minister if anything happens to me. But it is your safety I am concerned about, Reavley, because it is your skills that will unmask the man, if anyone can do it.”
“But why not reveal your suspicions now?” Matthew insisted.
Sandwell met Matthew’s eyes unflinchingly. “I would prefer you reach your own conclusions. You may see the same facts as I do, and place some different interpretation on them. But I am correct regarding the catastrophe about to happen on the Western Front when this court-martial takes place. Begin by looking at the record of the military prosecutor they have appointed to the case.”
“Yes, sir,” Matthew said very slowly, his mind grasping at sudden reality, a course to pursue. “I’ll begin immediately.” He rose to his feet.
“Reavley!” Sandwell stood up also. “Be careful! No one must know what you are doing, even in your own office. In fact”—he sighed—“especially in your own office.”
Now there was a chill in the room, in spite of the August closeness of the air. “I understand, sir.”
“Do you?” Sandwell questioned. “I hope for your sake, for your life’s sake, that you do.”
Matthew did precisely as Sandwell had warned him, and told no one that he was going back to see Mrs. Wheatcroft again. As before, he found himself obliged to use the weight of Sandwell’s name in order to be received.
He stood uncomfortably in the withdrawing room. The bay windows overlooked the immaculately groomed late summer garden.
Mrs. Wheatcroft entered with only the briefest acknowledgment of him. She stood pale and graceful in a long muslin dress.
“I don’t know how I can further assist you, Captain Reavley,” she said coldly. “If it were not that apparently you have some connection with Mr. Sandwell, I should not have seen you at all.”
“So much you made clear, Mrs. Wheatcroft,” he replied. “However, I assume that if there is a conspiracy to ruin your husband—and Mr. Corracher—in the interests of German victory, then you will be as keen as Mr. Sandwell and I are to uncover it.”
She bit her lip, momentarily confused. “Do you think it is such a thing? I had assumed it was simply Mr. Corracher’s greed, both for money and personal advancement.”
“Mr. Sandwell does,” Matthew answered. “If you doubt that, call him and ask. I understand you are acquainted with him?”
“Socially,” she said, the chill returning. “I would like to believe that I could trust an officer of our Intelligence Services, but if you wait here, I shall place a call to Mr. Sandwell. Then I shall consider what he advises.”
“An excellent idea.” He sat down in the armchair before she left the room. She saw his ease and her face tensed with disapproval at the liberty.
It was half an hour before she returned, looking considerably chastened. Now the hinted aggression was gone, replaced by fear, and for the first time she met his eyes candidly.
He had risen as she came in, but she waved him to sit down again, and sank into the chair opposite him, barely bothering to straighten her skirts.
“I apologize,” she said briefly. “Mr. Sandwell has advised me to tell you the absolute truth, so that is what I shall do.” She took a deep breath. “My husband had a weakness. I did not know it when I married him, but I learned it within the first few years. If you repeat this, I shall say you are a liar.” For an instant the defiance was back in her eyes.
“It is not in my interest to repeat it, Mrs. Wheatcroft,” he told her. “Nor to make judgments of him. I am happy to accept the story that he was no more than naive and unfortunate. What I do not accept is that Tom Corracher tried to extort money from him in exchange for silence on the matter. Nor do I believe that it was his own idea to put up that defense.” He was watching her closely, and saw the flicker in her eyes.
“His letter—” she began, then stopped abruptly.
Then he remembered the element that did not fit. It was a matter of timing. He was cold as the confusion fell apart, leaving the beginning of a picture even uglier.
“I read it,” he agreed. “He had obviously written something—the pen and ink were there, freshly spilled and blotted. But the letter I found was written days ago, before he knew about Marlowe being transferred.”
She looked confused. “Who’s Marlowe? What has that to do with Alan’s death?”
“Nothing. Marlowe was the man he thought would take over from him, but by the day before he died, when I saw him, he knew it was Jamieson.”
She stared at him, frightened and unable to hide it now.
“You destroyed his real letter, didn’t you?” he said grimly. “Because he admitted that Corracher was innocent, and he had accused him to save himself…and of course you. But he couldn’t live with the lie, and couldn’t face you if he told the truth.”
She drew her breath in sharply to protest, but the guilt was hot in her face and she saw no escape. There was something else in her eyes as well, an acid, corrosive hate.
He was glad to see it. It made it easier to crush her.
Something must have relaxed in him and looked to her like retreat.
“You can’t prove that,” she pointed out. “I burned his second letter, and he did write the first, just not then. He wrote several. It wasn’t hard to put one together. He always used the same ink and the same paper. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Whose idea was it, Mrs. Wheatcroft?”
“Mine!” she said quietly.
“If you had said it was his, I would not have believed you,” he told her. “You had to force him into it, if not for your sake personally, then for your sons.”
“If you like!” She had regained her composure. “But when Alan realized what his disgrace would do to them, he was willing.”
“I doubt it,” he said drily. “But it’s irrelevant now. It was the guilt of lying that killed him.”
“It was the guilt of being so unbelievably stupid!” she snapped.
“How did you know to blame Tom Corracher rather than anyone else?” He remembered Sandwell’s words about political ideology, and the Peacemaker’s plan behind the ruin of all four men.
For an instant she hesitated, then grasped after an answer. “That was Alan’s idea. I just said to think of someone.”
“Someone with the same political beliefs about the terms of any possible peace treaty with the Germans,” he elaborated.
Again there was confusion in her eyes, then a sudden new understanding. “They worked together. It made sense.”
She was guessing. Actually they had not worked together, simply held the same opinions. Someone else had suggested the idea of blaming Corracher to her. Perhaps she knew who it was and why. More probably she was simply a willing tool, caring only to save herself and her sons. Anyone would do as a sacrifice, and the larger cause was irrelevant.
“Was anyone else aware of this, Mrs. Wheatcroft?” he asked casually, as if it were no more than a passing thought.
Again the half-second’s hesitation, then she denied it. “No, of course not.”
He looked at her chiseled face. It was beautiful in a hard, brittle way, but without yielding, without forgiveness. Perhaps she was a knowing tool after all. In protecting her own, she was not open to the vulnerability of mercy or conscience.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wheatcroft.” He rose to his feet. “You have been most civil. I shan’t need to trouble you again.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “It would be courteous to say I regret that, Captain Reavley, but I do not. Good day.”
He also took Sandwell’s other piece of advice and made inquiries about the man who had been sent to prosecute the twelve soldiers accused of murdering Major Northrup. The answer that came back was exactly what Sandwell had warned. Faulkner was known to be a stickler for the law in every detail. He believed justice, and therefore society, was best served by following procedure to the letter. The innocent were protected by the unfailing punishment of the guilty, and there was no room for personal interpretation of the law.
