“Thank you,” she replied waspishly, pushing her hair out of her eyes and reaching blindly for a towel.
He passed it to her. “Don’t be sarcastic,” he criticized. “You really do look poorly. I suppose I haven’t realized how hard you’ve had to work to stop this from being a disaster, especially for Emily.”
“She’s terrified for Jack …” she responded.
“I know.” He brushed her hair back off her face. “She has every cause to be.”
There was a knock at the door, and reluctantly Pitt went to answer it, expecting Gracie, but it was Jack.
“Cornwallis is on the telephone to speak to you,” he said.
Pitt let out his breath in a sigh.
“In the library,” Jack added. He looked concerned. He glanced at Charlotte, smiled bleakly, then followed Pitt out.
Pitt went down the stairs feeling weary and apprehensive. He had nothing to tell Cornwallis that he would want to hear. And yet there was also something even more important, deeper into the core of himself, which had eased out. A knot which had been hurting him was unraveled and smooth. He would not ever completely understand Charlotte. He did not want to. In time that would become boring. There would always be occasions when he wished she were more obviously vulnerable, more dependent upon his strength or his judgment, or more predictable. But then she would also be less generous, less brave, and less honest to him, and that was too high a price to pay for a little emotional comfort. She could not give him every answer he wanted, any more than he could for her. But what they could give was far, far more than enough; it was full, heaped, and running over. The few other things did not matter; they could be forgotten or done without.
He went into the library and picked up the telephone receiver.
“Good morning, sir.”
He heard Cornwallis’s distinctive voice on the other end. “Good morning, Pitt. How are you? What is happening there?”
Pitt made his decision about Justine without even being aware of it.
“We had a closer look at Greville’s body, sir. He didn’t drown. He was killed by a very skilled blow to the side of the neck. A professional assassin, or at the very least someone who knew precisely what to do and how.”
“Hardly a surprise,” Cornwallis replied with disappointment. “That only really tells us what we had already assumed. We can’t keep those people there much longer—in fact, not more than tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest, and that may be more than I can manage. We can’t keep this secret, Pitt. The conference report is due tomorrow. I can’t delay beyond another twenty-four hours at the outside.”
“Yes, I know,” Pitt said slowly. “I do know more of what happened, but it doesn’t yet prove who was responsible.” He told Cornwallis about Finn Hennessey and the dynamite.
“Can’t you get anything from him?” Cornwallis said, but with a downward inflection in his voice as though he took for granted a negative answer.
“Not yet,” Pitt replied, but there was the faintest glimmer of hope in the back of his mind, too small to grasp.
“What are you going to do now?” Cornwallis pressed. “Surely from what you’ve told me it has to be Doyle or Moynihan. And Hennessey would hardly collaborate with Moynihan. Their views and aims are directly opposing! If they weren’t, we wouldn’t have an Irish Problem to begin with.”
“I know all that,” Pitt conceded. “But I can’t prove it, even to myself, let alone to a court. But we’ll go back to the bomb in Jack’s study and see if we can’t trace McGinley’s movements better and see how he knew it was there. We may be able to deduce what he learned, and it might be enough.”
“Please let me know this evening,” Cornwallis instructed. “Even if you have nothing.”
“Anything more on poor Denbigh?” Pitt asked him. He had not forgotten about the beginning of the case, or the anger and disgust he had felt then.
“A little, although I don’t think it will help much.” Cornwallis sounded very far away on the other end of the line, even as if his thoughts were distant. “We’ve been working on it with every man we could spare. We know a great deal more about the Fenians here in London than we did even a couple of weeks ago. But this man seen following Denbigh, and who we are sure is responsible for his death, is not among them.”
“You mean he went back to Ireland?”
“No … that’s the point. He infiltrated the Fenians as well. But he isn’t one of them. He learned a few bits of information about their plans, membership and so on, and then went. I think they’d like to get him almost as much as we would.”
Pitt was puzzled. “Then who is he, and why did he kill Denbigh?”
“I think that may be the point,” Cornwallis answered. “Maybe Denbigh discovered who he was, and that’s why he killed him, not to protect the Fenians at all. But it doesn’t help you, because he certainly isn’t at Ashworth Hall or you would have seen him. He’s unmistakable in appearance. Your man is either Doyle or just possibly Moynihan.”
“Yes,” Pitt agreed. “Yes, I know. Thank you, sir.”
Pitt bade him good-bye and replaced the receiver. He went to look for Tellman and found him in the servants’ hall looking glum.
“Any tea?” Pitt asked.
“None that’s fresh,” Tellman answered dourly. After a moment’s hesitation he straightened up from the table where he had been leaning. “I’ll get some.”
Pitt was about to stop him and to say they had important things to do, then he changed his mind. All they could do to begin with was think, and that could be done as well with a fresh, hot cup of tea as without.
