by Anne Perry
He had raised his hand to knock again when the door opened. She stood inside. She looked so like their mother that for a moment Joseph was stunned, just as taken aback as she was. Then she threw herself into his arms and hugged him, and he held her hard and close.
“It’s all right,” he said, still holding her. “I’ve come for the treaty. We know who the Peacemaker is, and we have to prove it to Lloyd George, and then it will be over. I have dozens of things to tell you, but Matthew and Judith are waiting for me in London, and there’s no time now.”
She pulled back and stared at him. “Who is it?”
“Dermot Sandwell.”
“The minister? It can’t be!”
“Now you see why I have to prove it.”
She did not argue. She could see the certainty in his face, and simply stood back and followed him through the house to the gunroom at the back. The door was locked, as it had been since 1914. He opened it, took down his father’s old punt gun and broke it, then very carefully eased out the rolled-up piece of paper from inside the barrel.
“Has that been there all the time?” she asked in amazement.
“Yes. That’s where Father hid it. We thought it the safest place, since they had searched the house during the funeral, remember?”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“Safer for you not to know.” He smiled briefly. “Give my love to Tom and Luke and Jenny. It’ll all be over in a matter of days now. Then we can begin to build again and help the people who’ve been hurt more than they know how to bear.”
“A ministry again?” There was light in her face.
“Yes. I’m going to marry Lizzie Blaine.”
She smiled. “Good. Very good. I thought you might.”
He kissed her quickly on the cheek, then put the treaty into the inside of his tunic and strode back to the car.
One day he would tell Aidan Thyer at least some of the truth, but not now. At the station he thanked him again, then went immediately to the platform to catch the next Cambridge-to-London train. The journey still held the vestige of a sense of escape, of which he was ashamed. He should not have suspected Thyer, and yet he had a definite sense of relief to be alone again, anonymous among the other uniforms scattered here and there. Around him were men on leave and men wounded, some too seriously to ever return to battle. It could be months, or even years, before the last stragglers returned. And of course so many would not.
When the train pulled into London, he alit. He paid for the extravagance of a taxi, which earned a few black looks, since he was obviously able-bodied and apparently didn’t need it.
The city looked weary, and even in the fitful sunlight there was a grayness to it. There were hardly any men in the streets except the old and the very young. There were women in all sorts of places that a couple of years ago would have been unthinkable: driving buses and lorries, even in police uniform. They looked busy, competent. The few who were fashionable had changed beyond recognition. The feminine glamour that was designed for idleness was utterly gone. Now beauty was subdued and extremely practical—short skirts, quiet colors.
The air seemed charged with emotion. A kind of expectancy lay behind the simplest exchange: a request for directions, the purchase of a newspaper. He felt a moment of terrible pity for them, a fear that nothing was going to live up to the dream of what peace would be like when it came at last.
Very soon, when armistice was announced, he expected the womenfolk to experience an almost unbearable excitement, anticipating welcoming home their men. Then, as they settled into a new life, they would have to rise to the challenge of redefining their roles as men and women, and their positions in society.
There was nothing in his life sweeter and more precious than the hope that Lizzie would be with him, sharing the work of rebuilding individual lives, communities again, helping people come to terms with change and loss.
The taxi stopped a block away from Calder Shearing’s office, where Matthew had told him to go. He paid and got out, thanking the man, then turned and walked as swiftly as he could, grateful that the taxi had pulled away from the curb. He went to the entrance and was admitted as soon as he identified himself.
He was kept waiting in the outer room only moments before Matthew appeared, his face filled with relief. “Got it?” he asked.
“Of course. Is everyone here?”
“Yes. No trouble?”
“None at all. You?”
Matthew smiled. “Nothing that matters now.”
“What happened?” Joseph demanded.
“Difficulty getting petrol,” Matthew replied. “Once we were stopped by police, and I was terrified it was another attempt by the Peacemaker, but it was just because I was going too fast. Come upstairs and we’ll show Shearing the treaty.” He turned and led the way.
Inside Shearing’s office Judith, Lizzie, Mason, and Schenckendorff were already waiting. Calder Shearing stood behind his desk, his face dark and tense, his eyes bright.
Wordlessly, Joseph handed him the treaty between the kaiser of Germany and the king of England with which the Peacemaker had proposed to create an Anglo-German empire to dominate the world, and to achieve peace by betraying France and the Low Countries to Germany, with Britain taking back all the old empire, including the Americas.
Shearing read it, his face filling first with quiet, bitter amazement, and then with fury. He picked up his telephone and placed a call to No. 10, Downing Street. When he was finished he looked at them one by one. “Are you ready, gentlemen?” he asked, although his glance included Judith and Lizzie. “The prime minister will see us.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
In deference to Schenckendorff’s injured foot—which was still severely painful—they traveled in two cars. Alighting outside No. 10, Downing Street, they were shown in immediately.
David Lloyd George was not a tall man, but he had a dynamism of character and a music in his voice that commanded attention. His inner energy, even after the terrible years of struggle, filled and dominated the room. He looked from one to the other of them. His main interest fell first on Mason, then on Schenckendorff, but he did not fail to notice the women, especially Judith. He had never in his life failed to perceive the beauty of a woman, and far too seldom had he failed to enjoy it as fully as opportunity allowed.
“Well?” he asked Shearing. “This had better be quick, and it had better be damn good! Which of you is going to explain to me what the devil you are talking about?”
Shearing indicated Matthew. “Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Reavley, one of my men.” He did not bother to introduce the others yet. They could be mentioned as their parts in the story arose.
Matthew stepped forward. “Sir—”
“Speak, man!” Lloyd George commanded, waving his hand to order the rest of them to sit—or as many of them as there were chairs for. “Forget the niceties. What is this tale of yours?”
Matthew began. “On the night of June 27, 1914, my father, John Reavley, telephoned me from St. Giles in Cambridgeshire to say that he had found a document that could change the history of the world, and shame Britain forever, if it were put into effect. He said he would bring it to me the following day.”
Lloyd George blinked. “Twenty-seventh of June, 1914?”
“Yes, sir. My mother and father set out the next day, and were murdered on the way, in a car accident. That was, as you know, the same day as the assassination of the archduke and duchess in Sarajevo. After much difficulty and more tragic murders, my brother, Joseph, and I found where my father hid the document. We read it and replaced it where it was.”
“Why in God’s name—” After a glance at Shearing’s face, Lloyd George stopped abruptly. “What was it, and why does it matter now?”
Wordlessly Joseph took the treaty out of his inner pocket and spread it on the table before the prime minister.
Lloyd George read it. The blood drained from his face, leaving it as white as his hair. “God Almig
hty!” he said in a shaking voice. He swallowed and looked up at Joseph, still standing in front of him. “You had this throughout the war?”
“Yes, sir. We had no idea who was behind it, only that he had great power and was willing to murder to put this plan into effect. He tried all through the war to bring about an Allied surrender so that this empire of his could still come about. We code-named him ‘the Peacemaker’ because we believed that the avoidance of war was his purpose, even if it meant robbing us of both freedom and honor to do so. We now know that he wishes to influence the terms of the armistice so that Germany can rise again quickly and rebuild its armies, and the plan still be carried through.”
“Never!” Lloyd George said instantly. “We must find out who he is and hang him as a traitor.”
Matthew resumed the story. “We have tried all through the war to do that, sir. Only now have we succeeded, and only because some of the men who believed in peace and were unaware of the true extent of the price he was prepared to pay for it have finally seen what he is, and are willing to come forward to unmask him, regardless of the cost to themselves.”
Lloyd George turned instantly to Schenckendorff, the one man in the room about whom he knew nothing. He wore a British volunteer uniform, but the command in his bearing, and the obviously painful injury to his foot, which was still heavily bandaged, marked him as other than he seemed.
Schenckendorff stood up, without the slightest wince even as he put his weight on his foot, and bowed. His face was tight and pale. “Manfred von Schenckendorff, sir. It was I who obtained the kaiser’s signature to the treaty. At the time I believed it was for the peace of Europe and so that we might rule without war for all the years to come. Now I know that that dream was never possible. I have seen both your country and my own lose the best men of a generation, and wash the earth in blood. I have come through the lines to where Chaplain Reavley fought in Ypres, in order to expose my cousin, my former British ally, so this never happens again. Because if he is not stopped, he will engineer a peace that is only a hiatus between this war and the next.”
“Your cousin?” Lloyd George asked tensely.
“Dermot Sandwell. His mother and mine were sisters,” Schenckendorff replied. Then, seeing the disbelief in Lloyd George’s face, he added, “Beautiful women, Irish, not English or German.”
“For God’s sake!” Lloyd George exploded. “Sandwell’s one of the best, most loyal men we have! That’s preposterous.” He looked at Shearing with increasing anger. “What possessed you to believe this poppycock, man? Have you no more sense—”
Mason stepped forward, freeing himself from Judith’s arm. He stood to the right of Schenckendorff, facing the prime minister. His voice shook as he began to speak, then gathered emotion and strength.
“My name is Richard Mason, sir, war correspondent. As a young man I reported on the Boer War and was horrified beyond my power or ability ever to forget by the brutality and waste of life I saw there. So was Dermot Sandwell. I met him shortly afterward, and we both swore that such slaughter should never happen again. I believed that there must be a better way, even if it had to be brought about by deceit and a conspiracy of men who had more power than our soldiers or politicians. I was prepared to give my life to that cause. All through the war I reported to Sandwell to help at least part of his activities, in an attempt to bring the carnage to an end, and create a peace that would last.”
Lloyd George stared at him in incredulity and something close to dismay.
“What Colonel Schenckendorff says is true, sir,” Mason continued. “I could give you chapter and verse of it, were there time, but there isn’t. Colonel Schenckendorff and I are willing to give our lives to pay the price of our delusion. Matthew, Joseph, and Judith Reavley have followed in the steps of their father to lay this open and show that we fight our wars, we do not appease. Their passion and belief have showed now that it can and must be done. I will face Sandwell. He cannot deny me; I know far too much.”
Lloyd George sighed, his face masked with a deep grief. It was clear that he no longer denied it to himself.
There was a deferential but insistent knocking on the door.
“What is it?” he demanded.
A man put his head around it. “Mr. Sandwell is here, sir.”
“Good! Just the man I want. Send him in,” Lloyd George ordered. “And have the policeman at the door come inside.”
The man looked startled.
“Do it!” Lloyd George shouted at him.
A moment later the door opened again and Dermot Sandwell came into the room. He was tall and startlingly elegant. His fair hair was polished smooth, his eyes a curious, pale, brilliant blue. He looked first at the prime minister, then at Mason and Schenckendorff. The others he ignored. His face, already lean, seemed to tighten and fade to a pallor so bleached he looked about to faint, but he stood rigidly straight.
The door behind him closed with a sharp snick.
It was Schenckendorff who spoke. His pronunciation was precise, his English so perfect it was almost without accent. Only the pain thickened his voice. “It is over, Dermot. The slaughter of nations and the murder of individuals has come to an end, and those of us who tried to force on them a peace without honor must pay the price. I saw the same vision as you did, in the beginning, but now it is finished. We cannot do this again; we must not. If you will not stop yourself, then I will stop you.”
Sandwell stared at him, the shock in his face turning to scalding contempt. “Coward,” he said simply. “I trusted you with a vision of Europe without war, and you have betrayed me. If we had succeeded, if that idiot John Reavley had had a larger mind unfettered by the petty prejudices of nationalism, we could have saved the lives of thirty million men who now lie dead or mutilated across the world. Think of that, Manfred, when you weep for Germany. We were betrayed in the beginning by lesser men, too blinded by what they thought was patriotism to see the whole of humanity. Now it seems I stand alone. That does not make me any the less right.”
He turned to face the prime minister, then caught sight of Mason. “And it seems you have turned out to be no more than a Little Englander after all, despite the horror and the death that you have seen. In the end you ran back to your own small square of the earth, blind to the rest of it.” He looked at Joseph. “Of you I expected no better. You are your father’s son. We might have hoped that a man who professes a Christian religion would have a larger view, but we hoped in vain.”
Lloyd George rose to his feet. “I trusted you, Dermot. It pains me to find you a traitor of such monumental proportions. You will hang for this.”
Sandwell gave a bark of laughter. “Don’t be absurd! You dare not prosecute me. What will you say? That I tried to save the world from this…this charnel house of blood and ruin, but I failed because of the shortsightedness of a few men who thought more of England than they did of humanity? And now that you have won, and we are up to our knees in the corpses of our own men, you are going to kill me, too, because I would have saved them? How long do you think an exhausted and bereaved country will thank you for that?”
“Your proposed treaty was iniquitous,” Lloyd George said bitterly. “It would have been a peace without honor.”
Sandwell’s eyebrows rose high over his brilliant eyes. “Tell that to the millions of women with fathers, uncles, brothers, husbands, and sons whose broken bodies lie buried in the fields of France and Belgium. See if they agree with you.”
Lloyd George’s hands closed over the piece of paper, which had rolled back upon itself after four and a half years inside the barrel of the punt gun.
Sandwell stared at it as he finally realized what it was. He made a movement toward it, then froze. Very slowly he turned to Matthew.
“Yes,” Matthew replied, staring back at him. “We had it all the time. My father hid it where all your searches failed to find it.”
“Then the blood of millions is on your hands,” Sandwell replied between his teeth. “The b
est and the bravest of the nations of the earth lie crushed beneath the weight of your stupidity.”
“You are wrong,” Joseph answered him with absolute conviction. “I do not believe our king would have signed it, but if he had, it would not have bound us, not all of us. There would always have been some who would pay for the freedom for us to make our own laws, speak our differences aloud, follow the faith we choose, make our own mistakes, laugh at ourselves and try again. If we pay with our lives, then so be it. We will not pay with the slow death of our minds or the withering of our souls.”
“You patronizing idiot!” Sandwell spat at him. “Do you think anybody cares for that kind of empty sermon now? Death is real! It’s broken bodies, men blinded, crippled, choked on their own blood! It’s corpses riddled with bullets, frozen to death. It’s not high-minded valor, you fool! Look at reality! Say that to the mutilated, the blind if you dare!”
“I dare,” Joseph replied unflinchingly. “I know them as you never will, or you would not have misjudged them so completely. Again and again you were wrong. You did not understand their courage, their loyalty, their friendship, their love of the right to come and go as they like, to keep their ancient customs, the little ways that make life sweet. Men and nations will always seek the right to make their own choices, whatever the cost. You can guide, but you cannot rule. You misjudged humanity in general, and Britain in particular.
“But worse than that, and far worse, you confused the ends with the means until they became one in your mind. You destroyed the very spark of life that you wanted to give us. Without the freedom to be right or wrong, to choose your own way rather than the way forced upon you, there is no virtue, no courage, no honor or laughter or love worth having. Men with far less intellect than yours know this in their blood and their bones, and they will die rather than sell it to you and your dreams of dominion. And that is what they have become—dreams. It is not the wisdom or the intent of power that corrupts, it is the totality of power that can no longer be curbed.”
