Asherson waited patiently. “Indeed? And you didn’t know that at the time?”
“We did, sir. But I have been asked by certain persons in authority”—he hoped Asherson’s Whitehall training in discretion was sufficient to keep him from asking who —“to pursue the matter again.”
“Oh.” Asherson’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, just a faint movement of muscles around the jaw, a thickening of the neck, so the stiff wing collar hugged the skin. “How can we help you?”
Interesting how he used the plural, making himself a representative of the office, not personally involved.
Pitt selected his words carefully. “Since the burglar chose the library and not one of the more obvious rooms, like the dining room, where the silver was, we have to consider that he may have been looking for documents, perhaps something Mr. York was working on at the time.”
Asherson was noncommittal. “Indeed?”
Pitt waited.
Asherson took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s possible— I mean, he may have hoped to find something. Does it help now? After all, it was three years ago.”
“We never abandon a murder case,” Pitt replied blandly. Yet they had buried this one after six fruitless months. Why had they opened it again now?
“No—no, of course,” Asherson conceded. “What can the Foreign Office do to assist you?”
Pitt decided to be blunt. He smiled very slightly, holding Asherson’s eye. “Has any information been missed from this office since Mr. York first came to work here? I appreciate that you may not be able to tell when it was taken, only when the discovery was made.”
Asherson hesitated. “You make us sound remarkably inefficient, Inspector. We do not mislay information; it is far too important.”
“So if information has reached unauthorized places, then it was deliberately given?” Pitt asked innocently.
Asherson breathed out slowly, grasping for time to think. Confusion was momentarily naked in his face. He did not know what Pitt was leading up to, nor why.
“There has been information ...” Pitt said gently, testing, making it something between a question and a statement.
Asherson affected immediate ignorance. “Has there? Then perhaps that was why poor Robert was murdered. If he took papers home with him, and somehow people got to know of it, a thief may have . . .” He left the rest unsaid.
“Then he could have taken such papers home on several occasions?” Pitt pursued. “Or are you suggesting it might have been only once, and by some extraordinary chance the thief chose the precise night?”
It was preposterous, and they both knew it.
“No, of course not.” Asherson smiled faintly. He was caught, but if he was resentful, he hid it superbly. “I really don’t know what happened, but if he was indiscreet, or had friends who were unworthy of his trust, it hardly matters now. The poor man is dead, and the information cannot have reached our enemies or we should have suffered for it by now. And we haven’t. That I can tell you with certainty. If there really were such an attempt, it was abortive. Can’t you leave his memory in peace—not to mention his family?”
Pitt stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Asherson. You have been most frank. Good day, sir.” And he left the uncertain- looking Asherson standing on the bright blue and vermillion Turkish carpet in the middle of the floor.
Back at Bow Street in the icy dusk, Pitt climbed the stairs to Ballarat’s office and knocked on the door. At the command he went in.
Ballarat was standing in front of the fire, blocking it. His room was quite different from the functional quarters of the lesser police on the beat, downstairs. The broad desk was inlaid with green leather, the chair behind it was padded and moved comfortably on a swivel. There was the stub of a cigar in the stone ashtray. Ballarat was of average height, portly, a trifle short in the leg. But his rich side whiskers were immaculately barbered and he smelled of cologne. His clothes were perfectly pressed, from his bright oxblood boots to the matching brown tie round his stiff white collar. He was the antithesis of the disheveled Pitt, whose every garment was at odds with another, pockets weighted down by nameless objects. Even now, a piece of string trailed from one, and a hand- knitted muffler half obscured his soft collar.
“Well?” Ballarat demanded irritably. “Close the door, man! I don’t want half the station listening. The matter is confidential, I told you that before. Well, what have you got?”
“Very little,” Pitt replied. “They were pretty thorough at the time.”
“I know that, damn it! I’ve read the papers on the case!” Ballarat pushed his short fingers further into his pockets, fists clenched. He rocked back and forth very slightly on the balls of his feet. “Was it a chance break-in? Some amateur who got caught in the act and panicked, killing young York instead of escaping like a professional? I’m sure any connection with the Foreign Office was coincidental. I have been told by the highest authority,” and he repeated the words, rolling them on his tongue, “the highest authority, that our enemies have no knowledge of the work York was engaged in.”
“More probably some friend of York’s who ran up a debt and turned his hand to burglary to try to get out of it,” Pitt answered frankly, and saw the look of displeasure on Ballarat’s face. “He knew where the first-edition Swift was.”
“Inside help,” Ballarat said immediately. “Bribed a servant.”
“Possibly. Assuming there was a servant who knew a first-edition Swift when she saw it. Not the sort of thing the Honorable Piers York would discuss with the tweeny.”
Ballarat opened his mouth to tell Pitt not to be sarcastic with him, then thought better of it and changed course. “Well, if it was one of their social acquaintances, you’d better be damn careful in your questions, Pitt! This is a very delicate investigation we’ve been entrusted with. A careless word and you could ruin reputations—not to mention your own career.” He looked increasingly uncomfortable, his face flushed to a dull purplish hue. “All the Foreign Office wants us to establish is that there was nothing—untoward, nothing unseemly in Mrs. York’s conduct. It is no part of your business to blacken the name of a dead man, an honorable man who gave distinguished service to his queen and to his country.”
