“Don’t know what was wrong with him,” an elderly gentleman said sadly, shaking his head as he sat opposite Pitt in the Army and Navy Club in Pall Mall that evening, sipping a Napoleon brandy, his feet stretched out against the fender, scorching the soles of his boots. “Any amount of agreeable young women who would have made a decent wife. But the moment he looked as if he’d a chance of their hand, he got bored, or dissatisfied, or whatever it was… cold feet, I daresay… and went after someone else.” He pushed out his lower lip in a grimace. “None too particular about who he chose either. Morals of an alley cat, sorry to say.”
Pitt inched a little farther from the fire, which was burning with a brilliant glow and far more heat than was needed on a mild September day. Colonel Woodside seemed to be oblivious to it, and to the hot smell emanating from his boots.
“Did you know the Egyptian woman, Miss Zakhari?” Pitt asked, uncertain whether the colonel would consider that an improper question to a gentleman.
“Of course I didn’t know her!” Woodside said testily. “And if I had, I’d not be likely to own it to the likes of you! But I saw her, certainly. Beautiful creature, quite beautiful. Never seen an Englishwoman walk with a grace like that. Moved like weeds in the water… sort of… fluid…” He held up his hand as if to demonstrate, then stopped abruptly and glared at Pitt. “If you want me to say Lovat pestered her… I can’t! I’ve no idea. A man doesn’t do that sort of thing in public.”
Pitt changed direction. “Did Mr. Lovat know Mr. Ryerson?” he asked.
“No idea! Shouldn’t think so. Damn!” Colonel Woodside jerked his feet off the fender, put them down on the floor, then took them up again even more quickly, and with a grimace.
Pitt kept his face perfectly straight, but with difficulty.
“Hardly frequent the same places,” Woodside added, crossing his ankles gingerly to keep the soles of both feet off the floor. “Generation between them, not to mention status, money, and taste. You’re thinking about the woman? For God’s sake, man! Beautiful, but no better than she should be. Neither man’s going to marry her. Of course she’d choose Ryerson.” He looked across at Pitt with a frown. “He’s got wealth, position, reputation, polish. Apart from that, he has a charm young Lovat could never achieve. And heaven knows why he never married after his wife was killed… bad business, that… but he won’t do now. I daresay an heiress could pick and choose a lot better.” He gave a little grunt. “Still, Egyptian women might not know that. Much wiser to play it safe.”
“You don’t think Ryerson would consider marrying her?” Pitt asked, more to see Woodside’s reaction than because he expected a possible answer in the affirmative. He was so touched by a sense of pity for her that it was not even a real question. She was to be used, enjoyed, but never even considered as belonging. There were millions like that, for all sorts of reasons, money, appearance, things they could not change, but it still made him angry. He knew what it was like to be excluded, even if it had not happened to him very often.
Woodside stared at his feet. “Ryerson never got over the death of his wife. Don’t really know why. Takes some men that way, but I hadn’t thought he was one of them. Never seemed that close, but I suppose you can’t tell. Pretty woman, but restless, always looking for some new taste or experience. Couldn’t be bothered with her, myself. Don’t mind a woman with no brains-easier sometimes-but no patience with one who’s downright silly.”
Pitt was surprised. He had not imagined Saville Ryerson falling in love with a woman who was markedly unintelligent. He tried to visualize her, the kind of beauty or demureness she must have possessed to capture his emotions to the degree that a quarter of a century after her death he was still mourning her too profoundly to marry again.
“Was she so very…” he began, then found that he did not know how he intended to finish.
“No idea,” Woodside said unhelpfully. “Never understood Ryerson. Brilliant chap, at times, but devil of a temper when he was young. Only a fool would cross him, I’ll tell you that!”
Again, Pitt was slightly taken aback. This was not the man he had observed a couple of days ago-calm, self- controlled, concerned only for the woman.
Had he lost all his ability to judge? Was it possible that Ryerson had shot Lovat himself, in a fit of jealousy, and the woman was shouldering the blame? Why? For love, or in some mistaken belief that he would, or even could, protect her?
“Changed, of course,” Woodside went on thoughtfully, still looking at his feet as if afraid he might actually have scorched the leather of his boots. “God knows, with the government he’s had enough to test any man’s temper over the years. Lonely thing for a man, command, and politicians are a treacherous lot, if you ask me.” He looked up suddenly. “Sorry I can’t help. No idea who shot Lovat, or why.”
Pitt realized it was a dismissal, and he rose to his feet. “Thank you for giving me your time, sir. I’m much obliged to you.”
Woodside waved his hand and turned his feet back to the fire.
Pitt went to Ryerson’s office in Westminster and requested permission to speak to him for a few minutes. He had waited rather less than half an hour when a secretary in a high wing collar and pin-striped trousers came to collect him and show him in. Pitt was surprised it had taken so short a time.
Ryerson received him in a room of somber opulence, leather-covered furniture, old wood with a polish so deep it seemed like satin beneath glass. There were shelves of morocco-bound books with gold lettering and windows looking out onto the slowly fading leaves of a lime tree.
Ryerson looked tired, dark smudges around his eyes, and his hands constantly fiddled with an unlit cigar.
“What have you found?” he said as soon as Pitt had closed the door, and even before he sat down in the chair Ryerson gestured towards, although remaining standing himself.
Pitt sat down obediently. “Only that Lovat apparently had affairs with many women and no loyalty to any,” he replied. “He seems to have hurt many people, some deeply. There is a trail of unhappiness behind him.” He watched Ryerson quite openly, but he saw no flicker of either anger or surprise in his face. It was as if Lovat personally did not matter to him.
“Unpleasant,” he said with a frown. “But regrettably not unique. What are you suggesting? That some wronged husband could have shot him?” He bit his lip, as if to stop himself from laughing, however bitterly. “That’s absurd, Pitt. I wish I could believe it, but what was this wronged man doing at Eden Lodge at three in the morning? What kind of women did Lovat pursue? Ladies? Parlor maids? Prostitutes?”
“Ladies, so far as I have heard,” Pitt replied. “Young and unmarried.” He did not take his eyes from Ryerson’s face and saw the distaste in it. “The sort of women whom scandal would ruin,” he added unnecessarily. His remark was driven by anger, not reason.
Ryerson finally threw his cigar into the fireplace, just missing and hearing it strike the brass surround with a thud. He ignored it. “And are you suggesting that the father of one of these women spent the night following Lovat until he caught up with him in the shrubbery of Eden Lodge, and then shot him? You have conducted many investigations of murder which have sooner or later led you to the withdrawing rooms of the aristocracy. You know better than to make such a preposterous suggestion.” He looked closely at Pitt, as if to read some motive beyond the apparent absurdity. There was no contempt in his stare, only puzzlement and, very close beneath it, fear, real and biting deep.
Pitt realized something else also, with a sudden lurch of surprise, then instantly knew that he should have expected it.
“You have been enquiring about me!”
Ryerson shrugged very slightly. “Of course. I cannot afford less than the best. Cornwallis tells me you are the best.” He did not make it a question, but there was a very slight lift in his voice as if he wanted Pitt to confirm it for him, assure him he had done everything he could.
Pitt was disconcerted to find himself embarrassed. He was angry with Cornwallis, although he knew he would have spoken only with honesty; Cornwallis had probably never lied in his life. His transparency was both his greatest virtue, along with his moral and physical courage, and at the same time his most acute disadvantage in the politics of police administration.
He was utterly unlike Victor Narraway, who was the ultimate sophisticate in subtlety, the art of deceiving without lies, and of keeping his own counsel in everything. If he had any vulnerabilities at all, Pitt had not seen them. He understood emotion in others, but Pitt had no feeling that it was other than with the brilliance of his intellect, his power of observation and deduction. He could not even guess at what Narraway felt himself, or if he felt anything at all, if he had unfilled dreams anywhere in the secret recesses of his heart, wounds unhealed or fears that drowned his solitary moments awake in the night.
Ryerson was watching Pitt now, waiting for some reply.
