No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [81]
“Information about what?” Chetwin asked.
Matthew was very careful. “I’m not sure. Possibly the situation in Germany.” That was probably far enough from the troubles in either Ireland or the Balkans to be safe.
Chetwin thought for a moment or two. “Best to go to the man at the top,” he said finally. “If it was important, it would reach Dermot Sandwell eventually.”
“Sandwell!” Matthew was surprised. Dermot Sandwell was a highly respected minister in the Foreign Office—an outstanding linguist, well traveled, a classicist and scholar. “Yes, I suppose it would. That is excellent advice.Thank you.”
Matthew stayed a little longer. Conversation moved from one thing to another: politics, memories, small gossip about Cambridgeshire. Chetwin had a vivid and individual turn of phrase describing people, and a sharp wit. Matthew could see very clearly why his father had liked him.
Half an hour later he rose to go, still uncertain whether his father had confided anything about the document to Chetwin or not, and if he had, whether doing so had been the catalyst for his death.
Matthew drove back to London that evening in heavy, thundery weather, wishing the storm would break and release the gray, choking air into rain to wash it clear.
Thunder rolled menacingly around the western rim of the clouds at about half past six as he was twenty miles south of Cambridge, gliding between deep hedges in full leaf. Then ten minutes later the lightning forked down to the ground and the rain dashed torrentially, bouncing up again from the smooth black road till he felt as if he were drowning under a waterfall. He slowed up, almost blinded by the downpour.
When it was gone, steam rose from the shimmering surface, a silver haze in the sun, and it all smelled like a Turkish bath.
On Monday morning the newspapers told the public that the king had reviewed 260 ships of the Royal Navy at the Spithead base, and that the naval reserves had been called up on orders from the first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, and the first sea lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg. There was no word whatever of Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia on the reparations demanded for the death of the archduke.
Calder Shearing sat at his desk staring grimly ahead of him into the distance. Matthew stood, not yet given permission to sit.
“Means nothing,” Shearing said to Matthew darkly. “I’m told there was a secret meeting in Vienna yesterday. I wouldn’t be surprised if they push it to the limit. Austria can’t be seen to back down. If they did, then all their territories would think they could assassinate people. That’s the damn shame of it.” He muttered something else under his breath, and Matthew did not ask him to repeat it. “Sit down!” he said impatiently. “Don’t hover like that as if you were about to go. You aren’t! We’ve all these reports to go through.” He indicated a pile of papers on his desk.
It was a comfortable room, but there were no family photographs, nothing to indicate where he had been born or grown up. Even its functionality was anonymous, clever rather than personal. The Arabic brass dish and bowl were beautiful but of no meaning. Matthew had asked him about them once. Similarly the watercolor paintings of a storm blowing up over the South Downs, and another of dying winter light over the London Docks, the black spars of a clipper sharp and straight against the sky; neither carried any personal significance.
The conversation moved to Ireland and the situation in the Curragh, which was still a cause of anxiety. It was far from resolved.
Shearing swore softly and imaginatively, more to himself than for Matthew’s benefit. “How could we be so bloody stupid as to get ourselves into this mess!” he said, his jaw so tight the muscles stood out in his neck. “The Protestants were never going to let themselves be absorbed by the Catholic south. They were bound to resort to violence, and our men would