Buckingham Palace Gardens (16 page)

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind and walked over to stand where Vespasia could see him.

“Good afternoon, Victor,” she said with interest. “Emily, do you remember Mr. Narraway? My niece, Mrs. Radley.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Narraway,” Emily said quietly. She was not quite beautiful, but the vitality in her appealed even more, and the arch of her brow, the line of her cheek reminded him again of Charlotte Pitt. “I hope you are well?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Radley,” he replied. “I am very well, thank you, but unfortunately I have to ask Lady Vespasia's help with a confidential matter. I apologize for such an ill-mannered intrusion. I would avoid it if I could.”

Emily hesitated, then recognized that she had no graceful alternative, even though her eyes betrayed a burning curiosity. “Of course.” She gave him a dazzling smile. She turned to Vespasia. “I shall meet you at the carriage in…shall we say an hour?” And without waiting for a reply, with a swirl of skirts, she was gone.

“Your problem must be urgent.” Vespasia took Narraway's arm and they moved slowly toward the next room. “Is it to do with Thomas?”

He heard the edge of anxiety in her voice. “Pitt is quite well,” he said quickly. “But we are dealing with a case of such delicacy that I dare not mention it, except that it has to do with the Prince of Wales. I need your assistance.”

“You have it. What may I do?” She did not raise her voice or alter her tone.

He knew it would disappoint her that it was merely information he wanted, and he regretted it. In the past she had involved herself in cases more daringly, and shown considerable flair. “There are several people I need to know more about than I can ask easily, and with the speed and discretion I require,” he told her.

“I see.” She looked away so he could not see her silver-gray eyes, or read the emotions in them.

“There has been a murder,” he confided as they came into the next room. “The victim is a woman of the streets, but she was found in a residence where even her presence would cause a scandal, let alone her bloodied corpse in the linen cupboard.”

Vespasia's silver eyebrows rose. “Indeed? How unfortunate. Who is it you suspect?”

“It has to be one of three men.” He named them.

“I am surprised,” she confessed.

“You think none of them capable?”

She smiled. “I think none of them foolish enough, which is not the same thing at all.”

“What can you tell me of them, in the way of gossip, scandal, or anything else that may be of interest?”

“You mean of relevance,” she corrected him. “I am quite capable of reading between the lines, Victor.”

He was pleased that she should use his Christian name, and aware that it was ridiculous it should make such a difference to him. “What can you tell me?” he asked.

“I should be surprised if it is Julius Sorokine,” she began thoughtfully, speaking almost under her breath. “He is a young man perhaps too handsome for his own good. Much has come to him easily, though not personal happiness, I think. He has not extended himself because he has had little need. He has no temper and not the kind of vanity that lashes out against denial. He is too lazy, too much on the periphery of life, nor has he so far the emotional energy necessary for violence.” She looked a trifle sad as she said it, as if he had disappointed her.

If someone had asked her, would she have said the same of him: “too much on the periphery of life?” Refraining from violence not through self-mastery but through emotional indolence? He had loved, and betrayed, but it was a long time ago. As always, he had chosen duty over passion.

No, that was not true. Passion was far too strong a word for what he had felt. The choice had not torn his heart. He remembered it with a certain shame, but not agony.

Vespasia was watching him, waiting for his attention to return.

“And Marquand?” he prompted.

“It is possible,” she conceded. “He is Julius's half-brother, elder by a year or two, and driven by a certain jealousy. Of course Julius married Cahoon Dunkeld's daughter, Wilhelmina. I believe she calls herself Minnie. A girl with a great talent to attract masculine admiration, which she exercises freely. What the unkind may call a troublemaker.”

“And what would you call her, Lady Vespasia?” He concealed a very slight smile.

“An unhappy young woman who is having a prolonged tantrum,” she replied without hesitation. “Too much like her father.”

“And what would you say of him?”

“You did not include him,” she pointed out.

“Only because his whereabouts are accounted for.”

“Perfectly capable of killing anyone,” she said without hesitation.

“But far too intelligent to do so. If he is guilty, I would say he lost his temper, which is considerable, and did so more by accident than design.”

“You do not cut a woman's throat in the linen cupboard by accident.”

Her eyes widened only very slightly. “No, that is true. Then I doubt it was Dunkeld. If you had told me he beat his wife, I should have believed you.”

“Why?”

“Because he is a man who takes his possessions very seriously.”

“I see. That leaves Hamilton Quase.”

“A very civilized man,” she observed.

“Too civilized for violence?”

“Certainly not! The most outwardly civilized are the most capable of appearing to be something different from reality. I am quite sure you know that as well as I do.” There was a slight reproof in her voice.

“I apologize,” he said sincerely.

“Thank you. If Mr. Quase were to have done such a thing, I believe he would have had a reason for it that seemed to him to be adequate. But he is a man who takes risks and will pay highly for what he wants.”

“Really!” He had put Quase down as a man who dreamed rather than acted, finding most of his reality at the bottom of a bottle. “And what does he want?” he asked.

“A few years ago I should have said it was Liliane Forbes,” she said. “Now, of course, I do not know. Perhaps it has not changed.”

“He is married to her,” he observed.

“There is more to possessing a woman than the legality of marriage, Victor,” she corrected him. “Quase was very much in love with her, or else he would not have behaved as he did over her brother's death. A very messy affair. If Eden Forbes had lived, Liliane would very probably have married Julius Sorokine, and a great many things would be different.”

Now he was genuinely interested. “Watson Forbes's son?”

“His only son.”

“What happened to him?”

She frowned, her voice dropping even lower as they stood in front of a large, very ugly portrait of a woman. “The details are very unclear,” she answered. “He died in Africa, boat overturned in a river. Hippopotami, crocodiles, or something of the sort. Watson Forbes was shattered, as was Liliane. It was Hamilton Quase who dealt with the whole, very miserable matter. Kept it as discreet as possible, saw to the funeral and so on. Liliane had been in love with Julius, but after a decent period of mourning, she married Quase instead.”

“Gratitude?” Narraway inquired. “And if Quase rose to the occasion, and Sorokine did not, perhaps she chose the better man?”

“Possibly.”

“You don't think so?”

She smiled at him. “I think she paid a debt of gratitude, but that is only a supposition. I don't know.”

“How do you know so much about it? Were you there?”

“In Africa? Good gracious, no. It holds no enchantment for me,” she replied. “But I have an excellent friend, Zenobia Gunne, who has explored in all manner of places, including long stretches of the Congo and Zambezi rivers, certainly in much of Southern Africa. It was she who told me.”

“Nobby Gunne,” Narraway said with a smile, remembering a remarkable woman who was unafraid of lions, elephants, tsetse flies, or malaria, but still able to be cut to the quick by disloyalty and wounded by the suffering of others. “If she says that is what happened, then I will take it as so.”

“It is of very little use, though, I fear,” Vespasia said unhappily. “I know a little of the wives, but it is only trivial: matters of fashion and spite, who said what to whom, where love or dreams may have led. I cannot imagine that any of it was toward murder in a linen cupboard, no matter whose. It seems a preposterous story to me.”

“It is preposterous,” he agreed. “But regrettably true. Somerset Carlisle suggested that Watson Forbes was the greatest expert in the practicalities of the proposed railway, both diplomatically and with regard to engineering.”

“After Cecil Rhodes, you mean?” she said, amusement touching her lips. “I imagine Mr. Rhodes, with his boundless ambition and love of Empire, will be a keen backer of this project?” She started to move on from the picture. “As Prime Minister of Cape Colony, it will be vastly in his interest. All British Africa will be open to him by land as well as by sea. He would be a better friend than enemy.”

“I'm sure that is true,” Narraway agreed, following her closely. “But I can't imagine any way in which he will be involved in this tragedy in London.”

“I cannot see why anyone would be,” Vespasia said unhappily. “I think you will find it is a madness that is quite personal and could as easily have happened anywhere else, once the passion that ignites it is disturbed.”

They walked past a few more portraits, only glancing at the faces, then made their way to the entrance. They had been together almost an hour. He escorted her to her carriage where Emily was waiting. He thanked her both for the information and quite genuinely for the pleasure of her company, and he thanked Emily for her patience.

Half an hour later he alighted from a hansom cab in Lowndes Square to call upon Watson Forbes. He had already ascertained by telephone that he would be received.

The house was elegant, with all the marks of unobtrusive wealth, a man who is comfortable with his possessions and does not need to display them except for his own pleasure. The outer doors were of carved teak, oiled and gleaming. The parquet flooring in the hall was Indian hardwood in various shades of rich brown. The paintings were quiet: Dutch canal scenes, domestic interiors, light on water, a furled barge sail, a face in repose, a winter scene all blues and grays on the ice.

It was not until he was in Forbes's study that Narraway saw the paintings of grasslands with an elephant standing motionless in the heat and the strange, flat-topped acacia trees in the distance. There were many carved animals in ivory and semi-precious stone. One entire wall was lined with books, nearly all of them leather-bound. On the well-used desk was an ostrich egg and a box covered with what looked like crocodile skin.

Watson Forbes was a solid man with thick hair that had once been dark but was now paling almost to white, leaving black brows and a sun-darkened complexion. He had a long nose and a neat, chiseled mouth, which was surprisingly expressive. It was a powerful face, and highly individual. Narraway had heard that he was close to seventy, but he rose easily to his feet and came forward to greet the Special Branch man with interest.

“How do you do? You said in your conversation on the telephone—wonderful invention—that you need expert information on Africa. I know only parts of it, but whatever knowledge I have is at your disposal. Please,” he gestured to include the several leather-covered chairs, inviting Narraway to take his pick. “What is it you wish to know?” He sat down in the chair opposite. “Whisky? Or do you prefer something more exotic? Brandy, perhaps? Or sherry?”

“Not yet, thank you,” Narraway declined. “Do you know Cecil Rhodes?”

Forbes smiled. It lit his face, altering the severity of it, but the look in his dark eyes was guarded. “Certainly. One cannot do serious business in British Africa and not know him.”

“And Cahoon Dunkeld?”

“Interesting you should mention them almost in the same breath,” Forbes observed. “Coincidental, or not?” Now the amusement was in his eyes also.

“Of course not,” Narraway answered. Forbes's intelligence was obvious; he would be a fool to try to dupe him. He needed Forbes's knowledge and perhaps also his judgment. He must not insult him, even unintentionally. “You see a likeness? Or a contrast?”

“Both,” Forbes replied. “Dunkeld has the same ambition, something of the same ruthlessness, but far more charm. However, he started his African adventures later in his life than Rhodes, and he has no brothers to help him.”

“But a gifted man?” Narraway pressed. “And able to gather about him others of talent, and to inspire loyalty in them?”

“Obedience,” Forbes replied, choosing his word carefully. His eyes never left Narraway's face.

“Well liked?”

Again he smiled. “No. Why do you ask? Is this to do with the plan for a Cape-to-Cairo railway?” Forbes was now studying him quite openly. His amusement was more marked, his eyes bright. “It's not a new dream, Mr. Narraway. It may be built, but it will be a far bigger undertaking than some of its proponents believe. Have you any knowledge of the terrain it will pass through? It is farther from Cape Town to Cairo than it is from New York across the great plains of America and the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific shores, and then back again. And the climate and terrains cross extremes of equatorial jungle, grassland, mountains, desert, waterless wastes you cannot imagine.” He gestured with strong, square hands. “There are diseases, parasites, poisonous reptiles and insects, plagues of locusts, and the largest beasts on earth. Africa is another world, Mr. Narraway. It is nothing like Europe at all.”

Narraway heard the emotion. Forbes's voice was thick, almost trembling, and there was a passion in his eyes.

“It has a great and terrible beauty,” he went on, leaning forward a little. “See a bull elephant charge! It is the most magnificent beast in the world. And intelligent! Hear lions roar in the night. Or hyenas laugh. They sound human, but insane. It chills the blood. Have you heard about the drums? They send messages over hundreds of miles, one drummer to another, as we would use beacon fires. Only, of course, their messages are much more complicated, an entire language.”