also, less easy to see clearly in the half darkness as no one had wished to light the gaslamps. The last of the day was slipping away rapidly. The rustle of the poplar leaves sounded through the open windows like breaking waves on a shore, far away.
Theloneus said it for him. “Of course, it is a possibility Cornwallis may be pressed to abandon the case, to order Springer to withdraw from it, discontinue investigation, somehow contaminate the evidence. And Dunraithe White may similarly be pressed to render an eccentric or perverse decision.”
“Would that not cause a mistrial?” Pitt asked.
“Only if there was a verdict of guilty,” Theloneus replied. “The Crown does not have the right to appeal against an acquittal. If it did, cases might never end.”
“Of course.” Pitt had not been thinking clearly. The idea of Cornwallis in such a situation-that, in fact, he might already be compromised-was even more painful than he had expected. He had said nothing, but he was a uniquely lonely man, used to the isolation of command at sea, where he could never confide in anyone or his power to lead would be damaged beyond repair. The captain was as alone on the quarter deck as if he were the only man on the face of the ocean. The slightest weakness, indecision, possibility of ignorance or error, and his position was forfeit. Everything in the structure of rank, obligation and privilege conspired to make it so. It was the only way someone could survive in an element which obeyed only its own rules and knew neither thought nor mercy.
Cornwallis could not change in a few short years, perhaps not ever. When he faced danger he would revert to the skills he knew, the ones that had carried him through countless perils before. It was an instinct he probably could not have helped, even had he wanted to.
“Is Tannifer involved?” Pitt asked, thinking of Parthenope and her fierce loyalty.
“It is embezzlement. It is possible,” Theloneus answered.
“Cadell?” Pitt went on.
“African funds. The Foreign Office may be concerned.”
“Balantyne?”
“I can’t see how, but there is much yet to be uncovered.”
“I see.” Pitt stood up slowly. “Thank you very much for your time … and your thoughts.”
Vespasia leaned forward to rise, and Theloneus offered her his arm. She took it, but lightly; as a gesture, not an assistance.
“I am afraid we have not helped, have we?” she said to Pitt. “I am sorry, Thomas. The roads of friendship are sometimes strewn with many pitfalls, and some of them can hurt a great deal. I wish I could say Cornwallis will not fail, but it would be a lie, and you would know it. Nor can I say that, even with the utmost courage and honor, he will not be hurt. But we shall not cease to fight with the very few and inadequate weapons we have to hand.”
“I know that.” He smiled at her. “We are not beaten yet.”
She gave a very slight smile back, but was too tense to argue.
They parted from Theloneus, leaving him standing in the lighted doorway, and drove home in her carriage through the lamplit streets, neither feeling it necessary to speak any further.
The following morning Pitt went to see Cornwallis. He was torn between the personal loyalties of friendship and the necessities of his duty to pursue knowledge to its end. Whether Cornwallis understood that or not, he could not deliberately fail in it and remain of use to either of them.
Cornwallis was pacing the floor again. He swung around and stopped as Pitt came in, almost as if he had been caught in some nefarious act. He looked as if he had not eaten properly or slept well in days. His eyes were sunken into his head, and for the first time since Pitt had known him, his jacket did not sit smoothly on his shoulders.
“I have had another letter,” he said baldly. “This morning.” He waited for Pitt to ask what was in it.
Pitt felt his stomach lurch and his body go cold. This was the demand at last. He could see it in Cornwallis’s eyes.
“What does he want?” He tried not to betray his knowledge.
Cornwallis’s voice was rough, as if his throat were sore, and he spoke with difficulty.
“That I should drop a case,” he replied. “If I don’t, then the H.M.S.
“Which case?” Pitt asked, waiting for him to say the embezzlement that Springer commanded.
“This case!” Cornwallis frowned. “The blackmail investigation. The truth about Slingsby and the Bedford Square murder … who put the body on Balantyne’s steps. What in God’s name does the man want from us?” His voice was rising in spite of himself, a note of panic creeping in.
The room seemed to swim with the sunlight blazing in through the open window, the noise of traffic in the street below rose like thunder.
“But you won’t …” Pitt said, forcing the words through stiff lips.
A faint patch of color blushed up Cornwallis’s haggard cheeks. Something in his mouth softened.
“No! Of course not,” he said with intense, choking emotion. It seemed to take him by surprise, as if he had not thought he could feel so passionately about anything. “No, Pitt, of course I won’t.” He seemed about to add something more, a word of thanks for having assumed so much, but at the last moment the words were too open, too intimate an acknowledgment of friendship, of vulnerability. It was all better understood, where it could be glossed over later. Men did not say such things to each other.
“Naturally.” Pitt shoved his hands down inside his pockets. “At least it gives us something further to look into, a better place to begin.” He must say something trivial and matter-of-fact. It did not really matter what. “I think I’ll go and see Cadell again.”
“Yes,” Cornwallis agreed. “Yes, of course. Let me know what you learn.”
Pitt went to the door. “I might see Balantyne too,” he added as he went out. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything.”
9
Pitt had been late home the previous evening, but even so he had wanted to tell Charlotte what he had learned and the troubling thoughts he could not still in his mind. She had been more than willing to listen, not only in concern for his feelings but because she wished intensely to know for herself. They had sat talking long after midnight, unable to let go of the anxiety and the need to share it with each other.
This morning she was more than ever concerned for General Balantyne. It seemed he was targeted by the blackmailer in a more personal and specific way than any of the other victims. Pitt had very carefully refrained from saying that had the murder of Josiah Slingsby been blamed upon him, he would have been effectively removed from complying with the blackmailer’s demands, either for money or for the exercise of influence. Nevertheless, she had understood it perfectly clearly. Therefore it followed that what he wanted might not be anything Balantyne could give but rather his destruction, not an act but the inability to act. And either ruin or death would serve the same end. Pitt had skirted around it, being so careful, trying not to hurt her, but the thought was inevitable once the train of ideas was begun.
It was a brilliantly sunny day, but fortunately a little cooler. At last there was a breath of breeze to break the suffocation of the heat wave. It was too pleasant to be inside if one did not have to. She had agreed to meet Balantyne in the British Museum as before, but was delighted when a boy on a bicycle brought a note to the door asking if she would find it acceptable to meet at the gate of the Royal Botanical Gardens in Regents Park instead.
She wrote a hasty answer that she would be happy to.
Accordingly, at eleven o’clock, dressed in deep pink and wearing one of Vespasia’s most extravagant hats, she was standing in the sun just inside the gates, watching the passers-by. It was an occupation which in small amounts she found most interesting. She imagined who they were and what sort of homes and lives they had left this morning, why they might have come here, whom to meet.
