, a crowd was gathering watching him. At this moment it was impossible for him to feel sorry Gower was dead. The other passenger he grieved for with a dull, angry pain. “Do you have a telephone?” he demanded.

  “Yes, sir, o’ course we do. If yer got family, we’ll call them for yer an’ let ’em know where you are,” he promised.

  “Thank you.”

  But when they arrived at the police station and Pitt was led in, a constable closely at either side of him, he was put straight into a cell and the door locked.

  “My phone call!” he persisted.

  “We’ll make it for yer, sir. ’Oo shall we call, then?”

  Pitt had considered it. If he called Charlotte she would be frightened and very distressed, and there was nothing she could do. Far better he call Narraway, who would straighten out the whole hideous mess, and could tell Charlotte about it afterward. “Victor Narraway,” he answered.

  “ ’e related to yer?” the constable asked suspiciously.

  “Brother-in-law,” Pitt lied quickly. He gave them the Lisson Grove number. “That’s his work. It’s where he’ll be, or they’ll know where to find him.”

  “At this time o’ night, sir?”

  “There’s always someone there. Please, just call.”

  “If that’s what yer want, we’ll call.”

  “Thank you.” Pitt sat down on the hard wooden bench in the cell and waited. He must stay calm. It would all be explained in a matter of minutes. This part of the nightmare would be over. There was still Gower’s treachery and his death; now, in the silence of the cell, he had time to think of it more deeply.

  He should not have been surprised that Gower came after him. The pleasant, friendly face Gower had shown in France, indeed all the time they had worked together over the last few months, might have been part of his real character, but it was superficial, merely a skin over a very different man beneath.

  Pitt thought of his quick humor, how he had watched the girl in the red dress, admiring her, taking pleasure in her easy walk, the swing of her skirt, imagining what she would be like to know. He remembered how Gower liked the fresh bread. He drank his coffee black, even though he pulled his mouth at its bitterness, and still went back for more. He pictured how he stood smiling with his face to the sun, watched the sailing boats on the bay, and knew the French names for all the different kinds of seafood.

  People fought for their own causes for all kinds of reasons. Maybe Gower believed in his goal as much as Pitt did; they were just utterly different. Pitt had liked him, even enjoyed his company. How had he not seen the ruthlessness that had let him kill West, and then turn on Pitt so stealthily?

  Except perhaps it had not been easy? Gower might have lain awake all night wretched, seeking another way and not finding it. Pitt would never know. It was painful to realize that so much was not as he had trusted, and his own judgment was nowhere near the truth. He could imagine what Narraway would have to say about that.

  The constable came back, stopping ju
st outside the bars. He did not have the keys in his hand.

  Pitt’s heart sank. Suddenly he felt confused and a little sick.

  “Sorry, sir,” the constable said unhappily. “I called the number you gave. It was a branch o’ the police all right, but they said as they’d got no one there called Narraway, an’ they couldn’t ’elp yer.”

  “Of course Narraway’s there!” Pitt said desperately. “He’s head of Special Branch! Call again. You must have had the wrong number. This is impossible.”

  “It were the right number, sir,” the constable repeated stolidly. “It was Special Branch, like you said. An’ they told me they got no one there called Victor Narraway. I asked ’em careful, sir, an’ they were polite, but very definite. There in’t no Victor Narraway there. Now you settle down, sir. Get a bit o’ rest. We’ll see what we can do in the morning. I’ll get you a cup o’ tea, an’ mebbe a sandwich, if yer like?”

  Pitt was numb. The nightmare was getting worse. His imagination created all kinds of horror. What had happened to Narraway? How wide was this conspiracy? Perhaps he should have realized that if they removed Pitt himself to France on a pointless errand, then of course they would have gotten rid of Narraway as well. There was no purpose in removing Pitt otherwise. He was only a kind of backup: a right-hand man possibly, but not more than that. Narraway was the real threat to them.

  “Yer want a cup o’ tea, sir?” the constable repeated. “Yer look a bit rough, sir. An’ a sandwich?”

  “Yes …,” Pitt said slowly. The man’s humanity made it all the more grotesque, yet he was grateful for it. “I would. Thank you, Constable.”

  “Yer just rest, sir. Don’t give yerself so much trouble. I’ll get yer a sandwich. Would ’am be all right?”

  “Very good, thank you.” Pitt sat down on the cot to show that he had no intention of causing any problem for them. He was numb anyway. He did not even know whom to fight: certainly not this man who was doing his best to exercise both care and a degree of decency in handling a prisoner he believed had just committed a double murder.