“I’m afraid I don’t know,” the vicar replied. “It was the same day as your father, and frankly I rather think it was just someone else he must have spoken to. I’m sorry.”
Joseph found himself too filled with grief to answer. But he also believed that in Herr Reisenburg he had found the source of the document, and that he too had paid for it with his life. There was now no possibility whatever that John Reavley was mistaken as to its importance. But where was it now, and who was behind it?
“Don’t you have any idea what that document was?” Judith asked when they were in the car again and turning toward home. “You must have thought about it.”
“Yes, of course I have, and I don’t know,” he replied. “I can’t remember Father ever mentioning Reisenburg.”
“Neither can I,” she agreed. “But obviously they know each other, and it was really important, or he wouldn’t have gone looking for him while Mother was with Maude Channery. Why do you think Reisenburg had the document?” She negotiated a long curve in the road with considerable skill, but Joseph found himself gripping his seat. “Do you suppose he stole it from someone?”
“It looks like it,” he replied.
She gave a shudder. “And they murdered him for it, only he’d already given it to Father—so they murdered Father. What do you suppose they’re going to do with it? If they got it back then, it’s four weeks ago now, so why hasn’t anything happened?” Her voice dropped. “Or has it, and we just don’t know?”
He wanted to be able to answer her, but he had no idea what the truth would be.
She was waiting; he knew it by the turn of her head, the concentration in her face.
“Matthew thinks there may have been two copies,” he said quietly. “It isn’t that they need one so much as they can’t let the other one be roaming around, in case it falls into the wrong hands. That’s why they’re still looking.” Fear for her seized him with an almost physical pain. “For God’s sake, Judith, be careful! If anyone—”
“I won’t!” she cut across him. “Don’t fuss, Joseph. I’m perfectly all right, and I’ll stay all right. It isn’t in the house, and they know that! For heaven’s sake, they’ve looked thoroughly enough. Are you staying tonight? And I’m not asking because I’m afraid—I’d just like to talk to you, that’s all.” She gave a gentle, almost patient little smile and avoided looking at him. “You’re not much like Father most of the time, but now and then you are.”
“Thank you,” he said as unemotionally as he could, but he found he could not add anything. His throat was tight, and he needed to look away from her at the long slope of the fields and compose himself.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Joseph waited up alone for Matthew to return from seeing Shanley Corcoran. It was almost midnight.
“Nothing,” Matthew replied to the unspoken question. He looked tired, his fair hair blown by the wind, but under the brief flush of travel he was pale. “He can’t help.” He sat down in the chair opposite Joseph.
“Want anything to drink?” Joseph asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, he told Matthew what he and Judith had discovered about Reisenburg.
Matthew seized on it. “That must be it!” he said, enthusiasm lifting his voice. He sat forward eagerly, his eyes bright, attention suddenly focused again. “Poor devil! It looks as if they killed him for it as well. No proof, of course.” He rubbed his hand over his face, pushing his hair back. “It looks as if it must be as dangerous as Father said. I wonder how Reisenburg got it, and where from!”
Joseph had been thinking about that all evening. “He might have been the courier for it,” he said dubiously. “But I think it’s far more likely he stole it, don’t you?”
“But where was he taking it when they caught up with him?” Matthew inquired. “Not to Father, surely? Why? If he’d been in any sort of intelligence service, I’d know!” He made it a statement, but Joseph could see in his eyes that it was a question. The yellow lamplight cast shadows on his face, emphasizing the uncertainty in him.
Joseph crushed his own doubts with an effort of will. “I think he just knew Father,” he replied. “The people he stole it from knew he had it and were after him. He passed it to the only honorable person he could. Father was here. There was no time to get to London, or to whoever he meant to deliver it.”
“No more than chance?” Matthew said with a twist of his lips. The irony of it hurt.
“Perhaps he came this way because this was where Father lived,” Joseph suggested. “It seems he knew Cambridgeshire—he took the house here.”
“Whom was he intending to give it to?” Matthew stared ahead of him into the distance. “If only we could find that out!”
“I don’t know how,” Joseph replied. “Reisenburg is dead, and the house is let out to someone else. We drove past.”
“At least we know where Father got it.” Matthew sat back, relaxing his body at last. “That’s a lot. For the first time there’s a glimmer of sense!”
They stayed up another half hour, arguing more possibilities along with the chances of finding out more about Reisenburg, and then the family went to bed, as Matthew had to get up at six and drive early to London. Joseph was to go back to Cambridge at a much more agreeable hour.
Almost as soon as he entered the gate Joseph ran into Inspector Perth, looking pale, hunch-shouldered, and jumpy.
“Don’t ask me!” he said before Joseph had even spoken. “Oi don’t know who killed Mr. Allard, but so help me God, Oi mean to find out, if Oi have to take this place apart man by man!” And without waiting for a reply he strode off, leaving Joseph openmouthed.
He had left St. Giles before breakfast, and now he was hungry. He walked across the quad in the sun, and under the arch to the dining hall. The mood was sombre. No one was in the mood for talking. There were murmurs about Irish rebels in the streets of Dublin, and the possibility of sending in British troops to disarm them, perhaps even as soon as today.
Joseph was busy catching up on essay papers all morning, and when he had time for his own thoughts at all, it was for Reisenburg, lying in a Cambridgeshire grave, unknown to whoever loved or cared for him, murdered for a piece of paper. Could the document possibly be to do with some as yet unimagined horror in Ireland that would stain England’s honor even more deeply than its dealings with that unhappy country had done already? The more he thought of it, the less likely it seemed. It must be something in Europe, surely. Sarajevo? Or something else? A socialist revolution? A giant upheaval of values such as the revolutions that had swept the continent in 1848?
He did not wish to go to the hall for luncheon, and bought himself a sandwich instead. Early in the afternoon he was crossing the quad back to his rooms when he saw Connie Thyer coming from the shadow of the arch. She looked harassed and a little flushed.
“Dr. Reavley! How nice to see you. Did you have a pleasant weekend?”
He smiled. “In many ways, yes, thank you.” He was about to ask her if she had also, and stopped himself just in time. With Mary Allard still her guest, still waiting for justice and vengeance, how could she? “How are you?” he asked instead.
She closed her eyes for a moment, as if exhaustion had overtaken her. She opened them and smiled. “It gets worse,” she said wearily. “Of course this wretched policeman has to ask everyone questions: who liked Sebastian and who didn’t, and why.” Her face suddenly pinched with unhappiness, and her eyes clouded. “But what he is finding is so ugly.”
He waited. It seemed like minutes because he dreaded what she was going to say; he was prolonging the moment of ignorance, and yet he was pretending. He did know.
She sighed. “Of course he doesn’t say what he’s found, but one can’t help knowing, because people talk. The young men feel so guilty. No one wants to speak ill of the dead, especially when his family is so close by. And then they are angry because they are placed in a situation where they can’t do anything else.”
He offered her his arm, and they walked very slowly, as if intending to go somewhere.
“And because they have been cornered into doing something they are ashamed of,” she went on, “poor Eardslie is furious with himself, and Morel is furious with Foubister, who must have said something dreadful, because he is so ashamed he won’t look anyone in the face, especially Mary Allard.” She glanced at him, and away again. “And I think Foubister is afraid Morel had something to do with it, or at the very least may be suspected.
