little movement of denial. “I know it is natural to feel that way, but it is still not fair. What else could he do? She cannot expect him to deny his own life’s work and belief and be party to Mr. Soames’s treason! It’s not Matthew!”
“I know that,” he said softly. “And perhaps there is part of her which knows it too, but that doesn’t help. Her father is disgraced, ruined. The Colonial Office won’t prosecute, or the Treasury either, because of the scandal, but it will become known.”
She looked up. “What will happen to him?” Her face filled with a cold, bleak sadness. “Suicide?” she whispered.
“It’s not impossible, but I hope not.”
“Poor Harriet! Yesterday she had everything and the future looked endlessly bright. Today there is nothing at all, no marriage, no father, no money, no standing in Society, only the few friends who have the courage to remain by her, and no hope for anything to come. Thomas, it’s sad, and very frightening. Yes, of course, she cannot forgive Matthew, and that will be a wound he will never be healed of either. What a terrible, terrible mess. Yes, go to Matthew; he will need you more than ever before.”
Pitt had stopped by at Matthew’s office and found him white to the lips, hollow-eyed and barely able to function in his duty. He had known the danger of such rejection when he had first gone to Pitt, but part of him had clung to the hope that it would not be so, that somehow Harriet would, in her despair and shame, turn to him, in spite of what he had done, what he had felt compelled to do. Given his own sense of honor he had had no choice.
He had begun to tell Pitt some of this, but Pitt had understood it without the necessity of words. After a few moments Matthew had ceased trying to explain, and simply let the subject fall. They sat together for some time, occasionally speaking of things of the past, happy, easy times remembered with pleasure. Then Pitt rose to leave, and Matthew returned to his papers, letters and calls. Pitt took a hansom to Farnsworth’s office on the Embankment.
“Soames?” Farnsworth said with confusion, anger and distress conflicting in his face. “What a damn fool thing to have done. Really, the man is an ass. How could he credit anything so-so totally beyond belief? He is a cretin.”
“The curious thing,” Pitt said flatly, “is that it is largely true.”
“What?” Farnsworth swung around from the bookshelf where he was standing, his eyes wide and angry. “What are you driveling on about, Pitt? It’s an absurd story. A child wouldn’t have accepted that explanation.”
“Probably not, but then a child would not have the sophistication …”
“Sophistication!” Farnsworth grimaced with disgust. “Soames is about as sophisticated as my bootboy. Although even he wouldn’t have swallowed that, and he’s only fourteen.”
“… to be misled by an argument about the results of a clash of European powers in black Africa, and the need to prevent it in the interests of morality in general, and the future of all of us,” Pitt finished as if he had not been interrupted.
“Are you making excuses for him?” Farnsworth’s eyes widened. “Because if you are, you are wasting your time. What are you doing about it? Where is he?”
“At Bow Street,” Pitt replied. “I imagine his own people will deal with him. It is not my domain.”
“His own people? Who do you mean? The Treasury?”
“The government,” Pitt answered. “It will no doubt be up to them to decide what to do about it.”
Farnsworth sighed and bit his lip. “Nothing, I imagine,” he said bitterly. “They will not wish to admit that they were incompetent enough to allow such a thing to happen. That is probably true of the whole issue. To whom did he give his information? You haven’t told me that yet. Who is this altruistic traitor?”
“Thorne.”
Farnsworth’s eyes widened.
“Jeremiah Thorne? Good heavens. I had my money on Aylmer. I knew it wasn’t Hathaway, in spite of that lunatic scheme to disseminate false information to all the suspects. Nothing ever came of that!”
“Yes it did, indirectly.”
“What do you mean, indirectly? Did it, or didn’t it?”
“Indirectly,” Pitt repeated. “We got the information back from the German Embassy, and it was none of the figures Hathaway had given, which supports what Soames said of Thorne. He was giving misinformation all the time.”
“Possibly, but I shall want proof of that before I believe it. Is he at Bow Street as well?”
“No, he’s probably in Lisbon by now.”
“Lisbon?” A range of emotions fought in Farnsworth’s face. He was furious, contemptuous, and at the same time aware of the embarrassment saved by the fact that Thorne could not now be tried.
“He left last night,” Pitt went on.
“Warned by Soames?”
“No. If anyone, Kreisler …”
Farnsworth swore.
“… but I imagine unintentionally,” Pitt went on. “I think Kreisler was more concerned with finding out who murdered Susannah Chancellor.”
“Or finding out how much you knew about the fact that he killed her,” Farnsworth snapped. “All right, well at least you have cleared up the treason affair-not very satisfactorily, I might add, but this is better than nothing. And I suppose it could have been very ugly if you had arrested Thorne. You are due some credit for it.”
He sighed and walked over to his desk. “Now you had better return to the tragedy of Mrs. Chancellor. The government, not to mention the press, want to see a solution to that.” He looked up. “Have you anything at all? What about the cabdriver? Do you have him yet? Do you know where she was put into the river? Have you found her cloak? Do you even know where she was killed? I suppose it would be by Thorne, because she discovered his secret?”
“He said he knew nothing about it.”
“Said? You just told me he had left for Portugal last night, and you got there this morning!”
“He left me a letter.”
“Where is it? Give it to me!” Farnsworth demanded.
Pitt passed it across and Farnsworth read it carefully.
“Cats!” he said at the end, putting it down on his desk. “I suppose you believe him about Mrs. Chancellor?”
“Yes, I do.”
Farnsworth bit his lip. “Actually, I am inclined to myself. Pursue Kreisler, Pitt. There is a great deal that is not right about that man. He has made enemies. He has an unreliable temper and is acquainted with violence. Seek out his reputation in Africa; nobody knows what he stands for or where his loyalties are. That much I have learned for myself.” He jerked his hand sharply. “Forget the connection with Arthur Desmond. That’s nonsense, always was. I know it is painful for you to accept that he was senile, I can understand that, but it is incontrovertible. I’m sorry. The facts are plain enough. He cadged brandy from everyone he knew, and when he was too fuddled to have any clarity of thought at all, he took an overdose of laudanum, probably by accident, possibly intending to make an honorable end of it before he became even more uncontrolled and finally said something, made some accusation or slander he could not live down.”
Pitt froze. Farnsworth had used the word
Pitt opened his mouth to ask Farnsworth if he had spoken to Guyler himself, then just in time, with the words on the edge of his tongue, he realized that if he had not, the only way he could have known would be if he were part of the same ring of the Inner Circle which had ordered Sir Arthur’s death.
“Yes?” Farnsworth said impatiently, his blue-gray eyes staring at Pitt. It seemed at a glance as if he spoke in temper, but behind the surface emotion, the exterior that Pitt could see-and had seen so often before he could picture it with his eyes closed, so familiar was it-he saw for a moment that colder, cleverer mind, far more watchful,
