Treachery at Lancaster Gate (13 page)

Emily guessed that the quarrel with his father went deeper than Cecily wished to say, and in truth, it was a very private matter, even though it was not at all uncommon. Jack had to work hard not to quarrel with Edward now and then. If he had been his own son, he might not have restrained himself so much. Emily had not always been entirely at peace with her own mother, Charlotte even less so. Their sister, Sarah, long dead now, had been the only obedient one.

“Alex lives a different way,” Cecily started again. “I don't approve of it, but he is still my son. He has friends I don't care for, and I am certain he spends far too much of his time indulging…tastes I dislike.” She said it so quietly Emily did not even think of asking what they were. Cecily's pain was all she cared about. Perhaps it happened to most mothers. Edward was a little young for her to worry about his having those sorts of troubles, but her own turn could well come, and far sooner than she would ever be prepared for.

“He…he had some very unsuitable friends,” Cecily said again, as though now the floodgates were open on the dam that had held her troubles back, and she needed to deal with it all at once.

“We all do…” Emily responded. “And some of them turn out to be good.”

“Not like Dylan Lezant,” Cecily said softly, her voice catching as if she found it hard to control.

“Dylan Lezant?” Emily echoed.

“He was a young man of passion and charm, but emotionally fragile. ‘Too much imagination,' Godfrey said. Josiah Abercorn was close to him as well. That's how Alexander met him, when he was recovering from his accident.”

“He sounds like a good friend,” Emily observed.

“He was…”

“Was?”

“He's dead.” Cecily gulped, and turned her head away a little, swallowing hard. “They hanged him. I think Alexander has never got over it.” The tears spilled and slid down her cheeks. “He seemed so young! So…so very foolish. But I suppose that is the law, and there was no escaping it.”

“The law?” Emily said, startled.

“He killed a man…shot him.” Cecily met Emily's eyes at last. “They were buying opium…for pain. The police caught them, and in running away, Dylan shot a man, a Mr. Tyndale, who was just going home by a shortcut. Alexander refused to believe he was guilty, but of course he was.” She swallowed hard and dabbed her cheeks with the handkerchief from her reticule. “He still doesn't believe it today. You see…Alex escaped without the police identifying him. He thought Dylan was right behind him…but he wasn't. The police arrested him with the gun in his hand. Poor Tyndale was dead, shot through the heart. That was the worst time in my life. Alexander came forward—did everything he could to prove that Dylan was innocent—but no one believed him. They tried Dylan and found him guilty. I can remember Alexander's face as if it were days ago, not years. I was terrified he would take his own life, with the grief of it…and the guilt. I thought he would never stop…that he would…damage his heart, quite literally.”

“Guilt?” Emily said slowly, having difficulty with the idea. She ached to help, but what was there anyone could do?

“Because he lived!” Cecily explained. “They both ran, but Dylan was closer and they caught him. And Alexander couldn't prove Dylan's innocence. He spent all his money, spent every day and night until he passed out with exhaustion. But he couldn't even make anyone listen to him.”

“If I said I can even imagine how you feel, it would be a lie,” Emily told her. “But if there is anything I can do in any way at all, please allow me to.”

Cecily was silent for a few moments, as if searching for something to ask of her, then shook her head. “Thank you…”

There were footsteps outside and both of them stood up, not wishing to be caught in what was an acutely private conversation. Gossip could interpret it in too many ways.

Even so, the subject arose in another conversation within the hour, and Emily was determined to turn it to her advantage. She was speaking with Mrs. Hill, a woman she had known for some time, when they were joined by her brother, Mr. Cardon, and his wife, a blunt-faced woman who was wearing rather too many diamonds for the best of taste. However, she had a candor that Emily found a pleasant change from the too common desire to please those considered to be important.

The first reference caught Emily completely by surprise. She hadn't been paying close attention to the conversation.

“You must mean Lestrange,” Mrs. Cardon was saying to her husband. “Lezant was the poor young man who was hanged for shooting the bystander in the opium sale, or whatever it was.”

Her husband's eyebrows rose so far they wrinkled his brow right up to the point where his hair was receding. “I don't know why on earth you need feel pity for such a miserable creature. You really should be more careful of the words you choose, my dear. I'm sure you don't mean that. You will give Mrs. Radley quite the wrong impression of you.”

“Please don't concern yourself,” Emily said quickly. “I don't form impressions so rapidly.”

Mrs. Cardon was not so easily corrected. “I meant what I said,” she told him. “I read the case very carefully.” She looked at Emily, not her husband. “Herbert disapproves of my reading such things, but I consider that if it is in
The Times,
then it is fit for all people to read. Don't you agree?” There was no challenge in her voice, but it was intended nonetheless.

“I think you should read whatever you wish,” Emily replied with more candor than she had originally intended. “But I agree with your taste. I'm not sure how I missed that story myself. I don't recall it. I feel remiss.” She said it as if she were genuinely interested, as indeed she was.

“Very polite of you, Mrs. Radley,” Cardon said. “But such indulgence is not really necessary.” A shadow of arrogance passed over his face.

Emily drew in breath to argue, then thought better of it. Her chance of learning more was slipping away. “I have heard something of the matter just by word of mouth, occasional references,” she said, directing her words to Regina Cardon. “I would be very interested in hearing what
The Times
had to say. It is the most likely to be accurate, at least as to what was indisputable. No doubt opinions vary. They always do.”

“There was no doubt about the young man's guilt,” Cardon said firmly. He gave his wife a warning glance.

Emily plunged on anyway. It concerned Cecily, whom she liked and for whose grief she had a deep compassion. It also might eventually affect Jack, if Alexander Duncannon felt as profoundly about the situation as his mother believed.

“He confessed?” Emily said with perhaps a little too much innocence.

“No,” Regina Cardon said instantly. “He went to the gallows denying his guilt in anything except purchasing opium to treat his pain.”

“He should have got it through a doctor, not illegally from some street dealer,” her husband told her brusquely. “He was resisting arrest, and that is still murder, because it was done while in the act of committing another crime. You have no argument, Regina. Lezant was a thoroughly undesirable young man.”

“If every young man were hanged whom someone three times his age thought undesirable, we should few of us grow to adulthood, Herbert,” she answered coldly.

He looked at her with ill-concealed surprise and arrogance.

“Although I have little doubt you would have made it,” she added.

Emily put her hand up over her mouth as if she were aghast, whereas actually she was afraid of laughing aloud. Cardon might be uncertain as to what his wife meant, but Emily knew exactly—and agreed. With reluctance she rescued the conversation by changing the subject, but she did manage to smile directly at Regina Cardon, to let her know that she both understood and sympathized. She received a flash of gratitude in return.

L
ATER SHE REJOINED
J
ACK,
but did not have an opportunity to speak alone with him until nearly two in the morning, when they were in their own carriage on the relatively short journey home.

She was tired, but what she wished to say should not be delayed. Discussion on the contract was continuing every day. Only if there were difficulties would it extend beyond Christmas.

“Jack…”

He brought himself to attention with an effort.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “But I feel I should tell you that I had a long talk with Cecily Duncannon this evening, much of it in private.”

He blinked, and in the shifting light of passing carriage lamps she saw the expression of ease go from his face. “I could see that she was worried. Is it something serious? Is she unwell?”

“Her son, Alexander, is unwell…”

He relaxed. “The poor fellow hasn't been really well since his accident. Godfrey mentions it occasionally. He seems to be recovering very slowly.” He put his hand over Emily's where it rested on her cloak. “He's a difficult young man. He has chosen a style of life not likely to help him. Godfrey has done all he can to persuade him to change, but I'm afraid it has so far been to no avail. He made some unfortunate friends earlier on, as I suppose many of us do, but in his case it ended in total tragedy, and Alexander refuses to let go of it.”

“He still believes Dylan Lezant was innocent,” Emily replied.

Jack looked at her sharply. “Emily, there was no question. The bystander was shot. The police were there to arrest them and the dealer, and they saw everything. Alexander was just…devoted to this Lezant as a fellow sufferer dependent on opium for the relief of pain. Except Alexander had real and severe pain and this Lezant was just…just an addict! I'm sorry for both of them, but it is far beyond time Alexander put it behind him and concentrated on getting his health back.”

“And that's all there is to it?” Emily said with a touch of chill her fur-trimmed cloak and carriage rug did nothing to dispel. “Is that what Godfrey said to Cecily too?”

“I don't suppose he was quite so blunt, but in substance, yes.”

She did not reply. She had no facts with which to argue, not with Jack, anyway.

T
ELLMAN SAT IN HIS
chair in the sitting room. Perhaps it should more properly have been called a parlor, but it had too nice a fireplace not to use it themselves, whether they had company or not. And, to tell the truth, with a small child and another on the way, they had little inclination to invite people to visit.

Tellman stared around the room and its comfort seeped into him, like warmth from an open fire, such as burned up in the hearth now. The wind and rain outside only made it feel even better in here. It was what he had wanted for as long as he could remember: a place of his own, clean and warm, full of the things he valued. There was a painting over the fireplace of a scene in the country, with big trees leaning across a stream, and a wooden bridge with two figures on it, barely discernible in the shadows. He always thought of them as friends, even lovers. There was a bookcase against one wall and lots of books in it, mostly his favorites but also some he would read one day, when he had more time.

There was a small table by the opposite chair, where Gracie was sitting quietly, her head fallen forward in sleep, the sewing slipped out of her hands. Beside her was a basket of needles, cottons, and various other sewing things. He liked to watch Gracie sew. She looked so comfortable, even though she had to concentrate hard. She found cooking came to her far more naturally. He realized with pleasure how much he was still in love with her. They had been married long enough to expect a second child, but the surprise and delight had not worn off yet.

Even his present distress did not shadow his happiness more than on the surface. He hated quarreling with Pitt, and he knew that he had behaved miserably. He would not tell Gracie. It would only upset her, and, if he were honest with himself, he was ashamed of it now. Pitt did not want to find corruption in the police any more than Tellman did. It might not cut quite as deeply for Pitt, however. Pitt had other heroes to admire, other men and other causes, even if he had begun much as Tellman had.

Tellman's father had been born into desperate poverty, the kind where you live from one meal to the next, and go to bed hungry every night. He had worked hard and died young in an industrial accident. Other victims of the accident had survived, but his body was not strong enough to heal from the broken bones, and septicemia had eventually killed him.

Tellman himself had been slight as a child, some might say scrawny. He had been too clever to be easy friends with other boys, who were afraid of his intelligence and lashed out at him the only way they knew how, with fists and boots. Even sitting here by his own fire, Tellman could feel the sweat of fear in his body, and then the chill, as he remembered standing facing them in the street, knowing what was coming.

There had been three boys in particular who had held at bay their own inadequacies by hurting him. He could hear the high-pitched giggle of one of them even in his nightmares. He could remember the pain from one time to the next, as if it were going on even before it happened. But it was the humiliation that was the worst. He wanted more than anything else on earth not to be afraid of them, but it was beyond his power. It was the fear they fed on, the spur it gave them to terrify the boy who consistently outdid them in the classroom. Even if he said nothing, pretended he did not know the answers when he did, they knew it. The need to succeed at something had driven him on. Perhaps the master had realized what was happening, but his intervention would only have made it worse.

The time he could not bear to remember was the one in the school yard, near the rubbish bins, when he had been so afraid that he had wet himself. The fat boy with the giggle had laughed so hard he had choked, and called him Pisspants for the rest of his school days. Tellman still flushed hot at the memory. He had had daydreams about beating the boy to a pulp.

He had never told anyone about that. He had tried to forget it, deny its existence in his mind. Over the years he had all but succeeded.

So why did it come back now, this quiet evening in front of the fire with Gracie sitting not two yards away?

Because the certainties that made him strong were crumbling. He had seen in the police a force for good, a protection of the ordinary man or woman who had been victimized physically or had their belongings stolen or damaged. He was used to poverty and he knew that a few shillings was a fortune to some, the difference between eating and going hungry and cold. One pair of boots might be all a man had. Theft was a major crime to such people.

And for a boy without brothers and sisters, belonging to a group was of intense importance. The friendship, the loyalty, the unspoken trust were rewards greater than the money, although pay was regular in the police, and it meant he could have a home, eat every day, be warm in the winter. Above all, he could look at his own thin, lantern-jawed face in the glass when he shaved and see a man he could respect, a man who did not fail when others looked to him for help. That was happiness.

Thomas Pitt had been his first hero. He was human, and certainly fallible, but he was never dishonest, and even when he seemed beaten, he never gave up. Rumpled, wild-haired, pockets bulging, he always knocked on the front door, and, speaking quietly, insisted on going in.

Tellman recalled vividly the first time he got in the middle of a street fight to protect a man who had been alone and terrified, and Pitt had praised him. He had stood on the pavement, his uniform muddy, boots soaked from the gutter, burning with pride.

Police were better regarded now, and Pitt was head of Special Branch. No one treated him lightly; he knew too much about them.

Yet Pitt thought the police were corrupt, so much so that they had brought upon themselves the terrible bombing at Lancaster Gate. Tellman could still smell the smoke and the charred flesh in his dreams.

No one deserved to die like that!

Not that Pitt had said they did. He was just afraid that the bombing could be in revenge for some injustice rather than an anarchist lashing out at the establishment.

Quarreling with Pitt had been stupid. They had both been tired and, more than that, afraid. The old order was falling to pieces and suddenly they had to face that fact.

Pitt was right, even if he had been clumsy in the way he put it. And perhaps Tellman had been too quick to take offense, striking back without thinking.

Gracie woke with a start and smiled at him, finding the sewing again. The piece she was working on was finished. It was one of his shirts. She was turning the collar. He tended to fray them running his finger around the inside when he was worried. He liked her carefulness. She had learned that from Charlotte, when Pitt was still in his early days.

“So are yer going ter tell me,” Gracie asked, “or sit there all evening letting me worry about yer?”

“There's nothing really wrong,” he lied. He did not want to tell her the truth. She would have no respect for him if she knew how much he depended on his belief in the men he worked with. If he tried to explain, it would all lead back to the school yard, and he could not bear that. She must never know about that.

“Just feel badly about the Lancaster Gate bombing,” he added. “We aren't really getting anywhere. Not yet.”

Her face crumpled a little. She knew he was evading answering her properly. He felt guilty, but he must not tell her all the things that were churning in his mind. It was his duty to protect her from them. He should make an effort to change his expression and occupy his thoughts with something else. He mentioned one or two other things in the news.

“Don't change the subject, Samuel,” she responded. “Yer got a face on yer like a burst boot! There's something wrong real bad.”

“Ednam died today,” he answered abruptly. “We thought he'd make it. He was the most senior officer. We have to defend his reputation, now that he can't do it.”

“And that in't going to be easy, eh?” she replied.

She was too quick. She could read him as if he were an open book. It made him feel exposed. Her opinion of him mattered more than anybody else's—in fact, more than everybody else's added together. She needed to believe that he was strong enough to look after her, especially now that she was going to have another child. She needed to believe in the police too. The city held millions of people who needed to believe that the police were both honest and brave. If that belief went, so eventually did everything else.

How was he going to deal with it, if Pitt was right and the whole force had crumbling patches in it, like rotten wood holding up a house? If the bad bits fell, buckled, couldn't take the weight, then the good bits fell with them! Everything came down, and there was no shelter left at all.

“Samuel!” Gracie said sharply, cutting across his thoughts.

He looked at her, and saw the fear in her eyes.

“There's summink bad that yer won't tell me,” she went on. “ 'Ow can I do anything about it if I don't know?”

He smiled and felt a sudden rush of emotion. How like Gracie, all five foot nothing of her, but ready to fight anybody to protect her own. He was being selfish shutting her out, and he recognized it at last. By doing it he was leaving her frightened and alone, as if he didn't think she was capable of helping, or worth trusting. He could see it in her eyes, the hurt far outweighing the fear. He wasn't protecting her; he was protecting himself.

He sat in silence for several moments, trying to find the words that would frighten her least. She had all the courage in the world, but she was still so very vulnerable. She had a child who was not yet two years old, and in another six months she would have a second one. How could he look after her properly if he put himself in jeopardy also?

She was waiting. He could see it clearly in her face, the pain over the fact that he did not trust her. He had been selfish. He must repair that.

He started with the worst part. “I quarreled with Pitt.” He could hear the reluctance in his own voice, the raw edge of it. “He thinks we need to find out if certain accusations against the police are true…”

“Why?” she said instantly. “Who said anything? Does 'e believe it, or is 'e trying ter prove it in't right? Yer can't just stick yer 'ead in the sand an' pretend it's all right. Yer wouldn't if it was about anyone else. People've got a right to trust the police.”

“I know that. But the fact that we're looking into it means it could be true,” he explained. “And the police know that, and so does everyone else. It must be possible, or we wouldn't be looking!” It was so reasonable, and yet it pained him even to think of it.

“What d'yer think they've done?” she asked, staring at him very solemnly, her sewing forgotten. “Why don't yer tell me straight out?”

He drew in breath to deny it vehemently, then he met her eyes and the denial melted away. She would know he was lying: she always knew. Not that he did lie, but sometimes he evaded telling her everything. Gracie had gentleness, and great patience with her child, but she had no equivocation in her whatever when it came to telling the truth. He had seen her tell people to mind their own business, but never had he heard her prevaricate. With people you loved, an evasion was the same thing as a lie.

“The more we investigate the bombing, the less it looks like an anarchist gone mad, and a lot like it could be somebody that meant those police in particular to be killed,” he admitted. Now that the subject was begun it was not as difficult as he had expected. In fact, it was almost easier than continuing to evade it.

“ 'Ow d'yer work that out?” Her face was totally sober and she asked as if she were another detective asking for facts. He remembered with a jolt that that was probably how she saw herself. When she was still working for Charlotte and Pitt she had overheard most of the long discussions of cases that had gone on around the kitchen table. She had not been afraid to put her own suggestions in. Once Pitt had actually sent her to work undercover as a maid at Buckingham Palace. She didn't refer to it often, as if out of a kind of loyalty, but her eyes lit with pride when she did.