Silently Stoker obeyed. He concentrated on Gower while Pitt looked at every record he could find of Austwick.
By nine o’clock in the evening they were both exhausted. Pitt’s head thumped and his eyes felt hot and gritty. He knew Stoker must feel the same. There was little time left.
Pitt put down the piece of paper he had been reading until the writing on it had blurred in front of his vision.
“Any conclusions?” he asked.
“Some of these letters, sir, make me think Sir Gerald Croxdale was just about on to him. He was pretty close to putting it together,” Stoker replied. “I think that might be what made Austwick hurry it all up and act when he did. By getting rid of Narraway he shook everybody pretty badly. Took the attention away from himself.”
“And also put him in charge,” Pitt added. “It wasn’t for long, but maybe it was long enough.” The last paper he had read was a memorandum from Austwick to Croxdale, but it was a different thought that was in his mind.
Stoker was waiting.
“Do you think Austwick is the leader?” he asked. “Is he actually a great deal cleverer than we thought? Or at any rate, than I thought?”
Stoker looked unhappy. “I don’t think so, sir. It seems to me like he’s not making the decisions. I’ve read a lot of Mr. Narraway’s letters, and they’re not like this. He doesn’t suggest, he just tells you. And it isn’t that he’s any less of a gentleman, just that he knows he’s in charge, and he expects you to know it too. Maybe that wasn’t how he spoke to you, but it’s how he did to the rest of us. No hesitation. You ask, you get your answer. I reckon that Austwick’s asking someone else first.”
That was exactly the impression Pitt had had: a hesitation, as if checking with the man in control of the master plan.
But if Croxdale was almost on to him, why was Narraway not?
“Who can we trust?” he asked aloud. “We have to take a small force, no more than a couple of dozen men at the very most. Any more than that and we’ll alert them. They’ll have people watching for exactly that.”
Stoker wrote a list on a piece of paper and passed it across. “These I’m sure of,” he said quietly.
Pitt read it, crossed out three, and put in two more. “Now we must tell Croxdale and have Austwick arrested.” He stood up and felt his muscles momentarily lock. He had forgotten how long he had been sitting, shoulders bent, reading paper after paper.
“Yes, sir. I suppose we have to?”
“We need an armed force, Stoker. We can’t go and storm the queen’s residence, whatever the reason, without the minister’s approval. Don’t worry, we’ve got a good enough case here.” He picked up a small leather satchel and put into it the pages vital to the conclusions they had reached. “Come on.”
————
AT OSBORNE, CHARLOTTE, VESPASIA, and Narraway were kept in the same comfortable sitting room with the queen. One terrified lady’s maid was permitted to come and go in order to attend to the queen’s wishes. They were given food by one of the men who kept them prisoner, and watched as they availed themselves of the necessary facilities for personal relief.
The conversation was stilted. In front of the queen no one felt able to speak naturally. Charlotte looked at the old lady. This close to her, with no distance of formality possible, she was not unlike Charlotte’s own grandmother, someone she had loved and hated, feared and pitied over the years. As a child she had never dared to say anything that might be construed as impertinent. Later, exasperation had overcome both fear and respect, and she had spoken her own mind with forthrightness. More recently she had learned terrible secrets about that woman, and loathing had melted into compassion.
Now she looked at the short, dumpy old lady whose skin showed the weariness of age, whose hair was thin and almost invisible under her lace cap. Victoria was in her seventies, and had been on the throne for nearly half a century. To the world she was queen, empress, defender of the faith, and her numerous children had married into half the royal houses of Europe. However, it was not the responsibility to her country that wore her down; it was the bitter loneliness of widowhood.
Here at Osborne, standing looking out of the upstairs window across the fields and trees in the waning afternoon light, she was a tired old woman who had servants and subjects, but no equals. She would probably never know if any of them would have cared a jot for her if she were a commoner. The loneliness of it was unimaginable.
Would they kill her, those men in the hallway with guns and violent dreams of justice for people who would never want it purchased this way? If they did, would Victoria mind so very much? A clean shot through the heart, and she would join her beloved Albert at last.
Would they kill the rest of them too: Narraway and Vespasia, and Charlotte herself? What about all the servants? Or did the hostage-takers consider the servants to be ordinary people like themselves? Charlotte was sure the servants didn’t think anything of the sort.
Charlotte had been sitting quietly on a chair at the far side of the room. On a sudden impulse she stood up and walked over toward the window. She stopped several feet short of the queen. It would be disrespectful to stand beside her. Perhaps it was disrespectful to stand here at all, but she did so anyway.
The view was magnificent. She could even see a bright glint of sunlight on the sea in the distance.
The hard light picked out every line on Victoria’s face: the marks of tiredness, sorrow, ill temper, and perhaps also the inner pain of emotional isolation. Was she afraid?
“It is very beautiful, ma’am,” Charlotte said quietly.
“Where do you live?” Victoria asked.
“In London, in Keppel Street, ma’am.”
“Do you like it?”
