Vespasia looked puzzled. “And who said Jean Jaures was coming?”
“One of the innkeepers, I think. The men in the cafe were talking about it.”
“You think? A name like Jaures is mentioned and you don’t remember by whom?” she said incredulously.
Again he was struck by his own foolishness. How easily he was duped. He had not heard it himself, Gower had told him. He admitted it to Vespasia.
“Did he mention Rosa Luxemburg?” she asked with a slight frown.
“Yes, but not that she was coming to St. Malo.”
“But he mentioned her name?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Jean Jaures is a passionate socialist, but a gentle man,” she explained. “He was campaigner for reform. He sought office, and on occasion gained it, but he fights for change, not for overthrow. As far as I know, he is content to keep his efforts within France. Rosa Luxemburg is different. She is Polish, now naturalized German, and of a much more international cast of mind. I have Russian emigre friends who fear that one day she will cause real violence. In some places I’m afraid real violence is almost bound to happen. The oppression in Russia will end in tragedy.”
“Stretching as far as Britain?” he said dubiously.
“No, only insofar as the world is sometimes a far smaller place than we think. There will be refugees, however. Indeed, London is already full of them.”
“What did Gower want?” he asked. “Why did he kill West? Was West going to tell me Gower was a traitor?”
“Perhaps. But I admit, none of it makes sufficient sense to me so far, unless there is something a great deal larger than a few changes in the laws for French workers, or a rising unease in Germany and Russia. None of this is new, and none of it worries Special Branch unduly.”
“I wish Narraway were here,” he said with intense feeling. “I don’t know enough for this job. He should have left it with Austwick—unless he knows Austwick is a traitor too?”
“I imagine that is possible.” She was still lost in thought. “And if Victor is innocent, which I do not doubt, then there was a very clever and carefully thought-out plan to get both you and him out of London. Why can we not deduce what it is, and why?”
PITT WENT TO HIS office in Lisson Grove, aware as he walked along the corridors of the eyes of the other men on him, watching, waiting: Austwick particularly.
“Good morning,” Austwick said, apparently forgetting the
“Good morning, Austwick,” Pitt replied a little tartly, not looking at him but going on until he reached Narraway’s office door. He realized he still thought of it as Narraway’s, just as he still thought of the position as his.
He opened the door and went inside. There was nothing of Pitt’s here yet—no pictures, no books—but Narraway’s things were returned, as if he were still expecting the man himself to come back. When that happened he would not have to pretend to be pleased, and it would not be entirely for unselfish reasons either. He cared for Narraway, and he had at least some idea of how much the job meant to him: It was his vocation, his life. Pitt would be immensely relieved to give it back to him. It was not within Pitt’s skill or his nature to perform this job. He regretted that it was now his duty.
He dealt with the most immediate issues of the day first, passing on all he could to juniors. When that was done, he told them not to interrupt him. Then he went through all Narraway’s records of every crime Gower had been involved with over the past year and a half. He read all the documents, getting a larger picture concerning European revolutionary attempts to improve the lot of workingmen. He also read Stoker’s latest report from Paris.
As he did so, the violence proposed settled over him like a darkness, senseless and destructive. But the anger at injustice he could not help sharing. It grieved him that it had oppressed people and denied them a reasonable life for so long that the change, when it came—and it must—would be fueled by so much hatred.
The more he read, the greater a tragedy seemed to him that the high idealism of the revolution of ’48 had been crushed with so little legacy of change left behind.
Gower’s own reports were spare, as if he had edited out any emotive language. At first Pitt thought that was just a very clear style of writing. Then he began to wonder if it was more: a guarding of Gower’s own feelings, in case he gave something away unintentionally, or Narraway himself picked up a connection, an omission, even a false note.
Then he took out Narraway’s own papers. He had read most of them before, because it was part of his duty in taking over the position. Many of the cases he was familiar with anyway, from general knowledge within the branch. He selected three specifically to do with Europe and socialist unrest, those associated with Britain, memberships of socialist political groups such as the Fabian Society. He compared them with the cases in which Gower had worked, and looked for any notes that Narraway might have made.
What were the facts he knew, personally? That Gower had killed West and made it appear it was Wrexham who had done so. All doubt left him that it had been extremely quick thinking on Gower’s part. Had it been his intention all the time—with Wrexham’s collaboration? Pitt recalled the chase across London and then on to Southampton. He was bitterly conscious that it had been too easy. On the rare occasions when it seemed Wrexham had eluded them, it was Gower and not Pitt who had found the trail again. The conclusion was inevitable—Gower and Wrexham were working together. To what end? Again, looked at from the result, it could only have been to keep Pitt in St. Malo—or more specifically, to keep him from being in London, and aware of what was happening to Narraway.
But to what greater purpose? Was it to do with socialist uprisings? Or was that also a blind, a piece of deception?
Who was Wrexham? He was mentioned briefly, twice, in Gower’s reports. He was a young man of respectable background who had been to university and dropped out of a modern history course to travel in Europe. Gower suggested he had been to Germany and Russia, but seemed uncertain. It was all very vague, and with little
