At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [51]
There was none, especially for a woman whose husband was at sea, whose eldest son was fast approaching the age when he could join the navy also—not to speak of both a brother and a sister on the Western Front.
To Lizzie he would not matter so much, and he could write honestly, without fear of hurting her. Her friendship seemed a clean and precious thing. He wrote with ease.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Matthew spent a wretched afternoon at the police station with the officers in charge of prosecuting Alan Wheatcroft, and now of prosecuting Tom Corracher as well. He had hoped they would have some information to indicate who had set the scandal in motion, and that it would eventually lead back toward the Peacemaker. Matthew was more and more convinced it was he behind the dismissal of all four ministers.
“Sorry, sir,” the young policeman said with extreme discomfort. “We’d ’ave ’eld off if we could. Fine man, Mr. Wheatcroft. Rather not know these things, as long as no one’s ’urt. But we ’ad no choice.”
“Really? Someone important, Constable?” Matthew had asked hopefully. “I thought it was the boy himself who complained. And you believed him?”
“It was, sir. That’s the thing of it.” He looked apologetic. “You see, it wasn’t the first time we had a complaint about Mr. Wheatcroft. First time the boy was younger, and we thought as possibly ’e’d got ’old o’ the wrong idea, so to speak. It was all dealt with very quietly. We couldn’t do it a second time.”
“Oh!” Matthew was startled. It was not something he had foreseen at all. “Who knew of this original claim?”
“No one, sir. For the boy’s sake, we said nothing.”
“But possibly his parents knew.”
“His father, sir. We didn’t want to distress his mother with it.”
“What was his name?”
“I can’t tell you that, sir. Discretion, confidence, you understand?”
Matthew had not argued. It would be easy enough to get to know from Wheatcroft himself tomorrow. There was now no way of avoiding seeing him.
However, before he did that, there was one last man he would see who had known Wheatcroft as a student in Cambridge, fifteen years ago: Aidan Thyer, Master of St. John’s. It was a calculated risk. Matthew had once believed Thyer himself might be the Peacemaker. He certainly had both the intelligence and the influence. He had been a brilliant scholar in his youth, and now as master he had the position and the charisma to mold generations of students who would be the future teachers, philosophers, scientists, and governors of the nation. He might even have access to members of the Royal Family and friends in power throughout Europe and the Empire. And of course he was a Cambridge man whom John Reavley would have known. He was fluent in several languages, an idealist with a vision quite broad enough to have conceived the Anglo-German Empire the Peacemaker envisioned.
Was he also ruthless enough to commit murder to bring it about? In the name of peace, in the cause of saving the millions of lives already lost, and the bleeding away of thousands more every day across the Channel, would he have destroyed a few, a handful?
Somebody had!
Matthew left the police station and walked quietly up the street. The August afternoon was still and damp, the road surface glistened in the late sun, and after the downpour the gutters were running deep. There was little traffic. People either took the underground trains or walked where possible.
He wished he could go to the cinema and escape for a couple of hours. He would sit in the dark with strangers and laugh animatedly at Charlie Chaplin, with his absurd walk, his cane, his courage, his defiance, and the individuality that would not be crushed. Or at Fatty Arbuckle and his fights with custard pies that were so brilliantly choreographed they were almost like ballet.
Or perhaps it would be fun to see a real melodrama. Someone had told him that Theda Bara would soon be appearing in Camille. That would be something to see.
He crossed the road, oblivious to a speeding motorcar. The vehicle