by Anne Perry
“Perhaps he did take them.” She was playing devil’s advocate because it must be done. “But he did not know of this other person, if he exists, the one Weems gave a second copy to.”
“That still does not make any sense,” he answered with gathering conviction. “If he thought he had all the evidence pointing to him, he would not have sent for me. We would never have connected him with Weems, why on earth should we? And anyway, what purpose did it serve for Weems’s mysterious other person to have evidence, if no one knew of it? I cannot see Weems as a man who wished his death avenged, but it makes every sense that he would create a safeguard that his life should not be taken. And that served only so long as every person who was a danger to him knew of its existence, and that it would be used if Weems came to any harm.”
“ Perhaps he did not believe Sholto any danger to him.”
“Then why give a set of papers to this friend? And why keep the one set himself, which we know he did because Lord Byam told us of it?”
“Then if you did not find them, where are they?” she asked.
He was confounded. “I don’t know. I can only presume the murderer took them. Although why he did not take the other list as well I don’t understand.”
“What other list?” Her dark brow puckered.
It was an error, but there was no way of retrieving it, and he was not even sure he wanted to. He hated keeping so much from her.
“Oh—of course, you don’t know of that. There was a list of other people of better financial circumstances who were down as having borrowed large amounts—all of whom deny it.”
Her eyes widened. “Were they blackmailed as well?”
“It seems so.”
“And—and are they still being blackmailed?” Now there was a sharper fear in her and he understood it instantly.
He could not answer.
“No—” She breathed out. “You don’t need to say it, it is there in your face. Sholto is the only one.”
The silence lay between them. There was no need for either to spell out the reasoning. The only answer to all the questions pounding in their heads was that Byam had killed Weems, and had been seen by someone else, who was now blackmailing him, not over Laura Anstiss’s death, but over the murder of Weems. And if only Byam knew who it was, then he might very easily murder him too. Why not; he had nothing else to lose, and freedom to win. It explained everything—it was the one possibility which did explain everything.
They were still standing facing each other when they heard the outside door open and the butler’s voice welcoming Lord Byam.
Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment as if she had been struck, then stepped back from Drummond and went to the door. She met his eyes for an instant, then turned the latch and went out into the hall, leaving the door ajar. Drummond heard her voice plainly.
“Good evening, Sholto.”
“Good evening, my dear.” The clarity of his tone, the immediacy of it, brought his presence to Drummond more sharply than he would have thought possible. They had been speaking about him and the reality of his being, his mind, his intelligence, his volition had almost receded into an impersonal problem. Hearing his voice brought him back with a vividness that was like a shock of icy water.
“Mr. Drummond is here to see you,” Eleanor went on. Perhaps they were simply the words anyone would have used, but they also sounded like a kind of warning, before he could say anything else, speak of his day, expose any anxieties or fears.
“Micah Drummond?” He sounded surprised. “Did he say what for?”
“No …”
“You hesitated.”
“Did I? It is because I fear it cannot be good. If he had arrested someone he would have told me.”
“Then I had better see him.” Was his voice as edgy as Drummond thought? Was there fear in it, or simply irritation that a man he knew so slightly should have called at such an inconvenient hour? “Where is he?”
“In the library.”
He made no answer that Drummond could hear. The next moment his footsteps sounded sharply across the flagged floor and the door swung open and he was there.
“I believe you called to see me.” He closed the door behind him. He did not offer any refreshment or exchange the usual trivialities. Either he assumed Eleanor had already done so, or else he considered them irrelevant.
Drummond looked at him. He was pale and there were dark smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes. He was immaculately dressed, as always, but there was an air of distraction about him and it was all too obvious that the tension Eleanor had spoken of was in him. Every movement was tight, awkward, his muscles stiff, his attention strained.
“Yes,” Drummond agreed, anger at the man evaporating, and now strongly mixed with pity. For the moment the fact that he was Eleanor’s husband, and therefore the man who stood irrevocably between him and the woman he now loved, was immaterial, so unimportant as to have vanished from his thoughts.
“Do I take it that there have been new events, or discoveries?” Byam came across the room and stood close to the mantel, where Eleanor had been so shortly before.
“There are new questions,” Drummond equivocated. He must not allow Byam to realize that Eleanor had confided in him. He could only view it as a kind of betrayal, even if he understood it as anxiety for him and a belief that she could help.
“Indeed?” Byam’s black brows rose. “Then you had better ask them, since it is what you have come for. Although I cannot think of anything I have not already told you.”
Drummond began with what he had intended to say before Eleanor had spoken to him.
“It regards that circle of which we are both members.”
Byam’s face tightened. “I hardly think this is the time, or the place, to discuss the business of the Circle—”
“You called me here in the name of the Circle,” Drummond interrupted. “Therefore they are already included in anything we do.”
Byam winced, as though what Drummond had said were in bad taste.
“I call on you as a brother in that circle to which we both belong, to help me in a certain matter.” Drummond’s own voice hardened and he saw Byam’s look of astonishment, then extraordinary relief. It was short-lived. As soon as Drummond continued it disappeared.
“In the matter of Horatio Osmar.”
“Horatio Osmar? I don’t know the man. He is not one of the same ’ring’ as I.”
“Nevertheless you know that he is a brother?” Drummond pressed.
“I do. Surely you don’t wish something from him? The man is disgraced. Not openly, I grant, but we all know perfectly well he was guilty of behaving like a fool, and of being caught at it.”
“And of asking the brotherhood to exercise favor in extricating him, and attempting to impugn the police in the process.”
“That was unnecessary,” Byam said with irritation. “He got out of the charge. He should have left it at that. Accusing the police of perjury was gratuitous. The man is a complete outsider.”
“Indeed,” Drummond agreed with feeling. “Nevertheless, the brotherhood assisted him in bringing the charge. Questions were raised in the House, and the Home Secretary himself set certain wheels in motion.”
“I am aware of that. I was in the House at the time. I thought he was a fool then, but there was nothing I could do about it.”
“Of course not.” Drummond was watching him closely. The subject did not distress him, but the underlying fear was only too apparent. His whole body was so stiff Drummond ached watching him. And he was abominably tired, as if he had not slept with any ease for weeks.
“Well?” Byam said with rising impatience. “What is it you want of me? It is not my concern.”
“If the brotherhood will respond to Osmar’s trivial and tedious case by raising questions in the House,” Drummond answered, “and impugning the honesty of the police as they have done, what latitude do they have in matters of individual honor and integrity where more serious matte
rs are involved?”
“I don’t understand you.” Byam’s voice was getting sharper. “For heaven’s sake, man, be plain!”
Drummond took a breath and met Byam’s hollow eyes.
“If I discover incriminating evidence against you, will the brotherhood defend you against the police, and will it expect me to do the same?”
Byam was white as a ghost. He stared at Drummond as if he could scarcely believe him.
Drummond waited.
Byam spoke with difficulty, his voice catching in his throat.
“I—I have never thought in the matter. It will not arise—dangerous evidence perhaps, but not incriminating. I did not kill Weems.” He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind and stood silently facing Drummond.
“Then why have you changed your decision about African financing?” Drummond asked.
Byam seemed so stunned, so deathly white, Drummond was afraid for a moment he was going to pass out. The dusk was growing in the room. The last of the sun’s rays had faded away from the ceiling and now the faintly luminous air had gone. A bird sang in the branches beyond the window.
“How do you know that?” Byam said at last.
“I heard of it through a young man called Valerius.” It was not a lie exactly, even if it was by intent.
Byam was too shocked for surprise or interest.
“Peter Valerius? He came and told you? Why, for God’s sake? It is of no concern to you.”
“Not directly,” Drummond answered. “He told someone, who told me.”
“Who?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
Byam turned away, weary, hiding his face and staring at the shelf of books and the corner.
“I suppose it hardly matters. It involves issues you are not aware of—trade, money …”
“Blackmail?”
Byam froze. The relief that had been in his face an instant before fled utterly. His body jerked as if he had been struck.
“Was it?” Drummond said very quietly, almost gently. “Has someone else found the papers Weems left? Byam, do you know who killed Weems?”
“No! No I don’t!” It was a cry full of pain and despair. “Dear God I don’t know. I have no idea at all.”
“But whoever it is has Weems’s notes, and is blackmailing you still?”
Byam’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and he turned around, his eyes black in the last light through the window, a wraith of a smile on his lips, a smile of pain and self-mockery, as if he knew some terrible joke against himself.
“No—no. Weems’s notes seem to have vanished into the air. I am beginning to think he never actually made any, he simply said he had to protect himself. Unnecessarily—I would never have attacked him physically, or any other way. The worst I would have done was tell him to go to hell. Someone else killed him, and I have not even the shred of an idea who.”
“And the change of mind over the African money?”
Byam’s face was still white. “The brotherhood,” he said with stiff lips. “It is a favor for them. I cannot tell you why. It concerns many issues, international finance, risk, political situations I am not at liberty to discuss.” His words were a mockery of Drummond’s earlier ones, but there was no jeering in them, no triumph.
“They would ask that of you, knowing how you feel, your reputation in the matter, your conscience?” Drummond was horrified, although now he had no surprise left. “That is monstrous. What would happen to you if you refused them?”
There was no smile on Byam’s face, only bleak, humorless despair.
“I don’t know, and I am not in a position to put it to the test.”
“But your honor,” Drummond said involuntarily. “The agony of your own conscience. Do they imagine they have purchased your soul with some idiotic ritual oath? For God’s sake, man, tell them to go to the devil! Not a great journey, if they would press you to act against your conscience in such a manner.”
Byam looked away from him. “I cannot,” he said in a level, hopeless voice. “There is much that you do not understand. They explained to me other reasons. It is not as much against my conscience as you believe, simply against my past record of belief, and what people expect of me. There are other factors—things I did not know of before …”
But Drummond did not believe him. He was overwhelmed with pity, and revulsion—and a terrible, dark fear of the circle he had entered so blindly so many years ago. Pitt had thought it evil, and he had barely scraped the surface. Why did a gamekeeper’s son like Pitt have so infinitely more understanding of evil and its smiling, promising faces?
He felt cold throughout his body.
“I’m sorry,” he said futilely, not knowing what he meant, simply that he was filled with a dragging heaviness and a sense of tragedy to come, and guilt.
He walked to the hall door and opened it.
“Thank you for your candor.”
Byam looked up, his eyes black with pain, like a cornered creature. He said nothing.
Drummond went out and closed the door. In the hallway the butler handed him his cloak, hat and stick, then opened the door for him. He went out into the balmy air of the evening, oblivious to its sweetness.
10
IT WAS AT a garden party, lawns, flower beds and dappled shade, parlormaids and footmen carrying trays of chilled champagne, women with parasols, that Charlotte observed the next event connected with Jack’s pursuit of selection as candidate for Parliament. She had gone hoping to see something more of Lord Byam, but as it transpired neither he nor Lady Byam was present, although they had been expected. It was a glorious afternoon, if a trifle warm, and everyone was greatly involved in discussing the Eton and Harrow cricket match which was held annually between the two outstanding private schools for boys of excellent family.
The other great topic of conversation was the forthcoming regatta to be held at Henley, as usual. There was intense speculation as to who would win the cricket match, as many of the gentlemen had attended either one school or the other, and emotions were running high.
“My dear fellow,” one elegantly dressed man said, leaning a little on his cane and staring at his companion, his top hat an inch or two askew. “The fact that Eton won last year is nothing whatsoever to go by. Hackfield was the best bat they ever had, and he has left and gone up to Cambridge. The whole side will disintegrate without him, don’t you know.”
They were standing beside a bed of delphiniums.
“Balderdash.” His friend smiled indulgently, and stepped to one side to allow a lady in a large hat to pass by. The feather in its brim was touching his shoulder, but she was oblivious of it, being totally occupied gazing through her eyelashes at someone a few yards in the opposite direction. “Absolute tommyrot,” the man continued. “Hackfield was merely the most showy. Nimmons was the real strength.”
“Nimmons.” The man in the top hat was patronizingly amused. “Scored a mere twenty runs, as I recall.”
“Your recollection is colored by your desires, not to mention your loyalty.” His friend was gently pleased with himself. “Twenty runs, and bowled out five of your side—for a total of thirty-three. And he’s still very much there this year. Doesn’t go up till ’ninety-one.”
“Because he’s a fool.” But his face clouded as memory returned. Absentmindedly he put his empty goblet on the tray of an attendant footman and took a fresh one.
“Not with a ball in his hand, old chap—not with a ball,” his companion retorted.
Charlotte could imagine the summer afternoon, the crowd sitting on benches or walking on the grass, the players all in white, the crack of leather on willow as the bat struck the ball, the cheering, the sun in the eye and in the face, the long lazy day, excited voices of boys calling out, cucumber sandwiches for tea. It was pleasant to think about, but she had no real wish to go. Her thoughts were filled with darker, more urgent matters. And it was part of a world she had never really belonged to, and in which Pitt, and that mattered m
ore, had no place. It did cross her mind to wonder for an instant if he had played cricket as a boy. She could imagine it, not at a great school founded centuries ago and steeped in tradition, but on the village green, perhaps with a duck pond, and old men sitting outside the inn, and a dog or two lying in the sun.
She saw Regina Carswell with two of her daughters. The third, whom Charlotte had seen previously so obviously attracted to the young man at the musical soiree, was again speaking with him. This time she was walking by his side and involved in a murmured conversation of smiles and glances, and very considerable tenderness. It was such that in the present society and circumstances it was tantamount to a statement of intent. It would have to be a very remarkable incident now to alter the inevitable course.
Charlotte smiled, happy for her.
Beside her, Emily was equally indulgent. She had been lonely far too recently not to have a very real sympathy for the state.
“Is Jack going to join the secret society?” Charlotte asked abruptly.
Emily looked at her with a frown as a young woman passed by them holding a dish of strawberries and giggling at her companion, a short man in a military uniform who moved with a definite swagger.
“Why on earth did Miss Carswell make you think of that?” she asked.
“Because she is so obviously happy, and so are you,” Charlotte continued. “And I wish more than almost anything that you should remain so.”
Emily smiled at her warmly. “I love you for it, but if you think my happiness depends upon Jack being selected to stand for Parliament, you are mistaken.” A shadow crossed her face. “I would have expected you to know me better. I admit I used to be ambitious socially, and I still get pleasure and amusement from it, but it is no more than that, I promise you. It is not my happiness.” She tweaked her skirt off the grass to stop it being trodden on by a shortsighted gentleman with a cane. “I want Jack to succeed at something, of course. I love him, and how could he be happy if he whiled away his time in pursuits of no purpose? But if he does not get this nomination, there will be others.”
“Good,” Charlotte responded with emotion. “Because I feel very strongly indeed that he should not join any society whose membership is secret, and that requires oaths of loyalty that rob him of any of his freedom of conscience. Thomas has some knowledge of at least one of the societies in London, and it is very dangerous indeed, and very powerful.” She became even more grave, determined that Emily should believe her. “Emily, do everything within your power to dissuade him, even if it causes a quarrel. It would be a small price to pay to keep him from such a group.”
