by Seven Dials
“He was commanding officer in Alexandria when Lovat was invalided out of the army,” he replied.
Her hands stopped kneading the dough and she looked up at him. “Does that mean anything?” she said slowly, turning over the idea in her mind. “It’s just coincidence . . . isn’t it?” But even as she spoke, other thoughts gathered in her mind—doubts, shadows, memories of things Sandeman had said.
“What is it?” Pitt prompted, and she knew he had seen it in her face.
She wiped her hands on her apron. “I really fear something could have happened to Martin Garvie,” she replied gravely. “And perhaps even Stephen Garrick as well. I found the priest that Martin went to in the Seven Dials area just before he disappeared. He works especially with soldiers who have fallen on hard times.” She saw the anxiety in his face and hurried on before he could give expression to it. “I went in daylight. It was all perfectly all right! Thomas, he was very upset indeed.” She remembered it with a shiver, not for the dirt or the despair, but for the pain that she had seen rack Sandeman so deeply.
Pitt was waiting, stiff, his tea forgotten and going cold in the cup.
“A priest?” he said curiously. “Why? Could he tell you anything?”
“No . . . not in words.”
“What do you mean? If not in words, how? How?” he demanded.
“By his reaction,” she replied. She sat down opposite him, ignoring the bread. It would come to no harm for a while. “Thomas, when I mentioned Martin’s name he was filled with a horror so great that for several moments he barely recovered his composure enough to be able to speak to me.” She knew her voice was thick with the emotion that came back to her in a rush—welling up inside her. “He knows something terrible,” she said quietly. “But because it came to him in a confession, he cannot repeat it. Nothing I could say made any difference, even that Martin’s life could be in danger.” She waited, watching his face, longing for him to be able to take the burden of confusion from her, provide some other way she had not thought of in which she could still help.
“In danger from whom?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. She told him very briefly what little she had been able to learn, and from it what she had deduced. “But whatever Martin said to him, Mr. Sandeman would not—” She stopped. Pitt’s eyes were wide, his face pale and his body suddenly rigid as if caught in a moment of fear. “Thomas— What? What is it?”
“Did you say Sandeman?” he asked, his voice catching in his throat.
“Yes. Why? Do you know of him?” Without any clear thought, she felt his alarm as if she understood. “Who is he?” She did not want to learn something ugly of the priest. He had seemed to her a man of intense and genuine compassion, but she could not afford less than the truth, and to turn from it now would avail nothing. The fear would be just as lacerating as anything he could tell her. “Do you?” she said again.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “But in the army, Lovat had three friends with whom he spent most of his off-duty time: Garrick, Sandeman, and Yeats. You mentioned both Garrick and Sandeman as being in possible danger, or in distress. It is hard to believe that is coincidence.”
“What about Yeats?”
“I don’t know, but I think I need to find out.”
“So Lovat’s death did have something to do with Egypt and not necessarily with Ryerson?” she said, but surprisingly there was none of the lift of hope she would have expected only an hour ago.
“Possibly,” he agreed. “But it still doesn’t make any sense. Why now, years after leaving Alexandria? And what has Ayesha Zakhari to do with it? Lovat didn’t want to marry her, it was just an infatuation. And from all I could learn, she wasn’t in love with him either.”
“Wasn’t she?” she said skeptically.
He smiled. “No. She had really loved one man. He was utterly different from Lovat, a man of her own people, older, a patriot who was fatally flawed, and who betrayed her and everything they both believed in.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, and she meant it. She had never met Ayesha Zakhari, and she knew very little about her, but she tried to imagine the bitterness of disillusion, and the magnitude of her pain. “But surely the fact that Lovat was shot in her garden can’t be coincidence?” She looked at him steadily, seeing pity and reluctance in him, and a new, raw edge of feeling about the whole tragedy. She reached across and slid her hand over his.
He turned his over, palm up, and closed his fingers gently.
“I don’t suppose it can,” he agreed. “But I have to find Yeats, and if he is dead, then how it happened, and why.”
“Ryerson’s trial begins tomorrow,” she said, watching his face.
“Yes, I know. I’ll try to find Yeats today.” He hesitated only a moment, then, letting go of her hand, pushed his chair back and stood up.
PITT STOOD on the steps in the sun, blinking, not so much at the soft, autumn sunlight as at what the stiff, sad-faced officer had told him.
Arnold Yeats was dead. It had happened less than four years after he left Egypt. He had been posted to India, his health apparently completely recovered. He was a talented officer remarkable for his extraordinary courage. He seemed to know no fear, and his men saw him as a hero they would follow anywhere.
“Brave,” the officer said, looking at Pitt with pain in his eyes. “Even reckless. Took one risk too many. Decorated posthumously. Too bad . . . we can’t afford to lose men like that.”
“Reckless, you said?” Pitt questioned.
The officer’s face tightened and something inside him closed. “Wrong word,” he said tartly, and Pitt could not draw him to say anything further. He thanked him and left.
So of the four friends in Alexandria two were dead, one on the field of battle, one murdered, one was apparently missing, and the fourth was a priest in Seven Dials who had been stunned with horror at the mention of Martin Garvie’s name.
He turned on his heel and walked straight to the curb, then out into the first couple of yards of the street, his arm waving to attract the next hansom that passed.
The Old Bailey was crowded with people, pressing forward, calling out to each other, complaining and jostling for a place. With difficulty, Pitt elbowed his way towards the front and finally was stopped by a constable who placed himself squarely in his path.
“Sorry, sir. Can’t go in there. If you wanted a seat you should’ve come sooner. First come, first in, that’s the rule. Fair enough?”
Pitt drew in his breath to argue, and realized it was pointless. He had no authority to show that would allow him preference. To the constable he would seem to be just another curious spectator, come to watch the fall of a powerful man and gaze at an exotic woman accused of murder. And there were certainly enough of them. He was pressed from behind, his feet trodden on, his back bumped and poked. The constable was keeping his temper with difficulty, his face overpink and gleaming with sweat.
“I’ll wait out here,” Pitt said.
“In’t no use, sir. There isn’t going to be no room in there today.” The constable shook his head, indicating the courtroom.
“I need to speak to someone who is inside,” Pitt replied.
The constable looked disbelieving, but he said nothing.
Pitt went past the court where Ryerson and Ayesha Zakhari were being tried, and stood impatiently in the hallway outside the next one along.
It was an hour before anyone emerged, and he had begun to wonder if he was wasting his time. Perhaps Narraway was not in there anyway. Yet the compulsion remained to wait until the adjournment and watch every person who emerged. Finally the doors opened and a small, thin man with brown hair came out. He looked left and right, then took a step forward. Pitt approached him. “Excuse me. You were in the Ryerson trial.” It was more a statement than a question, but the words were out before he considered them.
“Yes,” the man agreed. “But it’s packed in there. You won’t get in.”
�
�What has happened so far?”
The man shrugged. “Only what you’d expect, a lot of police saying what they found. She did it, of course; the only mystery is how she thought she’d get away with it.”
Pitt glanced around him at the people still waiting hopefully, as if there was yet some chance of drama in which they could share.
“It could bring the government down in time,” the man said, as if in answer to the question Pitt had only thought. “Narrow majority—important minister mixed up with a woman like that. Trouble up Manchester way.” He pulled his mouth into a slight sneer. “I thought it would have been more interesting. Defense lawyer’s got nothing. I might come back tomorrow.” And without waiting he pushed past and disappeared into the crowd.
Pitt moved closer to the door so he would have a better chance to see Narraway, if indeed he was inside.
As it was, he very nearly missed him and only caught up as Narraway moved across the hall towards the steps to leave. He looked at Pitt with momentary irritation, thinking he had been bumped into by a stranger, then he recognized him and his face sharpened with attention. “Well?” he demanded.
“What happened in there?” Pitt countered.
Narraway stopped and faced Pitt, his eyes wide. “You came here to ask me that?”
There was a dangerous edge to his voice, and Pitt saw the lines of strain etched deep into his face. He was holding control of himself with an effort. They had failed to help Ryerson, and again Pitt was reminded sharply that for some reason deeper than anything he understood, it mattered intensely to Narraway. Was it simply failure that hurt him, or was there a personal wound to do with events, feelings in the past of which Pitt was ignorant?
Narraway was waiting.
“I came to tell you that Arnold Yeats is dead,” Pitt replied. “He was the fourth soldier of the group of Lovat’s friends. Lovat was murdered, Garrick is missing, and Sandeman has become an obscure priest in the back alleys of Seven Dials.”
Narraway stood quite stiff. “Indeed? And how do you know this?”
“I asked the War Office!” It was the obvious answer. Then he realized that Narraway was referring not to Yeats but to Garrick and Sandeman.
“Keep your wife out of it, Pitt,” Narraway said in a low, careful voice, his face pinched. He ignored the flash of responding anger in Pitt’s eyes. “She is the only one who has connected Lovat, Garrick, and Sandeman, so far as I know. And I still have no idea what we are dealing with.” He reached out and took Pitt by the elbow, his fingers gripping hard, pulling him out of the melee towards a doorway to the side.
“It’s going badly?” Pitt said. It was barely a question.
Narraway leaned against the door arch, but his body was rigid; there was no grace in it. He looked too tense to remain in any position long. “They are not here to see proof of guilt or innocence,” he replied bitterly. “They take the guilt for granted, and I think the jury probably does as well. It is about whether the government can survive the scandal. It is the same instinct which makes people go stag hunting, or shooting wild animals—the spectacle of seeing something with more grace and power than themselves dragged down. They haven’t the ability to create, only to destroy, and that is more intoxicating than nothing at all.”
Pitt looked at the anger and helplessness in Narraway’s face, and again was almost submerged in his emotion. “Are you saying it is political by accident or by design?” he asked.
Anger filled Narraway’s eyes, then disappeared. “I don’t know!” he said with a note of desperation.
“I don’t believe Ayesha Zakhari is guilty of the stupid murder of a man she no longer knew or cared about,” Pitt said miserably.
“And if her intention was to bring Ryerson down, in whatever way she could?” Narraway asked, his black eyes hard and angry.
“She came as an idealist, believing she could improve her country’s economic independence,” Pitt said with complete conviction. “That is not so unrealistic.”
“I am as familiar with Egyptian economic history as you are!” Narraway snapped. “And it was the expansion under Said Pasha, then Khedive Ismail, and the return of American cotton after their civil war, which crippled them and forced Ismail to abdicate in ’79 and opened the way for us to take the control we now have. If Ayesha Zakhari is as well-educated as you say, surely she must have known that even better than we do.”
Pitt had no answer. They were caught in a morass of facts which made no coherent story, except one of impulse and stupidity, and that was not what he wanted to believe.
“You had better follow it,” Narraway said quietly, already half turning away, almost as if he did not wish Pitt to see any hope in his face. “Be in my office at seven in the morning,” he ordered. “Day after tomorrow.” And he walked away, leaving Pitt alone.
Pitt learned all he could about Arnold Yeats, but it added nothing to his understanding of Lovat’s death, or anything that had happened to him in Egypt, and there was no connection that he could see with Ayesha Zakhari. Nor was there anything in Morgan Sandeman’s military record or his decision to leave the army and enter the priesthood which seemed to have any relevance. The only fact Pitt remarked with any interest was that the friendship which had been close in Alexandria appeared to have disappeared altogether after their return to Britain. But then, had they written to each other, he would not have known.
THE DAY THAT PITT left early to keep his appointment with Narraway, Charlotte also went out, but in the opposite direction. She did not tell Gracie where she was going, because she did not want to place her in the position of having to tell Pitt something less than the truth, should he return before she did.
She caught the omnibus to Oxford Street, and from there walked south as far as Dudley Street. She hesitated a moment, trying to remember exactly which way Sandeman had taken her. It was towards the circle of Seven Dials itself, but not all the way. She started off along Great White Lion Street, and turned left up the alley. It looked different in the morning light, somehow paler and bleaker, as if it were under a layer of dust.
It all seemed smaller.
How many steps had they taken? She had no idea. Anything she thought now seemed too far.
A man bent over with a misshapen body was moving towards her. There was no malice in his face, but something in his lurching gait frightened her. She made an instant decision and started away from him, towards the nearest doorway.
It proved to be a shop of some indeterminate sort. Piles of clothes lay on the floor, smelling stale and moldy. Several boxes perched awkwardly on each other.
“I’m sorry!” she said hastily and backed out, swinging around and almost bumping into a fat woman with a white face and eyebrows so sparse as to lend her expression a bald, surprised air. “I’m sorry,” Charlotte repeated, and pushed past her and outside.
Now she had lost her bearings altogether. She turned all the way around, slowly, and tried another door. She was shivering, although it was not cold. Her hand was raised to knock, then she changed her mind and decided simply to open it. She realized the woman was watching her, standing so close now that if Charlotte were to step back she would bump her. She felt cut off.
She put her weight against the door and it swung open. Relief washed over her as she saw the vestibule and the long hallway beyond. Please heaven, Sandeman was there. If she was caught alone with the woman behind her, there was now no escape. That was ridiculous. The woman was probably coming for help, just as she was herself.
She went so rapidly across the stone floor to the next door she was almost running. She had closed the second door and was starting towards the big fireplace when Sandeman came out of the scullery, his face curious and welcoming, until he recognized her.
“Mrs. Pitt.” He dried his hands on the rough cloth he was carrying. His skin looked red, as if the soap had burned him. “What can I do for you?” His voice had denial in it, and his face was already closed.
She had expected it, and tried to
forewarn herself; even so, something inside her sank. She had intended to smile, but it died before it reached her lips. “Good morning, Mr. Sandeman,” she replied quietly. “I have come back to you because circumstances have changed since we spoke before.” She stopped. She knew he did not believe her. For Tilda’s sake she was prepared to tell him more of the truth now, even to add a force to it she would not have before.
“Mine have not,” he replied, meeting her eyes without flinching. She was struck again by the inner strength of him, as if within his mind there were an island of absolute knowledge untouched by the comings and goings of chance or other people’s passions. “I am sorry,” he added, to soften his refusal.
She continued only because it would be absurd to have come this far and then leave again without trying harder than this. “I did not expect you to have changed, Mr. Sandeman. But since I last saw you my husband has returned from Alexandria, and told me . . .” She stopped. The color had drained from his skin. When she glanced down at his hands, they were clenched so tightly on the rag he was holding that the folded edge of it threatened to leave marks on his flesh.
She seized the chance. “And told me a great many things he learned while he was there regarding Mr. Lovat’s service in Egypt, and other things . . .” She did not wish to be specific, in case it allowed him to realize how very little she really knew. “Mr. Sandeman, I fear Martin Garvie’s life is in danger. I had a very senior gentleman from Special Branch warn me that I was concerning myself with affairs of great danger and I should leave them be, but I cannot do that when I might have the key to saving someone. I fear they will allow Martin Garvie to be killed because he is of no importance to them.”
Sandeman’s eyes were enormous, as if staring at something that transfixed him. “Special Branch?” His lips seemed dry. “What have they to do with Martin Garvie?”
“You must be aware that Edwin Lovat has been murdered. It is in all the newspapers,” she replied. “And that an Egyptian woman is on trial at the Old Bailey. Even here in Seven Dials the running patterers will be talking about it. It’s a big scandal, because a major politician is involved. It could even bring the government down.”
