“Oh. I …” Matthew made an attempt to smile, then closed his eyes. His face flooded with pain.
Pitt stood by helplessly, filled with apprehension and the sort of fierce protectiveness one feels only towards a younger child whom you have watched and known through all the vulnerable years. Standing together under the apple tree it was as if all the intervening time had fled away and left them as they were a quarter of a century ago, when his single year’s advantage had meant so much. He ached to do something, even as elemental as reaching out his arms to hold him, as if they were still children. But there were too many years between them, and he knew it would be unacceptable. He could only wait.
“The Colonial Office …” Matthew said at last. “You don’t know who it is yet, do you?”
“No.”
“But some of the information comes …” He stopped as if even now he hesitated on the verge of whatever it was he was compelled to say, and could not bear to.
Pitt waited. A bird was chirping in the apple tree. Somewhere beyond the wall a horse whinnied.
“From the Treasury,” Matthew finished.
“Yes,” Pitt agreed. He was about to add the names of the men to whom Ransley Soames had narrowed it down, then he realized that would be an intrusion, and not helpful. Better to allow Matthew to say uninterrupted whatever it was.
Matthew stared at a twig of apple blossom which had fallen on the grass, his back half turned towards Pitt.
“Two days ago Harriet told me that she had overheard her father, Ransley Soames, in a conversation. She went to speak to him in his study, not aware that he was using the telephone.” Again Matthew stopped.
Pitt did not speak.
Matthew took a deep breath and continued in a quiet, husky voice, as if his throat were so tight he could barely get the words through it.
“He was speaking to someone about government finances for the exploration and settlement of Zambezia, and as Harriet recounted it, it concerned several aspects, from Cecil Rhodes to MacKinnon, Emin Pasha and the Cape-to-Cairo possibilities, and the importance of a naval base at Simonstown. What it might cost Britain if we were to lose it.”
So far what Matthew was saying was what Soames might have been expected to say to a colleague, and not of itself remarkable.
Matthew was still staring at the apple twig on the grass.
“Then he went on to say, ‘This is the last time I can tell you anything. That man Pitt from the police has been here, and I dare not continue. You will have to do all you can with what you already have. I’m sorry.’ And then apparently he replaced the receiver. She did not realize what she was telling me-but I knew.” At last Matthew turned and faced Pitt, his eyes agonized, as if waiting for a blow to be strack at him.
Now it was only too obvious why. Ransley Soames was the traitor in the Treasury. Unwittingly his daughter had betrayed him to Matthew, and after torment of indecision, Matthew had come to Pitt. Only he had not come in ignorance; he knew all that it meant, and could foresee the consequences of his act, and yet he felt unable to do otherwise.
Pitt did not speak. It was not necessary to say that he must use the knowledge he had. Matthew had known that when he came. It was also pointless to say that he would keep Matthew’s name, or Harriet’s, out of the issue, because Matthew knew that was impossible also. Nor did he need to make any sympathetic sounds of understanding. He knew what it meant. What Matthew was feeling, or what it would cost him, no one would know, or ever do more than guess.
He simply held out his hand in companionship for a brother, and in admiration for a man whose integrity was brighter than any comfort of his heart.
10
Pitt could not sleep. At first he lay silently in bed, uncertain whether Charlotte was also awake and loath to disturb her, but eventually he decided she was asleep and would not be aware if he got up and left the room.
He crept downstairs and stood in the parlor looking at the soft light of the quarter moon over the garden. He could dimly see the pale drift of the apple blossom and the dark shadow of the tree on the grass. There were shreds of cloud in the sky, masking some of the stars. Others he could see in tiny pinpoints of light. The night air was warm. In a few weeks it would be midsummer and there were hardly any fires lit in all the million houses, only the cooking ranges, the gasworks and factory chimneys. Even the slight wind smelled clean.
Of course it was nothing like Brackley, where you could breathe in the scent of hay and leaves and damp woods and turned earth all in one great gasp. But it was better than usual, and there was a stillness that should have brought a sense of calm. In other circumstances it would have.
But tomorrow he would have to go and confront Ransley Soames. There really was no alternative. He knew all the information which had been passed from the Treasury. Matthew himself had given him that. Soames had been privy to all of it. So had several others, but he could recount precisely what he had overheard him say, and the specific reference to Simonstown and the Boers, even the exact words he had used regarding Pitt himself.
It would be an ugly scene; it was bound to be. Tomorrow was Saturday. Pitt would find him at his home, which was about the only good thing in the whole matter. He could be arrested and charged discreetly, not in front of his colleagues.
Of course for Harriet it would be close to unbearable. But then, anyone’s fall hurt others. There was always a wife, a child or a parent, someone to be horrified, disillusioned, torn with amazement and grief and shame. One could not allow it to impinge too far, or one would be so racked with pity it would be impossible to function.
It was after nine o’clock when Pitt stood in Ransley Soames’s hallway. The butler looked at him with curiosity.
“I am afraid it is a matter which cannot wait,” Pitt said gravely. He had brought Tellman with him, in case the scene became uglier than he could handle alone, but he had left him outside, reluctant to call him unless it became unavoidable.
“I will see if Mr. Soames is able to receive you,” the butler replied. It was not the customary euphemism, but it served the same purpose.
He was gone only a few moments and returned with an expressionless face.
“If you care to come this way, sir, Mr. Soames will see you in the study.”
But actually it was a further ten minutes before Soames appeared. Pitt waited in the quiet, pale green room set with ornate furniture, too many pictures and photographs, and a potted plant which had been overwatered. Normally he might have looked at the bookcases. They were usually indicative of a man’s character and interests. But today he could not concentrate his mind on more than the immediate future. He saw two rather idealistic books concerning Africa. One was a novel by H. Rider Haggard, the other a collection of letters from a missionary.
The door opened and Soames came in, closing it behind him. He looked mildly irritated, but not concerned.
“How may I help you, Mr. Pitt?” he said tersely. “I imagine it is urgent, or you would not have come to my home on a Saturday morning.”
“Yes, Mr. Soames, it is,” Pitt acknowledged. “There is no pleasant way of dealing with this, so I shall be direct. I have cause, sir, to know that it is you who has been passing financial information from the Treasury to someone in the Colonial Office, for them to pass on to the German Embassy.”
The blood rushed scarlet to Soames’s face, and then after a moment of terrible silence, fled, leaving him pasty white. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps a denial, but the words died on his tongue. He might have had some conception of the guilt in his face, and how futile, even ridiculous, such a denial would be.
“It-it’s not …” he began, and then faltered to a stop. “You don’t understand,” he said wretchedly. “It’s not …”
“No,” Pitt agreed. “I don’t.”
“It is not accurate information!” Soames looked as if he were in danger of fainting, his skin was so white, and
