Traitors Gate - Anne Perry [91]
“He does hold a fairly senior position in the Colonial Office,” Pitt pointed out.
Tellman gave a little snort, fully expressive of his derision. “I’ve seen more important men than him pushed around by their tailors! No sir, there’s a bit more steel to our Mr. Hathaway than first looks show.”
Pitt did not reply. It was more Tellman’s impression than any evidence. It depended how ineffectual Tellman had originally thought him.
“Buys very nice socks and nightshirts,” Tellman went on. “Very nice indeed. And more than one silk cravat.”
“Extravagant?” Pitt asked.
Tellman shook his head regretfully. “Not the way you mean. Certainly doesn’t live beyond his income; beneath it if anything. Takes his pleasures quietly, just the occasional dinner at his club or with friends. A stroll on the green of an evening.”
“Any lady friends?”
Tellman’s expression conveyed the answer without the need for words.
“What about his sons? Has he any other family, brothers or sisters?”
“Sons are just as respectable as he is, from all I can tell. Anyway, they both live abroad, but nobody says a word against them. No other family as far as I know. Certainly he doesn’t call on them or write.”
Pitt leaned backwards farther into the sun. “These friends with whom he dines once a week or so, who are they? Have they any connection with Africa or Germany? Or with finance?”
“Not that I can find.” Tellman looked both triumphant and disgusted. It gave him some satisfaction to present Pitt with a further problem, and yet he resented his own failure. His dilemma amused Pitt.
“And your own opinion of him?” Pitt asked with the shadow of a smile.
Tellman looked surprised. It was a question he apparently had not foreseen. He was obliged to think hastily.
“I’d like to say he’s a deep one with a lot hidden under the surface.” His face was sour. “But I think he’s just a very ordinary, bald little man with an ordinary, open and very tedious life; just like ten thousand others in London. I couldn’t find any reason to think he’s a spy, or anything else but what he looks.”
Pitt respected Tellman’s opinion. He was bigoted, full of resentments both personal and rooted in his general social status, but his judgment of crime, and a man’s potential for it, was acute, and seldom mistaken.
“Thank you,” he said with a sincerity that caught Tellman off guard. “I expect you are right.”
Nevertheless he contrived an occasion to go to the Colonial Office and meet Hathaway for himself, simply to form an impression because he did not have one. Not to have spoken with him again would have been an omission, and with as little certainty in the case as he had, he could not afford omissions, however slight.
Hathaway’s office was smaller than Chancellor’s or Jeremiah Thorne’s, but nevertheless it had dignity and considerable comfort. At a glance it looked as if nothing in it were new; everything had a gentle patina of age and quality. The wood shone from generations of polishing, the leather gleamed, the carpet was gently worn in a track from door to desk. The books on the single shelf were morocco bound and gold lettered.
Hathaway sat behind the desk looking benign and courteous. He was almost completely bald, with merely a fringe of short, white hair above his ears, and he was clean-shaven. His nose was pronounced and his eyes a clear, round blue. Only when one had looked at him more closely did their clarity and intelligence become apparent.
“Good morning, Superintendent,” he said quietly. His voice was excellent and his diction perfect. “How may I be of assistance to you? Please, do sit down.”
“Good morning, Mr. Hathaway.” Pitt accepted the offer and sat in the chair opposite the desk. It was remarkably comfortable; it seemed to envelop him as soon as he relaxed into it, and yet it was firm in all the right places. But for all the apparent ease, Hathaway was a government