Vespasia understood very well.
A famous portrait artist passed by and tipped his hat to her. She smiled in acknowledgment Someone muttered that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Clarence were coming and there was a rustle of interest, but since they rode here fairly often, it was no more than a ripple.
An elderly man with a sallow face approached and spoke to Bertie. He was introduced, and since he obviously intended staying, Vespasia thanked Bertie Canning and excused herself. She wished to be alone with her thoughts. The little she had learned of Peter Kreisler was no comfort at all.
What were his motives in pursuing Susannah Chancellor? Why did he argue his point so persistently? He could not be so naive as to think he could influence Chancellor. He was already publicly committed to Cecil Rhodes.
Where were Kreisler’s own commitments? To Africa and the self-determination he spoke of, or to German interests? Was he trying to provoke an indiscretion from which he could learn something, or to let slip his own version of facts, and mislead?
And why did he court Nobby Gunne?
Vespasia would have been a great deal unhappier had she been in the Lyric music hall and seen Nobby and Kreisler together in the stalls laughing at the comedian, watching the juggler with bated breath as he tossed plate after plate into the air, groaning at the extraordinary feats of the yellow-clad contortionist, tapping their feet with the dancing girls.
It was definitely slumming, and they were enjoying it enormously. Every few moments they exchanged glances as some joke delighted or appalled them. The political jokes were both vicious and ribald.
The last act, top of the bill, was an Irish soprano with a full, rich voice who held the audience in her hands, singing “Silver Threads Among the Gold “Bedouin Love Song,” Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord,” and then, to both smiles and tears, Tosti’s “Good-bye.”
The audience cheered her to the echo, and then when at last the curtain came down, rose from their seats and made their way outside into the warm, busy street where gas lamps flared, hooves clattered on the cobbles, people called out to passing cabs and the night air was balmy on the face and damp with the promise of rain.
Neither Nobby nor Kreisler spoke. Everything was already understood.
7
“Nothing,” Tellman said, pushing out his lip. “At least nothing that helps.” He was talking about his investigation into Ian Hathaway of the Colonial Office. “Just a quiet, sober, rather bookish sort of man of middle years. Doesn’t do anything much out of the ordinary.” He sat down in the chair opposite Pitt without being asked. “Not so ordinary as to be without character,” he went on. “He has his oddities, his tastes. He has a fancy for expensive cheeses, for example. Spends as much on a cheese as I would on a joint of beef. He hates fish. Won’t eat it at any price.”
Pitt frowned, sitting at his desk with the sun on his back.
“Buys plain shirts,” Tellman went on. “Won’t spend a farthing extra on them. Argues the toss with his shirtmaker, always very politely. But he can insist!” Tellman’s face showed some surprise. “At first I thought he was a bit of a mouse, one of the quiet little men with nothing to say for themselves.” His eyes widened. “But I discovered that Mr. Hathaway is a person of enough resolve when he wants to be. Always very quiet, very polite, never raises his voice to anyone. But there must be something inside him, something in his look, because the tailor didn’t argue with him above a minute or two, then took a good stare at him, and all of a sudden backed down sharply, and it was all ‘yes sir, Mr. Hathaway; no sir, of course not; whatever you wish, sir.’”
“He does hold a fairly senior position in the Colonial Office,” Pitt pointed out.
Tellman gave a little snort, fully expressive of his derision. “I’ve seen more important men than him pushed around by their tailors! No sir, there’s a bit more steel to our Mr. Hathaway than first looks show.”
Pitt did not reply. It was more Tellman’s impression than any evidence. It depended how ineffectual Tellman had originally thought him.
“Buys very nice socks and nightshirts,” Tellman went on. “Very nice indeed. And more than one silk cravat.”
“Extravagant?” Pitt asked.
Tellman shook his head regretfully. “Not the way you mean. Certainly doesn’t live beyond his income; beneath it if anything. Takes his pleasures quietly, just the occasional dinner at his club or with friends. A stroll on the green of an evening.”
“Any lady friends?”
Tellman’s expression conveyed the answer without the need for words.
“What about his sons? Has he any other family, brothers or sisters?”
“Sons are just as respectable as he is, from all I can tell. Anyway, they both live abroad, but nobody says a word against them. No other family as far as I know. Certainly he doesn’t call on them or write.”
Pitt leaned backwards farther into the sun. “These friends with whom he dines once a week or so, who are they? Have they any connection with Africa or Germany? Or with finance?”
“Not that I can find.” Tellman looked both triumphant and disgusted. It gave him some satisfaction to present Pitt with a further problem, and yet he resented his own failure. His dilemma amused Pitt.
“And your own opinion of him?” Pitt asked with the shadow of a smile.
Tellman looked surprised. It was a question he apparently had not foreseen. He was obliged to think hastily.
“I’d like to say he’s a deep one with a lot hidden under the surface.” His face was sour. “But I think he’s just a very ordinary, bald little man with an ordinary, open and very tedious life; just like ten thousand others in London. I couldn’t find any reason to think he’s a spy, or anything else but what he looks.”
Pitt respected Tellman’s opinion. He was bigoted, full of resentments both personal and rooted in his general social status, but his judgment of crime, and a man’s potential for it, was acute, and seldom mistaken.
“Thank you,” he said with a sincerity that caught Tellman off guard. “I expect you are right.”
Nevertheless he contrived an occasion to go to the Colonial Office and meet Hathaway for himself, simply to form an impression because he did not have one. Not to have spoken with him again would have been an omission, and with as little certainty in the case as he had, he could not afford omissions, however slight.
Hathaway’s office was smaller than Chancellor’s or Jeremiah Thorne’s, but nevertheless it had dignity and considerable comfort. At a glance it looked as if nothing in it were new; everything had a gentle patina of age and quality. The wood shone from generations of polishing, the leather gleamed, the carpet was gently worn in a track from door to desk. The books on the single shelf were morocco bound and gold lettered.
Hathaway sat behind the desk looking benign and courteous. He was almost completely bald, with merely a fringe of short, white hair above his ears, and he was clean-shaven. His nose was pronounced and his eyes a clear, round blue. Only when one had looked at him more closely did their clarity and intelligence become apparent.
“Good morning, Superintendent,” he said quietly. His voice was excellent and his diction perfect. “How may I be of assistance to you? Please, do sit down.”
“Good morning, Mr. Hathaway.” Pitt accepted the offer and sat in the chair opposite the desk. It was remarkably comfortable; it seemed to envelop him as soon as he relaxed into it, and yet it was firm in all the right places. But for all the apparent ease, Hathaway was a government servant of considerable seniority. He would have no time to waste. “It is regarding this miserable business of information going astray,” Pitt continued. There was no point in being evasive. Hathaway was far too clever not to have understood the import of the investigations.
There was no change whatever in Hathaway’s face.
“I have given it some thought, Superintendent, but unfortunately to no avail.” The shadow of a smile touched his mouth. “It is not the sort of news one can ever forget. You made fairly light of it when you spoke to me before, but I am aware that it is anything but a light matter. I do not know precisely what the material is, nor to whom it has been passed, but the principle is the same. Next time it could be something vital to British interests or well- being. And of course we do not always know who our enemies are. We may believe them friends today … and yet
