Dorchester Terrace (37 page)

Now there was an angry flush on her cheeks. “Of course not! That is absurd. I was trying to recollect how often he did come.”

“And have you succeeded?”

“He came to visit my aunt because he had heard she was ill, and he knew how much she had done for England in her youth, particularly with regard to the Austrian Empire, and our relationship with Vienna.”

“How very generous of him,” Pitt said with only the slightest asperity in his voice. “Since, as far as I can learn, Mrs. Montserrat was passionately on the side of the rebels, against the Habsburg throne. Was that not so? Or was she a spy for Austria perhaps, planted there to betray the freedom fighters?”

Now Nerissa was really angry. “That is a dreadful thing to say! And completely irresponsible. But—” Suddenly she stopped as if a new and terrible thought had filled her mind. “I … I had not even …” She blinked. “I don’t know, Mr. Pitt. She always said …” Again she stopped. “Now I don’t know. Perhaps that was what it was all about. It would explain Mrs. Blantyre …” Her hand had flown to her mouth as if to stop herself from crying out. Now it fell to her side again. “I think perhaps I had better say no more. I would not wish to be unjust to anyone.”

He felt cold, as if the fire had suddenly died, though it was burning so hot and red in the hearth that the whole chimney breast was warm.

“Mrs. Blantyre visited your aunt quite often, including the evening she died.” His voice sounded hollow.

“Yes … but … yes, she did.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. Mr. Blantyre remained downstairs. He thought it would be less strain on Mrs. Montserrat. She did not find it easy to speak to
several people at a time. And sometimes she and Adriana would converse in Italian, which he does not speak—at least not fluently.”

“I see. Does he speak Croatian?”

“I have no idea.” Her face was very pale. She sat rigidly, as if her bodice was suddenly constrictingly tight. “Perhaps. He speaks German, I know. He spent quite a lot of time in Vienna.”

“I see. Thank you.” He was left with no choice. He must go and question Adriana Blantyre. There was nothing to be gained by delaying it, not that he wished to. If he went now, Blantyre himself might still be at home. That would make it more difficult, more embarrassing and emotionally wrenching, but it was the right way to do it.

He thanked Nerissa again and left Dorchester Terrace to walk the short distance to Blantyre’s house.

He was admitted by the butler, and Blantyre himself met him in the hall.

“Has something happened?” he asked, searching Pitt’s face. “Some word about Duke Alois?”

“No. It concerns Serafina Montserrat’s death.”

“Oh?” Blantyre looked tired, and his face was deeply lined. He waved the butler away and the man disappeared obediently, leaving them standing alone in the middle of the beautiful hall. “Have you learned something further?”

“I am not certain, but it begins to look like it,” Pitt replied. It was the worst part of his position as head of Special Branch, and he could pass the responsibility to no one else; Blantyre had been more than a friend; he had gone out of his way, even taken professional risks, to help Pitt learn the reality of the threat to Duke Alois and to persuade the prime minister to take the issue seriously. It made this investigation acutely painful, but it did not relieve him of the necessity of pursuing it.

Blantyre frowned. When he spoke his voice was level and perfectly under control. “There’s something I can do? I know nothing about her death at all. Until you told me otherwise, I assumed it was natural. Then when you mentioned the laudanum, I thought perhaps she had dreaded the loss of her mind to the point where suicide had seemed preferable. Is that not the case?”

“Is it possible that Serafina was working for the Austrian monarchy all the time, and that it was she who betrayed Lazar Dragovic to his death?” Pitt asked.

“Dear God!” Blantyre gasped and swayed a little on his feet. Then he turned and strode across the floor to the foot of the stairs. He grasped the banister, hesitated a moment, then started up.

Pitt followed after him, seized by a shadow of fear, but with no idea why he was afraid.

Blantyre increased his speed, taking the steps two at a time. He reached the landing and went to the second door. He knocked, then stood with his hand still raised. He turned to Pitt a couple of yards behind him. There was a terrible silence.

Blantyre lowered his hand and turned the knob. He pushed the door open and walked into the room.

The curtains were still closed but there was sufficient daylight filtering through them to find their way across to the big bed, and to see Adriana’s black hair fanned across the pillow.

“Adriana!” Blantyre choked on the word.

Pitt waited, his heart pounding.

“Adriana!” Blantyre cried out loudly. He lurched forward and grasped her arm where it lay on the coverlet. She did not move.

Pitt looked and saw the empty glass on the bedside table, and the small piece of folded paper, such as holds a medicinal powder. He would not need to taste it to know what it was.

He walked silently over to Blantyre and put his hand on his shoulder.

Blantyre buckled at the knees and collapsed onto the floor, his body racked with pain, his sobs hollow, making barely a sound.

P
ITT WAS IN HIS
office, looking yet again through the plans for Duke Alois’s visit, when Stoker knocked on the door.

Pitt looked up as he came in.

Stoker’s expression was anxious, and he was clearly uncomfortable.

“Mr. Blantyre’s here, sir. He looks pretty bad, like he hasn’t eaten or slept for a while, but he wants to see you. Sorry, but I couldn’t put him off. I think it’s about Staum.”

“Ask him in,” Pitt replied. There was no way to avoid it. Assassins do not stop for private grief; it might solve at least part of the problem if Staum was connected to Adriana, but there was nothing to suggest it. Adriana had killed Serafina in revenge for her father, and then apparently in remorse or despair, taken her own life. There was no reason to think she had even heard of Duke Alois, who would have been a child, even younger than herself, at the time of the uprising and the betrayal.

“Fetch brandy and a couple of glasses,” he added, then, seeing the
look on Stoker’s face, “I know it’s early, but he may well have been awake all night. It’s civil to make the offer. Poor man.”

“I don’t know how he can bear it,” Stoker said grimly. “Wife killing an old lady who was dying anyway, then taking her own life. Mind, he looks as if he’d be better off dead himself, right now.”

“Ask him in, and don’t be long with the brandy,” Pitt told him.

“Yes, sir.”

Blantyre came in a moment later. He looked like a man stumbling blindly through a nightmare.

Pitt stood to greet him. It was impossible to know what to say. Pitt remembered Charlotte’s grief when he had told her about Adriana; she had been stunned, as if his words had made no sense to her. Then as understanding filled her, followed by horror at the torment she imagined Adriana must’ve been feeling, she had wept in Pitt’s arms for what seemed like a long time. Even when they had finally gone to bed, she had cried in the dark. When he touched her, her face had been wet with tears.

She and Adriana had been friends for only a few weeks. What Blantyre must be feeling was a devastation imaginable only to those who had experienced it.

Blantyre eased himself into the chair like an old man with brittle bones. Stoker came in almost on his heels with the brandy, and Blantyre accepted it. He held the glass in both hands as if to warm the bowl and send the aroma up, but his fingers were bloodless and shaking.

“Stoker said you had some news,” Pitt prompted him after a few moments of silence.

Blantyre looked up. “Staum is no longer alone in Dover,” he said quietly. “There is another man called Reibnitz there. Elegant, ineffectual-looking fellow, very tidy, humorless. He looks like an accountant, and you half expect his fingers to be stained with ink. Until he speaks; then he sounds like a gentleman, and you take him for some third son from a decent family, the sort in England who would go into the Church, for the lack of something better to do.”

“Reibnitz,” Pitt repeated.

Blantyre’s face tightened. “Johann Reibnitz, so ordinary as to be almost invisible. Average height, slender build, light brown hair, gray
eyes, pale complexion. Could be any one of a million men in Austria or any of the rest of Europe. Speaks English without an accent.”

“Nothing to distinguish him?” Pitt asked with growing alarm.

“Nothing at all. No moles, no scars, no limp or twitch or stutter. As I said, an invisible man.” There was no expression in Blantyre’s eyes; he spoke mechanically.

“So Staum might be a decoy, as we feared?” Pitt said.

“I think so. He would be, if I were planning it.”

“How do you know this?”

The ghost of a smile crossed Blantyre’s face but vanished so completely Pitt wasn’t sure he had actually seen it. “I still have contacts in Vienna. Reibnitz has killed several times before. They know, but they cannot prove it.”

It was Pitt’s turn to smile. “And you expect me to believe that a lack of proof prevents them from removing him? Is Vienna so … squeamish?”

Blantyre sighed. “Of course not. You are quite right. They use him also, as it suits them. He was one of their own originally. They believe that he has gone rogue.” He looked at Pitt with sudden intensity, as if something alive had stirred within him again. “Would you order one of your own shot, simply because you believed he had become unreliable? Would you not want him tried, given a chance to defend himself? How could you be sure the evidence was good? Should he not face his accuser? And would you detail one of your men to do it? Or would you feel that as head of the service, it was your burden to bear?”

Pitt was startled. It was a question he had avoided asking himself since the O’Neil affair. It was one thing to defend yourself in the heat of the moment; it was very different to order an execution, a judicial murder, in cold blood.

Blantyre sipped his brandy. “You are a detective, a brilliant one.” There was sincerity in his voice, even admiration. “You uncover truths most men would never find. You make certain. You weigh evidence, you refine your understanding until you have as much of the whole picture as anyone ever will. You have intense emotions. You empathize with pain; injustice outrages you. But you hardly ever lose your self-control.” He made a slight gesture with his strong, graceful
hands. “You think before you act. These are the qualities that make you a great leader in the service of your country. Perhaps one day you will even be better than Victor Narraway, because you know people better.”

Pitt stared at him, embarrassed. He understood that there was a “but” coming and he did not want to hear it.

Blantyre twisted his mouth in a grimace. “But could you execute one of your men, without trial?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. It was difficult to say. The expression on Blantyre’s face gave him no indication as to whether he respected Pitt’s answer, or despised it.

“I know you don’t.” Blantyre relaxed at last. “Perhaps your counterpart in Vienna hasn’t decided yet either. Or perhaps Reibnitz is a double agent, working for the head of the Austrian Secret Service, and betraying his other masters to them, as the occasion arises.”

“Well, if he attempts to murder Duke Alois, perhaps we can relieve them of the decision,” Pitt said grimly. “Is there anything more you can tell me about Reibnitz? Where he has been seen? Habits, dress, any way we can recognize him? Anything known of his likes and dislikes? Any associates?”

“Of course. I have written down everything known.” Blantyre pulled a folded piece of paper from his inside pocket and handed it to Pitt. “The name of my informant is there separately. I would be obliged if you would note it somewhere absolutely safe, and show it to no one else, except possibly Stoker. I know you trust him.”

Pitt took it. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “Duke Alois will owe you his life, and we will all owe you for saving us from a national embarrassment, which could have cost us very dearly indeed.”

Blantyre finished his brandy. “Thank you.” He put the glass down on the desk and stood up. He hesitated a moment as if to say something more, then changed his mind and walked unsteadily to the door.

As soon as he was gone, Pitt sent for Stoker and told him all that Blantyre had said, including the name of the informant regarding Reibnitz. It took them the rest of that day to follow it up, but every fact that Blantyre had offered was verifiable, and proved to be true.

Leaving Stoker and the others under his command to check and double check all the arrangements from the moment the ferry landed in Dover, Pitt went to see Narraway.

It was the middle of the afternoon with rain sweeping in from the west. Pitt was soaked, and put his hat, gloves, and scarf on the leather-padded brass railing in front of the fire.

Narraway put more coal and wood on the embers and settled in his chair, gazing at Pitt.

“You are certain about Reibnitz?” he asked gravely.