“Probably,” he agreed. “But I am not yet prepared to ask the man to do that until I can see beyond doubt that he has any guilt in Lovat’s death.” There was dismissal in his tone and in the rigid set of his shoulders, the light from the narrow window on his dark head. “Report to me tomorrow,” he said finally. He swung around just as Pitt reached the door.
“Pitt!”
“Yes, sir?”
“I accepted you into Special Branch because Cornwallis told me that you were his best detective and that you know society. You know how to tread carefully but still find the truth.” It was a statement, but it was also a question, even a plea. For an instant, Pitt felt as if Narraway were asking for help in some way which he could not name or explain.
Then the impression vanished.
“Get on with it,” Narraway ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Pitt said again, then left, and closed the door behind him.
He went straight to the offices where Lovat had worked for the year or so before his death. Naturally the police had already been there. The information was so public it had been printed in Lovat’s obituary, so when Pitt arrived he was received with weary resignation by Ragnall, an official in his early forties who had obviously already answered all the predictable questions.
Ragnall stood in the quiet, discreetly furnished office overlooking Horse Guards Parade and regarded Pitt patiently but with very little interest.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” he said, gesturing for Pitt to sit down in the armchair opposite the desk. “I can offer no explanation except the obvious one-he pestered the woman until she grew desperate and shot him… either in what she construed to be self-defense or more likely because he threatened to disrupt her present arrangements.” A slight expression of distaste crossed his face. “And before you ask me, I have no idea what they might be.”
Pitt had little hope of learning much from the interview, but he had no better place to begin. He settled into the chair and looked across at Mr. Ragnall.
“You think he may have pestered Miss Zakhari to the point that she felt a simple rebuff was not adequate to make him desist?” he asked.
Ragnall looked surprised. “Well, it seems to have been the case, doesn’t it? Are you suggesting that she deliberately encouraged him, for some reason, and then killed him? Why, for heaven’s sake? Why would any woman do such a thing?” He frowned. “You said you were from Special Branch…”
“Special Branch has no knowledge of Miss Zakhari prior to the death of Mr. Lovat,” Pitt answered the implied question. “I wanted your judgment of Mr. Lovat as a man who would continue to pursue a woman who has told him that she has no desire for his attentions.”
Ragnall looked very faintly uncomfortable. His smooth, rather good-looking face flushed, so slightly it could have been no more than a change of the light, except that he had not moved.
“I suppose I am saying that-yes.” He made it sound like an apology. “I believe Miss Zakhari is very beautiful. At least that is what I have heard. One can become… obsessed.” He pursed his lips, giving himself a moment to seek exactly the right words to make Pitt understand. “She is Egyptian. There are unlikely to be many other Egyptian women in London. It is not as if she were ordinary, and easily replaceable. Some men are attracted to the exotic.”
“You saw Mr. Lovat regularly.” Pitt too was feeling his way. “Did you gather the impression that he was ’obsessed,’ as you put it?”
“Well…” Ragnall drew in his breath and then let it out again.
“Your protection of his reputation may condemn another man,” Pitt said grimly.
Ragnall looked puzzled for a moment.
“Another man?” Then his confusion cleared. “Oh… this nonsense in the newspapers about Ryerson? Surely it’s just…” He opened his palms to indicate a helplessness to describe exactly what he was thinking.
“I hope so,” Pitt agreed. “Was Lovat obsessed with her?”
“I… I really have no idea.” Ragnall was obviously uncomfortable. “I never knew of him being serious about a woman… at least for more than a short time. He…” Now there was distinct color in his face. “He seemed to find it rather easy to attract women and then… move on.”
“He had many affairs?” Pitt concluded.
“Yes… yes, I’m afraid he did. He was usually reasonably discreet, of course. But one does get to know.” Ragnall was acutely aware of discussing intimate subjects with a social inferior. Pitt had placed him in the position of betraying his own class, or his ethics. Either would be hard and cut across his deep convictions as to who and what he wished to be.
“With what sort of women?” Pitt asked, his voice still light and courteous.
Ragnall’s eyes widened.
Pitt maintained his steady gaze. “Mr. Lovat has been murdered, sir,” he reminded him. “I am afraid the reasons for such a crime are not often as simple as we should like, or as far from shame. I need to know more about Mr. Lovat and the people he knew well.”
“Surely the Egyptian woman, Miss Zakhari, killed him?” Ragnall said, his composure regained. “He may have been foolish in pursuing her when his attentions would seem to have been unwelcome, but there is no need to drag anyone else into it, is there?” He regarded Pitt with a look of distaste.
“It appears as though she did,” Pitt conceded. “Although she denies it. And as you say, it seems an extremely violent and unnecessary way to refuse an unwanted suitor. From what I have heard of her so far, she was a woman of more finesse. She must have had unwanted suitors before. Why was Lovat different?”
Ragnall’s face tightened, and there was a dull color in his cheeks again and a stiffness in his manner. “You are right,” he said grudgingly. “If she made her living that way, and I had assumed such was the case, then she must have been better at discarding the old, in order to improve her situation, than this would suggest.”
“Exactly,” Pitt agreed with feeling. For the first time a point had been made in Ayesha Zakhari’s favor. He was startled by how much it pleased him. “What was Lovat like? And you are not giving his obituary. Only the truth can be fair to all.”
Ragnall thought for several moments. “Frankly, he was a womanizer,” he said reluctantly.
“He liked women?” Pitt attempted to reach after exactly what Ragnall meant. “He fell in love? He used them? Might he have made enemies?”
Ragnall was distinctly unhappy. “I… I really don’t know.”
“What gives you the impression that he was a womanizer, sir?” Pitt said bluntly. “Men have been known to exaggerate their conquests to impress others. A lot of loose talk does not necessarily mean anything.”
A flick of temper crossed Ragnall’s face. “Lovat didn’t talk, Mr. Pitt, at least not that I heard. It is my own observation, and that of colleagues.”
“What sort of women?” Pitt repeated. “Ones like Ayesha Zakhari?”
Ragnall was slightly taken aback. “You mean foreigners? Or…” He did not wish to use the word
“I meant women who have no husbands or families in London,” Pitt corrected. “And who are past the usual age of marrying, possibly who make their way as mistresses.”
Ragnall took a deep breath, as if reaching a decision that was difficult for him.
Pitt waited. Perhaps finally he was on the brink of something that did not implicate Ryerson.
“No,” Ragnall said at last. “I gathered he did not particularly care, and… and he had not the means to support a mistress, not in any style.” He stopped, still reluctant to commit himself any further.
Pitt stared at him. “Other men’s wives? Their daughters?”
Ragnall cleared his throat. “Yes… at times.”
“Who were his friends?” Pitt asked. “What clubs did he belong to? What were his interests, sports? Did he gamble, go to the theater? What did he do in his leisure time?”
Ragnall hesitated.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Pitt warned. “The man was in the diplomatic service. You could not allow yourself to be unaware of his habits. That would be incompetent. You must know his associates, his problems, his
