Silence in Hanover Close - Anne Perry [5]
It was an ugly job, and everything Mowbray had told him only made it uglier. Who had been the other person in the library, and why?
Pitt turned from Piccadilly down St. James’s, then across the Mall and down the Horse Guards’ Parade past the,bare trees and wind-whipped grass of the park, up Downing Street to Whitehall and the Foreign Office.
It took him a quarter of an hour to persuade the right officials and finally to reach the department where Robert York had worked until the time of his death.
He was met by a distinguished man in his late thirties with black hair, and eyes which at first appeared to be equally dark, but as he turned to the light proved to be a startling, luminous gray. He introduced himself as Felix Asherson and offered to be of any help within his power. Pitt took that for the limited offer it was.
“Thank you, sir. We have had occasion to look again into the tragic death three years ago of Mr. Robert York.”
Asherson’s face showed immediate concern, but then it would, in the Foreign Office where impeccable manners were part of his trade. “Have you caught someone?”
Pitt approached the subject obliquely. “No, I am afraid not, but there were several articles stolen at the time. It seems very possible the burglar was not a casual housebreaker but a person of education, perhaps after something in particular.”
Asherson waited patiently. “Indeed? And you didn’t know that at the time?”
“We did, sir. But I have been asked by certain persons in authority”—he hoped Asherson’s Whitehall training in discretion was sufficient to keep him from asking who —“to pursue the matter again.”
“Oh.” Asherson’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, just a faint movement of muscles around the jaw, a thickening of the neck, so the stiff wing collar hugged the skin. “How can we help you?”
Interesting how he used the plural, making himself a representative of the office, not personally involved.
Pitt selected his words carefully. “Since the burglar chose the library and not one of the more obvious rooms, like the dining room, where the silver was, we have to consider that he may have been looking for documents, perhaps something Mr. York was working on at the time.”
Asherson was noncommittal. “Indeed?”
Pitt waited.
Asherson took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s possible— I mean, he may have hoped to find something. Does it help now? After all, it was three years ago.”
“We never abandon a murder case,” Pitt replied blandly. Yet they had buried this one after six fruitless months. Why had they opened it again now?
“No—no, of course,” Asherson conceded. “What can the Foreign Office do to assist you?”
Pitt decided to be blunt. He smiled very slightly, holding Asherson’s eye. “Has any information been missed from this office since Mr. York first came to work here? I appreciate that you may not be able to tell when it was taken, only when the discovery was made.”
Asherson hesitated. “You make us sound remarkably inefficient, Inspector. We do not mislay information; it is far too important.”
“So if information has reached unauthorized places, then it was deliberately given?” Pitt asked innocently.
Asherson breathed out slowly, grasping for time to think. Confusion was momentarily naked in his face. He did not know what Pitt was leading up to, nor why.
“There has been information ...” Pitt said gently, testing, making it something between a question and a statement.
Asherson affected immediate ignorance. “Has there? Then perhaps that was why poor Robert was murdered. If he took papers home with him, and somehow people got to know of it, a thief may have . . .” He left the rest unsaid.
“Then he could have taken such papers home on several occasions?” Pitt pursued. “Or are you suggesting it might have been only once, and by some extraordinary chance the thief chose the precise night?”
It was preposterous, and they both knew it.