Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [78]
“Yes, it seems you do,” Pitt agreed. “So why kill Magnus and leave you and Carmody alive? Or was Magnus the only one who was any danger to them?”
It was a second or two before Welling realized what he meant, then his face flooded scarlet with outrage. “How dare you? You filthy—” He stopped equally abruptly. Suddenly, like someone opening the door into a lighted room, he understood what Pitt was saying.
“Exactly,” Pitt nodded. “Magnus was killed for a personal reason, not because he was an anarchist, you agree?”
Welling swallowed, his throat jerking. “Yes…” he said hoarsely. “But who would do that?”
“I don’t know. Let’s start with why.”
Welling was staring at him as if he had seen a new horror, something that had never occurred to him before.
Pitt began to think, with surprise and a thread of pity, how naive these young men were. They spent their passion hating an enemy that was formed of a whole class of people, impersonal, without individual names or faces, personalities, lives. It was easy, in comparison. But when they were obliged to consider being hated for themselves, fiercely enough to kill, Welling, at least, was appalled.
“Did anyone want to take Magnus’s place as leader?” he asked aloud.
“Of course not!” Welling was disgusted by the thought, it was clear in his wide eyes and twisted mouth. “That’s your kind of belief, not ours. We don’t want a morality where one person has to obey another, regardless of what their conscience dictates. We’re not looking for power. The very idea of it is corrupt.”
“Someone took a gun, hid behind a door, and shot Magnus in the back of the head,” Pitt reminded him. “I don’t know whether I would call that corrupt, precisely. But it is certainly against my law. Is it all right with yours? Or your lack of it?”
“No, of course it isn’t! It’s vile,” Welling spat. “It’s not only brutal, it’s cowardly.”
“It suggests he didn’t want to be seen,” Pitt amended. “Perhaps if you had seen him, you would have known his face.”
Welling gulped again. “Maybe.”
“We’re back to someone Magnus knows,” Pitt went on. “Not only that, but someone who knew where you would run to after the Myrdle Street bombing. We didn’t know that. Who did?”
Welling stared at him, blinking slowly.
“Other anarchist groups?” Pitt asked.
“Why would they want to kill Magnus?” Welling said miserably. “We all want the same thing!”
“Do you? Is there only one kind of chaos? Perhaps they think there are several.”
“We don’t want chaos! You are ignorant…a stupid man!” Welling was growing increasingly annoyed, sitting upright again. “One minute you sound as if you can think and have some shred of understanding, then the next you go and say something so bigoted, so crass, you betray everything in you that would be worthwhile. Anarchy isn’t about chaos, or violence.” He chopped his hand in the air. He leaned forward towards Pitt, his eyes burning. “Anarchy is about getting rid of tyranny so all men can be free and be their better selves. Wise men, whole men, should be able to grow, become the best in themselves.” His voice rose in enthusiasm. “Evolve into free men, away from the petty rules imposed by laws, courts, governments, the armies of small men who enslave the mind. There is only one true law: that of reason and the universal brotherhood of humanity. All else is a fear of imprisonment, an unrighteous dominion of one man over another. Let us all be equal, and free.”
Pitt thought for a moment. “If you want an equal gift, then you must be prepared to pay an equal price,” he said at last. “And I don’t think all men are prepared. Some are lazy, and some are greedy. If there are no laws, and no one to enforce them, who will protect the weak?”
“You don’t understand!” Welling accused.
Pitt leaned against the stone wall. “Explain it to me.”
“Without oppression, we wouldn’t need to protect the weak,” Welling said at last. “No one would harm them.”
“Except people who hid behind doorways and shot them in the back of the head.”
Welling was very pale. “That wasn’t one of us!”
“Yes it