Seven Dials

chapter TWELVE
VESPASIA WAS IN the withdrawing room, arranging white chrysanthemums and copper beech leaves floating in a flat Lalique dish, when she heard angry voices raised in the hall. She turned in surprise just as the door flew open and Ferdinand Garrick pushed past the maid and stood on the edge of the Aubusson carpet, his face suffused with anger and something close to despair.

"Good morning, Ferdinand," she said coolly, indicating with a slight nod that the maid might leave. She would have put an edge of ice to it sufficient to stop the Prince of Wales in his tracks but for the reality of the emotion she recognized in him. It overrode all consideration of personal manners, even the deepening dislike she felt for him. "I gather that something is seriously wrong, and you believe that I may assist you."

He was taken aback. He was quite aware of his almost unpardonable rudeness, and now that he thought of it, he had expected to meet with outraged dignity rather than any form of understanding. It robbed him momentarily of his assurance. He stood still, breathing hard. Even from across the space of the room she could see his chest rise and fall.

She broke off the last two flower stalks and floated the heads in the fan of leaves, then set the bowl on the low table. It was exquisite, as beautiful as when she did it with bloodred peonies in the summer.

"Tell me what it is that has happened," she directed. "If you would care for tea I shall send for it, but perhaps it would only be an encumbrance now?"

He jerked his hand, dismissing the idea. "My son is in desperate danger from the same people who murdered young Lovat, and now your idiot policeman has kidnapped him and removed him from the only place where he was safe!" he accused, his eyes burning. His voice shook when he went on, and he was struggling to get his breath. "For God's sake, tell them to leave it alone! They have no idea what they're meddling with! The disaster will be..." The enormity of it defied his ability to describe, and he stared at her in helpless fury.

She could see that there was little purpose in attempting to reason with him; he felt too much panic rising towards a breaking point to listen to anything that seemed like argument.

"If it was indeed Pitt who removed your son, then we had better inform him of the danger," she replied calmly. "At this hour in the morning I doubt if Pitt will be at home, but I may be able to find him. If I do, I shall have to tell him specifically what the danger is in order for him to guard Stephen against it."

"The man's a fool!" Garrick's voice rose, quivering near to breaking. "He's gone blundering in where he doesn't understand a damn thing, and he could set a whole continent ablaze!"

Vespasia was startled. Garrick's words were wild, but in spite of her dislike of his self-righteous, rigid beliefs, he had been an excellent soldier. He had not the imagination to be hysterical.

"Ferdinand, please calm yourself sufficiently to inform me what I must say to him," she said firmly. "I cannot give him orders, I must persuade him. Where was Stephen, and when did you learn that he had been taken, and by Pitt?"

Garrick made a tremendous effort to master the panic inside himself, but still his voice cracked with emotion.

"The people who killed Lovat will stop at nothing whatever to kill Stephen also, and Sandeman if they can find him. Stephen knew it!" His face was pink, the embarrassment painful to see, nevertheless he continued with some semblance of control. "He was... not well..."

She allowed the euphemism to pass. She knew what outward form his son's illness had taken, but it was the cause of it that mattered now, so she did not interrupt.

"He had episodes of delirium," he continued more steadily. "I had him put in a hospital..." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "The Bethlehem Lunatic Hospital."

Vespasia was well aware of the reputation of Bedlam; it needed no words of his to expand the horror of it. That he would place his son in such a man-made hell said more than anything else could have to show her his fear.

"And Pitt found him there and removed him?" she said with only the very slightest lift of question. "Do you not think that perhaps it was Martin Garvie he went seeking? You did send the valet as well, did you not?"

His face was slack for a moment with surprise, then the look vanished. "It seems you know even more about it than I had supposed. Yes, I imagine Garvie might be more within his circle of-" He stopped, aware suddenly that he was running a great risk of antagonizing her, and he could not afford it. "Find him!" he said desperately. "Please?"

She looked at his anguished face. "And what is it I should tell Pitt, or whoever is concerned?" she asked. "What is the danger that you fear, Ferdinand?" She moved across to the sofa as she spoke, and gestured for him to be seated, but he remained unyielding on his feet.

"Give him back to me, and I'll take care of it," he said between his teeth.

She sat down. "I think if they wanted him so little that they would be prepared to give him back simply because I asked it, then they would not have gone to the trouble of taking him in the first place," she said reasonably. "Is it not time to deal with rather more reality?"

He started to speak, and then stopped.

She waited. She would not ask again. He knew the facts. Stephen was his son.

He lowered his eyes. "He has knowledge which I believe certain people will kill him to obtain," he said.

It was an oblique answer, less than the truth. However, it served the purpose, and she knew he would not give her more unless forced to. She would leave that to Victor Narraway, and she had already made up her mind that it was he to whom she would go.

"I shall inform them of that," she promised.

Something in him eased a fraction, but now that victory was achieved, he moved from foot to foot in impatience for her to proceed.

She regarded him coldly. "I have no intention of permitting you to accompany me, Ferdinand. You have told me all I require. As you have made clear, time is of importance. Good morning."

"Thank you," he said stiffly. His expression was one of relief, gratitude, and almost disappointment, now that there was nothing more for him to do in his own cause. He hated dependence of any sort whatever, and upon a woman most of all. "Yes... I am obliged. Good day to you. I..."

"I shall inform you of the outcome," she replied coldly. "Should you not be at home, I shall leave a message with your butler."

"I shall be at home."

She inclined her head in the faintest acknowledgment.

He colored deeply, but he offered no further argument. She rose to her feet to permit him to take his leave without seeming rude.

Again, Vespasia used her telephone. It was an instrument she had been quick to adopt, and she was impatient with those who resisted its speed and convenience.

She was certain that Victor Narraway was again attending the trial of Ryerson and the Egyptian woman, and that court would adjourn for luncheon at one. That gave her an hour to be there, and convey to him that she wished to see him urgently.

As it was, they met on the steps as she was arriving. He came towards her with his customary elegance and an outward appearance of ease, but even before he spoke she saw in the shadows of his face, the tension within him, that he was profoundly worried, perhaps even afraid.

"Good afternoon, Lady Vespasia," he said quietly.

"Good afternoon, Victor. I am sorry to call you away from the business of the court, but Ferdinand Garrick came to me in profound distress this morning." She ignored his surprise. There was no time for the explanation of courtesy. "He is aware that Pitt has found Stephen Garrick in Bedlam, and removed him. I believe he would not have done that without your approval, and possibly your assistance."

He offered her his arm and she took it. Obviously he wished to move away from the steps, where they might be overheard.

"Actually, it was Garvie we were more interested in-to begin with," he told her.

"Yes, I am aware of Charlotte's concern for him; you do not need to explain that to me."

The shadow of a smile touched his lips and then disappeared. "It was Mrs. Pitt who learned where Garvie was," he said wryly. "From a priest in Seven Dials." They were walking along the footpath side by side, away from the Old Bailey down to Ludgate Hill, then east towards the vast shadow of St. Paul's, its dome dark against a bright, windy sky.

"That sounds like Charlotte," she responded.

He drew in breath as if to say something, then the thought vanished and another, far darker, took its place.

"There was an atrocity in Egypt," he said so quietly she could barely hear him. "Twelve years ago. Lovat, Garrick, Sandeman, and a man named Yeats were involved. Ferdinand Garrick concealed it then. If it is exposed now, to anyone at all, it could set Egypt ablaze, and cost us Suez. There are men who will kill to keep it silent."

"I see." She drew in a long, shaky breath. The thought did not surprise her. Money, power and passionate loyalties were involved. "Do I assume that Lovat was murdered in revenge for this?"

"It looks like it. God help them... who wouldn't? But I shall protect Stephen Garrick as long as it is necessary, and you may tell his father so. I have as much interest in keeping him safe from his enemies as he has. Please say no more. I don't know yet who is playing in this, or on which side. I would save Ryerson if I could, but it is beyond my ability now."

She hesitated only momentarily. "May I visit him, to offer the services of a friend?" she asked.

"I will arrange it this evening," he promised. "You should say all you wish to him then. Once the jury is in, I... I believe you may have no further opportunity."

She found without warning her voice was trembling. "I see. Thank you."

"Lady Vespasia!" He did not risk the impertinence of using her name without her title.

"Yes?" She had her composure again.

"I am truly sorry." The pain in his face was momentarily naked. She did not know why Ryerson's conviction should hurt him so much, or even whether he believed him guilty of more than foolishness, but she was certain beyond any hesitation at all that the emotion was deep and private, part of the man, not the calling.

She stood still, facing him on the quiet footpath in the shadow of St. Paul's. "There are some things we cannot do," she said softly. "No matter how intensely we desire it."

He was self-conscious, something she had never seen in him before.

"Come to the Newgate entrance at eight," he said, then he turned and went back into the courtroom.

EVEN NARRAWAY COULD CONTRIVE only a very brief visit for Vespasia. She had expected Ryerson to show signs of the strain he must be feeling, but in spite of her mental preparation for it, she was shocked when she saw him. She remembered him as a big man. The sense of his physical power had always been overwhelming, the most remarkable thing about him, more than the character in his face or the intelligence or the charm.

Now as he stood up at her entrance into the cell, he looked drained. His skin was pale and had a peculiar dry, papery look, and although he wore the same clothes she had seen him in last time, today they seemed too big for him.

"Vespasia... how good of you to come," he responded huskily, holding out one hand to greet her, then withdrawing it the moment before he touched her, as if suddenly conscious that she might not wish it.

She was stabbed by the terrible thought that the change in him was because he no longer believed in Ayesha Zakhari's innocence. He did not look like a martyr to a cause, more like a man whose dreams have been broken.

She forced herself to smile very slightly, just a warmth to her face.

"My dear Saville," she responded, "I shall owe favors to no end of people for the privilege." It was not true, but she knew that just for an instant it would make him feel better. "And I have only a few minutes before some miserable man, tied to his duty, will return to fetch me," she continued. "It occurred to me that there might be some service I could perform for you that perhaps you had not been able to ask of anyone else. If there is, then please tell me now, in case we do not have another opportunity to speak alone." It was a brutal truth, but there was no more time left for skirting around it. This was the time, here, this evening.

He controlled himself with a magnificent effort, and replied to her with total calm. Certain bequests to staff who had served him well were already attended to, but there were personal thanks he would like to have given, and an apology here or there. It was the latter which weighed upon him most heavily, and he was grateful to have her promise to do those things, should it prove necessary. He knew that she would do it graciously, with both the candor and the humility he wished.

The guard returned. She told him icily to wait, but he did so standing at the door.

"Is there anything else you need?" she asked Ryerson. "Anything personal that I may bring for you?"

The ghost of a smile flashed on his face, and vanished. "No, thank you. My valet has done that for me every day. I am so..."

She held up her hand to silence him. "I know," she said quickly. She looked at the guard and permitted him to hold the door open for her. "Good-bye, Saville, at least for the moment." She went out without looking back. She heard the sound of steel on steel as the door closed and the heavy tumblers of the lock fell into place.

She was crossing the entrance on her way to the outside doors when she saw a discreetly clad dark-skinned man walk almost silently past her in the opposite direction, his eyes averted. He was holding a small, soft-sided bag in his hand. Presumably, this was Ayesha Zakhari's house servant, taking her clean linen and whatever else she required. He was so self-effacing as to have mastered the art of being almost invisible, and she would not have recognized him were she to see him again in different clothes. She was forcibly reminded that he belonged to a very different culture. Then she realized with a sense of amazement that she had not actually seen Ayesha Zakhari, as far as she could recall. Surely if she had met her anywhere, she would have remembered?

And yet she was the center of this storm which was going to destroy Ryerson, and possibly Stephen Garrick as well.

Vespasia went out into the street where her carriage was waiting, and allowed her footman to assist her up the step and to be seated comfortably, her mind still absorbed in thought.

GRACIE WAS ALONE in the house when she heard the knock on the scullery door. It was late on a wet and gusty night. Charlotte and Pitt were both out briefly to visit Charlotte's mother, whom they had not seen in some time.

The knock came again, urgent and persistent.

She picked up the rolling pin, then put it down and chose the carving knife instead. Keeping it hidden in the folds of her skirt, she tiptoed to the back door and opened it sharply.

Tellman stood on the step with his hand raised to knock again. He looked cold and worried.

"You should have asked who it was before you opened," he said immediately.

The criticism stung her. "You stop telling me wot ter do, Samuel Tellman!" she retorted. "You in't got no right. This is my 'ouse, not yours." She realized as soon as the words were out that her heart was pounding with suppressed fear, and she knew he was right. It would have been so simple to ask who it was, and she had not thought of it because she had been so preoccupied with thoughts about Martin Garvie, and people taken against their will and shut up in Bedlam, and the fact that they had not been able to solve the case of a man shot to death in a woman's garden at night. What was he there for? No good, skulking in the bushes.

Tellman came inside. He was pale and his face was drawn with lines of tension.

"Somebody's got to tell you what to do," he said, closing the door hard. "You haven't got the sense you were born with. What's that?"

She put the knife down on the kitchen table. "A carvin' knife. Wot does it look like?" she snapped back.

"It looks like something a burglar would take off you and hold to your throat," he replied. "If you were lucky."

"Is that wot yer came 'ere ter tell me?" she demanded, swinging around to face him. "It in't me 'as got no wits."

"Of course I didn't come to tell you that!" He stood near the table, his whole body too tight to sit down. "But you've got to act with more sense."

If anyone else had said that, she would have brushed it aside, but from him it stung unaccountably. He was at once too far and too close. She hated that it mattered so much because it confused her, it stirred up feelings over which she had no control, and she was not used to that.

"Don't you tell me off like I belonged to yer," she said, gulping back a surge of emotion, almost a loneliness, that threatened to swamp her.

He looked startled for a moment, then he frowned very slightly. "Don't you want to belong to anyone, Gracie?" he asked.

She was stunned. It was the last thing she had expected him to say, and she had no answer for it. No, that was not true, she did have an answer, but she was not ready to admit it to him yet. She needed more time to accustom herself to the idea. She swallowed, opened her mouth to deny it, then like a wave breaking over her, she knew she could not. It would be a lie, but he might believe her and not ask again. He might even go away.

"W-well..." she stammered. "Well... I... s'pose I do..." She had said it... aloud!

He took a deep breath also. There was no indecision in him, only a fear that he would be rejected. "Then you'd better belong to me," he answered. "Because there isn't going to be anyone who wants you more than I do."

She stared at him. The moment had come. It was now or never. The warmth rose up inside her like sliding into delicious, hot, sweet water, almost like floating. She did not realize she was not saying anything.

"Well, you're stubborn and self-willed, and you've got the daftest ideas about people's places I ever heard," he went on in the crackling silence. "But heaven help me, there isn't anybody else I really want... so if you'll have me-" He stopped. "Are you waiting for me to say I love you? Maybe you haven't got the wits you were born with, but you're not so daft you don't know that!"

"Yes, I know it!" she said quickly. "An'... an'..." It was only fair that she answer him honestly, however difficult it was to say. "An' I love you too, Samuel. But jus' don' take liberties! It don' give you the right ter tell me wot I'm doin' or wot I in't."

His lantern face lit with a huge smile. "You'll do as I tell you. But I want peace in my own house, so I reckon I won't tell you anything you'd mind too much."

"Good!" She took a gulp of air. "Then we'll be all right when... when it's time." She took another gulp. "Would you like a cup o' tea? Yer look 'alf starved." She was using the word in the old sense of being cold.

"Yes," he accepted, pulling out a chair and sitting down at last. "Yes, I would, please." He knew better than to pursue an answer as to time now. She had accepted, that was enough.

She went past him to the stove, overwhelmed with relief. This was as far as she could go now. "Was that wot yer came for?" she asked.

"No. That's been on my mind for... for a while. I came to tell Mr. Pitt that the police have a new witness in the Eden Lodge case, and it looks pretty bad."

She pulled the kettle onto the hob and turned around to look at him. "Wot kind of a witness?"

"One that says he knows the Egyptian woman sent a message to Mr. Lovat, telling him to come to her," he said grimly. "They'll call him to the witness stand... bound to."

"Wot can we do?" she asked anxiously.

"Nothing," he answered. "But it's better to know."

She did not argue, but she worried for Pitt, and even the sense of warmth inside her, the little tingle of victory that she had faced the moment of decision and accepted it, and all the vast changes it would mean one day, did not dispel her concern for Pitt, and the case they surely could not win now.

PITT AND CHARLOTTE returned shortly after that. When Pitt had heard all that Tellman had to say, he thanked him for it, put his coat back on and went straight out again. He could not wait until tomorrow morning to inform Narraway. It was Friday night. They had two days' grace before the trial resumed, but it was a very short time to rescue anything out of this. Pitt was not used to such complete failure, and it was a cold, hollow feeling with a bitter aftertaste he believed would remain.

Of course he had had unsolved cases before, and others to which he was certain he knew the answer but could not prove it, but they had not been of this magnitude.

Narraway looked up as the manservant closed the door, leaving Pitt standing in the middle of the room. He read his face immediately. "Well?" he demanded, leaning forward as if to stand up.

"The police have a witness who says Ayesha sent Lovat a note asking him to go to her," he said simply. There was no point trying to make it sound less dreadful than it was. He was aware of all that it meant before Narraway spoke.

"So she deliberately lured him to the garden," Narraway said bitterly. "Either he destroyed the note himself or she took it from him before the police got there. It was not a crime of the moment; she always intended to kill him." His face creased in thought. "But did she intend to implicate Ryerson, or was that accidental?"

"If she did"-Pitt sat down uninvited-"then she must have been extraordinarily sure of him. How did she know that he would get there before the police, and that he would help her dispose of the body? Did she have an alternative plan if he had raised the alarm instead?"

Narraway's mouth twisted in a hard grimace. "Presumably she was the one who called the police, or had her servant do it. If it was in revenge for the massacre, then he will have been party to it."

Narraway's dark face was heavy with foreboding. He stared straight ahead at some horror he could see within his own vision. "I assume they are calling this witness on Monday?" he said without turning to Pitt.

"I should think so," Pitt replied. "It will prove intent."

"And then she will take the stand and tell the world exactly why," Narraway went on in a low, hard voice. "And the newspapers will rush to repeat it, and within hours it will be all over the country, then all over the world." His face looked bruised, almost as if he had been beaten. "Egypt will rise in revolt and make the Mahdi and the whole bloodbath of the Sudan look like a vicarage tea party. Even Gordon in Khartoum will seem a civilized difference between peoples. And inevitably we shall lose Suez." He clenched his fists, his shoulders tight. "God! What a hellish fiasco. We were damned from the start-weren't we!" It was not a question, just an exclamation of despair.

"I don't understand it," Pitt said slowly, feeling his way in a darkness of disjointed reason. "Why now? And if the purpose behind her coming to London, drawing in Ryerson, the whole business of trying to get the cotton manufacturing back into Egypt, the murder of Lovat, was in order to expose the massacre... then why all that trouble?" He stared at Narraway. "Why not simply make it known in Egypt? The facts are there. The bodies could be found and exhumed. With thirty-odd people shot to death, even after the burning, some of them will have bullet holes, chips in bone to show it wasn't simply an accidental fire. Why all this murder and trial? Why risk her own life at all? If they know about the massacre, surely the murder of one of the soldiers responsible is trivial, almost an irrelevance, compared with exposing it? It's ridiculously inefficient like this."

Narraway stared at him, his eyes widening. "What, exactly, are you saying, Pitt? That she is being used by someone else? Expendable?"

"I think so... yes," Pitt agreed. "What use is it to anyone to involve Ryerson?"

"Publicity," Narraway said instantly. "The murder of one junior diplomat is neither here nor there. It's Ryerson's involvement that has journalists from every country in Europe writing about it. If the massacre comes out in the Old Bailey, you can be sure not only will all Britain know about it, and all Egypt, but most of the rest of the world as well. We wouldn't have a chance in hell of keeping it quiet. Not only will all of the violence and horror of the event itself come out, but every stupid and ugly thing anyone has done since to conceal it."

"So she came believing she was trying to help the cotton industry, but whoever it was who sent her intended this all the time?" For Pitt it was now only half a question. At last it made sense of what he had learned of Ayesha in Alexandria. This was the woman he had discovered. And once again she had been betrayed, only this time it would cost her her life. There was only one question now. "What did they tell her to persuade her to kill Lovat?" he said aloud. "Or didn't she?"

Narraway stared at him, amazement, then comprehension, in his face. "I don't know," he said at last. "If she didn't, then who did?"

Pitt stood up. "I don't know." Anger seethed inside him for Ayesha, for Ryerson, who unquestionably had been used, for all the people who were going to be driven into the maelstrom that Egypt would become. The beauty and the warmth of Alexandria would be shattered, as would the lives of the men and women whose faces he had seen when he was there, without even knowing their names. And he hated not knowing, and having his emotions pushed and pulled, and then torn apart by pity for first one, and then another, and not knowing what to believe. "Give me the authority I need to go and see her." That was a demand, not a request.

"I can't get it until the morning," Narraway replied. "You'll need it in writing," he added as Pitt hesitated. "She's not guilty yet, and she has rights. The Egyptian embassy will still protect her. I'll have it for you by tomorrow afternoon."

Pitt accepted it because he had no choice.

THE NEXT DAY, after a restless night in which the little sleep he got was filled with dreams of violence and almost unbearable tension, he was at Narraway's house by noon. He was obliged to wait nearly two hours alone in the morning room until Narraway returned with a piece of paper in an envelope, and gave it to him without explanation.

"Thank you." Pitt took it, glanced at the few lines of writing on it and was impressed, although he had no intention of allowing Narraway to know that. "I'll go straightaway."

"Do," Narraway agreed. "Before they change their minds. And Pitt... be careful. The stakes could be as high as war. The people behind all this are not going to be squeamish about getting rid of one policeman more or less."

Pitt was jolted, in spite of himself. "I know that!" he said sharply, then turned and left, calling a good-bye over his shoulder so Narraway should not be aware how ugly and deep his thoughts had become. He had faced physical danger before. No one could patrol the back alleys of London as he had done without it. But this was a different venture, a conspiracy of a magnitude he had not tasted before. It was no one man's ambition but a nation's fate which could erupt in death and awful, senseless destruction.

He took the first hansom that passed and told the driver to take him as rapidly as he could to Newgate. As soon as he was there he went straight to the warden in charge and showed him the paper Narraway had given him. The man read it right through twice, and then consulted with a superior. Finally, when Pitt was about to lose his temper, he conducted him to the cell where Ayesha Zakhari was held, and unlocked the door.

Pitt stepped in and heard the steel clang behind him. The woman who turned to face him startled him so profoundly he was robbed of words. He had created a mental picture of her from his expectations, and from the Greek Alexandria he had seen. Perhaps old stories of the city had touched his imagination without his being aware of it. He had pictured someone olive-skinned with lustrous dark hair, rich and sultry, with a softly curving body, perhaps average height or less.

She was very tall, only three or four inches less than he, and slender, delicately boned. She wore a pale silk gown like those he had seen on women in Alexandria, but more graciously cut. But most extraordinary of all, her skin was almost black and her hair was no more than a dark, smooth covering for her perfectly shaped head. Her features were more than beautiful; they were so exquisite she seemed like a work of art, and yet the vitality in her made her obviously a living, breathing woman. She was not an Egyptian of the modern, sophisticated Mediterranean Islam; she was of ancient, Coptic Africa-not Cleopatra at all, but older than that, Nefertiti.

"Who are you?" Her voice jolted him back to the present. It was low and a little husky, but with hardly any accent he could place, only a slightly more precise diction than an Englishwoman would have had, other than perhaps Great-aunt Vespasia.

"I apologize," he said without thinking. "My name is Thomas Pitt. I need to speak with you, Miss Zakhari, before the court resumes on Monday morning. Certain things have transpired of which you may not be aware."

"You may tell me whatever you wish," she replied levelly. "I have nothing to tell you, beyond what I have already said. And since I cannot prove it, there is little purpose in my repeating it. You are wasting your time, Mr. Pitt, and you are wasting mine also. And I think perhaps I do not have very much of it left." It was said without self-pity, and yet he could see in her face that underneath the effort of courage there was immeasurable pain.

He remained standing because there was nowhere to sit, except the cot, and to reach that he would have had to walk past her, and then look up where she stood.

"I went to Alexandria about three weeks ago," he began, and saw the start of surprise in her, the stiffening of her body, but she did not speak. "I wanted to learn more about you," he went on. "I admit that what I found surprised me."

The ghost of a smile crossed her face, and vanished. She had a gift of stillness which was more than a mere lack of movement; it was an inner control, a peace of the spirit.

"I believe you came here to England to try to persuade Ryerson to influence the cotton industry, so more Egyptian cotton could be woven where it was grown, so that the factories could be started up again, as they were in the time of Mohammed Ali."

Again she was surprised. It was no more than a hesitation in her breathing; he felt it rather than saw it.

"So your own people could prosper from their work," he added. "It was naive. If you had understood how much money was vested in the trade, how many people's power, I think you would have realized that no one man, even with Ryerson's office, could have had any effect."

She drew in her breath as though she was going to argue, then she let it out silently and turned half away from him. The light on her smooth face shone like polished silk. Her skin was blemishless, her cheekbones high, her nose long and straight, her eyes a little slanted upwards. It was a face of passion and immense dignity, but oddly, it was not without humor. The tiny lines, visible because he was close to her, spoke of laughter, not easy as of mere good humor, but of intelligence and irony as well.

"I think that the man who sent you knew that you could not succeed," he went on. He was not certain whether it was a shadow that moved, or if her body stiffened a trifle under the silk of her dress. "I believe his purpose was different," he continued. "And that cotton was only the reason he gave you, because it is one you could serve with all your effort, whatever the cost to yourself."

"You are mistaken," she replied, without looking at him. "If I was naive, then I have paid a high price for it, but I did not kill Lieutenant Lovat."

"But you are prepared to hang for it?" he said with surprise. "And not only yourself, but Mr. Ryerson as well."

She flinched as if he had struck her, but she did not make any sound, nor move her position.

"Do you think perhaps because he is a minister in the government that they will let him off?" he asked.

She turned to face him at last, her eyes wide and almost black.

"Have you not realized yet that he has enemies?" he said more loudly than he wished to, but he could not afford gentleness. She might back away, evade the truth again. "And whoever sent you has far bigger aims than cotton, in Egypt or Manchester."

"That is not true." She stated it as a fact. There was certainty in her eyes, then, even as he was watching, it wavered before she could master it.

"If you did not kill Lovat, then who did?" he said far more quietly. He had not yet made up his mind whether to say anything of the massacre to her, or even to hint at it. He watched her, searching for anything in her expression, however fleeting, to betray the hatred that could lie behind a murder of revenge. So far he had seen nothing at all, not even a shadow.

"I don't know," she said simply. "But you said it was not to do with cotton. What, then?"

It was almost impossible to believe she knew. And if she did not, and he told her, might her love of her country, and of justice, then impel her to speak, perhaps even to make her crime seem justified? Would a judge mitigate her sentence because of such provocation? Pitt would have. "Other political reasons," he said evasively. "To expose old wrongs with a view to inciting violence, even rebellion."

"Like the dervishes in the Sudan?" she said bleakly.

"Why not? Knowing what you do now, do you really believe you ever had a chance of changing the cotton industry, before the political and financial tides have changed, no matter what Mr. Ryerson might believe or wish for?"

She thought about it for several moments before conceding. "No," she said almost under her breath.

"Then surely it is possible that whoever sent you also knew that, and had in mind another plan altogether?" he pressed.

She did not answer, but he saw that she had understood.

"And he does not care if you hang for a murder you did not commit," he went on. "Or that Ryerson should also."

That hurt her. Her body stiffened and some of the richness of color faded from her skin.

"Could he have killed Lovat?" he asked.

Her head moved fractionally, but it was an assent.

"How?" he asked.

"He... he poses as my servant..."

Of course! Tariq el Abd, silent, almost invisible. He could have taken her gun and shot Lovat, then called the police himself to make sure they came, and found Ryerson. He could easily have organized the whole thing, because she would naturally have given him any letter to deliver to Lovat. No one would question it; in fact, they would have questioned anybody else. It was perfect.

"Thank you," he said with sudden depth of feeling. It was at least a resolution of the mystery, even if it did not solve the problem. And he had not realized until this moment how much it mattered to him that she was not guilty. It was almost like a physical weight removed from him.

"What are you going to do, Mr. Pitt?" Her voice was edged with fear.

"I am going to prove that you have been used, Miss Zakhari," he replied, aware that his choice of words would remind her of that other time, years ago, when she had been used and betrayed before. "And that neither you nor Mr. Ryerson is guilty of murder. And I am going to try to do it without soaking Egypt in blood. I am afraid the second aim is going to take precedence over the first."

She did not answer, but stood motionless as an ebony statue while he smiled very slightly in parting, and knocked on the door to summon the warder.

He debated for only moments whether to go alone or to find Narraway and tell him. If Tariq el Abd was the prime mover behind the plan to expose the massacre and set Egypt alight, then he would not meekly accept arrest from Pitt or anyone else. By going to Eden Lodge alone, Pitt might do no more than warn him, and possibly precipitate the very tragedy they dreaded.

He stopped a hansom in the Strand and gave Narraway's office address. Please God, he was there.

"What is it?" Narraway said as soon as he saw Pitt's face.

"The man behind Ayesha is the house servant Tariq el Abd," he replied. He saw from Narraway's expression that no more explanation was necessary.

Narraway breathed with a sigh of comprehension, and fury with himself because he had not seen it before. "Our own bloody blindness!" he swore, rising to his feet in a single movement. "A servant and a foreigner, so we don't even see him. Damn! I should have been better than that." He yanked a drawer open and pulled a gun out of it, then slammed the drawer shut again and strode ahead of Pitt. "I hope you had the wits to keep the cab," he said critically.

"Of course I did!" Pitt retorted, striding after him out of the door and down the steps to the pavement, where the cab was standing, the horse fidgeting from one foot to the other, perhaps sensing the driver's tension.

"Eden Lodge!" Narraway said tersely, climbing in ahead of Pitt and waving the man forward as Pitt was scrambling in behind him.

Neither of them spoke all the way through the crowded streets, around squares and under fading trees until the hansom stopped outside Eden Lodge.

" 'Round the back!" Narraway ordered, moving swiftly ahead of Pitt.

But there was no one in Eden Lodge. The entire house was deserted. The stove in the kitchen was cold, the ashes in the fires gray, the food in the pantry already going stale.

Narraway swore just once, with white-hot fury, but there was nothing he or anybody else could do.