Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [137]
“He was speaking to someone about government finances for the exploration and settlement of Zambezia, and as Harriet recounted it, it concerned several aspects, from Cecil Rhodes to MacKinnon, Emin Pasha and the Cape-to-Cairo possibilities, and the importance of a naval base at Simonstown. What it might cost Britain if we were to lose it.”
So far what Matthew was saying was what Soames might have been expected to say to a colleague, and not of itself remarkable.
Matthew was still staring at the apple twig on the grass.
“Then he went on to say, ‘This is the last time I can tell you anything. That man Pitt from the police has been here, and I dare not continue. You will have to do all you can with what you already have. I’m sorry.’ And then apparently he replaced the receiver. She did not realize what she was telling me—but I knew.” At last Matthew turned and faced Pitt, his eyes agonized, as if waiting for a blow to be strack at him.
Now it was only too obvious why. Ransley Soames was the traitor in the Treasury. Unwittingly his daughter had betrayed him to Matthew, and after torment of indecision, Matthew had come to Pitt. Only he had not come in ignorance; he knew all that it meant, and could foresee the consequences of his act, and yet he felt unable to do otherwise.
Pitt did not speak. It was not necessary to say that he must use the knowledge he had. Matthew had known that when he came. It was also pointless to say that he would keep Matthew’s name, or Harriet’s, out of the issue, because Matthew knew that was impossible also. Nor did he need to make any sympathetic sounds of understanding. He knew what it meant. What Matthew was feeling, or what it would cost him, no one would know, or ever do more than guess.
He simply held out his hand in companionship for a brother, and in admiration for a man whose integrity was brighter than any comfort of his heart.
10
PITT COULD NOT SLEEP. At first he lay silently in bed, uncertain whether Charlotte was also awake and loath to disturb her, but eventually he decided she was asleep and would not be aware if he got up and left the room.
He crept downstairs and stood in the parlor looking at the soft light of the quarter moon over the garden. He could dimly see the pale drift of the apple blossom and the dark shadow of the tree on the grass. There were shreds of cloud in the sky, masking some of the stars. Others he could see in tiny pinpoints of light. The night air was warm. In a few weeks it would be midsummer and there were hardly any fires lit in all the million houses, only the cooking ranges, the gasworks and factory chimneys. Even the slight wind smelled clean.
Of course it was nothing like Brackley, where you could breathe in the scent of hay and leaves and damp woods and turned earth all in one great gasp. But it was better than usual, and there was a stillness that should have brought a sense of calm. In other circumstances it would have.
But tomorrow he would have to go and confront Ransley Soames. There really was no alternative. He knew all the information which had been passed from the Treasury. Matthew himself had given him that. Soames had been privy to all of it. So had several others, but he could recount precisely what he had overheard him say, and the specific reference to Simonstown and the Boers, even the exact words he had used regarding Pitt himself.
It would be an ugly scene; it was bound to be. Tomorrow was Saturday. Pitt would find him at his home, which was about the only good thing in the whole matter. He could be arrested and charged discreetly, not in front of his colleagues.
Of course for Harriet it would be close to unbearable. But then, anyone’s fall hurt others. There was always a wife, a child or a parent, someone to be horrified, disillusioned, torn with amazement and grief and shame. One could not allow it to impinge too far, or one would be so racked with pity it would be impossible to function.