days. I don’t understand it, but someone has obviously changed their views and is now entirely for Jack; or to be more exact, against Mr. Uttley.”
“How odd,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “There must be some reason for it.”
“Well Jack has not joined the Inner Circle, if that’s what you are thinking,” Emily said fiercely. “I will swear to that.”
“Of course not, I had not doubted it,” Charlotte said soothingly. “But it does not mean that this change has nothing to do with the Inner Circle. They may have their own reasons.”
“Why? Jack won’t give them anything.”
“That is not what I meant.” Charlotte drew a deep breath. “Uttley has been attacking the police. Do you not think it is possible that there are those in the police who are high in the Inner Circle too, and Uttley was foolish enough not to realize it?”
“Oh! Like the assistant commissioner, perhaps?” Emily looked startled and, just for a moment, disbelieving.
“Micah Drummond was,” Charlotte reminded her.
“Yes, but that was different. He didn’t use it.” Emily stopped suddenly. “Yes I see. That was silly. It doesn’t mean Giles Farnsworth wouldn’t. He will call on the right people in order to defend himself. Of course he would.”
“Quite apart from that,” Charlotte went on, “we don’t know who else is.”
“What do you mean?” Emily demanded. “Who are you thinking of?”
“Anyone,” Charlotte replied. “The Home Secretary, for all we know. That’s the whole thing about the Inner Circle, we don’t know. We don’t know whose loyalties are where. There can be alliances you never even imagined.”
Emily looked at her, now very grave. “So Uttley may have defeated himself by attacking the police? Wouldn’t he have known the dangers of that?”
“Not if he didn’t know Farnsworth was a member, assuming it is Farnsworth. And if they were in different rings. But it was stupid of him not to have considered the possibility.”
Emily frowned. “He must have thought he was safe. Charlotte—could there be a—rivalry within the Circle? Do such things happen?”
“I suppose so. Or perhaps it is so secret Uttley really did not know,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “According to Micah Drummond, he knew only a few other members, those of his own ring. It’s a sort of protection. Only the senior members know all the other names. Then no one who becomes disaffected can betray the others.”
“Then how do they know who is and who isn’t?” Emily asked reasonably.
“I think they have signs,” Charlotte replied. “Secret ways to recognize each other if they have to.”
“How incredibly silly,” Emily said with a smile. Then suddenly she shivered. “I hate things like that. Imagine the power those at the heart must have. They have all that blind loyalty—hundreds, maybe thousands, of men in positions of authority all over the country, all promised to give their allegiance without question, often without knowing to whom or even in what cause.”
“They can go for years without being asked to do anything,” Charlotte pointed out. “I expect most of them never are. When Micah Drummond joined he thought it was only a nice, anonymous, benevolent society, giving time and money in charitable causes. It wasn’t until the murder in Clerkenwell, when he was asked to help Lord Byam, that he began to understand just what the price was, or to wonder how much of his own preferment had come because of his membership. Maybe Uttley was the same.”
“Innocent?” Emily said doubtfully. “I can believe it of Micah Drummond. He really is rather … naive. Men trust people no woman in her right mind would dream of trusting with a thing. But Uttley is devious himself, and brilliantly ambitious. People who use others expect them to try the same.” Then as she considered the idea it became more and more likely in her mind. “Not a very pleasant man, ready enough to grasp at any advantage, but without understanding what a vast and dangerous thing he was playing with?” She shivered again, in spite of the sun that danced on the sill. “I could almost feel sorry for him—but not quite.”
“I would save your pity until the end,” Charlotte warned.
Emily looked at her. “Are you afraid?”
“Only a little. I wish I thought they were protecting the police for some honorable reason, but I think it is because someone higher in the Circle than Uttley is on the force—maybe the assistant commissioner, but it could be anyone.”
Emily sighed. “And I suppose Thomas is no nearer to finding the Hyde Park Headsman?”
“Not so far as I know.”
“And we are not doing very much, are we?” Emily said critically. “I wish I could think of something!”
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Charlotte was growing more despondent. “It isn’t as if we had the faintest idea who it could be. It isn’t really—” She stopped.
“Very interesting,” Emily finished for her. “Because we don’t know the people. Madness is frightening, and sad, but really not …”
“Interesting.” Charlotte smiled bleakly.
Pitt redoubled his efforts to find some link, however tenuous, between Winthrop and Aidan Arledge. In this endeavor he went again to see Arledge’s widow. She received him with the same charming courtesy as previously, but he was saddened to find her looking weary and anxious. In spite of the shock she must have been suffering when they first met, there had been a bloom in her face. It was gone now, as if the long days and nights had drained her. She was still dressed carefully, her sweeping, feminine black relieved by delicate touches of lace and the same beautiful mourning brooch and ring.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a wan smile. “Have you come to report some further discovery?” She said it without hope in her voice, but her eyes, hollowed with shock, searched his face.
