‘Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould,’ Pitt replied. ‘I’ll write the number down for you, if you give me a pencil.’
‘You jus’ tell me, sir. I’ll write it down.’
Pitt obeyed; there was no point in arguing.
The man returned ten minutes later, his face wide-eyed and a trifle pale.
‘She says as she knows yer, sir. Described yer to a T, she did. Says as ye’re one o’ the best policemen in London, an’ Mr Narraway’s ’oo yer said ’e were, but summink’s ’appened to ’im. She’s sending a Member o’ Parliament down ter get yer out of’ere, an’ as we’d better treat yer proper, or she’ll be ’avin’ a word wi’ the Chief Constable. I dunno if she’s real, sir. I ’ope yer understand I gotter keep yer in ’ere till this gentleman comes, wi’ proof ’e’s wot ’e says ’e is, an’ all. ’E could be anyone, but I know I got two dead bodies on the tracks.’
‘Of course,’ Pitt said wearily. He would not tell him that Gower was Special Branch, and Pitt had not known that he was a traitor until the day before yesterday. ‘Of course I’ll wait here,’ he added. ‘I’d be obliged if you didn’t take me before the magistrate until the man arrives that Lady Vespasia sends.’
‘Yes, sir, I think as we can arrange that.’ He sighed. ‘I think as we’d better. Next time yer come from Southampton, sir, I’d be obliged if yer’d take some other line!’
Pitt managed a lopsided smile. ‘Actually, I’d prefer this one. Given the circumstances, you’ve been very fair.’
The constable was lost for words. He struggled, but clearly nothing he could think of seemed adequate.
It was nearly two hours later that Mr Somerset Carlisle, MP came sauntering into the police station, elegantly dressed, his curious face filled with a rueful amusement. Many years ago he had committed a series of outrages in London, to draw attention to an injustice against which he had no other weapon. Pitt had been the policeman who led the investigation. The murder had been solved, and he had seen no need to pursue the man who had so bizarrely brought it to public attention. Carlisle had remained grateful, and become an ally in several cases since then.
On this occasion, he had with him all his identification of the considerable office he held. Within ten minutes Pitt was a free man, brushing aside the apologies of the local police and assuring them that they had performed their duties excellently, and found no fault with them.
‘What the devil’s going on?’ Carlisle asked as they walked outside into the sun and headed in the direction of the railway station. ‘Vespasia called me in great agitation this morning, saying you had been charged with a double murder! You look like hell. Do you need a doctor?’ There was laughter in his voice, but his eyes reflected a very real anxiety.
‘A fight,’ Pitt explained briefly. He found walking with any grace very difficult. He had not realised at the time how bruised he was. ‘On the platform at the back of a railway carriage travelling at considerable speed.’ He told Carlisle very briefly what had happened.
Carlisle nodded. ‘It’s a very dark situation. I don’t know the whole story, but I’d be very careful what you do, Pitt. Vespasia told me to get you to her house, not Lisson Grove. In fact, she advised very strongly against going there at all.’
Pitt was cold. The sunlit street, the clatter of traffic all seemed unreal. ‘What’s happened to Narraway?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve heard whispers, but I don’t know the truth. If anyone does, it’ll be Vespasia. But I’ll take you to my flat first. Clean you up a bit. You look as if you’ve spent the night in gaol!’
Pitt did not grace the observation with a reply.
Two hours later, he was washed, shaved and dressed in a clean shirt, provided by Carlisle, as well as clean socks and underwear. Pitt alighted from the hansom cab outside Vespasia’s house and walked up to the front door. She was expecting him, and he was taken straight to her usual favourite sitting room, which looked onto the garden. There was a bowl of fresh narcissi on the table, their scent filling the air. Outside the breeze very gently stirred the new leaves on the trees.
Vespasia was dressed in silver grey, with the long ropes of pearls he was so accustomed to seeing her wear. She looked calm, as she always did, and her beauty still moved him with a certain awe. However, he knew her well enough to see the profound anxiety in her eyes. It alarmed him, and he was too tired to hide it.
She looked him up and down. ‘I see Somerset lent you a shirt and cravat,’ she observed with a faint smile.
‘Is it so obvious?’ he asked, standing in front of her.
‘Of course. You would never choose a shirt of that shade, or a cravat with a touch of wine in it. But it becomes you very well. Please sit down. It is uncomfortable craning my neck to look up at you.’
He would never have seated himself before she gave her permission, but he was glad to do so, in the chair opposite her.
The formalities were over and they would address the issues that burdened them both.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked. She gave no thought even to the possibility that he might consider it confidential from her. She knew more about the power and danger of secrets than most ministers of government.
‘In St Malo,’ he replied. He was embarrassed by his own failure to see through the subterfuge more rapidly. However, he did not avoid her eyes as he told her about himself and Gower chasing through the streets, their brief parting, then their meeting and almost instantly finding Wrexham crouched over the corpse of West, his neck slashed open and blood covering the stones.
Vespasia winced, but did not interrupt him.
He described their pursuit of Wrexham to the East End, and then in the train to Southampton, and on the ferry across to France. He found himself explaining too fully why they had not arrested Wrexham until it sounded miserably like excuses.
‘Thomas,’ she interrupted gently, ‘common sense justifies your actions, as seen at the time. You do not need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for me. You were aware of a socialist conspiracy and you believed it to be more important than one grisly murder in London. What did you learn in St Malo?’
‘Very little,’ he replied. ‘We saw one or two known socialist agitators in the first couple of days. . at least I think we did.’
‘You think?’
He explained to her that it was Gower who had made the identification, and he had accepted it.
‘I see. Who did he say they were?’
He was about to say that she would not know their names, then he remembered her own radical part in the revolutions of ’48, which had swept across every country in Western Europe except Britain. She had been in Italy, manning the barricades for that brief moment of hope in a new freedom. It was possible she had not lost all interest.
‘Jacob Meister and Pieter Linsky,’ he replied. ‘But they didn’t come back again.’
She frowned. The tension increased in the rigidity of her shoulders, the way her hands in her lap gripped each other.
‘You know of them?’ he concluded.
‘Of course,’ she said drily. ‘And many others. They are dangerous, Thomas. There is a new radicalism awakening in Europe. The next insurrections will not be like ’forty-eight. It is a different breed. There will be more violence: I think perhaps it will be much more. The Russian monarchy cannot last a lot longer unless it learns to change. The oppression is fearful. I have a few friends left who are able to write occasionally — old friends, who tell me the truth. There is desperate poverty. The Tsar has lost all sense of reality and is totally out of touch with his people — as are all his ministers and advisers. The gulf between the obscenely rich and the literally starving is so great it will eventually swallow them all. The only thing we do not know is when.’
The thought was chilling, but he did not even question it.
‘And I am afraid the news is not good here. But you already know something of it.’
‘Only that Narraway is out of Lisson Grove,’ Pitt replied. ‘I have no idea why, or what happened.’
‘I know why,’ she sighed, and he saw the sadness in her eyes. She looked pale, and tired. ‘He has been charged with the embezzlement of a considerable amount of money, which-’
‘What?’ It was absurd. Ordinarily he would not have dreamed of interrupting her — it was a break of courtesy unimaginable to him — but the disbelief was too urgent to remain concealed.
