Belgrave Square

“If I discover incriminating evidence against you, will the brotherhood defend you against the police, and will it expect me to do the same?”

Byam was white as a ghost. He stared at Drummond as if he could scarcely believe him.

Drummond waited.

Byam spoke with difficulty, his voice catching in his throat.

“I-I have never thought in the matter. It will not arise-dangerous evidence perhaps, but not incriminating. I did not kill Weems.” He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind and stood silently facing Drummond.

“Then why have you changed your decision about African financing?” Drummond asked.

Byam seemed so stunned, so deathly white, Drummond was afraid for a moment he was going to pass out. The dusk was growing in the room. The last of the sun’s rays had faded away from the ceiling and now the faintly luminous air had gone. A bird sang in the branches beyond the window.

“How do you know that?” Byam said at last.

“I heard of it through a young man called Valerius.” It was not a lie exactly, even if it was by intent.

Byam was too shocked for surprise or interest.

“Peter Valerius? He came and told you? Why, for God’s sake? It is of no concern to you.”

“Not directly,” Drummond answered. “He told someone, who told me.”

“Who?”

“I am not at liberty to say.”

Byam turned away, weary, hiding his face and staring at the shelf of books and the corner.

“I suppose it hardly matters. It involves issues you are not aware of-trade, money…”

“Blackmail?”

Byam froze. The relief that had been in his face an instant before fled utterly. His body jerked as if he had been struck.

“Was it?” Drummond said very quietly, almost gently. “Has someone else found the papers Weems left? Byam, do you know who killed Weems?”

“No! No I don’t!” It was a cry full of pain and despair. “Dear God I don’t know. I have no idea at all.”

“But whoever it is has Weems’s notes, and is blackmailing you still?”

Byam’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and he turned around, his eyes black in the last light through the window, a wraith of a smile on his lips, a smile of pain and self-mockery, as if he knew some terrible joke against himself.

“No-no. Weems’s notes seem to have vanished into the air. I am beginning to think he never actually made any, he simply said he had to protect himself. Unnecessarily-I would never have attacked him physically, or any other way. The worst I would have done was tell him to go to hell. Someone else killed him, and I have not even the shred of an idea who.”

“And the change of mind over the African money?”

Byam’s face was still white. “The brotherhood,” he said with stiff lips. “It is a favor for them. I cannot tell you why. It concerns many issues, international finance, risk, political situations I am not at liberty to discuss.” His words were a mockery of Drummond’s earlier ones, but there was no jeering in them, no triumph.

“They would ask that of you, knowing how you feel, your reputation in the matter, your conscience?” Drummond was horrified, although now he had no surprise left. “That is monstrous. What would happen to you if you refused them?”

There was no smile on Byam’s face, only bleak, humorless despair.

“I don’t know, and I am not in a position to put it to the test.”

“But your honor,” Drummond said involuntarily. “The agony of your own conscience. Do they imagine they have purchased your soul with some idiotic ritual oath? For God’s sake, man, tell them to go to the devil! Not a great journey, if they would press you to act against your conscience in such a manner.”

Byam looked away from him. “I cannot,” he said in a level, hopeless voice. “There is much that you do not understand. They explained to me other reasons. It is not as much against my conscience as you believe, simply against my past record of belief, and what people expect of me. There are other factors-things I did not know of before…”

But Drummond did not believe him. He was overwhelmed with pity, and revulsion-and a terrible, dark fear of the circle he had entered so blindly so many years ago. Pitt had thought it evil, and he had barely scraped the surface. Why did a gamekeeper’s son like Pitt have so infinitely more understanding of evil and its smiling, promising faces?

He felt cold throughout his body.

“I’m sorry,” he said futilely, not knowing what he meant, simply that he was filled with a dragging heaviness and a sense of tragedy to come, and guilt.

He walked to the hall door and opened it.

“Thank you for your candor.”

Byam looked up, his eyes black with pain, like a cornered creature. He said nothing.

Drummond went out and closed the door. In the hallway the butler handed him his cloak, hat and stick, then opened the door for him. He went out into the balmy air of the evening, oblivious to its sweetness.

10

IT WAS AT a garden party, lawns, flower beds and dappled shade, parlormaids and footmen carrying trays of chilled champagne, women with parasols, that Charlotte observed the next event connected with Jack’s pursuit of selection as candidate for Parliament. She had gone hoping to see something more of Lord Byam, but as it transpired neither he nor Lady Byam was present, although they had been expected. It was a glorious afternoon, if a trifle warm, and everyone was greatly involved in discussing the Eton and Harrow cricket match which was held annually between the two outstanding private schools for boys of excellent family.

The other great topic of conversation was the forthcoming regatta to be held at Henley, as usual. There was intense speculation as to who would win the cricket match, as many of the gentlemen had attended either one school or the other, and emotions were running high.

“My dear fellow,” one elegantly dressed man said, leaning a little on his cane and staring at his companion, his top hat an inch or two askew. “The fact that Eton won last year is nothing whatsoever to go by. Hackfield was the best bat they ever had, and he has left and gone up to Cambridge. The whole side will disintegrate without him, don’t you know.”

They were standing beside a bed of delphiniums.

“Balderdash.” His friend smiled indulgently, and stepped to one side to allow a lady in a large hat to pass by. The feather in its brim was touching his shoulder, but she was oblivious of it, being totally occupied gazing through her eyelashes at someone a few yards in the opposite direction. “Absolute tommyrot,” the man continued. “Hackfield was merely the most showy. Nimmons was the real strength.”

“Nimmons.” The man in the top hat was patronizingly amused. “Scored a mere twenty runs, as I recall.”

“Your recollection is colored by your desires, not to mention your loyalty.” His friend was gently pleased with himself. “Twenty runs, and bowled out five of your side-for a total of thirty-three. And he’s still very much there this year. Doesn’t go up till ’ninety-one.”

“Because he’s a fool.” But his face clouded as memory returned. Absentmindedly he put his empty goblet on the tray of an attendant footman and took a fresh one.

“Not with a ball in his hand, old chap-not with a ball,” his companion retorted.

Charlotte could imagine the summer afternoon, the crowd sitting on benches or walking on the grass, the players all in white, the crack of leather on willow as the bat struck the ball, the cheering, the sun in the eye and in the face, the long lazy day, excited voices of boys calling out, cucumber sandwiches for tea. It was pleasant to think about, but she had no real wish to go. Her thoughts were filled with darker, more urgent matters. And it was part of a world she had never really belonged to, and in which Pitt, and that mattered more, had no place. It did cross her mind to wonder for an instant if he had played cricket as a boy. She could imagine it, not at a great school founded centuries ago and steeped in tradition, but on the village green, perhaps with a duck pond, and old men sitting