by Anne Perry
“That is all, Superintendent,” Thorne cut across the silence. “Other than those I have mentioned, there are only clerks, messengers and assistants of junior rank. If you do not tell me what offense you are investigating, or at least its general nature, I do not know what further I can do to assist you.” It was not a complaint, simply an observation, and there was still the mild, wry humor in Thorne’s face as he made it.
Pitt equivocated. “Some information has found its way into the wrong hands. It is possible it has come from this office.”
“I see.” Thorne did not look horrified, as Chancellor had done. In fact he did not seem particularly surprised at all. “I presume it is financial information you are concerned with, or that which could be turned to financial advantage? I am afraid it is always a risk where great opportunities occur, such as those now in Africa. The Dark Continent”—his mouth curled at the corners at the expression—“has attracted its share of opportunists as well as those who wish to settle, to colonize, to explore, to hunt big game or to save the souls of the natives and spread Christianity over the face of the benighted lands and impose British law and civilization on the heathen races.”
The assumption was wrong, but it suited Pitt very well to allow it to remain.
“Nevertheless, it must be stopped,” he said seriously.
“Of course,” Thorne agreed. “You are welcome to any assistance I can give you, but I am afraid I have no idea where to begin. It would be exceedingly hard to believe that any of the men I have mentioned would stoop to such a level, but they may be able to tell you something which will point to who is at fault. I shall instruct them accordingly.” He sat forward in the chair again. “Thank you for coming to me first, Superintendent, it was most civil of you.”
“Not at all,” Pitt said easily. “I think I shall begin by tracing the course of the information in general, rather than specifically financial, and see exactly who is privy to what.”
“Excellent.” Thorne stood up, an indication that the interview was at an end. “Would you care to have someone conduct you through the convolutions of the system, or would you rather make your own way? I am afraid I have no knowledge of police procedure.”
“If you could spare someone, it might save me a great deal of time.”
“Certainly.” He reached out and pulled the very handsome embroidered bell cord beside his desk and a moment later a young man appeared from the adjoining office. “Oh, Wainwright,” Thorne said almost casually. “This is Superintendent Pitt from the Bow Street police, who has some enquiries to make. The matter is highly confidential at this point. Will you please take him everywhere he requires to go, and show him the passage of information we receive from Africa itself, and regarding Africa from any other source. There appears to have been an irregularity.” He used the word delicately, and without further explanation. “So it would be much better at this point if you did not allow anyone else to be aware of exactly what you are doing, or who Mr. Pitt is.”
“Yes sir.” Wainwright sounded a trifle surprised, but like the good civil servant he aspired to be, he did not even suggest a comment in his expression, much less make a remark. He turned to Pitt. “How do you do, sir. If you care to come with me, I will show you the various types of communications we receive, and precisely what happens to each from its point of arrival onwards.”
Pitt thanked Thorne again and then followed Wainwright. He spent the rest of the day learning precisely how all the information was received from its various sources, by whom, where it was stored, how passed on, and who was privy to it. By half past three he had satisfied himself that the specific details Matthew Desmond had given him could individually have been known to a number of people, but all of them together passed through the hands of only a few: Garston Aylmer, Ian Hathaway, Peter Arundell, a man named Robert Leicester, and Thorne himself.
However he did not report that to Chancellor when he went back to his office at quarter past four, and found him free as he had promised. He merely said that he had been given every assistance and had been able to rule out several possibilities.
“And what is there remaining?” Chancellor said quickly, his eyes keen, his face grave. “You still have no doubt that we have a traitor who is passing information to the Kaiser?”
“That is the Foreign Office’s conclusion,” Pitt replied. “But it does seem the only one to answer the facts.”
“Extremely unpleasant.” Chancellor looked beyond Pitt into the distance, his mouth pinched and his brows drawn down. “I don’t mind what enemy I encounter face-to-face, but to be betrayed by one’s own is the worst experience a man can endure. I hate a traitor more than anything else on earth.” He looked at Pitt quickly, his blue eyes penetrating. “Are you a classicist, Mr. Pitt?”
It was an absurd question, but Pitt took it as a compliment that Chancellor obviously had no idea of his background. He could have been speaking to Micah Drummond, or even Farnsworth. It was a compliment to Arthur Desmond that he had helped his gamekeeper’s son to the degree that such an error was possible.
“No sir. I am acquainted with Shakespeare, and the major poets, but not the Greeks,” Pitt answered with a sober face.
“I was thinking more of Dante,” Chancellor said. “He grades all the sins in his picture of the descent into Hell. He places traitors in the lowest circle of all, far beneath those who are guilty of violence, theft, lust or any other depravity of mind or body. He holds it the worst sin which mankind can conceive, uniquely an abuse of our God-given gifts of reason and conscience. He places the betrayers eternally alone, held fast in everlasting ice. A very terrible punishment, Mr. Pitt, do you not think? But meet for the offense.”
Pitt felt a moment of chill, and then a clarity that was almost uplifting.
“Yes …” he said. “Yes, perhaps it is the worst offense, the breaking of trust, and I suppose the eternal isolation is not so much a punishment as a natural conclusion which would be bound to follow such a nature. It is a self-chosen Hell, if you like.”
“I see we have much in common, Mr. Pitt.” Chancellor’s smile was dazzling, a gesture of both warmth and intense, almost luminous, candor. “Perhaps there is nothing more important than that. We must get this abysmal affair dealt with. It darkens everything until we do.” He bit his lip and shook his head fractionally. “The worst of it is that until it is exposed it poisons every other relationship. One quite unjustifiably suspects those who are perfectly innocent. Many a friendship has been broken for less. I admit, I should not look on a man the same if he had found it possible to suspect me of such treachery.” He gazed at Pitt. “And yet since it is my duty, I cannot place any man beyond my suspicion. I dare not. What a filthy crime!” For a moment there was a bitter smile on his face. “You see what damage it has done already, by the mere fact of its existence?”
He leaned forward across the desk earnestly. “Look, Pitt, we can afford no niceties. I wish it were otherwise, but I know this office well enough to be perfectly aware, tragically, that it must be someone in considerable authority, which means probably Aylmer, Hathaway, Arundell, Leicester, or even, God forbid, Thorne himself. You will not be able to find which by chasing pieces of paper around here.” Unconsciously he was drumming his fingers on the desk, almost without sound. “He will be cleverer than that. You will have to get to know the man himself, see a pattern, a flaw, and however small, a weakness. For that you need to know him in his personal life.” He stopped, regarding Pitt with exasperation. “Come, man, don’t show such surprise. I am not a fool!”
Pitt felt the color burn up his cheeks. He had not perceived Chancellor as a fool, or anything like it, but he had not expected such forthrightness either, nor such perception of what his investigation would entail.
Chancellor smiled quickly. “Forgive me. That was too frank. But nevertheless, what I say is true. You must meet them all socially. Can you come to the reception at the Duchess of Marlborough’s this evening? I can obtain an invitation for you wi
thout any trouble at all.”
Pitt hesitated only a moment.
“I realize it is absurdly short notice,” Chancellor went on. “But history waits for no man, and our treaty with Germany is on the doorstep.”
“Of course,” Pitt accepted. What Chancellor had said was true. It would be an ideal situation in which to make some judgment of the men in a more personal capacity. “It is an excellent idea. Thank you for your assistance, sir.”
“Yourself and your wife? You are married, I presume?”
“Yes indeed.”
“Excellent. I shall have my footman deliver them by six. Your address?”
Pitt gave it, with pleasure that it was the new house, and after a moment or two, took his leave. If he were to attend a reception at Marlborough House in a few hours, he had a very great deal to attend to. And Charlotte would have even more. Her sister, Emily, from whom she usually borrowed gowns for the better social occasions, was currently abroad in Italy again. Her husband, Jack, was very newly a member of Parliament, and since Parliament was in recess for the summer, they had taken the opportunity to travel. Borrowing from her would not be possible. She would have to try Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould, Emily’s great-aunt by her first marriage, to Lord Ashworth.
“What?” Charlotte said in disbelief. “Tonight? That’s impossible! It’s nearly five o’clock now!” She was standing in the kitchen with plates in her hand.
“I do realize it is not much time….” Pitt began. It was only now beginning to dawn upon him what an enormity he had committed.
“Not much time!” Her voice rose in something close to a squeal and she put the plates down with a clatter. “To prepare for something like this would take a week. Thomas, you do know who the Duchess of Marlborough is, I suppose? There could be royalty present! There could be everybody who is anyone at all—there almost certainly will be.” Suddenly the outrage vanished from her face and was replaced by an overwhelming curiosity. “How in Heaven’s name did you get an invitation to the Duchess of Marlborough’s reception? There are people in London who would commit crimes to get such a thing.” Amusement tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t tell me someone has?”
He felt laughter at the absurdity of it well up inside him too. It was such a wild contrast with the truth. Perhaps he ought not to mention it to her. It was a highly confidential matter, but he had always trusted her in the past, although of course no previous case had involved matters of state.
She saw his hesitation. “They have!” Her eyes were wide, and she was uncertain whether to laugh or not.
“No—no,” he said hastily. “The matter is very much more serious than that.”
“Are you not working on Sir Arthur’s death?” she said quickly. “That can’t have anything to do with the Duchess of Marlborough. And even if it had, you wouldn’t just get an invitation because you wanted one. I don’t think even Aunt Vespasia could do that.” That was the height of social power.
Vespasia had been the foremost beauty of her day, not only for her classic features and exquisite coloring, but for her grace, wit and extraordinary panache. Now in her eighties, she was still beautiful. Her wit had sharpened because she was assured in her position, and no longer cared in the slightest what anyone thought of her, as long as she rested easily in her own conscience. She espoused causes few others dared to, liked and disliked whom and what she pleased, and enjoyed pastimes of which many a younger and more cautious woman would have been afraid. But she still could not command an invitation to the Duchess of Marlborough’s receptions at short notice, and for someone else.
“Yes, I am working on Sir Arthur’s death,” Pitt answered with some stretching of the truth. He followed her as she whirled into sudden activity, turning to go into the passage and up the stairs.
“But I am also working on another matter Matthew left with me this morning, and it is in connection with that,” Pitt said from behind her, “that we are going to the Duchess of Marlborough’s this evening. The invitations came through Mr. Linus Chancellor, of the Colonial Office.”
She stopped on the landing. “Linus Chancellor. I’ve heard of him. He’s very charming, and extremely clever, so they say. He may even be Prime Minister one day.”
He smiled, and then hid it almost immediately as he followed her into the bedroom. Charlotte no longer moved in the social circles where people discussed serious politicians, as she had done before she had shocked her friends by marrying a policeman, a dramatic reduction of both her financial and social circumstances.
Her face fell. “Is that mistaken? Is he not charming at all?”
“Yes, he is most charming, and I should judge also very clever. Who told you about him?”
“Emily,” she answered, throwing open the wardrobe door. “Jack has met him several times. But also Mama.” She realized what he had meant. “All right, only two people. You actually met him today? Why?”
He was undecided for only a moment.
“It is highly confidential. It is a matter of state. I am not revealing the whole business even to those I question. Certain information is being passed from the Colonial Office to other people who should not know it.”
She swung around to stare at him. “You mean there is a traitor in the Colonial Office? That’s terrible! Why couldn’t you just say that, instead of hemming and hawing? Thomas, you are becoming pompous.”
“Well—I …” He was horrified. He loathed pomposity. He swallowed. “Can you find something to wear and get ready, or not?”
“Yes of course I can,” she said instantly, eyes wide, as if the answer were the only one possible.
“How?”
She shut the wardrobe door. “I don’t know yet. Give me a moment to think. Emily is away, but Aunt Vespasia is not. She has a telephone. Perhaps I can reach her and ask her advice. Yes. I’ll do that immediately.” And without waiting for comment from him, she brushed past him and went across the landing and down the stairs to the hallway where the new telephone was situated. She picked up the receiver. She was extremely unfamiliar with the instrument, and it took her several minutes before she was successful. She was naturally answered by the maid, and was obliged to wait for several moments.
“Aunt Vespasia.” Her voice was unusually breathless when she heard Vespasia at last. “Thomas has just been put onto a most important case, which I cannot discuss, because I know very little about it, except that he has been invited immediately, this evening, to attend the reception at the Duchess of Marlborough’s.”
There was a very slight hesitation of surprise at the other end of the line, but Vespasia was too well bred to allow herself anything more.
“Indeed? It must be of the utmost gravity for Her Grace of Marlborough to allow the slightest alteration to her plans. How may I be of assistance, my dear? I imagine that is why you have called?”
“Yes.” From anyone else such candor would have been disconcerting, but Vespasia had never been anything but frank with Charlotte, nor Charlotte with her. “I am not quite sure what to wear to such a function,” Charlotte confessed. “I have never been to anything quite so—so very formal. And of course I do not own such a thing anyway.”
Vespasia was thinner than Charlotte, but of a similar height, and it would not be the first occasion for which she had lent her a gown. Policemen of Pitt’s previous rank did not earn the kind of salary to afford their wives attire for the London Season, and indeed none of them would have been invited.
“I shall find something suitable and have my footman bring it over,” Vespasia said generously. “And don’t worry about the time. It is not done to arrive early. About half past ten would be excellent. They will serve supper at around midnight. One should be there between thirty and ninety minutes of the hour mentioned on the invitation, which, if I recollect, is eleven o’clock. It is a formal occasion.” She did not add that more intimate receptions might well begin an hour earlier. She expected Charlotte to know that.
“Thank you very much,”
Charlotte said with real gratitude. It was only after she had put the receiver back on its hook that she realized if Vespasia knew the time on the invitation, she must have one herself.
The dress, when it arrived, was quite the loveliest she had ever seen. It was of a deep blue-green shade, cut high at the front, and with a sheer sleeve, and decorated with a delicate beading at throat and shoulder. The bustle was narrow and heavily draped, caught up in a bow of gold and a shade of the gown itself, but so dark as to appear almost black. Included with it was a most elegant pair of slippers to match. The whole effect made her think of deep water, exotic seas and wild dawns over the sand. If she looked even half as wonderful as she felt, she would be the envy of every woman in the place.
Actually as she sailed down the stairs, several minutes later than she had said she would (having mislaid a packet of hairpins which were vital to the whole effect), Gracie was awestruck. Her eyes were enormous, and both children crouched, wide-eyed, on the landing. Even Pitt was a little startled. He had been pacing the hall with impatience, and when he had heard her step, he swung around, then saw her.
“Oh,” he said, uncharacteristically lost for words. He had forgotten what a very handsome woman she was with her rich dark auburn hair and warm, honey skin. Tonight the excitement had given her a color and a brilliance to her eyes that made her close to truly beautiful. “That …” Then he became self-conscious, and changed his mind. This was not the time to indulge in compliments, however merited. “It becomes you very well,” he finished. It was immeasurably less than he meant. Actually it awoke in him an awareness of her physical presence, and a strangeness, a frisson of excitement as if she had been someone he had newly met.
She looked at him a trifle uncertainly, and said nothing.
He had hired a carriage for the evening. It was not an event for which one could arrive in a hansom cab. For one thing, its cramped space would have crushed Charlotte’s dress, or more accurately Vespasia’s dress, and for another, and more importantly, it would mark him out as different, and inferior.
