The Angel Court Affair

by Anne Perry

  “Only a child believes in that God, Mr. Pitt,” Nazario said quietly. “A child who does not understand that the path is long and hard, filled with shadows that are sometimes very dark, just as the light is marvelous. It carves of us a deep vessel, if we will allow it to. It can hold all the joy there is, in the end. Sofia knows that. I know she has her moments of doubt, even of despair. Those of us who think will all have them. It is then that faith counts, the belief in the good, even if it seems denied to you at that moment.”

  “So you are going to let them kill her?” Pitt found the words hard to say. He was angry with Nazario for his complacency, his acceptance. Would he still be so sure of himself if he had seen the corpses of Cleo and Elfrida? Should Pitt describe them for him? The blood and the flies, the obscene indignity of it, never mind the pain!

  “No, I am not,” Nazario cut across his thoughts. “I am trying to make you understand. And the God who would save her was your invention, not mine. Is that the God you think has hurt you so much?”

  Pitt was startled. “I didn’t say that!”

  “It is in your face,” Nazario told him. “The God you were told about has disappointed you somewhere in your life. And I think you have taken up the role of mending things, putting them right yourself, because you desire them to be so.”

  Pitt wanted to argue, but there was a touch of truth in Nazario’s words. He smiled instead. “You think I imagine I can do God’s work?” he said incredulously.

  “A little of it,” Nazario agreed. “Perhaps one act at a time, as the chance comes to you. You don’t like the thought of it, but it is so.”

  Again Nazario was right; ever since his mother’s death he had been denying the faith she believed in. It had let her die. He had tried to rebuild it in small certainties, one act at a time, values he was sure of. But that was not faith because there was no trust in it, no belief in a power beyond his own.

  “I don’t know,” Pitt said impatiently. “But what I believe is not the point.”

  “You didn’t answer me whether you believe in God or not,” Nazario pointed out. “Of any sort.”

  “I do what I think is right, in my job,” he said. “So do most men.”

  “Well, I do know what I believe,” Nazario snapped. “I am trying desperately to cling to it, in spite of my whole soul crying out to save her because I want to…now…more than anything else. I would let them take me, if they would, but that would do them no good. I don’t know what it is she won’t tell them.”

  “And if you did?” Pitt asked quickly. “Would you?”

  Nazario sat back a little. “I’m glad I don’t have to choose,” he said softly. “She is protecting someone, but also protecting the value she believes not just for this life, but for eternity. Do you believe in eternity, Mr. Pitt? Is there a forever that matters? Is goodness a reality, or a convenience, a fiction to make life bearable, trying to give meaning where there is none?”

  Pitt did not answer. He thought again of his mother, of all the people he had known and loved. He understood now that she had been ill for a long time, and had hidden it from him to protect him from the fear of losing her. She had created for him a safety, a time of happiness unshadowed by fear, because she put his well-being before her own. It has not been lack of trust in him, but a greater trust in her faith in the God she believed in, and in love. Now that he had his own children, he understood that.

  He had never accepted that the people he loved were temporary, here and then dissolved into nothingness. But was that faith, or simply his own need? He had refused to think about it, because he had no answer. Loss hurt too much to risk examining it, looking for an eternal healing, and finding nothing there. That was why when Jemima asked him, he would not tell her what he believed. He had let her down by not knowing, not going on seeking, even in the dark. And Daniel too, when he should ask. The answer was becoming clearer. His mother had not denied him the chance to help her, she had turned to the God she believed in, and protected her child in the best way she knew. He had failed to see it.

  “Is it easier for you not to look?” Nazario pursued, almost as if he had understood Pitt’s thoughts. “It isn’t for me. I have to look until I see something, even if I have to change it a little day by day. There is meaning. I will not accept that every brave and beautiful thing, every moment of tenderness, every act of love vanishes and is lost. Whatever I find, or don’t find, I will go on looking. If I deny what Sofia believed, then I deny her whole life.”

  For a moment Pitt felt exactly the same need, and the same courage to seek. Then he remembered what they must do. “So you will let her die,” he concluded gently, but even while he said the words, he knew that was not what he meant, nor did Nazario.

  “I have told you what I will do,” Nazario replied. “I will preach her doctrine this evening.”

  Suddenly Pitt was cold inside. He could see it as vividly as if it were already happening.

  “There will be violent responses,” he said quickly. “Take your head out of the clouds of your philosophy and look at what is real. It will stir up violent emotions, both in those who are afraid of her, and those who cling to what she said and desperately want her rescued. There may be rioting, hysteria. Think what you’re doing!”

  “I am thinking,” Nazario said, his voice quiet again, his body hunched up in the chair. “They have had her for many days now, Mr. Pitt. If they have not killed her by now, they soon will. I believe they want to know where she has hidden Juan Castillo, the last man who came to her for redemption. She will not tell them. She herself will die first. I think she has proven that, to them if not to you. If she tells them, they will kill her anyway. She must know that too.”

  “You know who it is!” Pitt said in amazement and momentary anger. “Why in God’s name are you protecting him? Who is he? Is this political after all? Is the religion no more than an excuse?”

  “No, I don’t know who it is!” Nazario started up from his chair. “But I believe I know why. And in a sense it is religious, but only because everything in this world is of God! Faith is not something you mouth words for on Sundays, and forget for the rest of the week. The way you live is what you really believe, no matter what you say. Sofia believes there is no darkness from which you cannot come back, if you want to enough. She has believed that, and lived it for years. Castillo came to her for help. He confessed something to her, and of course she did not tell me what it was, except that the man who was his partner in some conspiracy had been murdered. His entrails were torn out of him and his body left on the side of the road as a warning.” Nazario’s face was gray under the olive of his skin. “I know what they could do, Mr. Pitt. Don’t treat me as if I were a dreamer whose visions have blotted out the reality of pain.”

  He stared at Pitt earnestly. “Faith is supposed to give you hope, not dazzle your vision that you don’t see the darkness, or the need to work, to face the truth in all its sorrow and its joy. If you don’t see that then you didn’t listen to Sofia. I am going to preach this evening, Pitt. You cannot prevent me. I have committed no crime, and you know that. I shall keep all your laws, but I shall try to save my wife, if she is still alive, and I shall do it my own way.”

  Pitt looked at his dark, unwavering eyes, and knew that argument was a waste of time he could put to a better use. There was no more he could do about the way Nazario Delacruz chose to face his dilemma. Pitt honestly did not know what he would do in the man’s place. He could only thank the grace of God that he was not.

  —

  “WELL?” CHARLOTTE ASKED HIM when he got home that afternoon. He was tired, his feet ached, and he would have liked nothing better than to spend the evening with his family, listening to their talk of anything at all—except politics, religion or Sofia Delacruz. But it was not possible. He had already spent a couple of hours with Stoker and Brundage arranging for a degree of police protection at the hall where Nazario was to speak.

  His mind kept going over and over all the possibil
ities. He told this to Charlotte as he hung his hat on the hall stand and followed her as she led the way.

  The kitchen was warm and full of nice smells. The dog, Uffie, sat in his basket by the stove and his tail thumped gently on the floor as he recognized Pitt. He didn’t move toward him, because he had learned that he was not supposed to be in the kitchen at all, and the delusion that no one noticed him was by far the safest way to stay there.

  Pitt sat down in the chair nearest to him and leaned over to stroke his ears. The tail thumped louder.

  “Hello, Uffie,” Pitt said to him softly. “You are a lucky dog. I hope you appreciate it. Everyone tells you their troubles, and nobody expects you to reply.”

  Charlotte understood the remark, and ignored it. “What is Nazario going to do?” she asked.

  Minnie Maude came in from the pantry with a large apple pie in her hands. She looked from Pitt to Uffie, then at Charlotte. When no one spoke she put the pie on the bench and went out again. Uffie stayed where he was, with Pitt’s hand on his head.

  “Preach this evening,” Pitt replied. “I couldn’t persuade him not to.”

  Charlotte sat very still, her face pale.

  “Oh, Thomas, do you think he means to let her be martyred…for the cause?”

  Pitt had known that thought was at the back of his own mind, but he had refused to consider it. Now he had no choice.

  “I don’t think so,” he replied. “The man Castillo he mentions is no one we know, nor does anyone in Spain that we can reach. But of course that doesn’t have to be his real name. And it all has to do with her reason for seeing Barton Hall and, I assume, the large amount of money tied up in Canadian land that seems to be unexplained.”

  “Money, religion, politics,” she said with a bleak humor in her eyes. “Not very precise, is it?”

  He was too tired to concentrate. He had to force himself to think logically. “Somebody wants to know from her where she has hidden Castillo. He has to be at the heart of it. It all started when she took him in, and then hid him somewhere. He has committed some act that he believes is a crime, and Sofia wants him to make amends for it, redeem himself. Then she says she has to come to England in order to speak with Barton Hall.”

  “Did she ever speak with Hall beyond telling him she wanted to meet?” Charlotte asked. “Even if she didn’t see him, there’s always the telephone. I’m sure he would have one.”

  “I don’t know. He says she didn’t, but she might have.”

  “Couldn’t he be the one who is torturing her to find Castillo?”

  “But why? Hall’s an English banker, with ambitions to be Governor of the Bank of England. Why would he have anything to do with a Spanish criminal, possibly terrorist or revolutionary? Then there’s Laurence—he says Hall and Teague have been friends, of a sort, since they were about eleven or twelve years old. Laurence dislikes them both, but what he says about them is definitely true, as far as it goes.”

  “Was he at school with them?”

  “Same school, but a few years younger. He says Hall cheated to help people pass their exams. He wouldn’t tell me who or how. He hates Hall for it, and because the one man who knew, a teacher, died in a fire, and Laurence believes he was murdered.”

  She looked at him steadily, sorrow in her eyes. “And was he?” she said softly.

  Before Pitt could answer, he heard a slight sound at the door. At first he thought it was Minnie Maude come back, then turned and saw Jemima. She looked puzzled and unhappy. It was probably the emotion she’d overheard that troubled her more than any facts she guessed at.

  “Is she dead, Papa?” she asked immediately.

  “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “Whoever has her asked a ransom so terrible I don’t know whether her husband will pay it or not.”

  “Does he have enough money to pay it?” she asked.

  “It’s not money they want. The man holding her wants her husband to deny all her teachings by saying she was an awful and deceitful woman, responsible for the deaths of his first wife and his children.” He heard Charlotte draw in her breath, and saw the look of pain in Jemima’s face. But if Nazario did deny her, then everyone would know that he had, including Jemima. Telling her now might prepare her for it.

  Jemima took a deep breath. “Is that what you don’t know? If he will, or not?”

  “He has a plan. He won’t tell me what it is, probably because he is afraid I’ll stop him. But he says he won’t betray her by lying and saying she was ever greedy or selfish.”

  She thought for a moment. “Would you do that, Papa? Deny everything you believe is true, to save Mama’s life?”

  How hideously simply she put it! Like that, it sounded easy. Courage or cowardice? Life or honor?

  “I hope not,” he answered. “But I’m not sure if I wouldn’t do it to save yours or your mother’s. Or Daniel’s, of course. I love you very much.”

  She smiled and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “I know, Papa. Maybe it doesn’t count if it’s somebody you don’t like, or maybe don’t even know. If she dies, will she be a martyr? That’s what a martyr is, isn’t it? Someone who will die rather than say they don’t believe in God?”

  “I think you can be a martyr to any cause,” he replied. “It doesn’t have to be God.”

  “But God is the ultimate, isn’t He? Because we don’t really know if He’s real, do we?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “But I’m beginning to think that perhaps my mother did…”

  “Can you know something if it isn’t true?” she asked.

  Out of the corner of his eye Pitt saw Charlotte bite her lip.

  “You can think you do.” He drew in a deep breath. “But I am seriously considering that she might really have known, in her own way.”

  “Are there different ways of knowing things?”

  “Definitely. Some things are very complicated. You come to them only slowly, a step at a time, and because you want to badly enough to keep trying.”

  “Like mathematics,” she said with a tiny glint of humor. “Or how to play the violin? That’s terribly difficult. You have to make all your own notes and know if they’re right or not.”

  “You have it exactly,” he agreed. “It’s difficult, there are mistakes, but the music will be wonderful in the end.”

  “I want wonderful music before the end,” she said gravely.

  “I shouldn’t have said ‘end,’ ” he corrected himself. “If there is a God like the one my mother believed in, then there isn’t any end.”

  —

  PITT WENT TO THE hall early to help Stoker and Brundage prepare for Nazario’s speech. Not only were attacks to be forestalled, but the possibility of panic and the injury that would occur as a result was to be dealt with.

  “Do you really think he’s going to start a riot, sir?” Brundage said with disbelief. “Is that his way of getting back at us for letting all this happen in the first place?” He looked thoroughly miserable. Pitt could see in his face that he still felt bitterly responsible for Sofia’s kidnapping.

  “She came here knowing the risks, and when she got really worried her own people suggested she hide in the house on Inkerman Road,” Pitt said patiently. “She went with them willingly! She didn’t climb down the drainpipe, and nobody broke in. It was probably very quiet. We were supposed to protect her from attack, not hold her prisoner in Angel Court! If they hadn’t lied to us, she might still be all right.”

  “I wonder why Hall didn’t tell us about the house on Inkerman Road,” Brundage added. “Didn’t he trust us either? Or did he have some other reason, do you think? I know he says he didn’t see her, but what’s that worth? For that matter, what’s that land in Canada worth? You asked me to look into that, but I can’t find anything about it. There’s land farther east, and west with mineral deposits, even gold, but not there!”

  Pitt froze suddenly. “Gold, but not there!” Was that it? Hall had been duped into investing a fortune in land
reputed to have gold in it, or some other massively valuable mineral—perhaps diamonds? Gold had been found in California in ’49 and both gold and diamonds beyond calculation in the Kimberley mines in South Africa.

  That could be what Sofia had known. That it was a hoax, formed and carried out by Juan Castillo, and the man who had been murdered on the road near Toledo.

  No wonder Castillo was hiding! Hall would crucify him if he got hold of him. And he would tear Sofia apart slowly to make her tell him where he was, to insure the man was silenced.

  Hall was not stealing money; he was trying to disguise the loss until he could find a way to hide it completely. No wonder he was panicking and close to despair. People lost money all the time. Any investment was a risk, but for a banker of Hall’s repute to be hoaxed by a couple of Spaniards, and out of a fortune belonging to the Church and the Crown!

  Was that what Sofia was coming to tell him? It must have been. A warning and perhaps a way out.

  Except it could not have been, or he would not now be torturing her—for what? Not to help him; if she could do that she would. Surely that was why she had come to England.

  Hall might want vengeance on Castillo, and if he had murdered the other man, Alonso, then he would have to pay for that in some way. Sofia did not let people walk away from their mistakes.

  Is that what Hall wanted? To find the original hoax money, get it back, and walk away? Then of course he would have to silence Sofia, and the only certain way to do that was to kill her.

  But not before she had told him where Castillo was.

  Brundage was still staring at him, waiting.

  “Thank you, Brundage,” Pitt said fervently. “I think perhaps you’ve just solved it! That part, at least.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brundage replied, his expression indicating that he had only the faintest idea what Pitt meant.

  —

  THE EVENING BEGAN WITH a surprisingly large crowd assembled before Nazario ever appeared. Pitt had advised Charlotte not to come, and certainly not to bring Jemima. He had no idea what to expect, but it was possible it could be dramatic, even tragic. Jemima would have to know, but calmly, only in words, not be present to see the hysteria, above all, not to see Nazario’s grief—if that was how it turned out. Though he didn’t think it was likely, Pitt was aware that Sofia’s abductor could still turn out to be Nazario himself. Maybe Sofia had outgrown his first passion for her, or even the message of her faith, and now become an embarrassment. If Pitt would find that painful, the destruction of something he had scarcely believed in, and yet had thought to have a beauty he could not forget, how much more bitter a disillusion would it be for Jemima?