Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [86]
“Bad,” Charlotte said at last, when he was finishing his third slice of toast and marmalade and refilling his tea. She went to the pantry and returned carrying three newspapers. She put them on the table in front of him, and took the plates.
When he saw the headlines, he was glad she had hidden them until he had eaten. Denoon’s paper was the worst. He did not criticize the police; he conceded that they had an impossible task. Even with more men, better arms, and the freedom to arrest people on serious suspicion, they could not be expected to prevent atrocities like this. It required the right to gain information before such things reached the stage of violence. They must know who planned such mass murder and destruction, who held beliefs that prompted such war against the ordinary people of London and, for all anyone would say, of the whole land.
The editorial was passionate, simple, and rang with an outrage that would find an echo in half the households in England. The police, Special Branch, the government itself were helpless to tell anyone where or when it would happen again, which row of houses would be the next to shatter into a burning ruin. This was far worse than Myrdle Street.
No one had been killed there. The warning had given people time to evacuate. No such humanity had been exercised this time. What would be next? More, worse: greater numbers dead, fires that could not be put out? The fire brigades could not control anything much larger. There were not enough men. There were not the resources, even the water, to hand. Whole areas of London could burn. What was there to stop it?
The possibility of such terrible devastation required extreme measures to prevent it. The government must have the power to protect those who had elected it, and the people had the right to expect that. If the laws were needed, then they must be passed, before it was too late. Honor, patriotism, human decency required it. Survival depended upon it.
Pitt had expected to read something of the sort, yet seeing it in print now gave it a reality that he realized he had been refusing to face. Denoon had not specified in detail the provision to question household servants without the master or mistress’s knowledge. Even if he had, it is likely that most people would have seen nothing sinister in it. Those with nothing to hide would have nothing to fear. The use of such a power was easy enough to justify. It was the measure of it that was the blackmailer’s charter. It was the ability to question people without having to prove to any authority that there was just cause, and the fact that the man or woman whose actions were being spoken of, whose intimate lives, whose personal habits and belongings, whose correspondence, whose friendships were being discussed, would have no chance to deny or explain or disprove anything that might be said. A servant could be mistaken, have overheard half a conversation, have remembered facts inaccurately or merely be repeating gossip. Worse than that, they could be spiteful, dishonest, ambitious, or simply gullible and easily led. It placed in their hands the power to blackmail any master or mistress with the threat of a betrayal against which they had no defense.
And the secrecy of it made the possibilities almost endless; there would be no safeguard at all.
He looked up to see Charlotte watching him.
“It’s bad isn’t it?” she said quietly.
“Yes.” He could see in her eyes that she understood the depth of it as far and as clearly as he did. “Yes, it is.”
“What can we do?”
He forced a smile at the inclusion of herself. “I’m going to go back and question the anarchists we’ve got in jail, although I don’t suppose they can help,” he answered. “I really don’t believe it is anyone in their group doing this. This time at least five people were killed. It may make them more willing to talk. You are going to do nothing, unless you go and give Emily a little support.” He searched her face. “Jack is one of the few allies we can rely on. It may cost him dearly.”
“His career?” she asked.
“Perhaps.”