Traitors Gate

by Anne Perry

  But tomorrow he would have to go and confront Ransley Soames. There really was no alternative. He knew all the information which had been passed from the Treasury. Matthew himself had given him that. Soames had been privy to all of it. So had several others, but he could recount precisely what he had overheard him say, and the specific reference to Simonstown and the Boers, even the exact words he had used regarding Pitt himself.

  It would be an ugly scene; it was bound to be. Tomorrow was Saturday. Pitt would find him at his home, which was about the only good thing in the whole matter. He could be arrested and charged discreetly, not in front of his colleagues.

  Of course for Harriet it would be close to unbearable. But then, anyone’s fall hurt others. There was always a wife, a child or a parent, someone to be horrified, disillusioned, torn with amazement and grief and shame. One could not allow it to impinge too far, or one would be so racked with pity it would be impossible to function.

  It was after nine o’clock when Pitt stood in Ransley Soames’s hallway. The butler looked at him with curiosity.

  “I am afraid it is a matter which cannot wait,” Pitt said gravely. He had brought Tellman with him, in case the scene became uglier than he could handle alone, but he had left him outside, reluctant to call him unless it became unavoidable.

  “I will see if Mr. Soames is able to receive you,” the butler replied. It was not the customary euphemism, but it served the same purpose.

  He was gone only a few moments and returned with an expressionless face.

  “If you care to come this way, sir, Mr. Soames will see you in the study.”

  But actually it was a further ten minutes before Soames appeared. Pitt waited in the quiet, pale green room set with ornate furniture, too many pictures and photographs, and a potted plant which had been overwatered. Normally he might have looked at the bookcases. They were usually indicative of a man’s character and interests. But today he could not concentrate his mind on more than the immediate future. He saw two rather idealistic books concerning Africa. One was a novel by H. Rider Haggard, the other a collection of letters from a missionary.

  The door opened and Soames came in, closing it behind him. He looked mildly irritated, but not concerned.

  “How may I help you, Mr. Pitt?” he said tersely. “I imagine it is urgent, or you would not have come to my home on a Saturday morning.”

  “Yes, Mr. Soames, it is,” Pitt acknowledged. “There is no pleasant way of dealing with this, so I shall be direct. I have cause, sir, to know that it is you who has been passing financial information from the Treasury to someone in the Colonial Office, for them to pass on to the German Embassy.”

  The blood rushed scarlet to Soames’s face, and then after a moment of terrible silence, fled, leaving him pasty white. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps a denial, but the words died on his tongue. He might have had some conception of the guilt in his face, and how futile, even ridiculous, such a denial would be.

  “It—it’s not …” he began, and then faltered to a stop. “You don’t understand,” he said wretchedly. “It’s not …”

  “No,” Pitt agreed. “I don’t.”

  “It is not accurate information!” Soames looked as if he were in danger of fainting, his skin was so white, and there was a chill sweat standing out on his lip and brow. “It was to mislead Germany!”

  Pitt hovered for a moment on the edge of believing him, then realized how easy that was to say, and how unlikely.

  “Indeed,” he said coldly. “Perhaps you will give me the names of the government ministers who are aware of this. Regrettably they do not include the Foreign Secretary, the Colonial Secretary, or the Prime Minister.”

  “It was not done … like … like that.” Soames looked agonized and his eyes were desperate, and yet there was somewhere a shred of honesty in them. Was it a terrified last attempt to convince himself?

  “Then you had better explain precisely how it was done, and who else is involved,” Pitt suggested.

  “But you know …” Soames stared at him, for the first time realizing that he did not know just how much Pitt was aware of, nor had he so far explained how he had learned it.

  “If it is not what I think, Mr. Soames, then you will have to tell me precisely what it is,” Pitt said, retrenching his position quickly. “It looks to me like simple treason, the handing over of privileged government information to someone you knew would pass it to Britain’s enemies, or at best rivals. What consideration you received in return is a matter yet to be discovered.”

  “None!” Soames was indignant. “Good God, there is … that is a heinous suggestion! I passed on information to a man of subtlety and brilliance who distorted it just sufficiently to be misleading, but not so much as to be unbelievable. Not against Britain’s interests, but very much to preserve them, in both East and Central Africa, but also in the North Sea. I would not expect you to understand….”

  “Heligoland,” Pitt said succinctly.

  Soames was transparently surprised. “Yes. Yes, that is right.”

  “You gave this man correct information for him to distort it?”

  “Precisely.”

  Pitt sighed. “And how do you know he did that?”

  “What?”

  “How do you know that he distorted it before he passed it on?”

  “I have his word….” He stopped, his eyes sick with sudden comprehension. “You don’t believe me….”

  “I think the kindest thing I can say for you, Mr. Soames,” Pitt said wearily, “is that you are naive.” Soames pushed backwards into the chair behind him.

  “Who is it?” Pitt asked.

  “I … I can’t believe it.” Soames made one last effort to cling to his innocence. “He … was …”

  “Plausible,” Pitt finished for him. “I find it hard to credit that you were so easily duped.” Although even as he said it, it became a lie. Looking at Soames’s face, ashen and wretched, he thought he was indeed naive.

  “His reasons were …” Soames began again, still struggling. “His reasoning was so logical. They are not fools, the Germans.” He brushed his hand across his sweating lip. “The information had to be very close to accurate. Inventions would not do.”

  “That I can easily accept,” Pitt agreed. “Even the need to give misinformation is understandable. They are acutely involved with East Africa, Zambezia, Zanzibar especially, and I know we are in negotiations with them over a major treaty.”

  Soames’s face brightened a little.

  “But we have a secret service for that kind of thing,” Pitt went on.

  “Which works through the Foreign and Colonial offices!” Soames sat forward, his eyes brighter. “Really, Superintendent, I think you have misjudged the affair.”

  “No I have not, Mr. Soames,” Pitt replied sharply. “If that kind of information were required of you, for that purpose, then you would have been asked for it by either Mr. Chancellor or Lord Salisbury. You would not have been required to do it covertly, and to be afraid of my enquiries. In fact I would have had no enquiries, because they were instigated by the Foreign Office, as you must recall, and assisted by the Colonial Office, who were most worried by the information passing to the Germans, and quite unaware that it is not correct.”

  Soames sat on the edge of the chair, his body slack in a moment’s despair. Then he straightened up and shot to his feet, lunging at the telephone, and picked it out of its cradle, staring at Pitt defiantly. “I can explain!” He spoke to the operator and asked to be connected with Lord Salisbury’s home, giving the number. All the time his eyes were on Pitt.

  A part of Pitt felt pity for him. He was arrogant and gullible, but he was not an intentional traitor.

  There was a crackle at the other end of the line.

  Soames drew in his breath to speak, then realized the futility of it.

  Slowly he replaced the receiver.

  There was no need for Pitt to make a comment. Soames looked as if his
knees would buckle under him.

  “Who did you give the information to?” Pitt asked again.

  “Jeremiah Thorne,” Soames replied with stiff lips. “I gave it to Jeremiah Thorne.”

  Before Pitt had time to respond, even to wonder if it were the truth, the door opened and Harriet Soames stood in the entrance, her face pale, her eyes wide and ready to accuse. She looked first at her father and saw his extreme distress, bordering on the edge of collapse, and then she glared at Pitt.

  “Papa, you look ill. What has happened? Mr. Pitt, why have you come here, and at this hour of the day? Is it to do with Mrs. Chancellor’s death?” She came in and closed the door.

  “No, Miss Soames,” Pitt answered her. “It is a matter, so far as I know, quite unconnected. I think it would be better if you were to permit us to conclude it privately, and then Mr. Soames can tell you afterwards, as seems good to him.”

  She moved closer to her father, her eyes blazing, in spite of the alarm in her which was rapidly turning to fear.

  “No. I will not leave until I know what has happened. Papa, what is wrong?” Her voice was rising with fear. He looked so desperate, so drained of all the buoyancy and confidence he had had only an hour ago. It was as if the vitality had bled out of him.

  “My dear … I …” He attempted some explanation, but the test was too great for him. The truth weighed on him till it drove out everything else. “I have made a terrible mistake,” he tried again. “I have been very … naive…. I have allowed someone to use me, and to deceive me with a very plausible lie, a man whose honor I never questioned.”

  “Who?” Her voice rose close to panic. “Who has used you? I don’t understand what you mean. Why is Mr. Pitt here? Why did you call in the police? If someone has defrauded you, can he help? Would it not be better to … I don’t know … to deal with it privately?” She looked from her father to Pitt, and back again. “Was it much money?”

  Soames seemed incapable of a coherent explanation. Pitt could not bear the agony any longer. To see him at once struggling and despairing was an intrusion into the man’s shame which was unnecessary. A clean blow would be more merciful.

  “Mr. Soames has been passing secret information to a spy,” he said to Harriet, “in his belief that the man was using it to help Britain’s interests in Africa by falsifying it before relaying it to the Germans. However the plan was not approved by either the Colonial Office or the Foreign Office. On the contrary, they had called me and empowered me to investigate where the information was coming from.”

  She looked at him with disbelief.

  “You are wrong! You must be wrong.” She swung around to her father, her mouth open, to ask him to explain; then she saw the full depth of his distress. Suddenly she knew that in some terrible way there was truth in it. She turned back to Pitt. “Well whatever happened,” she said furiously, “if my father has been deceived by someone, it was not a dishonorable act, and you should be very careful what you say to him.” Her voice shook and she stepped closer to Soames, as if he needed some physical protection and she would give it.

  “I have not made an accusation of dishonor, Miss Soames,” Pitt said gently. “At least not on your father’s part.”

  “Then why are you here? You should be looking for whoever it is that lied to him and passed on the information.”

  “I did not know who, until your father told me.”

  Her chin came up. “If you didn’t know who it was, then how could you know it had anything to do with my father? Perhaps it hasn’t. Have you thought of that, Superintendent?”

  “I had thought of it, Miss Soames, and it is not so.”

  “Prove it,” she challenged, staring at Pitt with brilliant eyes, her face set, jaw tight, her remarkable profile as stiff as if carved in almond-tinted stone.

  “It’s no use, Harriet,” Soames interrupted at last. “The Superintendent overheard my conversation when I was passing the information. I don’t know how, but he was able to recite it back to me.”

  She stood as if frozen. “What conversation? With whom?”

  Soames glanced at Pitt, a question in his eyes.

  Pitt shook his head.

  “With the man at the Colonial Office,” Soames replied, avoiding using his name.

  “What conversation?” Her voice was strangled in her throat. “When?”

  “On Wednesday, late afternoon. Why? What difference can it make now?”

  She turned very slowly to look at Pitt, horror in her eyes and disgust so absolute and so terrible her face was made ugly with it.

  “Matthew,” she whispered. “Matthew told you, didn’t he?”

  Pitt did not know what to say. He could not deny it, and yet neither could he bear to confirm that her charge was true. It would be fatuous and unbelievable to suggest that Matthew might not have understood the meaning of what he said, or what the result would be.

  “You can’t deny it, can you!” she accused him.

  “Harriet …” Soames began.

  She swung around to him. “Matthew betrayed you, Papa … and me. He betrayed both of us for his precious Colonial Office. They’ll promote him, and you’ll be ruined.” There was a sob in her voice and she was so close to tears she barely had control.

  Pitt wanted to defend Matthew, even to plead his cause, but he knew from her face that it would be useless, and anyway, Matthew had the right to say what he could to explain himself. Pitt should not preempt that, no matter how intensely he felt. He met Harriet’s eyes, full of overwhelming hurt, anger, confusion and the passion to protect. He understood it far more deeply than reason or words could have conveyed. He wanted to protect Matthew from the hurt he knew was inevitable, and with the same fierce instinct to save the weaker, the more vulnerable, that burned in her.

  And both of them were powerless.

  “It is despicable,” she said, catching her breath and almost choking. “How could anyone be so … so beneath contempt?”

  “To give away their country’s secrets, with which they had been entrusted, or to report that treason to the authorities, Miss Soames?” Pitt said quietly.

  She was white to the lips. “It … it is not … treason.” She found it difficult to say the word. “He … he … was deceived…. That is not treason … and … and you will not excuse Matthew to me—not ever!”

  Soames climbed to his feet with difficulty. “I shall resign, of course.”

  Pitt did not demur, nor point out that he would be extremely unlikely to have any option.

  “Yes sir,” he agreed. “In the meantime, I think it would be advisable if you were to come to the Bow Street station and make a statement in respect of what you have just told me.”

  “I suppose that is inevitable,” Soames agreed reluctantly. “I’ll … I’ll come on Monday.”

  “No, Mr. Soames, you will come now,” Pitt said firmly.

  Soames looked startled.

  Harriet moved closer to her father, putting her arm through his. “He has already told you, Superintendent, he will go on Monday! You have had your victory. What else do you need? He is ruined! Isn’t that enough for you?”

  “It is not I who has to be satisfied, Miss Soames,” Pitt replied with as much patience as he could muster. He was not sure whether she was so naive. “Your father is not alone in this tragedy. There are other people to arrest….”

  “Then go and arrest them! Do your duty! There’s nothing more to keep you here!”

  “The telephone.” Pitt looked at the instrument where it sat on its cradle.

  “What about it?” She regarded it with loathing. “If you want to use it, you may!”

  “So may you,” he pointed out. “To warn others, and when I arrive there, they will be gone. Surely you can see the necessity for action now, and not Monday morning?”

  “Oh …”

  “Mr. Soames?” He waited with growing impatience.

  “Yes … I er …” He looked confused, broken, and for that moment at least, Pitt w
as almost as sorry for him as Harriet, even though he also felt a contempt for his foolishness. He had been arrogant enough to think he knew better than his colleagues, and no doubt a little self-importance had played its part, the knowledge that he knew secrets others did not. But he was going to pay an uncommon price for a very common sin.

  Pitt opened the door for him.

  “I’m coming with him!” Harriet declared defiantly.

  “No, you are not,” Pitt said.

  “I …”

  “Please!” Soames turned to look at her. “Please … leave me a little dignity, my dear. I should rather face this alone.”

  She fell back, the tears spilling over her cheeks, and Pitt escorted Soames out, leaving her standing in the doorway, her face filled with anger and overwhelming grief.

  Pitt took Soames to Bow Street and left him there with Tellman, to take all the details of precisely what information he had passed to Thorne and when. He had hesitated to take him directly to the police station; it was a sensitive matter and he had been directly commissioned from higher up. But he could not take him to Matthew, the person who had originally instigated the investigation, because of the relationship between them. Nor could he take him to Linus Chancellor, who would be at home at this hour on a Saturday, and in no frame of mind to deal with such a matter. And he did not entirely trust any of the other people concerned, nor was he certain to find them in the Colonial Office, even if he had.

  He had not the power to go directly to Lord Salisbury, and certainly not to the Prime Minister. He would arrest Thorne, and then make a complete report of the matter for Farnsworth.

  He took two constables with him, just in case Thorne should prove violent. It was not beyond possibility. Secondly they would be necessary to conduct a search of the premises and prevent any destruction of further evidence which would no doubt be required if the matter came to trial. It was always possible the government might prefer to deal with it all discreetly, rather than expose its error and vulnerabilities to public awareness.

  He arrived by hansom with the constables, and posted one at the back door, just in case of attempted flight. That would be undignified and absurd, but not beyond possibility. All kinds of people can panic, sometimes those one least expects.