Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [60]
“Yes, sir,” he answered. “No one at all? Does that include Mr. Shearing?”
Sandwell turned away from the window, the light harsh on his face from the lamps on the wall, his body rigid. “Yes, that does include Mr. Shearing.”
Matthew felt a coldness in spite of the mild April evening. “Yes, sir.”
Sandwell drew in his breath slowly. “I have very good reason to believe that our enemies have turned one of our men in SIS against us. There is a traitor in your department. The evidence seems to be unarguable. Information has passed that can have come from nowhere else.”
Matthew’s stomach turned cold. He asked the question he had to. Sandwell would have thought him a fool if he had not. “Why are you trusting me with this, sir?”
Sandwell smiled, touched by the momentary humor of it. “Because some of the information is material that you do not have access to. For the time being you can trust no one with anything that you alone are privy to, anything that comes from sources that only you have. Report directly to me, but don’t jeopardize your safety, or your position, by hiding whatever will be learned anyway. We have to know who this man is, Reavley. The situation is desperate.” He did not add anything more or make any further emphasis to the danger.
“Yes, sir,” Matthew replied. “Of course.”
“Thank you, Reavley. That’s all. Be careful. When you have anything to report, let me know. I shall make myself available.”
“Sir.” Matthew went out into the corridor without realizing quite how shocked he was until he tripped on the stairs and nearly lost his balance. He grasped the banister only just in time to right himself.
Was it Shearing, or Chetwin? Or God help him—both? It was reasonable to suppose that the Peacemaker would have gathered more disciples over the nine months since the outbreak of war: people who did not believe that violence was the answer to anything, whether from personal revulsion or ethical principle; people who believed they could not win against the power of Germany and Austro-Hungary; people whose businesses and fortunes were being ruined by the economic catastrophe of war and the sheer decimation of so much land; and people who were simply not prepared to lose any more young men they loved, no matter what the cause.
He went out into the evening air and the anonymity of the darkness. On Whitehall he caught a taxi home to his flat. He would collect his car tomorrow; it could remain where it was all night. He could not be bothered to drive. He would like to go to a bar or a club somewhere and have several stiff whiskies, but he dared not. His mind was bursting with fears and shadows, secrets he could not share, and which were too heavy to carry alone.
But there was no one to trust, absolutely no one at all. If he drank, and was vulnerable, forgot to watch and measure everything he said, then he must do it at home, and alone.
Several hours later, in a quiet house on Marchmont Street, the man Matthew referred to as the Peacemaker stared out of an upstairs window at the street below. He saw a taxi draw up about twenty yards along and a figure get out. In the distance and from this height he was foreshortened, but even so the Peacemaker recognized him. He was slender, about six feet tall, and he moved with an energy that marked him out from others on the footpath. He was dressed in a very ordinary suit, and wore a broad-brimmed hat that hid his features. But the man waiting knew exactly what he looked like, he did not need to see the thick, dark hair or the powerful, starkly emotional face with its broad mouth and wide cheekbones.
A few moments later he heard the doorbell, and the servant answering it, then the quick footsteps up the stairs.
“Come in,” he commanded as they reached the landing.
The door opened and the man stood on the