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  “RIVETING … DEVIOUS … FASCINATING …

  Another gem in her Charlotte and Thomas Pitt oeuvre … Extraordinarily rich in detail and the fog-laden atmosphere of the time, Perry brings to life the quirky society folk of London…. Her work soars with pathos and humor and, of course, a crackerjack mystery.”

  —Mobile Register

  “[The] historical background is carefully presented.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Perry writes with both flowery overstatement and the kind of formality and restraint that befits her Victorian setting.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Their fifteenth suspenseful turn through the wealthy front parlors and deadly back alleys of Victorian England demonstrates once again a fictional world rich with historical atmosphere and weav[es] a tale of mystery, corruption, detection, and justice as complex as the colorful characters who populate its pages.”

  —Mystery News

  By Anne Perry

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group:

  Featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt:

  THE CATER STREET HANGMAN

  CALLANDER SQUARE

  PARAGON WALK

  RESURRECTION ROW

  BLUEGATE FIELDS

  RUTLAND PLACE

  DEATH IN THE DEVIL’S ACRE

  CARDINGTON CRESCENT

  SILENCE IN HANOVER CLOSE

  BETHLEHEM ROAD

  HIGHGATE RISE

  BELGRAVE SQUARE

  FARRIERS’ LANE

  THE HYDE PARK HEADSMAN

  TRAITORS GATE

  PENTECOST ALLEY

  ASHWORTH HALL

  BRUNSWICK GARDENS

  BEDFORD SQUARE

  HALF MOON STREET

  THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY

  SOUTHAMPTON ROW

  SEVEN DIALS

  LONG SPOON LANE

  BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS

  Featuring William Monk:

  THE FACE OF A STRANGER

  A DANGEROUS MOURNING

  DEFEND AND BETRAY

  A SUDDEN, FEARFUL DEATH

  THE SINS OF THE WOLF

  CAIN HIS BROTHER

  WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE

  THE SILENT CRY

  A BREACH OF PROMISE

  THE TWISTED ROOT

  SLAVES OF OBSESSION

  FUNERAL IN BLUE

  DEATH OF A STRANGER

  THE SHIFTING TIDE

  DARK ASSASSIN

  EXECUTION DOCK

  The World War I Novels:

  NO GRAVES AS YET

  SHOULDER THE SKY

  ANGELS IN THE GLOOM

  AT SOME DISPUTED BARRICADE

  WE SHALL NOT SLEEP

  The Christmas Novels:

  A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY

  A CHRISTMAS VISITOR

  A CHRISTMAS GUEST

  A CHRISTMAS SECRET

  A CHRISTMAS BEGINNING

  A CHRISTMAS GRACE

  A CHRISTMAS PROMISE

  A Fawcett Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1995 by Anne Perry

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Fawcett Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  FAWCETT is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76775-2

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  To Donald Maass—with thanks

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by this Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  1

  PITT SAT BACK on the wooden seat and watched with profound pleasure as the sun faded on the old apple tree in the center of the lawn and for a few moments gilded the rough bark. They had only been in the new house a matter of weeks, but already it had a familiarity about it as if he were returning rather than moving in for the first time. It was many small things: the light on the patch of stone wall at the end of the garden, the bark of the trees, the smell of grass deep in the shade under the branches.

  It was early evening and there were moths fluttering and drifting in the early May air, which was already cooler as twilight approached. Charlotte was inside somewhere, probably upstairs seeing the children to bed. He hoped she had also thought of supper. He was surprisingly hungry, considering he had done little all day but enjoy the rare full Saturday at home. That was one of the benefits of having been promoted to Superintendent when Micah Drummond had retired: he had more time. The disadvantages were that he carried far more responsibility and found himself, rather too often for his wishes, behind a desk in Bow Street instead of out investigating.

  He settled a little lower in the seat and crossed his legs, smiling without being aware of it. He was dressed in old clothes, suitable for the gardening he had done through the day very casually, now and then.

  There was a click as the French doors opened and closed behind him.

  “Please sir …”

  It was Gracie, the little waif of a maid they had brought with them, and who was now filled with importance and satisfaction because she had a woman in five days a week to do the heavy scrubbing and the laundry, and a gardener’s boy three days. This fell under the heading of a considerable staff. Pitt’s promotion had been hers as well, and she was immensely proud of it.

  “Yes, Gracie,” he said without getting up.

  “There’s a gentleman to see you, sir, a Mr. Matthew Desmond….”

  Pitt was stunned, motionless for a moment, then he shot to his feet and turned to face her.

  “Matthew Desmond?” he repeated incredulously.

  “Yes sir.” She looked startled. “Shouldn’t I ’ave let ’im in?”

  “Yes! Yes, certainly you should. Where is he?”

  “In the parlor, sir. I offered ’im a cup o’ tea but ’e wouldn’t ’ave it. ’e looks awful upset, sir.”

  “Right,” he said absently, brushing past her and striding to the doors. He pulled them open and went into the sitting room. It was now filled with the last sunlight and looking oddly golden, in spite of its green and white furnishings. “Thank you,” he added over his shoulder to Gracie. He went into the hall, his heart beating faster and his mouth suddenly dry with anticipation and something not unlike guilt.

  He hesitated for a moment, a confusion of memories teeming through his mind and stretching as far back as consciousness would take him. He had grown up in the country, on the Desmond estate, where his father had been gamekeeper. He was an only child, as was Sir Arthur’s son, a year younger than Pitt. And when Matthew Desmond had longed for someone to play with in the huge and beautiful grounds, Sir Arthur had found it natural enough to choose the gamekeeper’s son. It had been an easy friendship from the beginning, and in time had extended to the schoolroom as well. Sir Arthur had been pleased enough to include a second child and watch his own son’s application improve, with someone to share his lessons and to compete against him.

  Even with Pitt’s father’s disgrace when he was unjustly accused of poaching (not on Sir Arthur’s lands, but those of his nearest neighbor), the family were permitted to remain on the estate, with rooms in the servants’ quarters, and Pitt himself had not been denied his continued education while his mother worke
d in the kitchens.

  But it had been fifteen years now since Pitt had been back, and at least ten since he had had any contact with Sir Arthur or Matthew. As he stood in the hallway with his hand on the doorknob, it was not only guilt that stirred in his mind but a sense of foreboding.

  He opened the door and went in.

  Matthew turned from the mantelshelf, which he had been standing near. He had changed little: he was still tall, lean, almost narrow, with a long, erratic, humorous face, although all the laughter was bleached out of him now and he looked haggard and intensely serious.

  “Hello, Thomas,” he said quietly, coming forward and offering his hand.

  Pitt took it and held it firmly, searching Matthew’s face. The signs of grief were so obvious it would have been offensive and ridiculous to pretend not to have seen them.

  “What is it?” he asked, sickeningly sure he already knew.

  “Father,” Matthew said simply. “He died yesterday.”

  Pitt was completely unprepared for the sense of loss which swept over him. He had not seen Arthur Desmond since before he had married and had children. He had only written letters to mark these events. Now he felt a loneliness, almost as if his roots had been torn away. A past he had taken for granted was suddenly no longer there. He had kept meaning to return. At first it had been a matter of pride which had kept him away. He would go back when he could show them all that the gamekeeper’s son had achieved success, honor. Of course it had taken far longer than in his innocence he had supposed. As the years passed it had become harder, the distance too difficult to bridge. Now, without warning, it had become impossible.

  “I … I’m sorry,” he said to Matthew.

  Matthew tried to smile, at least in acknowledgment, but it was a poor effort. His face still looked haunted.

  “Thank you for coming to tell me,” Pitt went on. “That was … very good of you.” It was also far more than he deserved, and he knew it in a flush of shame.

  Matthew dismissed it almost impatiently with a wave of his hand.

  “He …” He swallowed and took a deep breath, his eyes on Pitt’s face. “He died at his club, here in London.”

  Pitt was going to say he was sorry again, but it was pointless, and he ended saying nothing.

  “Of an overdose of laudanum,” Matthew went on. His eyes searched Pitt’s face, seeking understanding, assurance of some answer to pain.

  “Laudanum?” Pitt repeated it to ascertain he had heard correctly. “Was … was he ill? Suffering from—”

  “No!” Matthew cut him off. “No, he was not ill. He was seventy, but he was in good health and good spirits. There was nothing wrong with him at all.” He looked angry as he said it and there was a fierce defensiveness in his voice.

  “Then why was he taking laudanum?” Pitt’s policeman’s mind pursued the details and the logic of it in spite of his emotions, or Matthew’s.

  “He wasn’t,” Matthew said desperately. “That’s the point! They are saying he was old and losing his wits, and that he took an overdose because he no longer knew what he was doing.” His eyes were blazing and he was poised ready to fly at Pitt if he even suspected him of agreeing.

  Pitt remembered Arthur Desmond as he had known him: tall, ineffably elegant in the casual way of those who have both confidence and a natural grace, and yet at the same time almost always untidy. His clothes did not match each other. Even with a valet’s best attention, he managed to select something other than whatever was put out for him. Yet such was his innate dignity, and the humor in his long, clever face, that no one even noticed, much less thought to criticize. He had been highly individual, at times eccentric, but always with such a basic sanity, and tolerance of human frailty, that he should have been the last man on earth to resort to laudanum at all. But if he had, then he was quite capable of absentmindedly dosing himself twice.

  Except that surely once would have sent him to sleep anyway?

  Pitt had vague memories of Sir Arthur’s having long wakeful spells even thirty years ago, when Pitt had stayed overnight in the hall as a child. Then Sir Arthur had simply got up and wandered around the library until he found a book he fancied, and sat in one of the old leather chairs and gone to sleep with it open in his lap.

  Matthew was waiting, staring at Pitt with mounting anger.

  “Who is saying this?” Pitt asked.

  Matthew was taken aback. It was not the question he was expecting.

  “Uh—the doctor, the men at the club …”

  “What club?”

  “Oh—I am not being very clear, am I? He died at the Morton Club, in the late afternoon.”

  “In the afternoon? Not at night at all?” Pitt was genuinely surprised; he did not have to affect it.

  “No! That’s the point, Thomas,” Matthew said impatiently. “They are saying he was demented, suffering from a sort of senile decay. It’s not true, not even remotely! Father was one of the sanest men alive. And he didn’t drink brandy either! At least, hardly ever.”

  “What has brandy to do with it?”

  Matthew’s shoulders sagged and he looked exhausted and utterly bewildered.

  “Sit down,” Pitt directed. “There is obviously more to this than you have told me so far. Have you eaten? You look terrible.”

  Matthew smiled wanly. “I really don’t want to eat. Don’t fuss over me, just listen.”

  Pitt conceded, and sat down opposite him.

  Matthew sat on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, unable to relax.

  “As I said, Father died yesterday. He was at his club. He had been there most of the afternoon. They found him in his chair when the steward went to tell him the time and ask if he wished for dinner. It was getting late.” He winced. “They said he’d been drinking a lot of brandy, and they thought he’d had rather too much and fallen asleep. That’s why nobody disturbed him before.”

  Pitt did not interrupt him but sat with an increasing weight of sadness for what he now knew would come.

  “Of course when they did speak to him, they found he was dead,” Matthew said bleakly. The effort of control in his voice was so naked that for anyone else Pitt would have been embarrassed; but now it was only an echo of what he himself was feeling. There were no questions to ask. It was not a crime, not even an event hard to understand. It was simply a bereavement, more sudden than most, and therefore carrying a kind of shock. But looked on with hindsight it would probably be a loss such as happens in most families sooner or later.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “You don’t understand!” All the rage built up in Matthew’s face again. He looked at Pitt almost accusingly. Then he drew in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “You see, Father belonged to some sort of society—oh, it was benevolent, at least he used to think it was. They supported all sorts of charities….” He waved his hand in the air to dismiss the matter. “I don’t know what, precisely. He never told me.”

  Pitt felt cold, and unreasonably betrayed.

  “The Inner Circle,” he said, the words grating between his teeth.

  Matthew was stunned. “You knew! How did you know, when I didn’t?” He looked hurt, as if somehow Pitt had broken a trust. Upstairs there was a bang and the sound of running feet. Neither took notice.

  “I’m guessing,” Pitt replied with a smile that turned into a wince. “It is an organization I know a little about.”

  Matthew’s expression hardened, almost as if some door had closed over his candor and now he was wary, no longer the friend, almost brother, that he had been.

  “Are you a member? No, I am sorry. That’s a stupid question, isn’t it? Because you wouldn’t tell me if you were. That’s how you knew Father was. Did you join with him, all those years ago? He never invited me!”

  “No I did not join,” Pitt said tartly. “I never heard of it until recently, when I tangled with them in the course of my work. I’ve prosecuted a few of their members, and exposed several others for involvement i
n fraud, blackmail and murder. I probably know a great deal more about them than you do, and just how damnably dangerous they are.”

  Outside in the corridor Charlotte spoke to one of the children, and the footsteps died away.

  Matthew sat silent for several moments, the emotions that churned through his mind reflecting in his eyes and the tired, vulnerable lines in his face. He was still suffering from shock; he had not accustomed himself to the knowledge that his father was dead. Grief was barely in check, the sudden loneliness, regret, a little guilt—even if he had no idea for what: simply chances missed, words unused. And he was terribly tired, wrung out additionally by the anger which consumed him. He had been disappointed in Pitt, perhaps even betrayed; and then immensely relieved, and again guilty, because he had accused him wrongly.

  It was no time to require apologies. Matthew was near to breaking.

  Pitt held out his hand.

  Matthew clasped it so tightly his fingers bruised the flesh.

  Pitt allowed him a moment or two of pure emotion, then recalled him to his story.

  “Why did you mention the Inner Circle?”

  Matthew made an effort, and began again in a more level voice, but still sitting far forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees and his hands under his chin.

  “Father was always involved only with the strictly charitable side, until quite recently, the last year or two, when he rose higher in the organization. More by accident than design, I think. He began to learn a lot more about them, and what else they did, who some of the other members were.” He frowned. “Particularly concerning Africa …”

  “Africa?” Pitt was startled.

  “Yes—Zambezia especially. There is a lot of exploration going on there at the moment. It’s a very long story. Do you know anything about it?”

  “No … nothing at all.”

  “Well naturally there’s a great deal of money concerned, and the possibility of unimaginable wealth in the future. Gold, diamonds, and of course land. And there were all sorts of other questions as well, missionary work, trade, foreign policy.”

  “What has the Inner Circle to do with it?”

  Matthew pulled a rueful face. “Power. It always has to do with power, and the sharing out of wealth. Anyway, Father began to appreciate just how the senior members of the Inner Circle were influencing policy in the government, and the South Africa Company, to their own advantage, regardless of the welfare of the Africans, or of British interests, either, for that matter. He got very upset about it indeed, and started to say so.”