Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [147]
“Soames?” Farnsworth said with confusion, anger and distress conflicting in his face. “What a damn fool thing to have done. Really, the man is an ass. How could he credit anything so—so totally beyond belief? He is a cretin.”
“The curious thing,” Pitt said flatly, “is that it is largely true.”
“What?” Farnsworth swung around from the bookshelf where he was standing, his eyes wide and angry. “What are you driveling on about, Pitt? It’s an absurd story. A child wouldn’t have accepted that explanation.”
“Probably not, but then a child would not have the sophistication …”
“Sophistication!” Farnsworth grimaced with disgust. “Soames is about as sophisticated as my bootboy. Although even he wouldn’t have swallowed that, and he’s only fourteen.”
“… to be misled by an argument about the results of a clash of European powers in black Africa, and the need to prevent it in the interests of morality in general, and the future of all of us,” Pitt finished as if he had not been interrupted.
“Are you making excuses for him?” Farnsworth’s eyes widened. “Because if you are, you are wasting your time. What are you doing about it? Where is he?”
“At Bow Street,” Pitt replied. “I imagine his own people will deal with him. It is not my domain.”
“His own people? Who do you mean? The Treasury?”
“The government,” Pitt answered. “It will no doubt be up to them to decide what to do about it.”
Farnsworth sighed and bit his lip. “Nothing, I imagine,” he said bitterly. “They will not wish to admit that they were incompetent enough to allow such a thing to happen. That is probably true of the whole issue. To whom did he give his information? You haven’t told me that yet. Who is this altruistic traitor?”
“Thorne.”
Farnsworth’s eyes widened.
“Jeremiah Thorne? Good heavens. I had my money on Aylmer. I knew it wasn’t Hathaway, in spite of that lunatic scheme to disseminate false information to all the suspects. Nothing ever came of that!”
“Yes it did, indirectly.”
“What do you mean, indirectly? Did it, or didn’t it?”
“Indirectly,” Pitt repeated. “We got the information back from the German Embassy, and it was none of the figures Hathaway had given, which supports what Soames said of Thorne. He was giving misinformation all the time.”
“Possibly, but I shall want proof of that before I believe it. Is he at Bow Street as well?”
“No, he’s probably in Lisbon by now.”
“Lisbon?” A range of emotions fought in Farnsworth’s face. He was furious, contemptuous, and at the same time aware of the embarrassment saved by the fact that Thorne could not now be tried.
“He left last night,” Pitt went on.
“Warned by Soames?”
“No. If anyone, Kreisler …”
Farnsworth swore.
“… but I imagine unintentionally,” Pitt went on. “I think Kreisler was more concerned with finding out who murdered Susannah Chancellor.”
“Or finding out how much you knew about the fact that he killed her,” Farnsworth snapped. “All right, well at least you have cleared up the treason affair—not very satisfactorily, I might add, but this is better than nothing. And I suppose it could have been very ugly if you had arrested Thorne. You are due some credit for it.”
He sighed and walked over to his desk. “Now you had better return to the tragedy of Mrs. Chancellor. The government, not to mention the press, want to see a solution to that.” He looked up. “Have you anything at all? What about the cabdriver? Do you have him yet? Do you know where she was put into the river? Have you found her cloak? Do you even know where she was killed? I suppose it would be by Thorne, because she discovered his secret?”
“He said he knew nothing about it.”
“Said? You just told me he had left for Portugal last night, and you got there this morning!”
“He left me a letter.”
“Where is it? Give it to me!” Farnsworth demanded.
Pitt passed it across and Farnsworth read it carefully.
“Cats!” he said at the end, putting