Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [72]
Chancellor’s face reflected real concern and a degree of shock. “Good God! You don’t mean there is a possibility that someone deliberately tried to kill you?” Then his face tightened and a bleak, almost venomous look came into his eyes. “Although I don’t know why I should be surprised. If a man will sell out his country, why should he balk at killing someone who looked like exposing him at it? I think my scale of values needs a little adjusting.”
He leaned back in his chair, his face taut with emotion. “Perhaps violence offends our sensibility so profoundly we tend to think of it as worse than the unseen corruption of betrayal, which in some very essence is immeasurably worse. It is murder behind the smiling face, the thrust in the back”—his fist clenched as if he were dealing the blow himself—“when you are turned elsewhere, and then the sudden realization that all trust may be misplaced.
“It is robbery of everything that makes life worthwhile, the belief in good, the love of friends, honor itself. Why would I think he would not indulge in a simple push in a crowd? A man falls off the curb under the wheels of a carriage?” He looked at Pitt with concern on the surface over a passionate anger beneath. “Have you seen a physician? Should you be up and walking around? Are you sure there is no serious injury?”
Pitt smiled in spite of himself. “Yes, I have seen a doctor, thank you.” He was stretching the truth. “I was with a friend who was considerably more hurt than I, and we shall both be well enough in a few days. But I appreciate your concern. I saw Sir Matthew Desmond this morning and he gave me details of the information which reached the Germans. I read it in the Foreign Office and left it there, but I can recall the essence of it, and I would be obliged if you could tell me if there is any common source or link, or at least anyone who would be excluded from possibility because they could not have known.”
“Of course. Relate it to me.” Chancellor leaned back in his seat and folded his hands, waiting.
With concentration Pitt recalled all the information he had gleaned from Matthew’s papers, set it in an orderly fashion, progressing from one category to the next.
When he had finished Chancellor looked at him with puzzlement and renewed anxiety.
“What is it?” Pitt asked.
“Some of that is information I did not know myself,” Chancellor replied slowly. “It doesn’t pass through the Colonial Office.” He let the words fall on silence, and stared at Pitt to see if he grasped the full implication of what he had said.
“Then our traitor has help, witting or unwitting,” Pitt concluded reluctantly. Then a new thought came to him. “Of course that may be his weakness….”
Chancellor saw what he meant instantly. The spark of hope leaped in his eyes and his body tensed. “Indeed it may! It gives you somewhere to start, to search for proofs, communications, perhaps even payments, or blackmail. The possibilities are considerable.”
“Where do I begin?”
“What?” Chancellor was startled.
“Where else may the other information have come from?” Pitt elaborated. “What precisely is it that does not pass through this office?”
“Oh. Yes, I see. Financial matters. You have included details here of the various loans and guarantees given MacKinnon and Rhodes, among others. And backing from the City of London and from bankers in Edinburgh. The generalities any diligent person with a knowledge of finance might learn for himself, but the times, conditions, precise amounts could only have come from the Treasury.”
His lips tightened. “This is very ugly indeed, Pitt. It seems there is a traitor in the Treasury as well. We shall owe you a great deal if you uncover this for us, and manage to do it discreetly.” He searched Pitt’s eyes. “Do I need to warn you how damaging this could be to the entire government, not only to British interests in Africa, if it becomes public that we are riddled with treason?”
“No,” Pitt said simply, rising to his feet. “I shall do everything