question.
She looked at his face in the unforgiving sunlight. It found every flaw, every trace left by passion, temper, or pain. How much had it hurt him that Adinett had hanged? She had heard a raw note of rage when he had spoken at the reception, before the appeal. And yet he had been one of the judges who had been of the majority opinion, for conviction. But since it had been four to one, had he voted against, it would have betrayed his loyalty without altering the outcome. That must have galled him to the soul!
Was he driven by personal friendship or political passion? Or simply a belief in John Adinett’s innocence? The prosecution had never been able even to suggest a motive for murder, let alone prove one.
“Of course,” she replied noncommittally. “Part of the nature of one’s joy in summer’s fleeting beauty is the knowledge that it will pass too soon, and the certainty that it will come again, even if we will not all see it.”
He was watching her intently now, all pretense of casual politeness gone. “We do not all see it now, Lady Vespasia.”
She thought of Pitt in Spitalfields, and Adinett in his grave, and the unnamed millions who did not stand amid the flowers in the sun. There was no time to play.
“Very few of us do, Mr. Voisey,” she agreed. “But at least it exists, and that is hopeful. Better flowers bloom for a few than not at all.”
“As long as we are of the few!” he returned instantly, and this time there was no disguising the bitterness in his face.
She smiled very slowly; there was no anger in her for his rudeness. It had been an accusation.
Doubt flickered in his eyes that perhaps he had made an error. She had wished him to show his hand, and he had done so. It cost him an effort; he was not a man who smiled superficially, but his face relaxed now, and he smiled at her widely, showing excellent teeth.
“Of course, or how else would we speak of them, except in dream? But I know you have worked for reforms, as I have, and injustice outrages you also.”
Now she was uncertain. He was not an easy man, but perhaps it was a rare integrity which made him so. It was not impossible.
Had Adinett killed Martin Fetters to prevent a republican revolution in England? That was a very different thing from reform by changing the law, by persuasion of the people who had the power to act.
She smiled back at him, and this time she meant it.
A moment later they were joined by Lord Randolph Churchill, and the conversation was no longer personal. With an election so close, naturally politics arose: Gladstone and the whole troubled issue of Irish Home Rule, the rise of anarchy across Europe, and dynamiters here in London.
“The whole East End is like a powder keg,” Churchill said softly to Voisey, apparently having forgotten Vespasia was still within earshot. “It will only take the right spark and it will all go up!”
“What are you doing?” Voisey asked, his voice full of concern, his brow puckered.
“I need to know who I can trust and who I can’t,” Churchill replied bitterly.
A cautious expression flickered in Voisey’s face. “You need the Queen to come out of seclusion and start pleasing the public again, and the Prince of Wales to pay his debts and stop living as if there were no tomorrow-and no reckoning.”
“Given all that I shouldn’t have a problem,” Churchill rejoined. “I knew Warren, and Abberline to a degree, but I’m not sure of Narraway. Clever, certainly, but I don’t know where his loyalties are, if it comes to it!”
Voisey smiled.
A group of young women passed, laughing together, glancing sideways and hastily composing themselves to a more decorous manner. They were pretty, fair-skinned and blemishless, dressed in pastel laces and muslin, skirts swirling.
Vespasia had no hunger to be their age again, for all its hope and innocence. Her life had been rich, her regrets were few; there had been an act of selfishness or stupidity here and there, but never for anything she had failed to grasp, nothing flinched from out of cowardice-although perhaps there should have been.
She did not find Somerset Carlisle and was conscious of a feeling of disappointment, suddenly aware that she had been standing a long time. She was about to excuse herself and leave when she was aware of hearing Churchill’s voice again just beyond a rose arbor. He was speaking hurriedly, and she could barely distinguish the words.
“… refer to it again! It has been dealt with. It won’t happen again.”
“It had damned well better not!” another voice said in hardly more than a whisper, the emotion in it so intense the voice was unrecognizable. “Another conspiracy like that could mean the end-and I don’t say that lightly!”
“They’re all dead, God help us,” Churchill replied hoarsely. “What did you think we were going to do-pay blackmail? And where do you imagine the end of that would be?”
“In the grave,” came the response. “Where it belongs.”
At last Vespasia turned away. She had no idea of the meaning of what she had overheard.
Ahead of her, Lady Weston was telling an admirer about Oscar Wilde’s latest play,
Vespasia moved out into the sunlight and joined them, for once actually intruding into someone else’s conversation. It was sane, trivial, funny, and she desperately needed to be part of it. It was brightly glittering and familiar. She would hold on to it as long as she could.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tellman was stretched to the end of his patience, trying to keep his attention on the string of burglaries that had been assigned to him. All the time he was asking questions, looking at pictures of jewelry, his mind was on Pitt in Spitalfields, and what Adinett had been doing in Cleveland Street that could possibly have been of such intense interest to Lyndon Remus.
His intelligence told him that if he did not apply his mind to the problem of the robberies he would not solve them, and that would do nothing but add to his troubles. Nevertheless his imagination wandered, and completely uncharacteristically, as soon as the hour came when he could excuse himself from duty for the day, he did so. Without waiting for a word from anyone, he left Bow Street and started making serious enquiries as to the habits of Remus: where he lived, where he ate, which public houses he frequented and to whom he sold the majority of his stories. That pattern had changed over the last year or so, there being a steady increase in the number sold to Thorold Dismore, until over the months of May and June it had been almost exclusively so.
It took him until nearly midnight, after the public houses closed, before he had sufficient information to feel he could find Remus when he wanted him. He would lie to his immediate superior in the morning, a thing he had never done before. There was no evasion that would cover the situation, or his driving need to follow this far more urgent mystery. He would have to find an excuse later, if he were caught.
He slept badly, even though his bed was comfortable enough. He woke early, partly because his mind was teeming with ideas about all manner of personal vices or secrets that Adinett might have found in Mile End, and over which Martin Fetters had in some way threatened him. Nothing he thought of seemed to match his impression of the small tobacconist’s shop on such an ordinary street.
He had a quick cup of tea in the kitchen and bought a sandwich from the first peddler he passed as he hurried to the corner opposite Remus’s lodgings so he could follow him wherever he might go.
He had nearly two hours to wait, and was angry and miserable by the time Remus finally emerged looking freshly shaved, clean white collar high around his neck, and stiff enough to be uncomfortable. His hair was brushed back, still damp, and his face was sharp and eager as he walked rapidly within a few yards of Tellman, who was standing head down in the arch of a doorway. Remus was obviously intent upon where he was going and all but oblivious to anyone else on the footpath.
Tellman turned and followed him some fifteen yards behind, but prepared to move closer if the streets should become more crowded and he was faced with the prospect of losing him.
Half a mile later he had to sprint and only just caught the same omnibus, where he collapsed in a seat next to a fat man in a striped coat who looked at him with amusement. Tellman gasped for breath and cursed his
