or for both of them. He could see in her eyes the knowledge of his own regret mixed so heavily with his loss.
He turned his gaze away. “I don’t know, something to do with loyalties….”
She drew in her breath sharply, as if to speak, then changed her mind tactfully. He almost laughed, it was so unlike her, but it would too easily have broken into misery.
“I suppose it is to do with the Circle,” he said, although he was not at all sure that was what had gnawed at Matthew so painfully. But either way, this evening he preferred not to think of it any further. “What is for dinner?”
“That’s not much,” Farnsworth said grimly when Pitt reported to him next. “The wretched man cannot have disappeared from the face of the earth.” He was referring to the driver of the hansom cab which had picked up Susannah Chancellor in Berkeley Square. “Who did you say you had on it?”
They were in his own office rather than Pitt’s room in Bow Street, and he stood by the window looking towards the Embankment of the river. Pitt sat in the chair opposite. Farnsworth had invited him to sit when he had first come in, and then a moment later had risen himself. It gave him a physical advantage he seemed to prefer.
“Tellman,” Pitt replied, sitting back a little farther. He did not in the least mind looking up. “And I tried myself. I know the man may be crucial, but so far we have found no trace of him, which leads me to-”
“If you are going to say Chancellor was lying, then you are a fool,” Farnsworth said irritably. “You surely cannot be so out of touch with reality as to imagine Chancellor would-”
“The whole question is irrelevant,” Pitt interrupted in his turn. “Chancellor went straight back to his house and was seen within ten minutes of having put her in the hansom. I already know that from his own household staff. Not that I suspected him anyway. It is merely a matter of form to ascertain where everyone was at the relevant time.”
Farnsworth did not reply to that.
“Which leads me to suppose,” Pitt finished the sentence Farnsworth had broken into, “that the driver was in some way implicated. Possibly he was not a regular cabby at all, but someone dressed as one.”
“Then where did he get the hansom from?” Farnsworth demanded. “Chancellor said it was a hansom. He would know the difference between a cab and a private carriage.”
“I’ve got Tellman looking into that now. So far we don’t know, but it must have come from somewhere, either hired or stolen. He’s going around to all the companies.”
“Good. Good. That could be the break we are needing.”
“Kreisler thought it might have been an attempt at kidnapping that went wrong,” Pitt suggested.
Farnsworth was startled and a flicker of irritation crossed his face.
“What? Who the devil is Kreisler?”
“Peter Kreisler. Something of an expert on African affairs.” Pitt spoke thoughtfully. “He seems to be very concerned about the case. In fact he has spent a lot of time pursuing it himself.”
“Why?” Farnsworth demanded, coming back to his desk and sitting opposite Pitt. “Did he know her?”
“Yes.”
“Then he’s a suspect, dammit!” His fist clenched. “I assume you are investigating him very thoroughly indeed?”
“Yes, of course I am.” Pitt’s voice rose in spite of his efforts to keep it level. “He says he was at home that evening, but he cannot prove it. His man had the evening off.”
Farnsworth relaxed. “Well that may be all there is to it! It may be as simple as that, no abduction, nothing political, simply a jealous man, infatuated and rejected.” There was considerable satisfaction in his voice. It would be an ideal solution.
“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. “Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould saw them in a heated discussion the previous night. But that is a long way from proving that Kreisler is violent and unstable enough to have murdered her simply because she refused him.”
“Well find out, man!” Farnsworth said sharply. “Look into his past. Write to Africa, if you have to. He must have been attracted to other women at some time or another. See how he behaved then. Learn everything about him, his loves, hates, quarrels, debts, ambitions, everything there is to know about him! I am not going to allow the murder of a cabinet minister’s wife to remain an unsolved case … and neither are you!”
It sounded like a dismissal. Pitt rose to his feet.
“And the Colonial Office,” Farnsworth went on. “How are you progressing with that? Lord Salisbury asked me only yesterday if we had learned anything of use.” His face tightened. “I did not inform him of your machinations to pass various different versions of false figures. God knows what he would have said if I had. I assume you have achieved nothing with that ploy or you would have told me?”
“It is too early yet,” Pitt replied. “And the Colonial Office is in something of an upheaval with Chancellor himself not present.”
“When do you expect that little piece of deception to bear fruit?” Farnsworth asked, not without sarcasm.
“In the next three or four days at the outside,” Pitt replied.
Farnsworth frowned. “Well, I hope you are right. Personally I think you are a little too sanguine about it altogether. What do you propose to do next, if it fails?”
Pitt had not thought that far. His mind was taken up with Susannah Chancellor, and always at the back of his thoughts, intruding at every opportunity, was the death of Arthur Desmond-and, since he had seen Dr. Murray, the near certainty that he had been murdered by the Inner Circle. He still intended to prove that, as soon as the urgency of the Chancellor case allowed.
“I have no further ideas,” he admitted. “Beyond continuing with usual police routine, to learn all I can of every possible suspect, in the hope that some fact, or lie, will prove who is guilty, both in the Colonial Office and in the Treasury. A connection that is not openly acknowledged would be indicative.”
“Not very satisfactory, Pitt. What about this woman Pennecuick?” He stood up again and walked restlessly over towards the window. “It still looks to me as if Aylmer is your man.”
“Possibly.”
Farnsworth put his hands into his pockets and looked thoughtful. “You told me Aylmer could not account for his time that evening. Is it possible Mrs. Chancellor had in some fashion discovered his guilt, and that he was aware of this, and that he murdered her to protect himself? And had he, for example, any connection with Kreisler?”
“I don’t know….” Pitt began.
“Then find out, man! That shouldn’t be beyond your wit to do.” He looked at Pitt coldly, regret in his eyes.
Pitt was sure he was thinking of the Inner Circle, and how much easier such investigations might be with the help of a widespread, covert network to call on. But who would know, with all the interlocking covenants and obligations, the hierarchy of loyalties, who was bound to whom, what lies or silences were promised? Even which officers in the police might be involved, a thought which was peculiarly frightening. He met Farnsworth’s stare with bland denial.
Farnsworth grunted and looked away.
“Then you had better be about it,” he said, then turned to the river again, and the bright light on the water.
“There is another possibility,” Pitt said quietly.
Farnsworth did not look around, but kept his back to the room and to Pitt.
“Yes?”
“That she did in fact visit the Thorne house,” Pitt replied. “We are still looking for her cloak. She was wearing it when she left, but it was not with her body. If we find it, it may tell us something.”
“Depending on where, I suppose,” Farnsworth conceded. “Go on. What if she did visit the Thorne house?”
Farnsworth’s shoulders tightened.
“Then either Thorne murdered her,” Pitt answered, “or he and his wife did together, although I find that harder to believe. I think Mrs. Thorne was genuinely grieved and shocked when I told her.”
“Why on earth would Thorne kill Mrs. Chancellor? You’re not suggesting an affair, are you?” This time there
