Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [22]
Was that kind of emotional deceit in a man the beginning of the duplicity that could betray his friends and eventually his country as well? Where does omission of the truth begin to be a lie?
The telephone rang on the wall beside Thyer. “Excuse me,” he said, picking it up. Unconsciously he straightened a little as he listened, nodding his head and smiling. “Yes, of course,” he said quietly. “I know your beliefs in the matter, but I think a compromise is necessary.” He waited a few moments while the person on the other end spoke. He nodded again, giving occasional murmurs of agreement. He had not spoken the other person’s name, and yet a certain respect in his manner made Matthew suppose that it was someone of considerable importance, and his mind was sharp to the power of a man in Thyer’s position. What more perfect place for the Peacemaker? He would know men in government, the army, the royal household, the diplomatic service, he would know their dreams and their weaknesses, and above all, they would trust him.
He was still talking, giving gentle advice, the subtlest of pressure.
What had he really said in his conversation to Sebastian on that last afternoon before the murder? It need not have been anything more than an arrangement to meet. The knowledge of the document, the need for such horrific violence could not have been delivered that way, it had to have been face-to-face. He could hardly imagine the emotion there must have been, Sebastian’s horror, recoiling from the savagery of it, the irredeemable commitment to a single act that was the violation of all he professed to believe. And the Peacemaker would have argued the greater good, the self-sacrifice to save humanity, the urgency to prevent the chaos of war—no time to delay, prevaricate. He might even have called him a coward, a dreamer with no passion or courage.
It had to have been face-to-face. Thyer had seen him that afternoon, or early evening. It was grotesque to sit here in the drawing room making polite conversation, playing games around each other, as if it were chess, not lives. There was a dreamlike insanity, the madder because it was real.
Thyer hung up the phone. He was standing near the instrument where it hung on the wall. Outside the morning sunlight was silent on the roses. In the far distance someone laughed.
“I don’t suppose you saw him?” Matthew said aloud, his voice sounding unnatural in his ears. “Sebastian, I mean.”
“No. I just spoke to him on the telephone,” Thyer answered. “There was no need to say anything else.” A very slight shadow touched his face. “Whatever prompted him to commit such a crime the following day, I believe it must have happened after that, but I have no idea what it was. I think you may have to resign yourself to the fact that you may never discover. I truly am sorry.”
Was he a supreme actor? Or only what he seemed—a quiet, scholarly man, now watching half his students sent to the battlefields of Europe to waste their dreams and their learning in blood?
“What time was it you spoke to him?” Matthew asked.
“Almost quarter past three, I think,” Thyer answered. “But I was with Dr. Etheridge from the philosophy department at the time. I daresay he would remember, if you think it matters?”
“Thank you,” Matthew said with a strange mixture of honesty and confusion. He took his leave still uncertain if he had learned anything, or nothing. It would seem to be so easy to check all Thyer had told him, and yet if it were true, what had he learned? Who had spoken to Sebastian—where? How had he been contacted and given his orders to commit the crime that had destroyed his victims, and also himself, when there had been no other call, no letter and no message?
He left the master’s lodgings and, after considerable inquiry, found Dr. Etheridge, who confirmed exactly what Thyer had said. Without difficulty Matthew also confirmed Thyer’s whereabouts for the rest of the evening until after midnight. He had gone from dinner in the hall to a long conversation in the senior common room and finally back to his lodgings. He had never