Silence in Hanover Close (22 page)

He knocked on the front door and waited till a footman came.

“Yes, sir?” There was no expression in the polite inquiry.

Pitt produced one of his cards.

“Thomas Pitt. I have a matter of some importance to discuss with Mr. Asherson, if he is free. It concerns one of his colleagues at the Foreign Office.” That was literally true, if not true in its implication.

“Yes, sir. Will you come in, sir, and I will inform Mr. Asherson you are here.” He looked at Pitt dubiously. His boots were not Emily’s new ones; those were too good for all the walking he had been doing lately, and he did not want to wear them out. His jacket was serviceable but no more; only his hat was of quality. He was not library material; the morning room was good enough for him. “If you will come this way, sir?”

The fire had died to a few embers but the room was still warm, at least compared with the cab Pitt had just taken. He found the room pleasant enough, modest compared with the Yorks’, but agreeably furnished, and with at least one good picture on the wall. If Asherson were short of money he could have sold it for enough to keep a housemaid for several years. So much for debt.

The door opened and Asherson came in, his dark brows drawn together in a frown. It was a handsome face, but too volatile. There was something uncertain about it. Pitt would not want to rely on this man in a crisis.

“Good evening, Mr. Asherson,” he said pleasantly. “Sorry to disturb you at home, but the matter is delicate, so I thought it would be more private here than at the Foreign Office.”

“Oh damn!” Asherson pushed the door closed behind him. “Are you still ferreting around after poor old York’s killer? I told you before I didn’t know anything remotely useful. I still don’t.”

“I’m sure you aren’t aware of knowing anything,” Pitt agreed.

“And what do you mean by that?” Asherson was plainly annoyed. “I wasn’t there that night, and nobody’s told me anything.”

“I know a great deal more than when I first spoke to you, sir,” Pitt said, watching Asherson’s face. The gas lamps threw shadows in the room, exaggerating his expression as a yellow gleam highlighted the planes of his cheeks and nose and created darkness where sunlight would have eliminated it. “There was a woman who seems to have had a role in it.”

Asherson’s eyes widened. “In York’s death? You don’t mean it was a woman burglar? I didn’t know there were such things.” There was nothing but surprise in his face.

“The burglary may be incidental, Mr. Asherson. Possibly even the murder was too. Perhaps the only thing that really mattered was the treason.”

Asherson stood absolutely motionless; not a muscle moved in his face or his body. It was an unnatural stillness, a silence that hung too long. Pitt could hear the hiss of the gas in the lamps on the wall and a slight sound as the coals settled in the hearth.

“Treason?” Asherson said at last.

Pitt did not know how far he dared stretch the truth. He decided to evade an answer. “What was Robert York working on before he was killed?” he asked.

Again Asherson hesitated. If he said he did not know, Pitt would have to believe him.

“Africa,” he answered finally. “The, er . . .” He bit bis lower lip gently. “The partition of Africa between Germany and Britain. Or perhaps it would be more fortunate to phrase it as the division of spheres of influence.”

Pitt smiled. “I take the point. Is it confidential? Secret?”

“Very!” There was a shadow of humor in his alarm, perhaps at Pitt’s ignorance. “Good God, if all the terms of a treaty we’d accept were known to the Germans in advance, it would ruin our bargaining position, but far, far worse than that would be the impression it would make on the rest of the world, particularly France. If the French were to make our deliberations public, the rest of Europe would prevent us from making the agreement at all.”

“Three years ago,” Pitt reaffirmed, watching his face.

“Oh yes, it’s not a hasty negotiation; it’s not all over in a few months, you know.”

There had been hesitation in his face, a shadow of doubt— or cunning? There was a lie in it somewhere, a deceit by implication if not in actual words.

Pitt took a guess, but he made it a statement rather than a question, as if he already knew. “And some of this information has leaked through. Your negotiations have not been without difficulty.”

“Yes,” Asherson said slowly. “Only odd pieces—they could even be educated guesses. They’re not fools.”

Pitt knew what Asherson was doing: he was building escape routes—but for whom? Robert York was dead. Was Asherson using him as a decoy for someone who was still alive? Himself? Cerise? Veronica? One of the Danvers?

“When was the last instance in which this information might have been stolen and passed to the Germans?” Pitt asked. “I presume we can be certain it was not given to the French?”

“Oh . . .” Asherson was confused. “Yes, it certainly wasn’t given to the French, but the Germans, I don’t know. It isn’t possible to say. Information like that may not be used for some time after it is received.”

That was true, but Pitt believed it was also an evasion. Was Asherson just naturally reluctant to trust anyone outside his own office, or was he still protecting someone?

Pitt tried approaching it from another direction. “It hasn’t seriously impeded your negotiations?”

“No,” Asherson agreed quickly. “As I said, it could even be the natural ability of the Germans. It isn’t the French, that is certain.”

“Then it’s hardly worth murdering over.”

“What?”

“Not worth murdering to hide,” Pitt repeated carefully.

Asherson said nothing. His lips tightened and he stared back across the lamplit room. Pitt waited.

“No,” Asherson said at last. “I think you must be mistaken. It was a burglary that went wrong.”

Pitt shook his head. “No, Mr. Asherson, that is one thing it was not. If it wasn’t treason then it was murder, personal and intentional, by someone who knew Robert York.”

Again Asherson waited, men his face eased. Pitt could spot the exact moment the idea came to him. “You mean York was robbed by someone he knew, some acquaintance who had been to the house and knew where to look for valuables?”

“No. All they took amounted to barely a hundred pounds at best, less by the time it would have been fenced—which it wasn’t.”

“Fenced?”

“Resold to a receiver of stolen goods.”

“Wasn’t it?” he said carefully. “Can you know that?”

“Yes, Mr. Asherson.”

“Oh.” Asherson looked down at the floor, his face heavy with concentration. The gaslight caught the curious gray of his eyes and the black lashes.

Again Pitt stood motionless, allowing the silence to settle. Somewhere out in the hall a servant’s feet made a brisk sound on the parquet floor; the sound died away again along the passage as a door thudded.

At last Asherson reached his decision. He faced Pitt.

“Other information has gone missing,” he said very quietly. “More important information. But none of it has ever been acted on by our enemies, as far as we can tell. God knows why not.”

Pitt was not surprised, but it gave him no satisfaction. He had still hoped he was wrong, that some other explanation would present itself. Was this the whole truth yet, or only part of it? He looked at Asherson’s grim, unhappy expression and believed at least this much was honest, as far as it went.

“And would you know?” he asked.

“Yes.” This time Asherson did not hesitate. “Yes. Papers that have been temporarily missing, a copy replaced instead of the original. Don’t ask me for anything more; I can’t tell you.”

“No doubt they’ll use it when they’re ready,” Pitt said, flatly. “Perhaps if they used it now you’d know their source, and they’re protecting him as long as he’s useful.”

Asherson sank down onto the arm of one of the chairs, sitting awkwardly. “This is awful. I had hoped it was simply Robert’s carelessness, but if he really was murdered over it, then that doesn’t seem reasonable. God, what a tragedy!”

“And none of it has gone since his death?”

Asherson shook his head.

“Have you seen a beautiful woman, tall and slim with dark hair, wearing an unusual shade of cerise?”

Asherson looked at him incredulously. “What?”

“A sort of hot bluish pink, like magenta or cyclamen.”

“I know what color cerise is, you fool!” He shut his eyes suddenly. “Damn it! I’m sorry. No, I haven’t seen her. What the hell does that have to do with it?”

“It seems likely it was this woman who lured York into betrayal of his country,” Pitt replied. “He may have been having an affair with her.”

Asherson looked surprised. “Robert? I never saw him take the slightest notice of any woman but Veronica. He—he just wasn’t a womanizer. He was very discriminating, a quiet sort of man with excellent taste. And Veronica adored him.”

“It seems he was two men,” Pitt said sadly. He would not tell Asherson that it could have been Veronica herself in cerise. If Asherson had not thought of it, it would not help. And just in case Asherson himself were the traitor, no need to warn him of Pitt’s closeness.

“Well, he’s dead now.” Asherson stood up. “Let the poor devil rest in peace. You won’t find your mysterious woman in Hanover Close. I’m sorry I can’t help.”

“You have helped, Mr. Asherson.” Pitt said smiling bleakly. “Thank you for your frankness, sir. Good evening.”

Asherson did not reply, but stepped back so Pitt could pass him and go out of the door. In the hall a footman appeared from the shadows and showed him to the step and the dark street beyond.

Outside in the Close the last fog had blown away in the north wind, bitter as the Pole, and the stars were glittering in a sky barely marred by an occasional smear of smoke. Ice crackled underfoot in the frozen puddles and gutters. Pitt stepped out briskly; in a tidier man it could almost have been called a march.

He climbed the immaculate porch steps of number two and pulled the brass bell. When the footman opened the door he knew precisely what he was going to say, and to whom.

“Good evening. May I see Mr. York please? I require his permission to speak to his staff about one of them who may have had knowledge of a crime. It is most urgent.”

“Er, yes sir. I ’spect you may.” The youth looked taken aback. “You’d better come in. Library fire’s lit, sir; you can wait in there.”

It was a few minutes until Piers York came in, his benign, slightly quizzical face marked with an unusual frown. “What is it this time, Pitt? Not the damn silver again, surely?”

“No sir.” He stopped, hoping York would not press the point. But he stood staring at Pitt, his eyebrows raised, his eyes small and gray and intelligent. There was no avoiding an answer.

“Treason and murder, sir.”

“Balderdash!” York said smartly. “I doubt the servants even know what treason is, and they never leave this house except on their half days off, which are only twice a month.” His eyebrows rose even higher. “Or are you suggesting this treason took place here?”

Pitt knew he was on very dangerous ground. All Ballarat’s warnings jangled in his ears.

“No sir, I think an agent of treason may have visited your house, unknown to you. Your maid Dulcie Mabbutt saw her; others may have.”

“Saw
her?”
York’s eyebrows shot up. “Good God! You mean a woman? Well, Dulcie can’t help you, poor child. She fell out of one of the upstairs windows and died. I’m sorry.” His face was pinched and sad. Pitt found it impossible to believe he was not genuinely grieved. Probably he knew nothing about any of it—Cerise, or Robert’s or Dulcie’s death. He was a banker; he alone of the men in the case had nothing to do with the Foreign Office, and Pitt could not imagine a spy wasting her energies on this wry, rather charming man well into his sixties. And he had too much innate humor to harbor the vanity necessary to be so ridiculous.

“I know Dulcie is dead,” Pitt agreed. “But she may have confided to the other maids. Women do talk to each other.”

“Where and when did Dulcie see this woman of yours?”

“Upstairs on the landing,” Pitt replied. “In the middle of the night.”

“Good heavens! What on earth was Dulcie doing out of her own room in the middle of the night? Are you sure she wasn’t dreaming?”

“This woman’s been seen elsewhere, sir, and Dulcie’s description was very good.”

“Well, go on, man!”

“Tall and slender, with dark hair, very beautiful, and wearing a gown of a startling shade of fuchsia or cerise.”

“Well, I certainly haven’t seen her.”

“May I speak to some of your girls who might have been friendly with Dulcie, and then perhaps to the younger Mrs. York? I believe Dulcie was her maid.”

“I suppose so—if it’s necessary.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He spoke to the upstairs maid, the downstairs maid, the laundry maid, the other lady’s maid, the kitchen maid, the scullery maid, and finally the tweeny, but it seemed Dulcie had been remarkably discreet and had kept total confidence on all that she saw of her mistress’s household. He wished she had been less honorable, and yet there was a kind of bitter satisfaction in it. Virtue of any sort kept its sweetness whatever surrounded it. He saved the questions about Dulcie’s death for Veronica. If she was innocent it was cruel, but he could not afford kindness now.

Her mother-in-law was out, the first stroke of good fortune Pitt had had in some time, and Veronica received him in the boudoir.

“I don’t know how I can help you, Mr. Pitt,” she said gravely. She was dressed in deep forest green, which heightened her slightly ethereal quality. She was pale, her eyes shadowed as if she had slept badly, and she remained standing some distance from him, not facing him but staring at a gold-framed seascape on the wall. “I see no purpose in going over and over the tragedies of the past. Nothing will bring my husband back, and we don’t care about the silver or the book. We would much prefer not to be constantly reminded of it.”

He hated what he was doing, but he knew of no other way. If he had pressed harder and been cleverer, if he had solved it the first time, Dulcie would still be alive.

“I’m here about Dulcie Mabbutt, Mrs. York.”