by Seven Dials
To begin with, they conversed about all manner of things of general interest. It was acceptable to speak of the ugly situation in Manchester regarding the cotton workers, and from that everyone’s mind moved quite naturally to the murder of Edwin Lovat, because of the connection with Ryerson, although no one actually spoke of it.
The waiter brought them the first course of their excellent luncheon, a delicate Belgian pâté for Mr. Jamieson, a clear soup for Charlotte and Emily.
Emily did not waste any more time, knowing that Jamieson would have to return to his duties soon. She could trespass only so much.
“This is an enquiry for a very secret department of the government,” Emily began shamelessly, having kicked Charlotte under the table to warn her to show no surprise, and certainly not to argue. “My sister”—she glanced at Charlotte—“has made me aware of a way in which I can help, in the utmost confidence, you understand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Radley,” Jamieson said gravely.
“A young man’s life may depend upon it,” Emily warned. “In fact, he may already be dead, but we hope profoundly that he is not.” She ignored his look of alarm. “Mr. Radley tells me that you are a member of White’s. Is that correct?”
“Yes, yes I am. Surely there is no—”
“No, of course not,” Emily assured him hastily. “There is no question of White’s being involved.” She leaned a little towards him, ignoring her soup, her face intent with concentration. “I had better be candid with you, Mr. Jamieson . . .”
He leaned forward also, his eyes wide. “I promise, Mrs. Radley, that I shall hold it in the most total confidence . . . from everyone.”
“Thank you.”
The waiter returned to take away their dishes and serve the entrée—poached fish for the ladies, roast beef for Jamieson.
As soon as he had gone Charlotte drew in her breath, and felt Emily’s foot tap her ankle. She winced very slightly.
“I believe a young man named Stephen Garrick could give us information which would help,” she said.
Jamieson frowned, but he did not look as puzzled or as surprised as she would have expected. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said quietly. “We all knew there was something wrong.”
“How did you know?” Charlotte urged, trying to suppress the eagerness in her voice, and the edge of fear she knew was there.
He looked at her frankly. He had wide, clear blue eyes. “He drank far too much for pleasure,” he answered. “It was as if he were trying to drown out something inside himself.” There was pity in his expression. “At first I thought it was just overindulgence, as anyone might, you know? Keeping up, not wanting to be the first to cry off. But then I began to realize it was more than that. It made him ill, but still he went on. And . . . he drank alone, as well as with company.”
“I see,” Emily acknowledged. “There is apparently something that causes him great pain. I presume from the fact that you do not mention it that you do not know what it is.”
“No.” He shrugged very slightly. “And honestly I don’t know how I could find out. I haven’t seen him for several days, and the last time I did, he was in no condition to answer anything sensibly. I . . . I’m sorry.” It was not clear if his apology was for his inability, or for having spoken to them of such a distasteful subject.
“But you do know him?” Charlotte pressed. “I mean, you have his acquaintance?”
Jamieson looked doubtful, as if he sensed in advance what she would ask. “Yes,” he admitted guardedly. “Er . . . not well. I’m not one of his . . .” He stopped.
“What?” Emily demanded.
Jamieson looked back at her. She sat straight-backed, like Great-Aunt Vespasia, smiling at him expectantly, her head beautifully poised.
“One of his circle,” Jamieson finished unhappily.
“But you can enquire,” Emily stated.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “Yes, of course.”
“Good.” Emily was relentless. “There is great danger. Even a short time may be too late. Can you call upon him this evening?”
“Is it really . . . so . . .” Jamieson was not sure if he was excited or alarmed.
“Oh, yes,” Emily assured him.
Jamieson swallowed a mouthful of beef and roast potato. “Very well. How shall I tell you what I learn?”
“Telephone,” Emily said immediately. She pulled out a card from the tiny silver engraved case in her reticule. “My number is on it. Please do not speak to anyone but me . . . not anyone at all. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mrs. Radley, of course.”
CHARLOTTE THANKED EMILY with profound sincerity and accepted the offered ride home in the carriage. At half past eight, when she and Pitt were sitting in the parlor, the telephone rang. Pitt answered it.
“It is Emily, for you,” he said from the doorway.
Charlotte went into the hall and took the instrument. “Yes?”
“Stephen Garrick is not at home.” Emily’s voice was strange and a little tinny over the wires. “No one has seen him for several days, and the butler says he could not inform Mr. Jamieson when he would return. Charlotte . . . it looks as if he has disappeared as well. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Charlotte found her hand shaking. “Not yet . . .”
“But we’ll do something, won’t we?” Emily said after a second. “It looks serious, doesn’t it? I mean . . . more serious than a valet losing his job?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said a little huskily. “Yes, it does.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
ON THE DAY THAT CHARLOTTE undertook to help Gracie, and thus Tilda, Pitt returned to Narraway’s office and found him pacing the floor, five steps and then turn, another five, and back again. He spun around as Pitt opened the door. His face was pinched and tired, his eyes too bright. He stared at Pitt questioningly.
Pitt closed the door behind himself and remained standing. “Ryerson was there,” he said bluntly. “He doesn’t deny it. He helped her move the body and he didn’t attempt to call the police. She hasn’t said that, but he will if the police ask him. He’ll protect her, at his own cost.”
Narraway said nothing, but his body seemed to become even more rigid, as if Pitt’s words had layers of meaning deeper than the facts they knew.
“Her story doesn’t make sense,” Pitt went on, wishing Narraway would answer, say anything at all to make the talking easier. But Narraway seemed to be so charged with emotion that he was unable to exercise his usual incisive leap of intelligence. He was waiting for Pitt to lead.
“If she had no involvement, why would she try to move the body?” Pitt continued. “Why not call the police, as anyone else would?”
Narraway glared at him, his voice cracking when he spoke. “Because she set up the situation. She wanted to be caught. She might even have been the one who called the police. Have you considered that?”
“To incriminate herself?” Pitt said with total disbelief.
Narraway’s face was twisted with bitterness. “We haven’t come to trial yet. Wait and see what she says then. So far, if Talbot’s telling the truth, she hasn’t said anything at all. What if she turns around and, with desperate reluctance, admits that Ryerson shot Lovat in a jealous rage?” His voice mimicked savagely the tone he imagined she would use. “She tried to conceal it, because she loves him and felt guilty for having provoked him—she knew he had an uncontrollable temper—but she cannot go on protecting him any longer, and will not hang for him.” His look challenged Pitt to prove him wrong.
Pitt was stunned. “What for?” he asked, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, hideous possibilities danced before him, violent, personal, political.
Narraway’s stare was withering. “She’s Egyptian, Pitt. Cotton comes to mind to begin with. We’ve got riots in Manchester over prices already. We want them down, Egypt wants them up. Ever since the American Civil War cut off our supply from the South and we’ve had to rely on Egyp
t, the balance has been different. European industry is catching up with us and we need the empire not only to buy from but to sell to.”
Pitt frowned. “Don’t we buy most of Egypt’s cotton anyway?”
“Of course we do!” Narraway said impatiently. “But a bargain that leaves one side unhappy serves neither in the end, because it doesn’t last. Ryerson is one of the few men who can both see further than a couple of years ahead and negotiate an agreement that will leave both the Egyptian growers and the British weavers feeling as if they have gained something.” His face tightened. “Apart from that, there’s Egyptian nationalism, and for God’s sake we don’t want to send the gunboats in again! We’ve bombarded Alexandria once in the last twenty years.” He ignored Pitt’s wince. “And there’s religious fervor,” he went on. “I hardly need to remind you of the uprising in the Sudan?”
Pitt did not reply; everyone remembered the siege of Khartoum and the murder of General Gordon.
“Other than that,” Narraway finished, “personal profit, or common or gender hatred. Do you need more?”
“Then we need to learn the truth before it comes to trial,” Pitt answered. “But I don’t know that it will help.”
“You must make it help!” Narraway said between his teeth, his voice thick with emotion. “If Ryerson is convicted, the government will have to replace him with either Howlett or Maberley. Howlett will give in to the mill workers here and drive the prices down so far it will break the Egyptians. We’ll have a few years of wealth and then disaster—poverty—Egypt will have no cotton to sell and no money to buy anything. Possibly even rebellion. Maberley will give in to the Egyptians and we’ll have riots all over the Midlands here, police forced to suppress them with violence, maybe even the army out.” He drew in breath to add more, then changed his mind and swung around with his back to Pitt.
“So far everything incriminates his woman, with Ryerson as a willing accomplice.” He jabbed the air with his hand. “We need another answer. Find out more about Lovat. Who else might have killed him? Who was he? What was his relationship with the woman? I suppose one might hope there was some justification for her killing him?” There was no lift of hope in him, and yet Pitt had the intense feeling that, beneath the bitterness, Narraway was clinging on to a thread of belief that there could be another, better explanation.
“You know Ryerson, sir,” Pitt began. “If the woman comes to trial, will he really allow himself to be implicated? If he has any kind of guilt, won’t he resign first, so at least he isn’t a government minister at the time?”
Narraway kept his back to him, his face hidden.
“Probably,” he agreed. “But I am not yet prepared to ask the man to do that until I can see beyond doubt that he has any guilt in Lovat’s death.” There was dismissal in his tone and in the rigid set of his shoulders, the light from the narrow window on his dark head. “Report to me tomorrow,” he said finally. He swung around just as Pitt reached the door.
“Pitt!”
“Yes, sir?”
“I accepted you into Special Branch because Cornwallis told me that you were his best detective and that you know society. You know how to tread carefully but still find the truth.” It was a statement, but it was also a question, even a plea. For an instant, Pitt felt as if Narraway were asking for help in some way which he could not name or explain.
Then the impression vanished.
“Get on with it,” Narraway ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Pitt said again, then left, and closed the door behind him.
He went straight to the offices where Lovat had worked for the year or so before his death. Naturally the police had already been there. The information was so public it had been printed in Lovat’s obituary, so when Pitt arrived he was received with weary resignation by Ragnall, an official in his early forties who had obviously already answered all the predictable questions.
Ragnall stood in the quiet, discreetly furnished office overlooking Horse Guards Parade and regarded Pitt patiently but with very little interest.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” he said, gesturing for Pitt to sit down in the armchair opposite the desk. “I can offer no explanation except the obvious one—he pestered the woman until she grew desperate and shot him . . . either in what she construed to be self-defense or more likely because he threatened to disrupt her present arrangements.” A slight expression of distaste crossed his face. “And before you ask me, I have no idea what they might be.”
Pitt had little hope of learning much from the interview, but he had no better place to begin. He settled into the chair and looked across at Mr. Ragnall.
“You think he may have pestered Miss Zakhari to the point that she felt a simple rebuff was not adequate to make him desist?” he asked.
Ragnall looked surprised. “Well, it seems to have been the case, doesn’t it? Are you suggesting that she deliberately encouraged him, for some reason, and then killed him? Why, for heaven’s sake? Why would any woman do such a thing?” He frowned. “You said you were from Special Branch . . .”
“Special Branch has no knowledge of Miss Zakhari prior to the death of Mr. Lovat,” Pitt answered the implied question. “I wanted your judgment of Mr. Lovat as a man who would continue to pursue a woman who has told him that she has no desire for his attentions.”
Ragnall looked very faintly uncomfortable. His smooth, rather good-looking face flushed, so slightly it could have been no more than a change of the light, except that he had not moved.
“I suppose I am saying that—yes.” He made it sound like an apology. “I believe Miss Zakhari is very beautiful. At least that is what I have heard. One can become . . . obsessed.” He pursed his lips, giving himself a moment to seek exactly the right words to make Pitt understand. “She is Egyptian. There are unlikely to be many other Egyptian women in London. It is not as if she were ordinary, and easily replaceable. Some men are attracted to the exotic.”
“You saw Mr. Lovat regularly.” Pitt too was feeling his way. “Did you gather the impression that he was ’obsessed,’ as you put it?”
“Well . . .” Ragnall drew in his breath and then let it out again.
“Your protection of his reputation may condemn another man,” Pitt said grimly.
Ragnall looked puzzled for a moment.
“Another man?” Then his confusion cleared. “Oh . . . this nonsense in the newspapers about Ryerson? Surely it’s just . . .” He opened his palms to indicate a helplessness to describe exactly what he was thinking.
“I hope so,” Pitt agreed. “Was Lovat obsessed with her?”
“I . . . I really have no idea.” Ragnall was obviously uncomfortable. “I never knew of him being serious about a woman . . . at least for more than a short time. He . . .” Now there was distinct color in his face. “He seemed to find it rather easy to attract women and then . . . move on.”
“He had many affairs?” Pitt concluded.
“Yes . . . yes, I’m afraid he did. He was usually reasonably discreet, of course. But one does get to know.” Ragnall was acutely aware of discussing intimate subjects with a social inferior. Pitt had placed him in the position of betraying his own class, or his ethics. Either would be hard and cut across his deep convictions as to who and what he wished to be.
“With what sort of women?” Pitt asked, his voice still light and courteous.
Ragnall’s eyes widened.
Pitt maintained his steady gaze. “Mr. Lovat has been murdered, sir,” he reminded him. “I am afraid the reasons for such a crime are not often as simple as we should like, or as far from shame. I need to know more about Mr. Lovat and the people he knew well.”
“Surely the Egyptian woman, Miss Zakhari, killed him?” Ragnall said, his composure regained. “He may have been foolish in pursuing her when his attentions would seem to have been unwelcome, but there is no need to drag anyone else into it, is there?” He regarded Pitt with a look of distaste.
“It appears as though sh
e did,” Pitt conceded. “Although she denies it. And as you say, it seems an extremely violent and unnecessary way to refuse an unwanted suitor. From what I have heard of her so far, she was a woman of more finesse. She must have had unwanted suitors before. Why was Lovat different?”
Ragnall’s face tightened, and there was a dull color in his cheeks again and a stiffness in his manner. “You are right,” he said grudgingly. “If she made her living that way, and I had assumed such was the case, then she must have been better at discarding the old, in order to improve her situation, than this would suggest.”
“Exactly,” Pitt agreed with feeling. For the first time a point had been made in Ayesha Zakhari’s favor. He was startled by how much it pleased him. “What was Lovat like? And you are not giving his obituary. Only the truth can be fair to all.”
Ragnall thought for several moments. “Frankly, he was a womanizer,” he said reluctantly.
“He liked women?” Pitt attempted to reach after exactly what Ragnall meant. “He fell in love? He used them? Might he have made enemies?”
Ragnall was distinctly unhappy. “I . . . I really don’t know.”
“What gives you the impression that he was a womanizer, sir?” Pitt said bluntly. “Men have been known to exaggerate their conquests to impress others. A lot of loose talk does not necessarily mean anything.”
A flick of temper crossed Ragnall’s face. “Lovat didn’t talk, Mr. Pitt, at least not that I heard. It is my own observation, and that of colleagues.”
“What sort of women?” Pitt repeated. “Ones like Ayesha Zakhari?”
Ragnall was slightly taken aback. “You mean foreigners? Or . . .” He did not wish to use the word whore. It spoke not only of the women but of the men who used them. “Not that I am aware of,” he finished abruptly.
“I meant women who have no husbands or families in London,” Pitt corrected. “And who are past the usual age of marrying, possibly who make their way as mistresses.”
Ragnall took a deep breath, as if reaching a decision that was difficult for him.