Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [148]
“I know!” Narraway snapped, his temper closer to the surface than he wished to betray. “I mean where she used to be. Dunkeld found her in some brothel, or through a pimp. London can be a small city at times. He met her somewhere. Other women will know her. They might have seen the carter.”
Pitt nodded. “I’ll find him if he’s in London.”
Narraway swore. “We may not have long. Since the scheme has failed, as soon as he knows Dunkeld’s caught, he may make himself scarce. He could go anywhere: Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin, even the Continent. I’ll call every contact I have in the police. Thank God for inventions like the telephone. I don’t think we have anything more to do here.”
Less than half an hour later, when Pitt was in the sitting room and Narraway had returned to his office, the Prince came in, closely followed by Watson Forbes. It was instantly apparent that Forbes had accepted the Prince’s offer. How it had been phrased, or what additional incentive had been offered, was not mentioned. Everyone was introduced, although only Olga Marquand had not previously known him. Pitt was merely mentioned. Forbes’s eyes lingered on him in a moment’s interest, but he did not speak.
“Mr. Forbes has accepted the responsibility of Dunkeld’s position to lead the building of a Cape-to-Cairo railway,” the Prince announced with a smile. “He is by far the best man in England for the task; in fact, very possibly the only man who could succeed. We are very fortunate that he has agreed to pick up this burden, immediate from today. I have promised him that he will have the total co-operation of everyone involved, and the freedom to make any decision in the furtherance of our cause that he considers wise and just.”
Complete control. Was that the power Dunkeld had had? Or was it Forbes’s price? The very slight emphasis the Prince placed on the words suggested that it was the latter.
“Her Majesty will return from Osborne in two days,” the Prince continued. “I am very pleased at that time to present to her such a magnificent project for the Empire she loves so dearly.” He turned to Forbes and made a small gesture of invitation.
Watson Forbes stepped forward, smiling. “Thank you, sir. It will be my privilege to serve my country, and future generations in that great Continent of Africa. Gentlemen, we have a momentous opportunity before us. It will call for every resource of mind and body that we possess. Let us not underestimate it. We shall require all the honorable assistance that we may be offered, or lay claim to. And we must be of a single mind. This is not for the glory of any one man, but of our Queen and country.”
Pitt slipped away without excusing himself, and no one except Julius Sorokine noticed.
PITT LEFT THE Palace and took a hansom cab to Narraway’s office. It had been only a matter of days that he’d been on the case, and yet his sudden sense of freedom was immense, as if he had escaped from enclosing walls, opulent as they were and hung with some of the greatest works of art in Western civilization. Now he was surrounded by the noise of traffic, hoofs, wheels, voices shouting, and occasionally the barking of dogs. It was midafternoon, hot and dusty, but the sense of space, even crowded as it was, and the urgency that drove him, was exhilarating. He found himself sitting forward as if it would somehow add to his speed.
Dunkeld was to blame for much. He was an arrogant and callous man, but he had not killed the prostitute, whoever she was. Whether the man who had was a willing colleague, Pitt did not yet know, but he was guilty of a brutal murder, purely for the convenience of having a body with which to blackmail the Prince of Wales. He, at least, would be someone they could charge, try, and, in the end, hang. There would be no secret incarceration in an asylum for him. Not that death, even on the end of a rope, might not be better than the rest of one’s life in a place like Bedlam.
Pitt alighted a street away from Narraway’s office—a precaution of habit—and ten minutes later was upstairs in his usual chair