by Anne Perry
“No, no, your fellow Kreisler. MacKinnon the money fellow. Quarreled over East Africa, of course, and what should be done there. Hasn’t quarreled with Standish yet but that’s probably due to his relationship with Chancellor.’ Bertie frowned thoughtfully. “Not that there isn’t something in what he says, dammit! Bit questionable, this chap Rhodes. Smooth tongue, but a shifty eye. Too much appetite for power, for my taste. All done in a hurry. Too fast. Too fast, altogether. Did you know Arthur Desmond, pool devil? Sound fellow. Decent. Sorry he’s gone.”
“And Kreisler?” She rose to her feet as she said it. It was growing a little chilly and she preferred to walk a space.
He stood and offered her his arm.
“Not sure, I’m afraid. Bit of a question mark in my mind. Not certain of his motives, if you understand?”
Vespasia understood very well.
A famous portrait artist passed by and tipped his hat to her. She smiled in acknowledgment Someone muttered that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence were coming and there was a rustle of interest, but since they rode here fairly often, it was no more than a ripple.
An elderly man with a sallow face approached and spoke to Bertie. He was introduced, and since he obviously intended staying, Vespasia thanked Bertie Canning and excused herself. She wished to be alone with her thoughts. The little she had learned of Peter Kreisler was no comfort at all.
What were his motives in pursuing Susannah Chancellor? Why did he argue his point so persistently? He could not be so naive as to think he could influence Chancellor. He was already publicly committed to Cecil Rhodes.
Where were Kreisler’s own commitments? To Africa and the self-determination he spoke of, or to German interests? Was he trying to provoke an indiscretion from which he could learn something, or to let slip his own version of facts, and mislead?
And why did he court Nobby Gunne?
Vespasia would have been a great deal unhappier had she been in the Lyric music hall and seen Nobby and Kreisler together in the stalls laughing at the comedian, watching the juggler with bated breath as he tossed plate after plate into the air, groaning at the extraordinary feats of the yellow-clad contortionist, tapping their feet with the dancing girls.
It was definitely slumming, and they were enjoying it enormously. Every few moments they exchanged glances as some joke delighted or appalled them. The political jokes were both vicious and ribald.
The last act, top of the bill, was an Irish soprano with a full, rich voice who held the audience in her hands, singing “Silver Threads Among the Gold “Bedouin Love Song,” Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord,” and then, to both smiles and tears, Tosti’s “Good-bye.”
The audience cheered her to the echo, and then when at last the curtain came down, rose from their seats and made their way outside into the warm, busy street where gas lamps flared, hooves clattered on the cobbles, people called out to passing cabs and the night air was balmy on the face and damp with the promise of rain.
Neither Nobby nor Kreisler spoke. Everything was already understood.
7
“Nothing,” Tellman said, pushing out his lip. “At least nothing that helps.” He was talking about his investigation into Ian Hathaway of the Colonial Office. “Just a quiet, sober, rather bookish sort of man of middle years. Doesn’t do anything much out of the ordinary.” He sat down in the chair opposite Pitt without being asked. “Not so ordinary as to be without character,” he went on. “He has his oddities, his tastes. He has a fancy for expensive cheeses, for example. Spends as much on a cheese as I would on a joint of beef. He hates fish. Won’t eat it at any price.”
Pitt frowned, sitting at his desk with the sun on his back.
“Buys plain shirts,” Tellman went on. “Won’t spend a farthing extra on them. Argues the toss with his shirtmaker, always very politely. But he can insist!” Tellman’s face showed some surprise. “At first I thought he was a bit of a mouse, one of the quiet little men with nothing to say for themselves.” His eyes widened. “But I discovered that Mr. Hathaway is a person of enough resolve when he wants to be. Always very quiet, very polite, never raises his voice to anyone. But there must be something inside him, something in his look, because the tailor didn’t argue with him above a minute or two, then took a good stare at him, and all of a sudden backed down sharply, and it was all ‘yes sir, Mr. Hathaway; no sir, of course not; whatever you wish, sir.’”
“He does hold a fairly senior position in the Colonial Office,” Pitt pointed out.
Tellman gave a little snort, fully expressive of his derision. “I’ve seen more important men than him pushed around by their tailors! No sir, there’s a bit more steel to our Mr. Hathaway than first looks show.”
Pitt did not reply. It was more Tellman’s impression than any evidence. It depended how ineffectual Tellman had originally thought him.
“Buys very nice socks and nightshirts,” Tellman went on. “Very nice indeed. And more than one silk cravat.”
“Extravagant?” Pitt asked.
Tellman shook his head regretfully. “Not the way you mean. Certainly doesn’t live beyond his income; beneath it if anything. Takes his pleasures quietly, just the occasional dinner at his club or with friends. A stroll on the green of an evening.”
“Any lady friends?”
Tellman’s expression conveyed the answer without the need for words.
“What about his sons? Has he any other family, brothers or sisters?”
“Sons are just as respectable as he is, from all I can tell. Anyway, they both live abroad, but nobody says a word against them. No other family as far as I know. Certainly he doesn’t call on them or write.”
Pitt leaned backwards farther into the sun. “These friends with whom he dines once a week or so, who are they? Have they any connection with Africa or Germany? Or with finance?”
“Not that I can find.” Tellman looked both triumphant and disgusted. It gave him some satisfaction to present Pitt with a further problem, and yet he resented his own failure. His dilemma amused Pitt.
“And your own opinion of him?” Pitt asked with the shadow of a smile.
Tellman looked surprised. It was a question he apparently had not foreseen. He was obliged to think hastily.
“I’d like to say he’s a deep one with a lot hidden under the surface.” His face was sour. “But I think he’s just a very ordinary, bald little man with an ordinary, open and very tedious life; just like ten thousand others in London. I couldn’t find any reason to think he’s a spy, or anything else but what he looks.”
Pitt respected Tellman’s opinion. He was bigoted, full of resentments both personal and rooted in his general social status, but his judgment of crime, and a man’s potential for it, was acute, and seldom mistaken.
“Thank you,” he said with a sincerity that caught Tellman off guard. “I expect you are right.”
Nevertheless he contrived an occasion to go to the Colonial Office and meet Hathaway for himself, simply to form an impression because he did not have one. Not to have spoken with him again would have been an omission, and with as little certainty in the case as he had, he could not afford omissions, however slight.
Hathaway’s office was smaller than Chancellor’s or Jeremiah Thorne’s, but nevertheless it had dignity and considerable comfort. At a glance it looked as if nothing in it were new; everything had a gentle patina of age and quality. The wood shone from generations of polishing, the leather gleamed, the carpet was gently worn in a track from door to desk. The books on the single shelf were morocco bound and gold lettered.
Hathaway sat behind the desk looking benign and courteous. He was almost completely bald, with merely a fringe of short, white hair above his ears, and he was clean-shaven. His nose was pronounced and his eyes a clear, round blue. Only when one had looked at him more closely did their clarity and intelligence become apparent.
“Good morning, Superintendent,” he said quietly. His voice was excellent and his diction perfect
. “How may I be of assistance to you? Please, do sit down.”
“Good morning, Mr. Hathaway.” Pitt accepted the offer and sat in the chair opposite the desk. It was remarkably comfortable; it seemed to envelop him as soon as he relaxed into it, and yet it was firm in all the right places. But for all the apparent ease, Hathaway was a government servant of considerable seniority. He would have no time to waste. “It is regarding this miserable business of information going astray,” Pitt continued. There was no point in being evasive. Hathaway was far too clever not to have understood the import of the investigations.
There was no change whatever in Hathaway’s face.
“I have given it some thought, Superintendent, but unfortunately to no avail.” The shadow of a smile touched his mouth. “It is not the sort of news one can ever forget. You made fairly light of it when you spoke to me before, but I am aware that it is anything but a light matter. I do not know precisely what the material is, nor to whom it has been passed, but the principle is the same. Next time it could be something vital to British interests or well-being. And of course we do not always know who our enemies are. We may believe them friends today … and yet tomorrow …”
It was a chilling thought. The bright, comfortable room only seemed to add to the reality of it. Pitt did not know whether Hathaway was speaking in the narrow sense of Britain’s enemies, or in the more general breadth of enemies in general. Arthur Desmond’s face came sharply to his mind. How many of his enemies had he guessed at? How surprised would he have been had he heard the evidence at his own inquest? What faces there would have startled him, what testimony?
It was the worst of a secret society, the everyday masks behind which were hidden such different faces. There were executioners in the Inner Circle, although murderers would be a more honest word. They were men set apart to exact the punishment the society had deemed in its best interests. Sometimes it was merely personal or financial ruin, but on rare occasions, like that of Arthur Desmond, it was death.
But who were the executioners? Even the members of his own ring almost certainly did not know. That would be necessary, both for the executioner’s protection and for the efficiency of his work. He could face the victim with a smile and a handshake, and at the same time deal him a death blow. And the rest of the Inner Circle would be sworn on covenant of blood to assist him, protect him, keep silence as commanded.
Hathaway was staring at him, waiting patiently. Pitt forced his mind back to the African information.
“Of course, you are quite right,” he said hastily. “It is one of the bitterest of realities. We have traced a great deal from its arrival in the Colonial Office until it is stored permanently. I believe I know everyone who has access to it….”
Hathaway smiled sourly. “But of course it is more than one person. I presume I am suspect?”
“You are one of those who is privy to the information,” Pitt conceded guardedly. “I have no more cause to consider you than that. I believe you have a son in Central Africa?”
“Yes, my son Robert is in the mission field.” There was very little expression in Hathaway’s face. It was impossible to tell if he were proud of his son’s vocation or not. The light in his eyes might have been pleasure, or love, or indulgence, or merely a reflection of the sunlight streaming through the window to his left. There was nothing in his gentle voice but good manners, and the slight anxiety the subject of Pitt’s call required.
“Where?” Pitt asked.
This time a flicker crossed Hathaway’s face. “The shores of Lake Nyasa.”
Pitt had been studying the atlas. The coast of Africa was fairly well charted, with some few exceptions, but there were vast areas inland which were crossed by only a few tracks. Features were put in tentatively: tracks from east to west, the trails of the great explorers, a lake here, a range of mountains there. But most of it was borderless, regions no cartographer had seen or measured, perhaps no white man had trodden. He knew Lake Nyasa was close to the area which Cecil Rhodes would claim, and where Zimbabwe, the city of black gold, was fabled to be.
Hathaway was watching him closely, his round, pale eyes seeing everything.
“That is the area with which you are concerned.” He made it a statement rather than a question. He did not move, nor did his face change appreciably, but there was a sudden deepening of his concentration. “Superintendent, let us stop playing games of words with each other. Unless you correct me, I shall assume that it is the German interest in Mashonaland and Matabeleland which concerns you. I am aware we are negotiating a new treaty on the zones of influence, that Heligoland is involved, that the fall of Chancellor Bismarck has affected matters substantially, and that Carl Peterson and the German presence in Zanzibar, the rebellion there and its swift and bloody repression, are features of great importance. So also must be Mr. Rhodes’s expedition from the Cape, and his negotiations with Mr. Kruger and the Boers. We should be considerably disadvantaged in our position if all we know were also to be known to the Kaiser.”
Pitt said nothing. There was no sound from beyond the windows, which overlooked not the street or the park but a more enclosed courtyard.
Hathaway smiled a little and settled farther back in his seat. “This is not merely a matter of someone seeking a dishonest personal advantage in gold or diamond investments,” he said gravely. “This is treason. All private considerations must be forgotten in an effort to find the man who would do this.” His voice was no louder, no higher, yet there was a subtle change in its timbre, a passionate sincerity. He had not moved, but his physical presence was charged with energy.
It would have been pointless to deny the truth. Pitt would not have been believed; he would simply have insulted the man opposite him and driven a wedge of evasion between them.
“One of the problems with treason,” Pitt replied slowly, choosing his words with care, “is that once we know it is there, it makes us distrust everyone. Sometimes the suspicion will do almost as much damage as the act itself. Our fears may cripple us as effectively as the truth.”
Hathaway’s eyes widened. “How perceptive of you, Superintendent. Indeed, that is so. But are you saying that you consider it possible there is no treason, simply a clever semblance of it, in order that we should so maim ourselves?” There was surprise in his voice, but also a slow realization that it could be the truth. “Then who has planted it?”
Footsteps passed by in the corridor, hesitated, then continued.
Pitt shook his head fractionally. “I meant only that we must not make it worse than it is, not do his work for him by causing suspicion where there are no grounds. Those with access to the information are few.”
“But they are highly placed,” Hathaway deduced immediately. “Thorne, myself, or Chancellor! Dear heaven, if it is Chancellor, we are in a desperate pass.” There was humor in his face. “And I know it was not I.”
“There are other possibilities,” Pitt said quickly. “But few. Aylmer, for example. Or Arundell. Or Leicester.”
“Aylmer. Ah yes, I had forgotten him. A young man, relatively speaking, and ambitious. He has not yet fulfilled all his family expects of him. That can be a powerful spur to a man.” His eyes did not move from Pitt’s face. “I am increasingly grateful as I grow older that my mother was a mild creature whose only dream for her sons was that they marry agreeable women, and I was fortunate to oblige her in that while still in my twenties.” He smiled for a moment with recollection, but his unusual eyes met Pitt’s again with total directness. “I don’t doubt that you are here to speak to me in an effort to make some assessment of my character, but beyond that elementary exercise, is there some practical way in which I can assist you?”
Pitt had already made up his mind.
“Yes, Mr. Hathaway, if you would. I have ascertained that much of this information comes first to you, even before it reaches Mr. Chancellor.”
“It does. I think I perceive what you have in mind: to change it in some way that will not cause gr
eat damage, and disseminate different versions of it to Chancellor, Aylmer, Thorne, Arundell and Leicester, and yet keep the original for Lord Salisbury, to prevent the possibility of a serious error.” He pushed out his lip. “It will need some thought, I shall have to find just the right piece of information, but I can see it has to be done.” He looked eager as he said it, almost relieved to have some part to play.
Pitt could not help smiling. “If it would be possible? And the sooner it is done, the sooner we may achieve a result.”
“Indeed! Yes, it must be done with care, or it will be obvious.” He sat forward in his chair again. “It must tally with all the information we already possess, or at least it must not contradict it. I shall keep you informed, Superintendent.” He smiled with frankness and a kind of intense, energetic happiness brimming inside him.
Pitt thanked him again and rose to take his leave, still uncertain if he had been wise, but knowing of nothing better to precipitate matters. He had not yet told Matthew or Assistant Commissioner Farnsworth of his intention.
“You did what?” Farnsworth said, his face aghast. “Good God, man, do you realize what could happen as a result of this … this …”
“No,” Pitt said brazenly. “What could happen?”
Farnsworth stared at him. “Well the very least of it is that misinformation could be passed to ministers of Her Majesty’s government! In fact it most certainly will be!”
“Only to Chancellor …”
“Only? Only Chancellor!” Farnsworth’s face was deep pink. “Do you realize he is the senior minister responsible for colonial affairs? The British Empire covers a quarter of the face of the earth! Have you no sense of what that means? If Chancellor is misinformed, heaven knows what damage could follow.”
“None at all,” Pitt replied. “The information being changed is trivial. Hathaway knows the truth, and so will the Foreign Secretary. No decisions will be implemented without reference to one or the other of them, probably to both.”