women in the same pattern, anywhere connected with Sorokine, Marquand, or Quase. He heard stories, possibilities. There were always noted crimes in large cities or in settlements on the edges of wild places where there are many men and few women. Nothing matched exactly, although several could have been close enough. Julius Sorokine’s name did not arise.
Lastly he went back yet again to Watson Forbes. It was late in the evening and it was discourteous to impose on him. Nevertheless, he did not hesitate to do so.
Forbes was polite, as always. “You look tired,” he observed. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet,” Narraway confessed.
Forbes rang the bell and when the servant answered, sent him for cold beef, horseradish sauce, and fresh bread and butter. “Perhaps tea would be better than whisky?” he suggested.
Narraway would have preferred whisky, but he accepted the tea.
Forbes was right, it would be wiser. They spoke of trivial things until the food came and the servant had withdrawn.
“I presume you are still concerned with the railway?” Forbes said when they were alone. “I know of nothing else useful I can tell you. I have been more than frank with my own opinion.”
“Indeed,” Narraway agreed. He swallowed. “I spoke with someone else who favored lateral lines, east and west to the coastal ports, rather than north and south. Said Britain’s historic power lay at sea.
We should enlarge on it, and allow Africa to develop itself.”
Forbes’s eyes opened a little wider, but it was a very slight movement, almost as if he did not wish it seen. “Really! A little. . conservative, but perhaps he is right. It doesn’t sound like a great adventure.
An old man, I assume?”
Narraway smiled. “You think it is an old man’s vision?”
“Isn’t it?”
“I think he saw it as the vision of a man keen to build on what we have, both physically and morally, rather than risk it all on a new venture that might be dangerous in both regards.”
Forbes smiled. “Possibly. I approve of his reluctance to carve up Africa, keeping all the important places in British hands. Did you come to tell me that?”
“No. I have heard of an incident in Cape Town from two or three people. A tragedy that might have bearing on the present.”
“Dunkeld’s project?” Forbes asked.
There was a stillness in the room now, a waiting.
“Possibly.” Narraway had struggled with finding a way to ask Forbes for information without telling him of the present crisis. If Sorokine was proven guilty, then it would not matter. The fear of scandal would be past. The crime could be mentioned, Minnie Sorokine’s death would not be hidden, but the details, and above all the place and circumstances, could and would be lied about. It might even be necessary to say that Julius was dead also.
“What is it?” Forbes asked, his voice very steady.
More lies might be necessary now. “A murder that happened in Cape Town, several years ago,” Narraway answered as casually as he could.
“Really?” The silence thickened.
Narraway was about to continue, but some sense of conflict in Forbes’s face made him hesitate. Forbes was struggling with a decision. Narraway finished the rest of his beef and buttered another slice of bread. He had eaten that also before Forbes finally spoke.
“Since you are concerned with Sorokine, I imagine you are concerned with the murder of a woman that, so far as I know, has never been solved.”
Narraway swallowed the last mouthful. “Yes, I’m afraid so. I hear rumor of various sorts, nothing substantial, but enough to cause me anxiety.”
Forbes seemed surprised. “Because of Sorokine’s involvement in the railway?”
Perhaps at least an element of the truth was necessary in order to persuade Forbes to be frank. “Yes. It is possible the Prince of Wales may lend the project his support.”
“Ah, I see. Now I understand why Special Branch is concerned.”
Forbes’s expression was curiously unreadable. “I wish I could comfort you. Sorokine is definitely the best man I know of to make the diplomatic arrangements. His father was skilled and had excellent connections. I think Julius is even more so, and of course the connections are still there. A certain lack of commitment could be. . overcome, if he chose. I think he has it in him.”
“But. .?” Narraway prompted. Was it his imagination that there was a coldness in the room, as if the summer were already passing?
“But I cannot tell you that he was not involved in the murder of the woman,” Forbes finished. “I am afraid I think it is more than likely he was. I don’t know if you will ever prove it, or how you even learned of the matter. But if you did, then you had best be told the truth.” He sounded resigned. “He was there, he appeared to have some connection with the woman. Africa can have strange effects on people. They can forget the laws they would keep almost by second nature in their own countries.”
He drew in his breath and let it out slowly. “I have no proof, but were I responsible for the honor and reputation of the heir to the throne, I would not have him associate with Sorokine. You could not afford the scandal it would cause were the matter to be raised. I assume that it is why you asked me before if the project might have enemies? Of course it will, and they will be those men who have lived in Africa themselves. And whether they are prompted by envy, greed, altruism, or personal hatred, they will either know of it already, or they will make it their business to find out.”
“Thank you,” Narraway said unhappily. “I appreciate your candor.”
He felt peculiarly alone and disillusioned as he left Forbes’s house and walked down the front steps into the street. It was as if a great dream, something of nobility and vision, had collapsed unexpectedly, leaving him only dust.
He thought of Pitt in his room in the Palace, and how he too was facing disillusion. Would he be honest enough, brave enough to acknowledge it, if that were the truth? Part of him hoped he would not-Pitt had so much of life’s true wealth already!
Then that feeling vanished, and profoundly, passionately he hoped that Pitt would find that courage. If Narraway had been a man of faith, he would have prayed. There were times when one was empty and did not have something larger and better than oneself in which to believe.
CHAPTER TEN
After narraway had gone, Pitt abandoned pretense and asked Tyndale to send Gracie to him. She came ten minutes later, carrying a tray of tea with three slices of buttered toast and a dish of marmalade. She put it down on the table and stood more or less to attention. She looked very small, miserable, and a little crumpled.
“Sit down,” he said gently. “The tea’s good, but it was only an excuse to get you here.”
She obeyed. “Is it true they done ’er in like the poor thing in the cupboard?” she asked. Her face screwed up as she searched his eyes, frightened of what she would see.
For her sake he tried to conceal his own sense of panic. “Yes, almost exactly. It has to be the same person. You said she was asking questions all day.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “An’ I think as she knew ’oo did it. It were in ’er face, in the way she walked, gettin’ more an’ more excited, like, all the time. She were addin’ it up an’ it made sense to ’er, even if it don’t ter us.”
“Tell me again who she spoke to and all you know about it.”
She nodded, tight-lipped. He could see her fear for him in every angle of her small body.
“I dunno everythin’,” she started. “ ’Cos I couldn’t follow ’er all the time. She could ’ave spoke ter others as well. But she were on ter Biddie an’ Norah about the sheets, an’ ter Mags as well, an’ ter Edwards about buckets an’ buckets o’ water up an’ downstairs inter the other part goin’ that way.” She pointed vaguely. “This place is so big I in’t never certain where anyone’s gone ter, but it were out o’ this wing, inter one o’ the places we in’t allowed. An’ they come back wi’ all them bits o’ broken china.”
