Seven Dials (22 page)

“Of course,” he replied. He took a breath. “He has taken his own manservant.”

There was nothing she could add that would not betray an unseemly curiosity, and curiosity was a social sin of which she had never been guilty. It was vulgar, and implied that one’s own life was of insufficient interest to fill one’s mind. No one would care to admit to that; it was the ultimate failure.

“I daresay he will feel the benefit,” she observed. “I admit I do not care for January and February very much myself. I preferred it when I spent more time in the country. A walk in the woods is a pleasure at any time of the year. London streets in the snow offer a great deal less-mostly wet skirts up to the knees, unless one is fortunate. The south of France sounds more and more appealing all the time.”

He fixed her with a flintlike stare. It was not entirely her imagination that there was also enmity in it, a knowledge that she would not have come wholly as a gesture of courtesy to a woman she did not know.

“I am most pleased to have made your acquaintance, Mrs. Arbuthnott,” she said graciously. “I am sure you will enjoy your stay in London.” She inclined her head to the sister and brother-in-law. “Good evening, Ferdinand,” she finished, and without waiting for acknowledgment she turned and went back into the passage leading from box to box. Only feet away, Theloneus was still standing with the bishop, a slightly glazed look on his face.

“… misunderstanding of virtue,” the bishop was saying intently. “It is one of the curses of modern living that…”

Theloneus was sorely in need of rescue.

“Bishop, would you come to join us for champagne?” Vespasia said with a dazzling smile. “Or were you going to say that we drink too much of it? I daresay you are right, and of course you are bound in honor to set us all an example. So refreshing to have seen you here. Do enjoy the evening.” And she offered her hand to Theloneus, who took it immediately, trying hard to suppress his laughter.

VISITING SAVILLE RYERSON was altogether a more difficult matter to arrange, and in spite of the fact that she was genuinely concerned that Martin Garvie had met with some misfortune, regardless of Garrick’s statement that he was in the south of France with Garrick’s son, her fear for Ryerson was deeper. At best he was going to be disillusioned in a woman he loved, perhaps not wisely but certainly with all the power of his nature. To find yourself betrayed, not only in fact but in hope, to have your dreams stained beyond repair, was one of the hardest of all tests of the soul. And at worst he could find himself in the dock beside Ayesha Zakhari, and perhaps even on the gallows as well.

She did not bother to try the easy routes first. She could not afford the time taken by failure, nor perhaps the warning to others that she was so keenly interested she would call in old favors in order to see him.

Therefore she went straight to see the appropriate assistant commissioner of police. A long while ago, in their youth, there had been a time when he had courted her, and later, when they were both married, there had been a long weekend house party in one of the great stately homes of the duke of something-or-other. An afternoon in the yew walk sprung to mind particularly. She disliked calling on memories in such a fashion-it lacked grace-but it was extremely useful, and Ryerson’s need was too profound for such delicacies to stand in her way.

He received her without keeping her waiting. Time had been kind to him, but not as it had been to her. He was standing in the center of the floor of his office when she was shown in. He looked thinner than in the past, and his hair was very gray.

“My dear…” he began, and then was uncertain quite how to address her. It had been many years since they were on familiar terms.

She responded quickly, to save him embarrassment. “Arthur, how generous of you to see me so quickly, especially when you must be quite certain, when I have come in such indecent haste, that I am seeking a favor.” She was dressed in her customary pale colors of dove gray and ivory, pearls at her throat, gleaming to give light to her face. She had learned over the years exactly what became her best. Even the most beautiful of women, or the youngest, have colors and lines which do not flatter them.

“It is always a pleasure to see you, whatever the reason,” he replied, and if he was saying only what was expected of him, he did it with an air of sincerity one could not disbelieve. “Please…” He indicated the chair at one side of his desk, and waited until she was seated and her skirts arranged with a single flick, to fall richly and without creasing. “What may I do for you?” he asked.

She had debated for some time whether to be direct or indirect. Arthur had been somewhat unsophisticated in the past, but time might have altered that, and he was now no longer in love with her, which fact in itself would give him a better ability to judge. There was no romantic ardor to blunt his intellect. She decided on directness. To attempt to mislead him would be insulting. But then so would simple statements of need without at least lip service to the past, and the delicacy of memory.

“I have acquired some interesting relatives since we last met,” she said with ease, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to discuss. “By marriage, of course. I daresay you recall my late great-nephew, George Ashworth?”

Arthur’s face fell into immediate, quite genuine regret. “I am so sorry! What a tragedy.”

His words enabled her to dispense with whole paragraphs of explanation.

“There is much tragedy indeed,” she agreed with a slight smile. “But through his marriage I acquired a great-niece whose sister is married to a policeman… of remarkable ability.” She saw his start of amazement. “I have from time to time involved myself in certain issues, and learned to understand some of the causes of crime in a way I did not when I was younger. I daresay the same is true for you…” She let it hang, not quite a question.

“Oh, yes, police work is…” He lifted his shoulders. She noticed again how much thinner he was, but it was not unbecoming.

“Exactly!” she agreed firmly. “That is why I have come to you. You are in a unique position to give me some small assistance.” Before he could ask her what it was, she hurried on. “I am sure you are as puzzled and distressed as I am by this miserable business at Eden Lodge. I have known Saville Ryerson for many years-”

Arthur shook his head. “I can tell you nothing, Vespasia, for the simple reason that I know nothing.”

“Of course!” She smiled. “I am not asking you for information, my dear. It would be entirely inappropriate. But I would like to be able to see Saville myself, urgently, and in private.” She did not wish to offer any explanation, but she had prepared one in case he should request it.

“It would be most unpleasant for you,” he said awkwardly. “And there really is nothing you can do for him. He has all the necessities, and any luxuries he is permitted. The charge is accessory to murder, Vespasia. For any man that is serious, but to one who has had the position and the trust that he has, it is devastating.”

“I am aware of that, Arthur. As I said, I have had far more experience of the less-attractive sides of human nature since poor George’s death. I have even been of assistance now and then. If I am placing you in a position of difficulty, where honor obliges you to refuse me, then please do me the courtesy, for old friendship’s sake, of telling me so directly.”

“No, it does not!” he said quickly. “I… I was thinking only of your sensibilities, and embarrassment if you should find him greatly… changed. You may not be able to avoid the conviction that he is after all guilty. I…”

“For heaven’s sake, Arthur!” she said impatiently. “Have you confused me with someone else in the pleasant summers of your past? I fought on the barricades in Rome in ’48. I am not a stranger to unpleasantness! I have seen squalor, betrayal, and death in many forms-some of them in high society! May I see Saville Ryerson-or not?”

“Of course you may, my dear. I shall see to it this afternoon. Perhaps you will do me the honor of taking luncheon with me? And we shall talk of the parties we used to have when summers were longer-and warmer than they seem to be now.”

She smiled at him with true affection, remembering the yew walk, and a certain herbaceous border with a blaze of blue delphiniums. “Thank you, Arthur. I should be delighted.”

SHE WAS SHOWN into the room where her meeting with Ryerson had been arranged, and the guard withdrew and left her alone. It was a little before six in the evening, and already the gas lamps were burning inside because the single window was high and narrow.

She had not long to wait before the door opened again and Ryerson came in. Tired as he was, robbed of the immaculate shirts and cravats he normally wore, he looked pale, a little untidy. But he was still a big man, not shrunken or bowed by fear, although she saw it in his eyes as soon as the door was closed again and he turned to her.

“Good evening, Saville,” she said quietly. “Please sit down. I dislike having to crane my neck to see you.”

“Why have you come?” he asked, obeying her, his face sad, his shoulders a little hunched. “This is no place for you, and you hardly owe me this. All your crusading for social justice does not include visits to the guilty.” His eyes did not evade hers. “And I am guilty, Vespasia. I would have helped her move the body to the park and leave it there. Indeed, I actually picked it up and placed it in the wheelbarrow… and the gun. I appreciate your kindness, but it is done in a misapprehension of the facts.”

“For goodness’ sake, Saville!” she said tartly. “I am not a fool! Of course you moved the wretched man’s body. Thomas Pitt is my great-nephew… at least he is by virtue of several marriages. I possibly know more of the affair than you do.” She was gratified to see him look genuinely startled.

“Whose marriages, in God’s name?” he asked.

“His, of course, you fool!” she retorted. “It would hardly be mine.”

His face relaxed in a smile, even his shoulders eased a little. “You cannot help me, Vespasia, but you certainly bring light to the gloom, and I thank you for that.” He moved his hand as if to reach across the table between them and touch her, then changed his mind and withdrew it.

“I am gratified,” she responded. “But it is incidental. I would like to do something far more practical, and of greater duration. Thomas has gone to Alexandria to see what he can learn of Ayesha Zakhari before she came here, and of Edwin Lovat-if there is anything to learn.” She saw him tense again. “Saville, are you afraid of the truth?”

“No!” he said instantly, almost before she had let the last word drop.

“Good!” she continued. “Then let us discuss this without games of words and evasions of what is less than pleasing. Where did you meet Miss Zakhari?”

“What?” He was startled.

“Saville!” she said impatiently. “You are a senior government minister in your middle fifties; she is an Egyptian woman of what… thirty-five? Your worlds do not meet, let alone cross. You are a Member of Parliament for Manchester, a cotton-spinning county. She is from a cotton-growing area of Egypt. Do not pretend to be a fool!”

He sighed and ran his hand through his heavy hair. “Of course she sought me out because of the cotton,” he said wearily. “And of course she tried to persuade me to scale down the industry in Manchester and invest in Egypt’s spinning and weaving its own cotton. What would you expect of an Egyptian patriot?” Now his eyes were clear and challenging, as burningly dark as if he were Egyptian himself.

She smiled. “I have no quarrel with patriots, Saville, or with their arguments to be fair to their own people. Were I in her place I hope I would have the passion and the courage to do the same. But no matter how good the cause, there are acts that may not justifiably be committed in its furtherance.”

“She did not kill Lovat.” He made it a simple statement.

“Do you believe that, or know it?” she asked.

He met her eyes, calm and silver-gray, and his flickered first. “But I do believe it, Vespasia. She swore it to me, and if I doubt her then I doubt everything I love and treasure, and which makes life precious to me.”

She drew in her breath to say something, then realized she had nothing that would help or answer his need. He was an ardent man who had denied his nature for a long time, and now he was deeply in love. The dam gates had burst. “Then who did?” she asked instead. “And why?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted quietly. “But before you suggest it was done to involve me and bring me to disgrace and loss of office, that would hardly benefit the cotton industry in Egypt. Any minister following me would be less likely than I to be of help to them. No single man has the power to change an entire industry, whether he wishes to or not. Ayesha knows that now, even if she imagined in the beginning that she could persuade me to begin such a movement for reform.”

“Then why was she still here in London?” Vespasia had no alternative but to be brutal if she was to serve any purpose at all beyond comfort that would last only as long as she was in the room, if that.

“Because I wished her to be,” he answered. Then he went on tentatively, as if he was half afraid she would doubt him. “And I believe she loves me as much as I do her.”

To her surprise, she did not doubt him, at least not that he spoke the truth of his own feelings. Whatever Ayesha felt she was less certain of, but looking at him where he sat opposite her, there was such intensity in him, such a power of conviction, an unwavering resolve, she would not find it hard to imagine a young woman discovering that barriers of age, culture and even religion might disappear. She also found herself believing that Ryerson would go all the way to trial, even to conviction, rather than betray his mistress. He was a man of absolutes, he had been for as long as she had known him, and time had deepened his character rather than mellowed it. He was wiser, more mature in judgment and temper than in his youth, but in the last analysis his heart would always rule his head. He was the stuff of crusaders, and of martyrs.

What would Pitt find in Alexandria? Probably not a great deal. It was a city where he knew no one, where even the language was strange to him, the beliefs, the long, intertwining connections of who knew whom, of debts and hatreds, relationships and money and faith. Unless either the woman or Lovat himself had been remarkably careless, there would be little to find for a foreign policeman who was not even certain what he was looking for.