Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

Pitt read it. It was a memorandum of one man, written to himself, saying that he must see Austwick at a gentlemen’s club, and report a fact to him.

“Does this matter?” he asked, puzzled. “It’s nothing to do with socialists or any kind of violence or change, it’s just an observation of someone that turned out to be irrelevant.”

“Yes, sir,” Stoker agreed. “But it’s this.” He handed another note with something written on the bottom in the same hand. Gave the message on Hibbert to Gower to pass on to Austwick at the Hyde Club. Matter settled.

The place was a small, very select gentlemen’s club in the West End of London. He looked up at Stoker. “How the devil did Gower get to be a member of the Hyde Club?”

“I looked at that, sir. Austwick recommended him. And that means that he must know him pretty well.”

“Then we’ll look a lot more closely at all the cases Gower’s worked on, and Austwick as well,” Pitt replied.

“But we already know they’re connected,” Stoker pointed out.

“And who else?” Pitt asked. “There are more than two of them. But with this we’ve got a better place to start. Keep working. We can’t afford even one oversight.”

Silently Stoker obeyed. He concentrated on Gower while Pitt looked at every record he could find of Austwick.

By nine o’clock in the evening they were both exhausted. Pitt’s head thumped and his eyes felt hot and gritty. He knew Stoker must feel the same. There was little time left.

Pitt put down the piece of paper he had been reading until the writing on it had blurred in front of his vision.

“Any conclusions?” he asked.

“Some of these letters, sir, make me think Sir Gerald Croxdale was just about on to him. He was pretty close to putting it together,” Stoker replied. “I think that might be what made Austwick hurry it all up and act when he did. By getting rid of Narraway he shook everybody pretty badly. Took the attention away from himself.”

“And also put him in charge,” Pitt added. “It wasn’t for long, but maybe it was long enough.” The last paper he had read was a memorandum from Austwick to Croxdale, but it was a different thought that was in his mind.

Stoker was waiting.

“Do you think Austwick is the leader?” he asked. “Is he actually a great deal cleverer than we thought? Or at any rate, than I thought?”

Stoker looked unhappy. “I don’t think so, sir. It seems to me like he’s not making the decisions. I’ve read a lot of Mr. Narraway’s letters, and they’re not like this. He doesn’t suggest, he just tells you. And it isn’t that he’s any less of a gentleman, just that he knows he’s in charge, and he expects you to know it too. Maybe that wasn’t how he spoke to you, but it’s how he did to the rest of us. No hesitation. You ask, you get your answer. I reckon that Austwick’s asking someone else first.”

That was exactly the impression Pitt had had: a hesitation, as if checking with the man in control of the master plan.

But if Croxdale was almost on to him, why was Narraway not?

“Who can we trust?” he asked aloud. “We have to take a small force, no more than a couple of dozen men at the very most. Any more than that and we’ll alert them. They’ll have people watching for exactly that.”

Stoker wrote a list on a piece of paper and passed it across. “These I’m sure of,” he said quietly.

Pitt read it, crossed out three, and put in two more. “Now we must tell Croxdale and have Austwick arrested.” He stood up and felt his muscles momentarily lock. He had forgotten how long he had been sitting, shoulders bent, reading paper after paper.

“Yes, sir. I suppose we have to?”

“We need an armed force, Stoker. We can’t go and storm the queen’s residence, whatever the reason, without the minister’s approval. Don’t worry, we’ve got a good enough case here.” He picked up a small leather satchel and put into it the pages vital to the conclusions they had reached. “Come on.”

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AT OSBORNE, CHARLOTTE, VESPASIA, and Narraway were kept in the same comfortable sitting room with the queen. One terrified lady’s maid was permitted to come and go in order to attend to the queen’s wishes. They were given food by one of the men who kept them prisoner, and watched as they availed themselves of the necessary facilities for personal relief.

The conversation was stilted. In front of the queen no one felt able to speak naturally. Charlotte looked at the old lady. This close to her, with no distance of formality possible, she was not unlike Charlotte’s own grandmother, someone she had loved and hated, feared and pitied over the years. As a child she had never dared to say anything that might be construed as impertinent. Later, exasperation had overcome both fear and respect, and she had spoken her own mind with forthrightness. More recently she had learned terrible secrets about that woman, and loathing had melted into compassion.