Pitt felt the heat burn up his face. He had not referred to that incident in order to remind the prime minister of his own success, and now he felt extraordinarily clumsy to have mentioned it at all.
Salisbury smiled. “You are not in an enviable position, Commander. But it is my belief that you are the best man for the job. I would be deeply obliged if you would prove me right.”
Pitt stood up, his legs a little stiff. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”
When Pitt returned to Lisson Grove he found a message from Blantyre waiting for him, asking Pitt to contact him as soon as possible. Pitt telephoned, and they met at Blantyre’s club for a late luncheon.
Pitt had never been in such a place before, except as a policeman investigating a case and thus coming to speak to one of the members. Now, he was conducted by a uniformed steward who treated him with the respect he’d show any other guest. They walked through the oak-paneled corridors, hung with hunting scenes and Stubbs’s paintings of horses. The men’s feet were soundless on the carpet. Blantyre was waiting for Pitt at the entrance to the dining room, and together they went to the table and took their seats, watched by life-sized portraits of the Duke of Wellington, the Duke of Marlborough, and a rather fanciful portrait of Henry V at Agincourt.
“All a bit military, isn’t it?” Blantyre said with an apologetic smile. “But the food’s excellent, and they’ll leave us alone as long as we wish, which is rather what I need at the moment. I recommend the roast beef-it’s really very good-with a decent Burgundy. A trifle heavy, I know, but well worth it.”
“Thank you,” Pitt accepted. His mind was too occupied with why Blantyre had called this meeting to be concerned with what he might eat.
The steward came and Blantyre ordered for both of them, including the wine. As soon as they were alone, he started to speak.
“This young man, Duke Alois,” he said, looking at Pitt, his dark brows puckered. “Did you find out anything more about him?”
“I can find nothing that would make him worth anybody’s time or energy to assassinate,” Pitt replied. “If he is indeed the target, then I have to assume that there is a completely different reason for killing him.”
“My thoughts precisely,” Blantyre agreed. “I have called on friends in Austria, and in Germany too. All I can find is that he is a harmless young aristocrat who intends nothing more adventurous than to while away his life studying the subjects that interest him.”
“Are you certain?” Pitt pressed.
Blantyre indicated the food just served them. “Please eat. You will enjoy it. And yes, I am certain. My informants tell me he was offered a very agreeable post in diplomacy, and declined it. At least he was honest enough to say that he had no disposition to be restricted in such a way.”
Pitt was beginning to feel impatient with Duke Alois, but he did not show it.
“On the other hand,” Blantyre went on, beginning to eat his meal, “he also appears to listen with great attention to the music of Gustav Mahler, and even Schoenberg, this new young composer who creates such odd, dissonant sounds. Is he interested and looking for meaning, or merely for a new experience? I think the latter more likely.” There was a sadness in his voice and in his dark eyes. “A typical Austrian: one eye laughing, the other weeping. But I think it is better to do a small thing well than nothing at all. However, I am not a royal duke, thank God. Nothing is expected of me.”
Pitt looked at him with a new appreciation of his sympathy and imagination. He had raised, as if perfectly natural to him, issues that Pitt had not considered.
“It is peculiarly repugnant to kill someone so innocent of any harm, or use,” Blantyre said wryly. There was no malice in his tone, only a slight sadness. “Is it a good thing or a bad thing not to be worth anyone’s effort to kill you?” He said it with a gentle, droll humor, looking at Pitt very directly.
Pitt answered with hesitation. “At times, most comfortable, and unquestionably safer, but I think in the end I should regret it. It seems like an opportunity wasted, let slip through your fingers like dry sand.”
Blantyre sighed. “I suppose you sleep better, for whatever that is worth? But I’d rather not spend my entire life emotionally asleep, however intellectually absorbing my pursuits.”
Pitt watched silently as the steward poured more of the dark Burgundy into their cut-crystal glasses; the light burned red through them.
“But this is not why I asked you to come,” Blantyre said, his face emptying of all pleasure. “Events seem to have taken a new turn. A man named Erich Staum has been seen in Dover, apparently working as a road sweeper.” He stopped, watching Pitt closely. “He is known to certain political authorities in Vienna as an assassin of unusual skill and imagination.”
To give himself time to think, Pitt sipped more wine. It was extremely good, a quality he was totally unused to. Perhaps it would have been familiar to Narraway.
“I suppose you are sure about this?” he asked with a smile, looking at the wine in his glass.
“There is doubt,” Blantyre admitted. “But very slight. He has a face that is not easy to forget, especially his eyes. The man in question was dressed in ill-fitting and dirty clothes, with a broom in his hands; but if one imagines him upright and shorn of the submissiveness, he is too like Staum to ignore the probability. He has used the guise of a railway porter before, and also a hansom cab driver, and a postman.”
“I see,” Pitt said quietly. Dustmen pushed carts with their equipment, and collected rubbish. No one gave them a second glance. It was the perfect disguise to carry explosives. People take no notice of a road sweeper, not to mention his cart. “Why Duke Alois?” he asked, looking up at Blantyre again. “We still have not answered that.”
“Staum is for hire.” Blantyre shook his head very slightly, barely a movement at all. “Anarchists don’t always select victims for any reason. But you know that better than I do.”
His hands clenched on his knife and fork. “Things are getting worse, Pitt, more dangerous every year. Violent socialism is rising, national borders are moving around like the tide. There seems to be unrest everywhere and wild ideas and philosophies multiplying like rabbits. I admit, I am afraid for the future.” There was no melodrama in his voice, just a foreboding and the darkness of real fear. It shadowed his face, making his features pinched, more ascetic.
Because Pitt respected him, he felt the weight of his responsibility settle even more heavily on him.
“We’ll protect Duke Alois, regardless of whoever’s after him, and whatever the reason,” he said grimly.
Blantyre let out a sigh. “I know. I know.” He reached out and poured the rest of the Burgundy into their glasses. He did not offer a toast.
Pitt had no difficulty reaching the Foreign Secretary. Clearly Salisbury had been as good as his word. However, as far as canceling Duke Alois’s visit, nothing had changed.
“I’m sorry,” the Foreign Secretary said grimly. “It would be quite impossible to cancel the visit now. Such a thing would signal to all Europe that Britain cannot guarantee the safety of a member of a foreign royal family visiting our own monarch.” His voice became even sharper. “It would be a flag of surrender to every predator in the world. Surely you see that it cannot even be considered?”
Reluctantly, Pitt had to agree. He could imagine with horrible clarity the results that would follow.
“Yes, sir, I do see,” he said quietly. “I would very much like to know who is behind this. I will not let it go until I do.”
It was late and Pitt was tired, but he felt that he must speak with Narraway; however, he was torn, because to do so was a kind of yielding, an admission that he needed advice. He hesitated even as he walked along the cold street, his breath making wispy trails in the air.
But not to speak with him was to set his own vanity above the lives of the men and women who would be killed if there really was a train crash. Not to mention the all-but-crippling damage to the service to which he was sworn.
He reached Narraway’s door with no indecision left, and when the manservant let him in, he accepted the offer of supper and hot tea. Blantyre’s wine at luncheon had been more than he was used to.
“Any progress on Serafina Montserrat’s death?” he asked Narraway as they sat by the fire, Pitt leaning toward it, warming his hands after the cold walk.
“Not yet,” Narraway answered. “But you didn’t come just to ask me that.”
Pitt sighed and sat back in the chair. “No,” he conceded. “No, it is something rather bigger than that.”
