The Angel Court Affair

by Anne Perry

  How deep is the sin of those who ask for the trust of the innocent, then destroy it? And we are all children at heart when we are frightened, alone and in need.

  Of course there is a place for questioning one doctrine or another. There is a place for doubt and for argument. But it is not on the lips of those who promise hope. If you take the role of hero and accept the trust of the vulnerable, then you have made a covenant with them. We do not expect perfection, but we expect honor.

  Has Sofia Delacruz blasphemed the God she claims to believe in by betraying that promise? We don’t know yet. We are working on it, striving day and night, doing all we can, because it matters. If she has not, then there is something beautiful we can treasure. If she has, then we need to find a way to heal, to find another light to follow. Perhaps one of us needs to become that light. It doesn’t always have to be someone else.

  To Pitt it would almost have been better if Laurence had done as so many of the more lurid newspapers had, and simply focused on the horror of the murders. Even anger against a woman being outspoken, inappropriate, opinionated and self-seeking would be only what was expected. Those who agreed would be satisfied, and those who did not would ignore it.

  Laurence appealed to the thoughtful, the fair, those who were looking for hope and trust in these desperately uncertain times.

  He folded the newspaper and rose from the table. “Not very helpful” was the only comment he made to Charlotte as he left.

  —

  WHEN PITT ARRIVED AT Lisson Grove Stoker told him he had made an appointment for him to visit Barton Hall, but it was not for an hour and a half yet.

  Pitt thanked him. “Any news from Spain?” he asked, without expecting any more than a perfunctory answer. Stoker would have told him already if there were.

  “Nothing that helps, sir. But I looked into Laurence a bit more.” Stoker was standing halfway between Pitt’s desk and the door, as if he could not make up his mind whether to stay and share his information, or leave without speaking further.

  Pitt felt a sudden misgiving. “What did you find?”

  “Odd, sir,” Stoker replied. “He told you he knew Teague at school only by repute.”

  “Yes,” Pitt agreed. “But Teague said he knew him a bit better than that. One of them obviously lied.”

  “Laurence lied, sir.” Stoker stood stiffly in the middle of the floor. “He was really bright, ahead of his years. Smart-arsed little beggar, so they said, but easily up to it academically. Lot better student than Teague. Though of course rubbish on the sports field.”

  “I wonder why Laurence lied,” Pitt said thoughtfully.

  Stoker frowned. “Could Laurence be a suspect in this?” he asked dubiously.

  “I can’t see how,” Pitt said. “But he doesn’t like Teague. Maybe he doesn’t want us to know why, but if he wants me to damage Teague for him, he’s wasting his time,” Pitt said irritably. “I don’t particularly like Teague, but I’ve got nothing against him either, and I’m not picking Laurence’s chestnuts out of the fire for him. Anything more on Barton Hall?”

  “Yes, sir. On your desk.” Stoker went out and Pitt sat down and began to study the papers Stoker had left.

  —

  PITT ALIGHTED FROM THE hansom and paid the driver, then walked across the pavement to the entrance of the bank. It was magnificent, a flight of marble steps up to colonnades of pillars and a door fit to have graced a Renaissance palace. He went into a hushed anteroom and was met by a footman who inquired politely how he might be of assistance. Pitt told him that he had an appointment to see Mr. Barton Hall. The footman accompanied him up another flight of stairs and along a silent passageway to a large door.

  The knock was answered immediately. Barton Hall stood up from behind his magnificent desk and inclined his head very slightly. He looked perfectly in place in this austere, expensively furnished office with its leather-bound volumes on the shelves, its Chippendale chairs and Adam fireplace.

  “Good morning,” Hall said almost expressionlessly. He was formally dressed, his hair combed back off his brow, revealing where it was thinning a little. He looked tired, although it was only half past nine in the morning.

  “Good morning, sir,” Pitt replied.

  “I can only suppose you have some news of Sofia that you feel you must tell me in person. That is courteous of you, but unnecessary.”

  Pitt felt a momentary pity for the man. He was very clearly in some distress, but the cause of it could have been any of a number of things, including guilt, or fear.

  “I have no news, Mr. Hall,” Pitt told him. “Of course the regular police are doing all they can to discover who is responsible for the appalling deaths of the two women. And Special Branch are making our own investigation. But my reason for speaking with you again is to learn more about Sofia.”

  “I really have no idea what else I can tell you,” Hall said sharply, waving his hand for Pitt to sit down, and doing so himself behind the desk that formed a considerable barrier between them.

  “Please let us start with her contacting you to say that she was coming from Spain to see you, especially,” Pitt replied. “You must have asked her why.”

  Hall hesitated just long enough to betray that he was weighing his answer before giving it.

  “Most financial questions are confidential, Mr. Pitt…” he began.

  “So she was consulting you financially?”

  “No, of course not!” Hall snapped. “But the matter had to do with money. She said it was a very considerable amount involved, but refused to clarify it. I pressed her, but she insisted that we speak face-to-face. I could not persuade her otherwise. And as you know, I never did see her.”

  “What is ‘considerable’?” Pitt asked.

  “I…am…I am very loath to tell you so much, Mr. Pitt. It is not Special Branch’s business, but the amount of money she mentioned ran into millions. I don’t know if she was speaking the truth, or hopelessly exaggerating,” Hall retorted. “And as I have already told you, since she vanished before we could meet, I know no more than that.”

  “And yet you offered Melville Smith the use of the family house on Inkerman Road for Señora Delacruz and two of her women to hide in. From what, Mr. Hall?”

  Hall was very pale. “From whatever religious zealots she had outraged by her crazy preaching!” Hall snapped at him. “What else?”

  “You offered her the use of your house on Inkerman Road, and she accepted it, but you told no one else? Did you think it was her own people she had to fear? Why? What happened that day to give you such an idea?”

  “I told you, I did not ever see her, I saw Melville Smith. He was concerned and I told him they could use the house.” Hall was lost, struggling for an answer. He clenched and unclenched his hands. “I wish to God now that I hadn’t.”

  Pitt started to speak, but Hall cut him off. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This whole terrible business has distressed me profoundly. Those…poor…stupid women! Nobody deserves to be killed in that way, no matter how foolish they are.” He stared at Pitt. “I should not be angry with Sofia,” he said with an effort.

  “That’s very compassionate of you,” Pitt said; the silence seemed to demand it.

  Hall shrugged. “It is easy to allow anger at horrible outcomes to blind you to the fact that those committing the offenses may have had little idea of what they were provoking.” He sat still, his eyes almost closed. “The world is changing very rapidly, Mr. Pitt. In fact one might say it is careering toward the edge of the cliff.”

  Pitt again felt pity for the man, but he wanted to find out what Hall was imagining, and the only way to do that was to allow him to continue.

  Hall leaned a little forward across the desk. “Perhaps because she was in Spain, hiding from reality in her religious fantasy, Sofia didn’t truly realize what dangerous times these are,” he said with his eyes wide, brows raised. “And I have no idea what this Spanish man is like that she married except, of course, that he wa
s abominably irresponsible, and had no control over himself when it came to Sofia. God knows what his political beliefs are.” He waited for Pitt to challenge him.

  Pitt merely nodded, as if he understood.

  Hall was staring at him, his face very grave. “You must be even more aware than I am of the gathering momentum of rebellion in Europe,” he said grimly. “In Russia it is appalling. The Tsar has all kinds of plans about peace conferences, but he hasn’t the faintest idea what he is doing. His leaders nod and smile and agree with it all, and then go on doing exactly what they were doing before—preparing to build up their armies till they outnumber all the rest of us put together.”

  Pitt felt cold at the thought, but he believed Hall was wildly overstating the case. Special Branch was far more concerned about the buildup of armaments in Germany, which was very much closer and openly more belligerent. The vast machinery of manufacture there was creating ironclad monsters that would crush the old-fashioned cavalry that had once been so effective.

  “Money,” Hall went on gravely. “Attack and defense both depend upon money. Ours most especially rests with our navy. America has begun to see that, which of course is why they are building warships like mad. They intend to dominate the entire Pacific from San Francisco to Manila, and all the Caribbean, hence the Spanish-American war for Cuba.”

  Pitt did not argue. He knew perfectly well that the idea of liberating Cuba from Spain was irrelevant. All the intelligence he had heard said that Cuba had no wish to be liberated and pass from one imperial power to what they saw as simply another.

  “It looks as if the Americans have learned a few of our tricks,” he observed.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Hall conceded reluctantly. “But more to the point is the chaos in Europe. That is on our doorstep. If this Dreyfus case goes against the French army, and the government falls, then we are on the edge of a precipice. We must re-arm, get up-to-date. We still carry delusions that we can fight Trafalgar and Waterloo again. Some people think modern machines of war are so overwhelmingly destructive that they will never be used. Would God it were true, but it’s a complete fallacy.”

  Pitt knew that Hall might have deduced all sorts of things from international banking circles, but he was not privy to information of the British government or the secret services.

  “Do you believe all of this is related to Sofia, or her disappearance?” he said carefully.

  Hall sighed and relaxed some of the stiffness in his shoulders.

  “Not intentionally, perhaps,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t think she is wicked, just selfish and a little unbalanced where certain beliefs are concerned, and self-serving, of course. Perhaps her husband has thoroughly used her? He might be an anarchist, or have some sympathy with them.” He raised his eyebrows even higher.

  For a moment Pitt was thrown into complete confusion, then a sudden thought bolted across his mind like a shaft of light. He had a dreadful premonition as to what Hall was talking about. How stupid of him not to have seen it before! He had been looking at a tiny picture, just as Narraway had said. He was being a policeman instead of being the head of Special Branch.

  He observed Hall again, his serious, rather academic face, his big hands, the severity of his collar and black tie, the tension of his body in this old-fashioned and magnificent room that spoke of tradition, order and safety.

  Pitt found himself growing colder inside, as if it were January, not May. His mind flew to H. G. Wells’s recent novel about a Martian invasion of earth and a terrible and total defeat. Of course it was complete fiction, but it mirrored in ways another book, The Battle of Dorking, which had shown a successful German invasion in England.

  It had been written by Sir George Chesney, with the intention of drawing people’s minds to the fact that Britain was still living in the age of her victories over Napoleon nearly a century ago, as if nothing had changed. But the book had made no difference to the apathy and self-satisfaction of those in power.

  It was time to change the subject. Hall had very successfully drawn it away from Sofia and into the realm of anarchy and international finance. Sofia’s disappearance had not yet escalated so far.

  “We have gotten off topic. It is time you told me everything you know about Sofia,” he said calmly. “It is too late for discretion and family secrets.”

  “I suppose it is unavoidable now,” Hall agreed with a sigh, at last leaning back in his chair. “It is not a pleasant story and I dislike telling it.”

  Pitt waited again.

  “In her own way she was a beautiful woman,” Hall began. “But fierce, not to every man’s taste. Most men prefer someone a little more…accommodating, more comfortable. Nevertheless, she received several offers of marriage as she reached about twenty. Her father found one extremely suitable.”

  “But Sofia refused him?” Pitt asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes,” Hall agreed. “And she gave no reason. Instead she traveled as companion to an elderly woman of great distinction, first to Paris, then to Madrid, and finally Toledo, where I understand the woman eventually died.

  “In Toledo she met a young Spanish man, some few years older than herself,” Hall continued. “He was married, with two children. Despite that, he courted Sofia and the result was even more disastrous than was foreseeable.” His mouth tightened and curved in a downward line. “His wife moved out of the home, taking her young children with her. This did not curb her husband’s behavior, or Sofia’s. They continued with their affair. A short while later, abandoned and in total despair, the wife killed herself and both her children. Burned all of them to death.” He stopped abruptly, his skin pale, and pulled tight across the bones of his face.

  For moments there was no sound in the room.

  “Are you quite sure of this?” Pitt said at last, amazed at how revolted he was, and his intense desire to prove it wrong. He thought again of Laurence’s article in The Times that morning. Any disillusion was painful, but that of faith eroded the foundations of everything else, all that hope and trust were built on. He felt a brush of it now himself and knew with a jolt of surprise that he had cared what Sofia had said. The ideas were beautiful and while he did not consciously accept them, he wanted the chance that they were true.

  Of course he understood falling in love. He had fallen in love with Charlotte when it looked impossible that she would wish to marry him and give up her own comfort and social position to share the home and comparatively negligible income of a policeman.

  But it had not altered his moral judgments or made him imagine doing something so appalling as apparently Sofia had, and the man who was now her husband.

  Would he even have considered it, were Charlotte married to someone she did not love? Please heaven, no! But was he certain? Can you ever be certain of such a thing, beyond any doubt at all? It was so easy to judge when you had not been tested.

  Hall was watching him, judging his response.

  “I’m sorry,” Hall said quietly. “I can see that you had no idea. Imagine how those people who believe her doctrine will feel should they discover the truth. I don’t think I exaggerate if I say that her deception is a betrayal. I would have protected people from it, had I the power. I tried everything I could think of to persuade her not to come to England, but she insisted.”

  Pitt struggled to choose his words carefully. Whatever she had done, the murder of the two unfortunate women who had followed her was a monstrous crime. If she had suffered a similar fate herself, it might well develop into an international incident with tragic and dangerous consequences. He could imagine what Laurence would write if her mutilated body were found.

  “What do you think Laurence will make of it if she is never found?” he said aloud.

  “What?” Hall was startled.

  “Frank Laurence,” Pitt said. “He wrote a very powerful article about disillusionment and responsibility in The Times this morning. You knew him, I believe.”

  Hall looked confused.
r />   “You were at the same school,” Pitt reminded him.

  “Was I?”

  “You and Dalton Teague.”

  For an instant Hall’s face was frozen, then he regained his composure with a faint look of confusion. “Oh, yes, Teague, of course. I don’t remember Laurence. Unless he was that smart-mouthed little beggar who ran errands for Teague, practically hanging on his every word. Mind, I suppose there were several like that. Practically thought Teague was God. You don’t need to part the Red Sea if you can hit a cricket ball out of the field.” He straightened his shoulders. “Sorry. School days weren’t my best. Bit of a swot.”

  “You never played cricket yourself?” Pitt kept his tone light.

  “Tolerable fielder, that’s about all.” Hall dismissed the subject. “Is there anything else I can help you with? I have an appointment with the Dean of St. Paul’s in half an hour.” He reached for a pile of papers close to his hand, as if to resume studying them.

  “Just one more thing,” Pitt said. “Apparently Sofia helped a great many people one way or another, especially those who had committed offenses they deeply regretted.”

  “Possibly. Sounds like something she would do,” Hall said lightly, but his hand over the papers clenched till the big knuckles shone white. “I told you, we had no communication about that.”

  “Apparently she felt there was a way back from any sin, if you were prepared to make such amends as you could,” Pitt continued. “She gave penitents who believed the same sanctuary and pardon.”

  Hall swallowed. “Really.” His voice was flat, as if he were scarcely breathing.

  “It was part of her ministry,” Pitt went on relentlessly. “There was one man in great trouble, terrified for his life, just before she left to come to England. Apparently she felt that seeing you was for some reason even more important than this man’s redemption. She didn’t mention him, did she?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Now, Commander, I have a great deal of urgent business to attend to. If you please…” Hall turned away and picked up the telephone attached to the wall near him and Pitt heard his voice, tight in his throat, ask for a number.