Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [140]
Corcoran stood up, easily, the aches and stiffness forgotten. “You’re ignorant, Joseph, and with the arrogance of all people who think they speak for God and morality, you judge without understanding. I had no choice.” He stared at Joseph, his eyes burning with anger. “When I said I had no idea who the spy in the Establishment was, that was only half true. I don’t know who’s left now, who smashed the prototype and who could still be in touch with the Germans.” His voice rose a pitch. “Theo Blaine wasn’t nearly as clever as everyone thought he was, not anywhere near! Oh, he was bright!” He said it bitterly, as though it were somehow a condemnation. “Very advanced in his field, but there’s all the difference in the world between bright and genius. Like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun. Thought he could design a machine that would guide torpedoes and depth charges so they would hit their target every time. He said so!”
Joseph’s mind swam. The idea was vast! It really would have changed the war forever. Whichever side had such a thing would destroy the other out of the sea. That was what Archie was testing now, and Matthew with him. Did they know the truth—that it was useless? Why in God’s name had Corcoran killed Blaine, if Blaine had not had the genius to do it?
“It makes no sense,” he said aloud. “If he couldn’t finish it, why kill him?”
“Now you doubt I did it?” Corcoran was raging. “Suddenly you’re sorry, and on my side again?”
Joseph was staggered. Could he have been so immensely wrong? It was a moment’s wild, beautiful hope. But Blaine had certainly not torn his own throat out with a garden fork!
“Because he couldn’t finish it, he was going to sell it to the Germans, you fool!” Corcoran spat. “Anything rather than admit he wasn’t up to it. That way we would never have known. It was his chance to cover himself. But maybe the Germans could have finished it, built on what we had! They have brilliant men.” He leaned farther forward. “Don’t you see, Joseph? I had to do it! I had no choice. Who could I tell? No one else in the country knew enough to understand whether I was right or not. The fate of the war depended on it. . . .”
Joseph was stunned. Was it possible? It made hideous sense—a scientist who boasted of what he could achieve, who overrated his own ability, brilliant as it was, but not genius of that splendor. Then, when he was at his wit’s end, staring failure in the face, and his own humiliation, he sold it to the enemy rather than admit the truth. What fatal arrogance!
“I tried to stop the spy as well,” Corcoran went on, his voice strengthening. “But I missed him. Blaine wouldn’t tell me, but I have no doubt now that it’s Morven.” He moved until he was almost close enough to Joseph to touch him. “You have to take it from here. I don’t know who to trust. Matthew’s at sea on Archie’s ship. He doesn’t trust Calder Shearing, he told me that himself. Hall won’t listen to me. You have to do it—for England—for the war. For everything we love and believe . . .”
Joseph looked at him. It hung in the balance, all the past love, the memories sweet and close, the desperate hunger to believe, like clinging to a dream as the shreds of it slip into waking.
But honesty forced itself on him. Corcoran was lying. It was there in the details, the pattern that shifted with each retelling of the story, always to lay the fault on someone else. He remembered Lizzie’s words about Blaine’s skills, and that Morven’s were not the same, but Corcoran’s were. And now he could see it in Corcoran’s eyes, the sheen on his skin. It was the same terror of dying that he saw in the trenches, but out there, for all the horror and pity, it was in a way clean.
He turned away, sick to his heart. “You’re lying, Shanley,” he said quietly. “Blaine might have finished it. It was you who stopped him so you could do it yourself and take the fame in history, the glory of saving