Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [123]
‘Perhaps we’ll escape it,’ he said aloud.
Austwick shifted in his chair again, as if finding it difficult to be comfortable. ‘These are the reports in from Liverpool, and you’ll see some of the references to Ireland. Nothing dangerous as yet, but we need to make note of some of these names, and watch them.’ He pushed across more papers and Pitt bent to read them.
The afternoon followed the same pattern: more reports, both written and verbal. A case of violence in a town in Yorkshire looked as if it were political and turned out not to be. A government minister had been robbed in Piccadilly, and investigating it took up the rest of the day. The minister had been carrying sensitive papers. Fortunately it was not Pitt’s decision as to how seriously he should be reprimanded for carelessness. It was, however, up to him to decide with what crime the thief should be charged.
He weighed it with some consideration. He questioned the man, trying to judge whether he had known his victim was in the government, and if so that his attaché case might contain government papers. He was uncertain, even after several hours, but Narraway would not have asked advice. If he could not deal with such an event without help, then he was far from equal to the position.
Pitt decided that the disadvantages of letting the public know how easy it was to rob an inattentive minister outweighed the possible error of letting a man be charged with a lesser crime than the one he had intended to commit.
He went home in the evening tired and with little sense of achievement.
It changed the moment he opened the front door and Daniel came racing down the hall to greet him.
‘Papa! Papa, I made a boat! Come and look.’ He grasped Pitt’s hand and tugged at him.
Pitt smiled and followed him willingly down to the kitchen where the rich smell of dinner cooking filled the air. Something was bubbling in a big pan on the stove and the table was littered with pieces of newspapers and a bowl of white paste. Minnie Maude was standing with a pair of scissors in her hands. As usual, her hair was all over the place, pinned up over and over again as she had lost patience with it. In pride of place in the centre of the mess was a rather large papier-mâché boat, with two sticks for masts and several different lengths of tapers for bowsprit, yardarms and a boom.
Minnie Maude looked abashed to see him, clearly earlier than she had expected.
‘See!’ Daniel said triumphantly, pointing to the ship. ‘Minnie Maude showed me how to do it.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘And Jemima helped a bit . . . well . . . a lot.’
Pitt felt a sudden and overwhelming warmth rush up inside him. He looked at Daniel’s face shining with pride, and then at the boat.
‘It’s magnificent,’ he said, emotion all but choking his voice. ‘I’ve never seen anything better.’ He turned to Minnie Maude, who was standing wide-eyed. She was clearly waiting to be criticised for playing when she should have been working towards having dinner on the table for him.
‘Thank you,’ he said to her sincerely. ‘Please don’t move it until it is safe to do so without risk of damage.’
‘What . . . what about dinner, sir?’ she asked, beginning to breathe again.
‘We’ll clear the newspapers and the paste, and eat around it,’ he answered. ‘Where’s Jemima?’
‘She’s reading,’ Daniel answered instantly. ‘She took my Boy’s Own! Why doesn’t she read a girls’ book?’
‘’Cos they’re boring,’ Jemima answered from the doorway. She had slipped in without anyone hearing her come along the corridor. She looked past Pitt at the table, and the ship at the centre. ‘You’ve got the masts on! That’s beautiful.’ She gave Pitt a radiant smile. ‘Hello, Papa. Look what we made.’
‘I see it,’ he replied, putting his arm around her shoulder. ‘It