Pitt continued. “I require your permission, sir, in order to investigate from this office….”
“Yes, of course. Immediately. This is extremely serious.” The polite affectation of interest was gone, and in its place an earnestness which was unmistakable. “Can you tell me what manner of information you are speaking of? Did Mr. Desmond tell you, or indeed does he know?”
“Not in detail,” Pitt replied. “I gather it is largely to do with mineral rights and treaties with local chieftains.”
Chancellor looked very grave, his mouth pinched at the corners.
“That could be extremely serious. A great deal rests on it for the future settlement of Africa. I assume Mr. Desmond told you as much? Yes, naturally. Will you please keep me informed, Mr. Pitt? Personally. I imagine you have already investigated the possibility that whatever information it is could not simply have reached the Germans through their own people?” There was no real hope in his face; he asked as a matter of form. “They have a great many explorers, adventurers and soldiers in East Africa, particularly along the coast of Zanzibar. I will not bore you with the details of their treaties with the Sultan of Zanzibar, and the settlement uprisings and violence. Accept, for this matter, that they have a considerable presence in the area.”
“I have not looked into it myself, but that was the first question I asked Mr. Desmond,” Pitt replied. “He assured me it could not be so, because of the detail of the information and the fact that it corresponded precisely with our own version of events which are open to many interpretations.”
“Yes-” Chancellor nodded. “You are supposing treason in our midst, Mr. Pitt. Probably of a very high order. Tell me what you propose to do about it.”
“All I can do, sir, is investigate everyone who has access to all the information that has been passed on. I assume that will be a limited number of people?”
“Certainly. Mr. Thorne has charge of our African affairs. Begin with him. Now if you will excuse me, Superintendent, I shall call Fairbrass and have him take you through. I have a short space of time free at quarter past four this afternoon. I will be obliged if you will report to me then whatever progress you have made, impressions you have gained.”
“Yes sir.” Pitt stood up and Chancellor rose also. A young man, presumably Fairbrass, appeared in the doorway and after brief instructions from Chancellor, conducted Pitt through a number of handsome corridors to a further, spacious, well-furnished office not unlike the first. The plate on the door read JEREMIAH THORNE, and Fairbrass was apparently so in awe of Mr. Thorne he considered Pitt would need no information as to who he was. He knocked tentatively, and upon receiving an answer, turned the handle and put his head around.
“Mr. Thorne, sir, I have a Superintendent Pitt here, from Bow Street, I think. Mr. Chancellor asked me to bring him along.” He stopped abruptly, realizing he knew no more. He withdrew and pushed the door wider for Pitt to go in.
Jeremiah Thorne was superficially not unlike his political master. There was a difference in his bearing which was immediate, but equally it was indefinable. He was seated behind his desk but he appeared also to be of a good height. He had widely spaced eyes, dark hair, thick and smooth, and a broad, generous mouth. But he was a civil servant, not a politician. The difference was too subtle to name. The assurance with which he bore himself was based on generations of certainty, of being the unseen power behind those who campaign for office, and whose position depends upon the good opinion of others.
“How do you do, Superintendent,” he said with a lift of interest in his voice. “Come in. What may I do for you? Some colonial crime in which the metropolitan police is interested?” He smiled. “In Africa, I imagine, or you would not have been directed to me.”
“No, Mr. Thorne.” Pitt came into the room and sat down in the chair indicated. He waited until the door was closed and Fairbrass had had time to retrace his steps along the passage. “I am afraid the crime almost certainly began here in the Colonial Office,” he answered the question. “If indeed there is a crime. Mr. Chancellor has given me authority to enquire into it. I need to ask you several questions, sir. I apologize for taking up your time, but it is essential.”
Thorne sat back in his chair and folded his hands.
“Then you had better proceed, Superintendent. Can you tell me what this crime is?”
Pitt did not answer directly. Jeremiah Thorne was privy to most of the information in the Colonial Office. He was almost certainly in a position to be the traitor, however unlikely it was that so senior a person would do such a thing. The other possibility was that he might inadvertently either warn the traitor simply because he did not believe the person capable of such duplicity, or that he might do it through sheer inexperience in suspecting one of his own colleagues.
And yet if the man were naive enough not to understand the purpose of the questions, he was hardly competent to hold the position he did.
“I would prefer not to mention it until I am certain there has been a crime,” Pitt hedged. “Would you tell me something about your principal staff, sir.”
Thorne looked puzzled, but there was considerable humor in his dark eyes, masking any anxiety, if indeed he felt it.
“I report immediately regarding African affairs to Garston Aylmer, Mr. Chancellor’s assistant,” he said quietly. “He is an excellent man, very fine mind. A First at Cambridge, but I imagine it is not his academic qualifications you are interested in.” He lifted one shoulder infinitesimally. “No, I thought not. He came straight to the Colonial Office from university. That would be some fourteen or fifteen years ago.”
“Then he is close to forty?” Pitt interrupted.
“About thirty-six, I believe. He really is outstanding, Superintendent. He obtained his degree at twenty-three.” He appeared about to add something else and then changed his mind. He waited patiently for Pitt to continue.
“What was his subject, sir?”
“Oh-classics.”
“I see.”
“I doubt you do.” The smile was back in Thorne’s eyes, bright like a hidden laughter. “He is an excellent all- round scholar, and a man with a profound knowledge of history. He lives in Newington, in a small house which he owns.”
“Is he married?”
“No, he is not.”
Then Newington was a curious place for him to live. It was south of the river, across the Westminster Bridge to the east of Lambeth. It was not far from Whitehall, but hardly fashionable for a man of such excellent position, and presumable ambition. Pitt would have expected him to have had rooms in Mayfair or Belgravia, or possibly Chelsea.
“What are his future prospects, Mr. Thorne?” he asked. “Can he look forward to further promotion?” Now there was a lift in Thomas’s voice, but it was impossible to read his thoughts.
“I imagine so. He may in time take my position, or equally possibly he could head any of the other departments in the Colonial Office. I believe he has an interest in Indian affairs and the Far East. Superintendent, what has this to do with any possible crime that concerns you? Aylmer is an honorable man, about whom I have never heard the slightest suggestion of impropriety, let alone dishonesty. I don’t believe the man even drinks.”
There were many further questions, either of financial means or personal reputation, which Pitt could ask, but not of Thorne. This was going to be every bit as difficult as he had expected, and he had no liking for it at all. But Matthew Desmond would not have made the charge were he less than certain of it. Someone in the African section of the Colonial Office was passing information to the German Embassy.
“Who else, Mr. Thorne?” he asked aloud.
“Who else? Peter Arundell. He specializes in matters concerning Egypt and the Sudan,” Thorne replied. He went on to describe him in some detail, and Pitt allowed him to finish. He did not yet wish to narrow down the area to Zambezia. He would like to have trusted Thorne, but he could not afford to.
“Yes,” he prompted when Thorne hesitated.
Thorne frowned, but continued describing several other men with responsibility for other areas in the African continent, including Ian Hathaway, who was concerned with Mashonaland and Matabeleland, known together as Zambezia.
“He is one of our most experienced men, although very modest,” Thorne said quietly, still sitting in the same easy position in his chair and regarding Pitt steadily. “He is perhaps fifty. And has been a widower for as long as I
