At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [56]
“I thought he was dead,” he replied to Hannah’s question.
“I know you did,” she said with a tight little smile. She was looking more like her mother as she reached her mid-thirties. Something of Alys Reavley’s inner calm was there in her features in repose. Matthew liked it, but it tugged at memories, reminding him of an old safety that could never return.
“Then why do you ask?” he said aloud.
“There’s an excitement inside you, an edginess,” she told him. “And what else would bring you back here now?”
“Any number of things,” he said.
She looked up from her work. “You mentioned St. John’s. Is that to do with Aidan Thyer? Do you still think it could be him?”
He was startled. Had he been so transparent?
She continued knitting, the faint click of her needles an intensely comfortable sound in the quiet room. All three children were upstairs, either in bed or doing homework.
He thought of denying it.
“It doesn’t matter.” She dismissed it. “I expect you can’t tell me. Just don’t lie.”
“I don’t know whether he is or not,” he admitted. “I thought I knew who it was last year, and that he was dead—after Jutland. Now things have happened that make it look as if I was wrong, and he’s still alive.”
She looked up quickly. “Be careful, Matthew!” There was fear in her voice, and in her dark eyes so like Alys’s.
He did not think of her words again until two days later. He had returned to London the morning after and pursued all the further information he could. It was distasteful, the sort of investigation into who had been seen offering or accepting illicit sexual activity that was one of the sadder and grubbier sides of police work. But he needed to know if Wheatcroft was guilty of seeking an escape from scandal by trying to blame Corracher, saying that he had deliberately set a trap for him in order to blackmail him, and he was entirely a victim. There seemed no doubt he had behaved extremely foolishly, at the kindest judgment. But was his blaming of Corracher a ploy he had thought up for himself? Or had the idea been planted in his mind, directly or indirectly, by someone else?
The only way to answer that was to see Wheatcroft himself, in spite of all his excuses that he was ill and had nothing to say. Matthew used the power of his Intelligence authority to force the issue. Even when he arrived at Wheatcroft’s house, the servant at the door, an elderly, obviously infirm man, refused to admit him.
“No, sir,” he said resolutely. “Mr. Wheatcroft is unwell, sir. He is not receiving visitors. Doctor’s orders.”
“I am from the Intelligence Service, and my orders supersede the doctor’s,” Matthew answered. “I can return with the police, if you oblige me to resort to such extremes. But I am sure that since you are as patriotic as the next man, you would wish Mr. Wheatcroft to assist the country’s forces as much as he would wish to himself.”
“Well…” the man said, confusion filling his face. “I…I’m sure I would, but I have my orders, sir. I can’t just let anybody in here because they say so!” But he backed away several steps to allow Matthew to enter the hallway, and closed the front door behind him. It was a larger house than average, graciously furnished. Even in these restricted times, the marks of elegance were easy to see: the paintings, the gilt-framed mirrors, the crystal vase of roses on the table near the bottom of the stairs below the carved newel post.
“Sir!” The manservant’s voice rose a little in protest as Matthew came farther in.
A door opened and a slender woman in a fashionable blue dress stood in the entrance. She was handsome in a fair, brittle way, but Matthew did not mistake the delicacy of her coloring for any fragility of mind or will.
“Mrs. Wheatcroft?” he asked,