Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [68]
Wetron stared at him. “Is that what Mr. Pitt thinks, Sergeant?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. I imagine he’s more concerned with catching them than whether they bombed Mr. Grover’s house on purpose.”
“He’s not very quick, your Mr. Pitt, is he!” Wetron said with only the faintest derision in his tone. “The anarchists raise their own funds. Even I know that, just as a matter of keeping my ear to the ground. Seems he can’t find it out, even by detection! Nor can you, for that matter.”
Anger burned in Tellman’s cheeks; he could feel the heat of it and knew Wetron must be able to see it. His instinct was to defend Pitt rather than himself. Perhaps that was what Wetron was trying to provoke him into. But if he did not rise to it, then Wetron would know he was being deliberately guarded. What did he expect? Bluff? Double-bluff?
Wetron was waiting, watching him. He must react now; any delay would betray his anxiety, and make him seem dishonest.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Maybe being out of the police force means he doesn’t get to hear things. And it seems we didn’t tell him.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Wetron was still smiling. “I imagine he has his contacts, his informers, don’t you, Sergeant?”
Tellman knew his voice was husky with tension, sounding unnatural. He resisted the impulse to clear his throat. “Well, sir, if you know that about the anarchists, and he doesn’t, it would look like his informers aren’t very good ones,” he responded.
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Wetron agreed. “He must be asking the ones their superiors, and their fellows, don’t trust.”
There it was, the precise warning. Tellman could report it to Pitt, and deliberately place himself in that category, or not tell him and be unworthy of his trust.
Wetron was oozing satisfaction. Tellman could almost smell it in the still air of the room.
“Very foolish, that,” Wetron continued. “A policeman out on the streets, who doesn’t have the confidence of the men he relies on, is in a very dangerous position. There are a lot of places in London where that could cost him his life.”
Tellman thought of himself in the alley with Grover and Stubbs. Did Wetron know about that—from either of them? Only Leggy’s accidental arrival had saved him from being at Stubbs’s mercy, one way or the other.
“Yes, sir,” he said aloud. “Should we inform Special Branch about the anarchists’ way of getting money, as a favor? It might be useful to have them in our debt.”
“You think they will repay us one day?” Wetron said with surprise.
Tellman felt foolish. Pitt would, but Victor Narraway was another matter.
Wetron appeared to consider it. “We might trade it,” he said thoughtfully. “If they are still floundering about, in three or four days, I’ll see what they say.”
Tellman could think of no answer, and he did not dare argue.
Wetron leaned back. “Are they investigating Magnus Landsborough’s family?” he asked as if it were only mildly interesting.
Tellman was startled. “I have no idea, sir.”
Wetron smiled again. “That’s where they should look. His cousin, Piers Denoon, is the obvious place. Perhaps Pitt will work that out, eventually.” He looked at Tellman, his eyes bright and hard, as if they could see right into his mind.
Tellman knew exactly what he was doing, just as Wetron did, and Tellman’s dilemma amused him. Would Tellman repeat it to Pitt, and betray himself, or say nothing, and betray Pitt? It would place Pitt in an even greater shadow of failure than the Special Branch already was, with half London crying out that they had only two of the anarchists, and could not even name the rest, let alone capture them.
“Yes, sir,” Tellman said quietly. He hardly dared trust his voice. Wetron had given one thing away irrevocably. If Tellman had ever imagined Wetron was a servant of the people, not of his own interests, that illusion was ripped apart. But then perhaps