Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [143]
The footman was staring at him.
“Excuse me, sir, but you are Superintendent Pitt, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, sir, Mr. Thorne left a letter for you. It is on the mantelpiece in the withdrawing room. If you’ll wait a moment, sir, I’ll fetch it.”
“There’s no need,” Pitt said quickly. “I am afraid I am obliged to search the house anyway.”
“Search the house?” He was startled. “What for? I don’t know that I can allow that … except …” He stopped, uncertain what he meant. Now that his master was gone, apparently never to return, he was about to be without a position, although he had been given handsome notice and an excellent reference. And Pitt was the police.
“A wise decision,” Pitt said, reading his face. He called the constable standing just beyond the step. “Fetch Hammond from the back, and then begin to look through the house. I shall be in the withdrawing room.”
“What about Mr. Thorne, sir?”
Pitt smiled ruefully. “I am afraid that Mr. and Mrs. Thorne left London bound for Portugal last night. And they are not expected to return.”
The constable’s face fell; he made as if to say something, then changed his mind. “Yes, sir. I’ll fetch Hammond, sir.”
“Thank you.” Pitt came into the hall and then followed the footman to the withdrawing room.
It was a comfortable room, unostentatious, with dark green curtains and pale, damasked walls. The pictures were arranged oddly, and it was only after a moment or two he realized that it was because three or four had been removed. Presumably they were either the most valuable or those of greatest sentimental worth. The furniture was old; the mahogany bookcase shone with generations of polishing, and one of its glass panes was cracked. The chairs were a trifle scuffed, as if sat in for long evenings beside the fire; the fender around the hearth had a dent in it and there was a tiny brown mark on the carpet where a spark had caught it. A vase of late tulips, gaudy and wide open like lilies, gave a heart and a perfume to the room.
A very small marmalade-and-white kitten lay curled into a ball on one of the cushions, apparently sound asleep. Another kitten, equally small, perhaps only nine or ten weeks old, lay in the seat of the chair, but he was smoky black, his shadowy, baby stripes still visible. He lay not curled up but stretched out his full length, and he was equally fast asleep.
The letter caught Pitt’s eye straightaway. It was propped up on the mantelpiece, and his name was written on the front.
He picked it up, tore it open and read.
My dear Pitt,
By the time you read this, Christabel and I shall be on the boat across the Channel on our way to Portugal. Which will, of course, mean that you are aware that it is I who have been passing information from the Colonial Office and the Treasury to the German Embassy.
What you do not know is my reason for doing so. Nor, I think, do you know that it was almost all false. Naturally to begin with, it had to be genuine, and then later, when I had earned their trust, it was false only to a very minor degree, but sufficient to do them a considerable disservice.
I have never been to Africa myself, but I know a great deal about it from my years in the Colonial Office. I know from letters and dispatches more assuredly than you can appreciate, just what atrocities have been committed by white men in the name of civilization. I am not speaking of the occasional murder, or even massacre. That has occurred throughout history, and possibly always will. Certainly the black man is quite as capable of atrocities of that order as anyone else. I am speaking of the greed and the stupidity, the rape of the land and the subjugation, even the destruction of a nation of people, the loss of their culture and their beliefs, the degrading of a race.
I do not hold out great hope that Britain will settle either wisely or fairly. I am certain we shall do neither. But there will be those among us who will make the attempt, and we have a certain humanity, standards