Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [137]
‘Indeed.’ Vespasia turned to Minnie Maude. ‘When you have made the tea, will you please go and pack a small case for your master, with what he will need for one night away from home. Clean personal linen and a clean shirt, and his customary toiletries. When you have it, bring it downstairs and leave it in the hall by the bottom step.’
Minnie Maude’s eyes widened. She blinked, as if wondering whether she dare confirm the orders with Pitt, or if she should simply obey them. Who was in charge?
They were giving the poor girl a great deal to become accustomed to in a very short while. Pitt smiled at her. ‘Please do that, Minnie Maude. It appears I shall have to leave you. But also, I shall return before too long.’
‘You may be extremely busy for some time,’ Vespasia corrected him. ‘It is a very good thing that Minnie Maude is a responsible girl. You will need her. Now let us have tea and prepare to leave.’
As soon as the tea was poured and Minnie Maude was out of the room Pitt turned to Vespasia. The look on his face demanded she explain.
‘It is a conclusion no longer avoidable that both you and Victor were drawn away from London for a very specific purpose,’ she said, sipping delicately at her tea. ‘Victor was put out of office, with an attempt to have him at least imprisoned in Ireland, possibly hanged. You were lured away from London before that, so you, as the only person at Lisson Grove with an unquestionable personal loyalty to him, and the courage to fight for him, would not be there. He would be friendless, as indeed he was.’
Pitt would have interrupted Narraway to ask why, but he did not dare interrupt Vespasia.
‘It appears that Charles Austwick is involved,’ she continued. ‘To what degree, and for what purpose, we do not yet know, but the plot is widespread, dangerous and probably violent.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I think after all I can rely on Stoker, but so far as I can see, at the moment, he is the only one. There will be more, but I don’t know who they are, and I can’t afford any mistakes. Even one could be fatal. What I don’t understand is why Austwick made so little fuss at being removed from the leadership. It makes me fear that there is someone else who knows every move I make and who is reporting to him.’
She set her cup down. ‘The answer is uglier than that, my dear,’ she said very quietly. ‘I think that what is planned is so wide and so final in its result that they wish you to be there to take the blame for Special Branch’s failure to prevent it. Then the Branch can be recreated from the beginning with none of the experienced men who are there now, and be completely in the control of those who are behind this. Or alternatively, it might be disbanded altogether, as a force that has served its purpose in the past, but is now manifestly no longer needed.’
The thought was so devastating that it took Pitt several moments to grasp the full import of it. He was not promoted for merit, but as someone completely dispensable, a Judas goat to be sacrificed when Special Branch took the blame for failing to prevent some disaster. He should have been furiously angry, and he would be, in time, when he absorbed the enormity of it and had time to think of himself. Now all he could deal with was the nature of the plot, and who was involved. How could they ever begin to fight against it?
He looked at Vespasia. He was startled to see the gentleness in her face, a deep and hurting compassion.
He forced himself to smile at her. In the same circumstances she would never have spent time pitying herself. He would not let her down by doing so.
‘I’m trying to think what I would have been working on had I not gone to St Malo,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if poor West was actually going