Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [72]
The town was ancient, beautiful, and at any other time Pitt would have found it interesting. Were he here on holiday with his family, he would have loved to explore the medieval streets and alleys, and learn more of its history, which was peculiarly dramatic.
As it was, he had the strong feeling that he and Gower were wasting time. They had watched Frobisher’s house for well over a week, and seen nothing that led them any closer to whatever Wrexham had killed West to prevent him from telling Special Branch. Visitors came and went; not only men but women also. Neither Pieter Linsky nor Jacob Meister had come again, but there had been dinner parties where at least a dozen people were present. Delivery men had come with baskets of the shellfish for which the area was famous. Scores of oysters had come, shrimps and larger crustaceans like lobsters, and bags of mussels. But then the same could be said of any of the other larger houses in the area.
Gower wandered along the same path, his face sunburned, his hair flopping forward. He stopped just inside the wall, a yard or two short of Pitt. He too leaned against the ledge as if he were watching the sailing boat.
‘Where did he go?’ Pitt asked quietly, without looking at him.
‘Only to the same café as usual,’ Gower answered, referring to Wrexham, whom one or the other of them had followed every day. ‘I didn’t go in because I was afraid he’d notice me. But I saw the same thin man with the moustache go in, then came back out again in about half an hour.’
There was a slight lift in his voice, a quickening. ‘I watched them through the open window for a few minutes as if I were waiting for someone. They were talking about more people coming, quite a lot of them. They seemed to be ticking them off, as if from a list. They’re definitely planning something.’
Pitt would like to have felt the same stir of excitement, but all the time he’d been observing, events seemed both too careful and too half-hearted for the passion that inspires great political change. He and Narraway had studied revolutionaries, anarchists, firebrands of all beliefs, and this had a cautious feel to it, the safe talking about it of those who do not actually want to take risks. Gower was young. Perhaps he attributed to them some of the enthusiasm he still felt himself. And he did feel it. Pitt smiled as he thought of Gower laughing with their landlady, complimenting her on the food and letting her explain to him how it was cooked. Then he told her about such English favourites as steak and kidney pudding, plum duff, and pickled eels. She had no idea whether to believe him or not.
‘They’ve delivered more oysters,’ Pitt remarked. ‘It’s probably another party. Whatever Frobisher’s political beliefs about changing conditions for the poor, he certainly doesn’t believe in starving himself, or his guests.’
‘He would hardly go around letting everyone know his plans . . . sir,’ Gower replied quickly. ‘If everyone thinks he’s a rich man entertaining his friends in harmless idealism he never intends to act on, then nobody will take him seriously. That’s probably the best safety he could have.’
Pitt thought about it for a while. What Gower said was undoubtedly true, and yet Pitt was uneasy about it. The conviction that they were wasting time settled more heavily upon him, yet he could find no argument that was pure reason rather than a niggling instinct born of experience.
‘And all the others who keep coming and going?’ he asked, at last turning and facing Gower, who was unconsciously smiling as the light warmed his face. Below him in the small square a woman in a fashionable dress, wide-sleeved and full-skirted, walked from one side to the other and disappeared along the narrow alley to the west. Gower watched her all the way, nodding very gently