Treachery at Lancaster Gate (19 page)

“Come in,” Pitt invited him, standing back and holding the door wide. “Is your driver all right out there?”

“I suggested he might go around to the kitchen. Hope you don't mind,” Jack answered, standing in the hall and dripping onto the carpet. “But I won't be long…I hope.”

“Send him around to the back door, and I'll get Charlotte to give him a cup of tea, or better, cocoa,” Pitt directed him.

Jack obeyed. Pitt took the stairs two at a time to give the request to Charlotte. Five minutes later it was all accomplished. Pitt sat in his own chair while Jack stood with his back to the fire, warming himself.

“Of course, you're coming to dinner Christmas Day,” Jack remarked, “but I wanted to speak to you privately.”

“What is it, Jack?” Pitt asked with a chill of apprehension.

Jack gave a very slight shrug. He was standing gracefully, but nothing in him was relaxed. All his body was as taut as the strings of a violin.

“You can let this investigation go for three days at least, can't you?” He seemed about to add something more, then changed his mind.

“Is that what you wanted to know?” Pitt asked.

Jack faced him at last. “Yes, it is. This contract is more important than I can tell you. Just hold off this investigation of yours until it's signed.”

“What has it to do with police corruption?” Pitt asked. He sat forward in his chair; there was no more relaxing possible.

“Nothing!” Jack moved from the fire into the center of the room, still too tense to sit down. “I don't think police corruption comes into it, but I don't know. I have no idea what happened, I just know that Alexander Duncannon is a very disturbed young man who has delusions as to his friend's guilt or innocence. Thomas, this contract will help the lives of thousands of people, their families, and their towns. Don't jeopardize it for the sake of a few days.”

Pitt looked back at Jack's face, which reflected the earnestness with which he made the request. Pitt knew something of the magnitude of the contract, and he could imagine the hopes that rested on it. He had faced being out of work himself, his family cold, frightened, and hungry, and even without a home, when he had been thrown out of the police. It was moving to Special Branch that had saved him.

Jack must have seen the thought in his face. Perhaps he remembered it too. Emily would have known, and understood.

“This injustice has waited for two years,” Jack said. “Let it wait until the New Year now. Don't go wakening ghosts just before Christmas. If there is anything to find, it will still be there in four or five days' time.”

“I have to solve the case,” Pitt warned him. “It isn't going to disappear on its own. Ednam and his men may have sent an innocent man to the gallows.”

“Is that really likely?” Jack's eyebrows rose. “Alexander is nice enough, but for heaven's sake, Thomas, he's addicted to opium! There are times when he's completely crazy! Frankly, according to Godfrey, he sees and hears things that aren't there. Opium addiction is a terrible thing. I daresay it'll kill him in the end.”

Pitt did not answer. Was that really all that was behind Alexander's actions? The blind loyalty of an opium addict, the guilt because he escaped driving him relentlessly to try to excuse his friend? It would be easy enough to believe.

“Dylan Lezant was no better,” Jack went on, sensing Pitt's doubts. “Another young man severely addicted and sinking further and further into a life of depravity. Godfrey says he went through periods of delirious hallucinations, being dreadfully ill, soaked in sweat. And then he would do something desperate to obtain money, and opium, and then, at least to the casual observer, be perfectly all right again. I'm afraid it is very easy to believe that if opium was involved—and the police say it was an illegal sale that they were intercepting—then his cravings could have driven him to kill, if he thought they were going to deny him his opium, which of course they would.”

As Jack said, it was easy to believe. In fact, it made more sense than anything else. Why was Pitt so willing to believe Alexander's story? Pity? Or was it Alexander's emotional pain, the trauma of being stretched between two worlds, neither of which really accepted him? Pitt himself could have ended in such a no-man's-land when his father was convicted and sent to Australia.

Pitt's bitterness could have consumed him then, and he could have turned to theft or violence, believing there was no justice. There had been times when that seemed to be true. It was Sir Arthur Desmond's having taken him into the private schoolroom of his own son, to spur him on, to be a friend and a competitor, that had saved Pitt's sense of perspective. That was why he had joined the police: to find the justice for others that had passed by his own family.

But he believed Alexander Duncannon's pain was physical more than emotional, at least to begin with.

“The fact that Alexander might be totally deluded about what really happened that night doesn't mean he doesn't believe it himself,” he pointed out. “And if he did believe it, and his protests were never taken seriously, as far as he could see, then he could still have felt he had a grudge against Ednam and his men. I have to look into that, Jack. I can't leave it alone.”

“Follow another line of inquiry, for the moment,” Jack argued, but he could see that Pitt was moved. “Please. Just over Christmas. The contract will be signed in a few days.”

Pitt hesitated.

“The creation of a free port in China will be worth a king's ransom to Britain, if we lease it from them,” Jack said urgently. “That's what this is, Thomas! Morally it will be something of a reparation to the Chinese for the wrongs of the Opium Wars—and God knows, there were wrongs!” He went on more eagerly, his face alight, “That's why Abercorn is willing to work with Godfrey Duncannon, even though he loathes him, according to Emily. I've no idea why, but it doesn't matter. Abercorn has huge interests in China, and Godfrey has the political and diplomatic weight to see this through. Please…don't do something that could ruin Godfrey, for the sake of a few days!”

“Until after Christmas,” Pitt conceded.

“Thank you!” Jack held his hand out and clasped Pitt's so strongly that for a moment Pitt had to concentrate not to wince from the power of it.

After Jack was gone, Charlotte returned to the sitting room, having instructed Minnie Maude to give the coachman hot tea with a dash of whisky in it, and two rather large mince pies.

She looked at Pitt's face and saw both the relief in it and the shadow of a remaining anxiety. “Well?” she asked.

“Has Emily said anything to you about this contract Jack is working on with Godfrey Duncannon?”

“Yes,” she answered guardedly, waiting for him to explain. “Why? Is that what he came about?”

“Yes. I can see why it's so important to him—to Britain. But I can't let it go altogether…”

She looked at him gravely, but she did not ask anything of him.

“I can't let it go,” he said quietly. “If Alexander is guilty of the bombing, it is because, in his eyes, the police were corrupt to the degree that they deliberately lied and manufactured evidence. They swore on oath in court that Dylan Lezant was guilty of murder, sending him to the gallows knowing that he was innocent. Then what exactly was Alexander guilty of? Taking the law into his own hands, when the law of the land had so terribly failed him.”

She said nothing, but the grief in her face was answer enough.

“Who else would do that, if this is proved?” he went on. “People wouldn't trust the police. Who would want to help them, or give them simple information, or come to them when they were in trouble, attacked, and outnumbered?”

“I understand,” she said quietly at last. “Did you warn Jack?”

“He knows I'm worried, and why I am,” he told her. “All he asked was that I wait until the contract is signed. Just a few days.”

She smiled, but there was no relief in her. “It's late. I think we should go to bed. Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, and there's a lot to do, even if we are going to Jack and Emily's on Christmas Day.”

I
T WAS JUST BEFORE
daylight when Pitt was woken by a loud and persistent knocking on the door. He had slept later than he meant to. He threw the bedclothes off and stood up, shivering in the bedroom that had lost its warmth overnight.

The knocking on the door had stopped. Charlotte must have answered it. Pitt dressed hastily, putting on heavy underwear and thicker trousers. He splashed water over his face. There was no time to shave before he went to see who it was, and what had happened. No one would dare call on him on Christmas Eve, at this hour, if it were not serious.

He went down the stairs quickly in his stockinged feet, his hair still tousled.

Stoker was standing in the hall, his eyes hollow, his face white. He did not wait to be asked.

“There's been another bombing, sir,” he said gravely. “Also near Lancaster Gate. Another empty house. No one hurt this time, but it's a hell of a mess. Still burning, last I heard.”

Pitt stood motionless on the second to last stair.

Charlotte was standing in the hall.

“Shave,” she said quietly to Pitt. “I'll get Mr. Stoker a cup of tea.” She turned to Stoker. “Have you eaten anything yet?”

“No, ma'am, but—”

She did not let him finish. “I'll make you some toast. You can eat it while he gets ready. Come with me.”

Stoker did not argue. He was shaking with cold and the beginning of this new nightmare. He looked as if he had already been up for hours, but his visible fatigue was probably only from the exhaustion of too many long days and short nights.

Pitt shaved too quickly, cutting himself on the chin, but not badly. It was only seven minutes later that he went into the kitchen and took a plate of toast and a cup of tea from Charlotte. Five minutes after that he had his boots on and his coat and led the way out of the front door into the street, Stoker on his heels. The hansom that Stoker had arrived in was still at the curb. Stoker gave the man the address, and they moved off into the dark, wet early morning.

T
HIS BOMBING WAS ON
Craven Hill, a street not a hundred yards from Lancaster Gate. A weak daylight breaking through the cloud showed what was left of the house, smaller than the first but also apparently unoccupied. The blast had woken neighbors who had called the fire brigade. They must have come very quickly because there was little still burning, although the acrid stench of charred wood was heavy in the air and there was debris all over the garden and the road.

Two fire engines stood in the street, horses uneasy, moving from foot to foot, tossing their heads as if eager to leave. In each case, one man stood by them, talking gently, comforting, encouraging.

Pitt looked along the street. It was a quiet, domestic neighborhood, indistinguishable from Lancaster Gate except the houses were a little smaller. As he watched, he saw a couple of curtains move. He would have been surprised had they not. People were curious, but above all they would be frightened.

Was this the same as the last? Alexander Duncannon again? Or was he wrong about that, and it was anarchists after all?

Pitt turned as the chief fireman approached him.

“Morning, sir,” the fireman said gravely. It was the same man who had attended the first bombing. This was natural, since it was so close.

“Morning,” Pitt replied. “Any casualties?”

“No, thank God,” the fireman replied. “Seems police weren't called to this. But definitely a bomb. Hell of a blast, so the neighbor said who called us. About an hour ago, just over. Still dark.”

“Single explosion?” Pitt asked him.

“That's what he said, and looks right, from what we can see. But it's as safe as we can make it. Look for yourself.”

Pitt followed the fireman, stepping carefully through the rubble and fallen beams, being careful not to touch anything, even accidentally. The firemen could not make it safe without moving things, and he needed to see it undisturbed.

“That's where the bomb was.” The fireman pointed to what had been the sitting-room fireplace. “Blast went up the chimney, or at least part of it did. Brought them all down, which caved a lot of the roof in. Big chimneys clumped together, these houses. Sweep's boy could climb from one to another.”

“Best place to plant the bomb?” Pitt thought so, but he wanted the fireman's professional view as well.

The fireman frowned. “You'd need a long fuse. You wouldn't want to be near it when it went off, 'cos the whole damn roof could land on you…which it did…fall in, I mean.” He shook his head, staring at the big pile of bricks and stones that rose almost to the ceiling. This obviously had been the main load-bearing wall, with the strength of the central part, and the weight of the chimneys on it. “Take a big charge to do this much damage.”

“How much? Four sticks?”

“About that…high-quality stuff,” the fireman agreed. He turned to look at Pitt. “Any idea who you're looking for, sir? It's been empty houses so far, but that could change.”

“I know that.” Pitt did not mean to sound terse, but he knew he did. “Does it look to you like it was the same man as Lancaster Gate? He seems to know exactly where to put it for maximum effect. And this house was clearly unoccupied…but he didn't call the police…”

“What I'd like to know, sir, is if he wanted to get the police last time, what's changed so he doesn't this time, eh?”

“I wish to hell I didn't know the answer to that,” Pitt told him. “But I think I do. I want to look around a bit further. See if there's anything else to learn.”

“I'll come with you.” It was a statement, not an offer.

Pitt nodded acknowledgment. “I don't intend to move anything.”

“Damn right you don't! But I'm coming with you anyway.”

They walked carefully through the rest of the downstairs of the house. The stairs were half blown away and the cellar door was blocked by rubble it would be dangerous to move.

It was on the table in the scullery that Pitt found the piece of white cloth. He picked it up carefully. It was a gentleman's large handkerchief, made of fine lawn and embroidered with initials in one corner. It was high quality, tasteful and expensive. He knew what the initials were before he looked at it. A.D.

“Mistake, sir? Or a message?” the fireman asked.

“A message, I think,” Pitt replied. “I didn't take the last one seriously enough.”

The fireman took a deep breath, regarded Pitt for a moment, then changed his mind about saying what was on his mind.

Outside again in the street it was lighter, and a small crowd had gathered almost twenty yards away. As Pitt and the fireman came out onto the pavement a man of about sixty broke away from the others and came striding across the road toward Pitt. He was solidly built, with wings of gray at his temples.

“Are you in charge of this, sir?” he said in a voice edged with anger, and perhaps also fear.

“Yes, I am.”

“Then you'd better investigate rather more successfully! Decent people are afraid to go to bed in their own homes. Decent policemen are getting killed doing their jobs, and there's no justice for them or their families. We're suspicious of everyone out alone after dark, or with a package in their hands. Some people are saying it's anarchists, but others are suggesting it's revenge for police corruption—”

“Where did you get that from?” Pitt interrupted him.

“Irresponsible newspapers,” the man replied, not backing off an inch. “Left wing. Lunatics, some of them. But is it true? Have we got corrupt police?”

Pitt thought rapidly.

“Someone has said we have, but it is only one man making that claim. And yes, he could be the bomber, or just someone trying to take advantage of a tragedy to make his own point,” he answered.

“Well, if you don't do something, some people are going to start doing it themselves,” the man warned. “And I'm speaking for all of us.” He glanced back at the growing crowd watching him.

The fireman was looking at Pitt also, waiting for him to respond.

Pitt hated this. Being at odds with the very people he was meant to protect was the beginning of true anarchy, the loss of trust, the fear that sowed seeds of chaos.

“It's one man,” he said very clearly. “And I'm going to see him, now that I have evidence I believe sufficient to charge him. I can't hold him without it.”

“But—” the man protested.

Pitt stared at him. “Do you want me to have the power to arrest someone without proof, sir? A gentleman…as respectable as you are? He's not known to the police for any offense at all.”

“Oh…well…just do your job!” The man turned on his heel and walked away, straight through the puddles on the road, and rejoined the still growing crowd.

The fireman nodded. “That'll hold them for a while. Is it true, that the man you're after is a gentleman?”

“Yes.” Pitt did not want to give explanations.

“Right, sir. Good luck.”

Pitt thanked him and left. He walked away cold, wet, and deep in thought. There was no escaping the inevitability that this was Alexander Duncannon again, giving a violent reminder that no one had checked into what he believed was police corruption. Pitt found a small café open and sat with workmen who were late for duty, and ate a bacon sandwich with a cup of scalding-hot, overstewed tea. The bitter taste of it was oddly welcome. He was anonymous in the crowd, just another tired man with wet hair, hands red with the cold.

Should he send Stoker to see if Alexander was at his flat? If he was in, or not, what would it prove? Unless he had dynamite on the kitchen table, nothing. And this second explosion accounted for all the rest of the dynamite they knew had been stolen. Without proof, arresting Alexander would do more harm than good. Godfrey Duncannon could prevent any further investigation, if he wished to. And given the issue of the contract, he well might. Pitt remembered his promise to Jack the previous evening, but the situation had now changed and he couldn't just do nothing this morning.

R
ESOLVED,
P
ITT FOUND HIS
way to Alexander's flat. The door was unlocked, and Alexander was sitting at the kitchen table looking desperately ill. His face was sheened in sweat, his skin was pale, and he was shaking as if he had a raging fever. His shirt was soaked.

He saw Pitt and for an instant his eyes were filled with hope, then he recognized him and the hope died. He slumped forward again with a gasp, his arms wrapped around himself as if some pain within him were almost intolerable.

“Alexander,” Pitt said gently, sitting in the chair next to him at the table. “Do you need a doctor? Can I get you anyone?”

Alexander's teeth were clenched and he moved very slightly, as if he would rock himself were he able to bear the pain in the bones and muscles if he moved.

“No…” he said through clenched teeth. “There's nothing…”

“There has to be something…”

Alexander grimaced. “You don't happen to be carrying a spare twist of opium, do you?” The hope in his voice was for a moment greater than the misery.

Pitt tried to think if he knew anyone who could supply such a thing. The police surgeon? He might carry it in his first-aid kit, for pain. But Pitt would have to explain why he wanted it, and could he?

“Where do you get it normally?” he asked instead.

Alexander looked at him. “So you can arrest him?”

“So I can get you some.”

“And then arrest him. No. He'll come. He always does. Being late is just a reminder to me of what it'll cost if I turn him in. A touch of real power…in case I get out of line.” He stood up, bent double, and staggered across the room toward the bathroom and toilet.

Pitt could not help. The least he could give him was privacy—if Alexander even cared about that anymore. Pitt did not often feel violent, but whoever did this to anyone, as a reminder of power, deserved to be beaten till he hurt like this. Right now, Pitt would have liked to be the one to do it to him.

He lingered for a few moments, glancing around the room to see if there were any signs of Alexander having been out very recently. He must have worn a heavy coat to go to Craven Hill. The night was bitter. He stood up and walked over to the cupboard near the door. He pulled it open silently. There was an overcoat on the hanger. He touched the shoulders. The cloth was still wet. Had he been to Craven Hill, or simply to look for more opium? He leaned forward and sniffed, but there was no odor. But the bomber would have left before the blast anyway.

Should he stay in case Alexander collapsed and needed his help even to get back into his room and the chair? Might he be alone and unconscious on the bathroom floor? Or was the supplier waiting until Pitt was gone before he would appear with help? Anything that delayed that, even for minutes, was prolonging the torture.

He would go, and then come back again later, to make certain Alexander was all right. Perhaps he would find a doctor he could trust to be discreet?

He got up and went to the bathroom door just as Alexander opened it and came out. He looked white, but relieved of some of the pain.

“Let me take you to a hospital,” Pitt asked. “They'll give you something immediately.”

“One dose,” Alexander replied. “What about tomorrow? And the next day?”

Pitt had no answer.

One thing he could do was find out what had really happened in the Lezant case.

Alexander was in no shape to talk to him. Who could he find to tell him, on Christmas Eve?

“I'll come back and check you're all right,” he said. What was that worth? Anything?

Alexander tried to smile and muttered a thank you.

Pitt walked down the narrow stairs and out into the rain again. It was cold, but the wind had dropped. He decided he would go see the lawyer who had prosecuted the Lezant case, a Walter Cornard. However, when he reached the office Pitt was told, with some surprise that he should ask, that Mr. Cornard had left for the Christmas holidays and was not expected to return until December 27.