Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [73]
“The anarchists are getting their funds through Piers Denoon, only son of Edward Denoon,” he told Voisey. “He is an erratic, nervy young man, but apparently brilliant at raising money.” He saw Voisey’s face light with an interest too vivid for him to conceal. “When frightened into believing the police were aware of it,” Pitt continued, “he reported immediately, at one in the morning, to Simbister, head of Cannon Street police.”
Voisey swore, and let out his breath slowly. This time he did not bother to hide his emotion. His cheeks were flushed, almost hiding the blotchy freckles. “I knew it!” he said between clenched teeth. “The corruption goes all the way! Who told you about Piers Denoon? Wetron?”
“Indirectly,” Pitt said.
Very deliberately Voisey glanced at Wellington’s tomb. “Great tactician,” he said, his expression now impossible to read; there was irony in it, amusement, anger. “Do you know about his ‘scorched earth’ policy? I don’t think you would approve of it.” The inflection in his voice suggested that his own opinion was different, and that the disagreement in Pitt was based on some kind of weakness, a failure of courage.
He looked again at the huge, imposing tomb.
Pitt was at a disadvantage, as was undoubtedly Voisey’s intention. “I assume this scorched-earth policy has some relevance to Wetron, or Denoon, or you would not bother mentioning it now?”
“Of course it has, but he’s not a lovable hero, is he!” That was a remark almost thrown away. “I imagine you prefer Nelson. They all adored him. And of course he had the exquisite good taste to die on deck at the height of his greatest victory. Who could question him after that? It seems like blasphemy. Whereas Wellington, stupid sod, had the poor judgment to come home safe and sound, and go on to be prime minister. Unforgivable.”
Voisey flashed a brief smile. “He won in Vimiero early in the Peninsular War, then the year after chased the French army all the way to Madrid. But when they forced him to retreat, in 1810, he laid waste to the land behind him as he moved on. Ugly, but very effective.”
“You admire it?” Pitt asked, then realized how he had betrayed his own revulsion.
Voisey savored the moment. “Do you want to separate the man from the campaign?” he asked with a lift in his voice. “Without Wellington, Napoleon might have won. Almost certainly he would have. He was a genius. Or don’t you think so?” There was a challenge in his voice, undisguised.
“Of course he was,” Pitt agreed. “A little ill-considered to attack Moscow! A wiser man might have learned from the scorched-earth policy in Spain. Maybe he didn’t appreciate that scorched and frozen are essentially the same when it comes to feeding an army.”
Voisey’s eyes widened, a flash of humor in them. “You know, Pitt, I could almost forget myself and like you! Just when I think you are utterly predictable, you surprise me.”
“Very arrogant to think you can predict someone,” Pitt observed. “And arrogance is stupid, sometimes fatally so. We can’t afford that.”
“One moment you are pedestrian,” Voisey went on as if Pitt had not spoken, but the sharp angle of his body betrayed his tension. “The next acutely perceptive, then complacent to the point of idiocy! Perhaps it comes from being half gamekeeper, half would-be gentleman.”
Pitt forced himself to smile. The slur on his heritage stung. Why did Voisey feel a need to attack him so sharply that he could not govern it? What was it in Pitt that disturbed him so much that he did not hide it? “Does Wellington’s scorched-earth policy in the Peninsular War have anything at all to do with Wetron and the anarchist bombs, or Simbister and Denoon?” he asked curiously. “Or did you just want to see if I knew as much military history as you did?”
Quite suddenly Voisey started laughing, openly and with apparently quite genuine humor.
Pitt had to remind