Reisenburg had passed the documents to John Reavley, who had within hours telephoned Matthew in London, saying he would bring them the following day. But he had got no farther than a few miles when he had been sabotaged on the road by Sebastian Allard, Joseph’s favorite student at St. Giles. Sebastian was passionate, idealistic, and terrified of the destruction not only to life but to the very spirit of civilization that war would bring. He had believed the Peacemaker’s plan to be the lesser evil. Then after he had committed double murder in its cause, and seen with horror the reality of violent death, he had found he could not live with it.
That had been followed by the murder of Harry Beecher, Joseph’s oldest and dearest friend. Reisenburg, too, had been killed, but they had no idea by whom.
And on August 4th Britain had been plunged into war.
Who was the Peacemaker? A man with allies who had access to the German royal court, almost certainly to the kaiser himself, and who also had private and personal access to King George V. No one would conceive of such a plan, let alone put it into action, without knowing both men. He was also quite obviously politically astute, had a soaring and utterly ruthless imagination, and yet in his own way a passionate morality.
He and his disciples had desperately wanted the treaty document back because there was neither time nor opportunity to redraft it and get the kaiser to sign it again before offering it to the king, but also it was imperative it did not fall into the hands of anyone who would make it public.
When they had discovered it was gone, they must have known it was Reisenburg who had taken it, but not in time to follow him. If they had, they would have taken it from him and killed him then. Similarly they could not have seen him pass it to John Reavley, or again they would have acted at the time.
And yet they had instructed Sebastian to kill John Reavley the very next day; therefore they had to have known that he had it, and that he would be driving down that particular stretch of road that morning.
The Peacemaker could only be someone who knew John Reavley personally, and also knew that his second son worked in London in the Intelligence Services, and would be the obvious person to whom to take the document.
Who had contacted Sebastian Allard with information and instructions, in the few hours of the afternoon or evening after Reisenburg had given John Reavley the document, and knew that he had set out the next day to London?
Sebastian was dead, as was his brother, Elwyn. Their father, Gerald, was drowned even deeper in the brandy bottle, and their mother, Mary, was broken by the fury and shame of the scandal. She had changed her name and left Cambridgeshire with its unbearable past behind her. She had not adopted any family name, either on her parents’ side, or Gerald’s, but something totally unconnected. It had taken Matthew this long to find her where she worked as a voluntary aide in a military hospital outside Brighton.
It was early afternoon when he parked in the gravel space outside the entrance and climbed out, grateful to stretch his legs after the two-hour drive. He went up the steps and in the hallway inquired if he could speak with Mrs. Allan, and was directed to one of the wards. He passed a young man, looking no more than twenty, sitting in a wheelchair. The way the rug fell over his lap made it apparent he had only one leg.
Matthew did not want to look at it. He was twisted with pity, guilty for being able to stride out easily himself, and he was in a hurry. He was acutely aware that Joseph would have felt the same, and would have stopped. It often surprised him how much he missed Joseph. Since he had lived in London and Joseph in Cambridge, he had not expected to.
“Good afternoon,” he said with a smile. “Am I heading the right way for Ward Three?”
“Yes, sir,” the man assured him with a sudden light in his face. He looked at Matthew’s uniform but saw no regimental insignia on it. “Straight ahead.”
“Thanks,” Matthew acknowledged, and went the rest of the way and through the door. He saw Mary as soon as he was inside. She was wearing a gray skirt and blouse with a white apron over it, rather than the fashionable unrelieved black silk of mourning that he had last seen her in, but she was still gaunt-faced, her body almost fleshless, shoulders high and thin, backbone like a ramrod. She took no notice of him, concentrating on her task of rolling bandages. She was probably used to people coming and going in the ward.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Allan,” he said quietly, using her new name in order not to embarrass her. “Can you spare me a few minutes of your time?”
She stopped, her hands motionless, the bandage in the air. Very slowly she turned, but he knew that she had already recognized his voice. Her angular features were pinched with fear and her dark eyes shadowed. She stared at him without speaking.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Allan,” he repeated her new name to let her know he had no intention of ripping away the mask she had so carefully constructed. There was such tragedy between them, wounds for which healing could not be imagined. Both his parents were dead at her son’s hands, both her sons were guilty of murder and suicide, and the scandal had destroyed everything she cared about, and it was his brother who had exposed it. She had no dreams left, and the emptiness was there as she looked at him.
“I assume you have some reason, Captain Reavley,” she replied without expression in her voice.
“Maybe we could walk outside?” he suggested, glancing toward the door which opened onto a terrace and then the lawn where he could see at least half a dozen young men in chairs of one sort or another.
“If it is necessary,” she answered. She did not betray any interest in what he wanted, nor did she ask how any of his family were, although she must have known Joseph and Judith were both in Flanders, because it had been general knowledge in the area before she had left it.
He led the way, their footsteps hard on the wooden floor of the ward. He was aware of at least two men lying silently in beds watching them as they went.
Outside the air was mild and still, sheltered by the high walls covered with roses and honeysuckle, not yet in full leaf. The sky above was milky blue.
“What is it you wish?” she asked, stopping well short of any of the other occupants of the garden.
He had given a great deal of thought to what he would say to her, but nothing had ever been free from the desperate pain of the past. There was no clean or kind way of phrasing it. Perhaps simple was the best.
He had decided to tell her as much of the truth as he dared. She was owed that much, she had lost more than any of them, and he saw no added danger in it.
“Sebastian did not act alone,” he began. “Someone taught him ideas and beliefs, then told him what to do. He obeyed, thinking it would avert war. That person, apart from individual guilt for death in your family and mine, is also still free to commit treason and sabotage of England, and to help Germany in any way he can. Their motives don’t matter, they must still be prevented. I cannot ask official help in this because I don’t know whom I can trust.”
The faintest, most bitter humor touched her face for an instant, then vanished, her black eyebrows rising so slightly it could have been only a trick of the light. “And you imagine you can trust me?”
“I’ve told you little you don’t already know,” he replied. “Added to which, I’m at a dead end. I cannot believe that you have any kinder feelings toward this man than I do.”
The emotion was nowhere in her face except her eyes, suddenly sprung to smoldering life. “I would kill him if I could,” she replied. “I would like to do it with my own hands, and watch him go. I would like to see the knowledge in him, and the pain. I would make sure that he went slowly, and that he knew who I was.”
The implacable hate in her frightened him, but he did not doubt her words. He found his mouth dry. Could he ever hate like that? He had lost his parents, and the grief might never completely leave him, but their deaths had been swift and honorable. Both her sons, the passion and the hope of her life, had been turned into murderers, and died by suicide. And yet neither of them had been evil, he knew that as clearly as he saw the sunlight on the grass. They had been deceived and destroyed by others, and in the end, crucified by shame.
“Unfortunately I haven’t yet found him,” he said to her with a gentleness he was amazed that he could feel for her. She looked like some mythical fury rather than an ordinary twentieth-century woman standing on the lawn of a Brighton hospital. But then surely myth survived because it was a distillation of human truth? “You can help me,” he added.
“How?” she asked, looking at the wheelchair-bound soldiers, not at him.
“Who contacted Sebastian the afternoon before the crash in which my parents died? In any way, telephone, letter, personally, anything at all.”
“How excruciatingly delicate of you, Captain Reavley.” There was a hint of mockery in her voice. “You mean the day before Sebastian killed your mother and father!”
