such a thing. 'Thomas says they have done everything they can to discover a conspiracy of any political or revolutionary nature, and they can find nothing whatsoever. Indeed, it seems hard to imagine any political end that would be served by such acts, unaccompanied by any demand for change or reform. Except, of course, anarchy-which seems to me to be something of a lunatic idea anyway. Who can possibly benefit from that?'
Vespasia looked at her with impatience. 'My dear girl, if you imagine that all political aims owe either their conception or their execution to unadulterated sanity, then you are more naive than I had supposed!'
Charlotte felt the color climb in her cheeks. Perhaps she was naive. She certainly had not mixed in the circles of government that Vespasia had, nor heard the private dreams of those who wielded power, or aspired to. She had indeed imagined them to have a degree of common sense, which on consideration might well be an unfounded conclusion.
'Sometimes those who cannot create enjoy the power to destroy,' Vespasia went on. 'It is all they have. After all, what else is much of violence? Think back on the crimes you yourself have helped to solve. Look at most domination of one person over another: the fishwife or the washerwoman could have told such people that it would not produce the admiration or the love or the peace they desired, but one hears what one wishes to.'
' 'But anarchists are noisy, Aunt Vespasia. They don't want anarchy alone! And Thomas says the police are aware of a great many of them, and none seems to have been involved with the Westminster Bridge murders. After all, there is no political power in anonymous acts, is there! One has to own up to them at some point in order to reap the reward.''
'One would presume so,' Vespasia agreed, part of her 209
reluctant to let go of the idea of some unknown assailant lashing out wildly for a cause. It was less ugly to her than the possibility of a friend, even a relative of the intended victim prepared to murder three people in order to mask the one murder that might implicate them. 'Is it possible there is some connection between the three that we have not thought of?' she pressed.
'They are all M.P.s,' Charlotte said bleakly. 'Thomas has not been able to discover anything further. They have no business connections, they are not related, they are not in line for any one position, for that matter they are not even of the same party! Two are Liberal, one Tory. And they have no political or social opinions in common, not even regarding Irish Home Rule, Penal Reform, Industrial or Poor Law Reform-nothing, except that they are all against extending the electoral franchise to women.'
'So are most people.' Vespasia's face was pale, but sixty years' training showed in her hands, resting elegantly in her lap over the wisp of her lace handkerchief. 'Anyone planning to kill members of Parliament for that reason is going to decimate both houses.'
'If it is personal, then we had better begin to consider very seriously who might have motive,' Charlotte said gently. 'And pursue them in ways that would be impossible for Thomas. I have already made the acquaintance of Lady Hamilton, and although I find it hard to believe it was she, there may be some connection.' She sighed with unhappy memories. 'And of course sometimes the truth is hard to believe. People you have liked, still do like, can have agonies you never conceived, fears that haunted them until they escaped all reason and turned to violence, or old wounds so terrible they cannot leave them behind. Revenge obsesses them beyond everything else-love, safety, even sanity.'
Vespasia did not reply; perhaps she was thinking of the same people, or at least one of them, for whom she too had cared.
210
'And there is young Barclay Hamilton,' Charlotte said. 'Although there seems to be a profound emotion troubling him regarding his father's second marriage, I don't know wha^ should lead him to murder.'
'Nor I,' Vespasia conceded quietly, a weariness in her that she overcame with difficulty.' 'What of Etheridge? There is a great deal of money.''
'James Carfax,' Charlotte replied. 'Either he himself, or his wife, in order to keep him from going to other women, or even leaving her altogether.'
'How tragic,' Vespasia sighed. 'Poor creature. What a terrible price to pay for something that is in the end merely an illusion, and one that will not remain for long. She will have destroyed herself to no purpose.'
'Or if indeed he has had other relationships,' Charlotte said, thinking aloud, 'some other love, or infatuation, perhaps ...' she trailed off.
'Quite possibly he had
