know what had happened-and who would repeat it. It has been a charming afternoon. Good day to you.' And as the maid opened the door in answer to the bell, she swept past her, across the hall, and out of the front door as soon as it was opened. Outside in the street she swore fluently in a dialect she had learned from a canoeist in the Congo. She had achieved nothing to help Florence Ivory, or Africa Dowell.
Vespasia had by far the easiest task, but she was also the only person suited to perform it with excellence. She knew the political world as neither Charlotte nor Zenobia could possibly do; she had the rank and the reputation to approach almost anyone, and from her many battles for social reform she had gained the experience to know very well when she was being lied to or fobbed off with an edited version of the truth suitable for ladies and amateurs.
She was fortunate to find Somerset Carlisle at home, but had he been out she would have waited. The matter was far too urgent to put
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she could think of was that they should try to discover the truth as soon as they could. There was the remote possibility that they would find some other solution; if not, they would at least end Zenobia's fearful suspense, the swings between the upsurge of hope and the plunges of cold despair as one piece of information surfaced after another. And as hard as any revelation was the gray silence of waiting, not knowing what could happen next, imagining, trying to argue in the mind what the police would be thinking.
Vespasia had experienced it all after George's death and she knew what Zenobia would feel with an immediacy no outsider could.
Therefore she did not have the slightest qualm in sending for Charlotte and dispatching her on any errand that might prove useful. She would have sent Emily as well had she not been gallivanting round Italy. And she was perfectly happy to take up Somerset Carlisle's time and employ
He received her in his study. It was a smaller room than the withdrawing room, but immensely comfortable, full of old leather and old finely polished wood reflecting the firelight. The big desk was strewn with papers and open books, and there were three pens in the stand and half a stick of sealing wax and a scatter of unused postage stamps.
Somerset Carlisle was a man in his late forties, lean, with the look of one who has burnt up all his excesses of energy in relentless activity, a face where emotion and irony lay so close to the surface that only years of schooling kept them within the bounds of taste, not because he feared or believed the doctrine of others, but because he knew the impractical-ity of shocking people. However, as Vespasia knew very well from the past, his imagination was vivid and limitless, and he was equal to any act, no matter how bizarre, if he believed it right.
He was startled to see her, and immediately curious. A lady of her quality would never have called unannounced
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unless her reason were pressing; knowing Vespasia, it had probably to do with crime or injustice, about which she felt intensely.
He rose as soon as she came in, inadvertently spilling a pile of letters, which he ignored.
'Lady Cumming-Gould! It is always a pleasure to see you. But no doubt you have come for something more than friendship. Please sit down.' He rapidly pushed a great long-legged marmalade cat out of the other chair and brushed off the seat with his hand, plumping up the cushion for her. 'Shall I send for tea?'
'Later perhaps,' she replied. 'For the moment I need your assistance.'
'Of course. With what?'
The marmalade cat stalked over to the desk, jumped up onto it, and tried to climb behind a pile of books, not in alarm but from curiosity.
''Hamish!'' Carlisle said absently. 'Get down, you fool!'' He turned back to Vespasia, and the cat ignored him. 'Something has happened?'
'Indeed it has,' she agreed, remembering with a sharply sweet sense of comfort how much she liked this man. 'Two members of Parliament have had their throats cut on Westminster Bridge.'
