Sandwell blinked. “Cause the deaths of…I was thinking rather more of someone who wants peace, even if it is the peace of defeat, rather than a continuing of this…slaughter….” The word came out with a burst of passion which he controlled only with an intense effort of will. He bit his lip. “I’m sorry. I suppose I have no evidence for that. I just have…” He took a deep breath. “I have intense fear as to who this man may be, how highly placed in order to have done what he has. I had not considered his motives. I admit, Reavley, I find the whole thing shattering.”
“You have some idea who it is?” Matthew asked, unable to stop his voice from trembling.
Sandwell looked away. “I would rather not say anything yet. It…it is so appalling. But I will give you all the information I have, as well, of course, as placing copies in my safe where they will be available to the prime minister if anything happens to me. But it is your safety I am concerned about, Reavley, because it is your skills that will unmask the man, if anyone can do it.”
“But why not reveal your suspicions now?” Matthew insisted.
Sandwell met Matthew’s eyes unflinchingly. “I would prefer you reach your own conclusions. You may see the same facts as I do, and place some different interpretation on them. But I am correct regarding the catastrophe about to happen on the Western Front when this court-martial takes place. Begin by looking at the record of the military prosecutor they have appointed to the case.”
“Yes, sir,” Matthew said very slowly, his mind grasping at sudden reality, a course to pursue. “I’ll begin immediately.” He rose to his feet.
“Reavley!” Sandwell stood up also. “Be careful! No one must know what you are doing, even in your own office. In fact”—he sighed—“especially in your own office.”
Now there was a chill in the room, in spite of the August closeness of the air. “I understand, sir.”
“Do you?” Sandwell questioned. “I hope for your sake, for your life’s sake, that you do.”
Matthew did precisely as Sandwell had warned him, and told no one that he was going back to see Mrs. Wheatcroft again. As before, he found himself obliged to use the weight of Sandwell’s name in order to be received.
He stood uncomfortably in the withdrawing room. The bay windows overlooked the immaculately groomed late summer garden.
Mrs. Wheatcroft entered with only the briefest acknowledgment of him. She stood pale and graceful in a long muslin dress.
“I don’t know how I can further assist you, Captain Reavley,” she said coldly. “If it were not that apparently you have some connection with Mr. Sandwell, I should not have seen you at all.”
“So much you made clear, Mrs. Wheatcroft,” he replied. “However, I assume that if there is a conspiracy to ruin your husband—and Mr. Corracher—in the interests of German victory, then you will be as keen as Mr. Sandwell and I are to uncover it.”
She bit her lip, momentarily confused. “Do you think it is such a thing? I had assumed it was simply Mr. Corracher’s greed, both for money and personal advancement.”
“Mr. Sandwell does,” Matthew answered. “If you doubt that, call him and ask. I understand you are acquainted with him?”
“Socially,” she said, the chill returning. “I would like to believe that I could trust an officer of our Intelligence Services, but if you wait here, I shall place a call to Mr. Sandwell. Then I shall consider what he advises.”
“An excellent idea.” He sat down in the armchair before she left the room. She saw his ease and her face tensed with disapproval at the liberty.
It was half an hour before she returned, looking considerably chastened. Now the hinted aggression was gone, replaced by fear, and for the first time she met his eyes candidly.
He had risen as she came in, but she waved him to sit down again, and sank into the chair opposite him, barely bothering to straighten her skirts.
“I apologize,” she said briefly. “Mr. Sandwell has advised me to tell you the absolute truth, so that is what I shall do.” She took a deep breath. “My husband had a weakness. I did not know it when I married him, but I learned it within the first few years. If you repeat this, I shall say you are a liar.” For an instant the defiance was back in her eyes.
“It is not in my interest to repeat it, Mrs. Wheatcroft,” he told her. “Nor to make judgments of him. I am happy to accept the story that he was no more than naïve and unfortunate. What I do not accept is that Tom Corracher tried to extort money from him in exchange for silence on the matter. Nor do I believe that it was his own idea to put up that defense.” He was watching her closely, and saw the flicker in her eyes.
“His letter—” she began, then stopped abruptly.
Then he remembered the element that did not fit. It was a matter of timing. He was cold as the confusion fell apart, leaving the beginning of a picture even uglier.
“I read it,” he agreed. “He had obviously written something—the pen and ink were there, freshly spilled and blotted. But the letter I found was written days ago, before he knew about Marlowe being transferred.”
She looked confused. “Who’s Marlowe? What has that to do with Alan’s death?”
“Nothing. Marlowe was the man he thought would take over from him, but by the day before he died, when I saw him, he knew it was Jamieson.”
She stared at him, frightened and unable to hide it now.
“You destroyed his real letter, didn’t you?” he said grimly. “Because he admitted that Corracher was innocent, and he had accused him to save himself…and of course you. But he couldn’t live with the lie, and couldn’t face you if he told the truth.”
She drew her breath in sharply to protest, but the guilt was hot in her face and she saw no escape. There was something else in her eyes as well, an acid, corrosive hate.
He was glad to see it. It made it easier to crush her.
Something must have relaxed in him and looked to her like retreat.
“You can’t prove that,” she pointed out. “I burned his second letter, and he did write the first, just not then. He wrote several. It wasn’t hard to put one together. He always used the same ink and the same paper. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Whose idea was it, Mrs. Wheatcroft?”
“Mine!” she said quietly.
“If you had said it was his, I would not have believed you,” he told her. “You had to force him into it, if not for your sake personally, then for your sons.”
“If you like!” She had regained her composure. “But when Alan realized what his disgrace would do to them, he was willing.”
“I doubt it,” he said drily. “But it’s irrelevant now. It was the guilt of lying that killed him.”
“It was the guilt of being so unbelievably stupid!” she snapped.
“How did you know to blame Tom Corracher rather than anyone else?” He remembered Sandwell’s words about political ideology, and the Peacemaker’s plan behind the ruin of all four men.
For an instant she hesitated, then grasped after an answer. “That was Alan’s idea. I just said to think of someone.”
“Someone with the same political beliefs about the terms of any possible peace treaty with the Germans,” he elaborated.
Again there was confusion in her eyes, then a sudden new understanding. “They worked together. It made sense.”
She was guessing. Actually they had not worked together, simply held the same opinions. Someone else had suggested the idea of blaming Corracher to her. Perhaps she knew who it was and why. More probably she was simply a willing tool, caring only to save herself and her sons. Anyone would do as a sacrifice, and the larger cause was irrelevant.
“Was anyone else aware of this, Mrs. Wheatcroft?” he asked casually, as if it were no more than a passing thought.
Again the half-second’s hesitation, then she denied it. “No, of course not.”
He looked at her chiseled face. It was beautiful in a hard, brittle way, but without yielding, without forgiveness. Perhaps she was a knowing tool after all. In protecting her own, she was not open to the vulnerability of mercy or conscience.
“Thank you, Mrs. Wheatcroft.” He rose to his feet. “You have been most civil. I shan’t need to trouble you again.”
A faint smile touched her lips. “It would be courteous to say I regret that, Captain Reavley, but I do not. Good day.”
He also took Sandwell’s other piece of advice and made inquiries about the man who had been sent to prosecute the twelve soldiers accused of murdering Major Northrup. The answer that came back was exactly what Sandwell had warned. Faulkner was known to be a stickler for the law in every detail. He believed justice, and therefore society, was best served by following procedure to the letter. The innocent were protected by the unfailing punishment of the guilty, and there was no room for personal interpretation of the law.
Matthew arranged to meet an old friend, Errol Lashwood, for luncheon at the Ivy Restaurant in Covent Garden. They received excellent food, and the atmosphere was easy and charming. The restaurant was highly popular with all manner of people, especially the theatrical community. Matthew had on occasion seen Bernard Shaw there, and Ellen Terry and Gladys Cooper last year when they had been playing in J. M. Barrie’s
The Admirable Crichton
at Wyndham’s Theatre.
This time Lashwood smiled and pointed out the amazing profile of Ivor Novello, who was sitting only a couple of tables away.
“Faulkner.” Matthew returned him to the subject.
“Not a bad man,” Lashwood said wryly. “Just highly unimaginative, and very little sense of joy in the absurd. I think, personally, that he is rather afraid of change, and therefore feels threatened by anything he does not understand.” He shrugged. “Or perhaps I am thinking beyond the mark. The man infuriates me. He could be so much better than he is. I believe he once fell in love with a highly unsuitable woman, and the whole experience soured him for life. His father was the same.” He smiled. “But his mother is as different as could be. Delightful woman, charming and eccentric and full of life. Still wears rather old-fashioned clothes, almost prewar, very feminine. Has a famous collection of gorgeous parasols and hats with flowers on them. Loves the horse races…and a good champagne.”
“What on earth does she make of her son?” Matthew said in amazement. “I presume he is scandalized by her?”
“On the contrary,” Lashwood assured him with a smile. “She is his only redeeming feature. He adores her.”
“But she has never managed to imbue him with her own joy in life?”
“Never.” He speared a succulent morsel of meat from his plate and put it into his mouth. “He considers it his duty, and his privilege, to look after her, and indulge her, which she accepts with the utmost grace.”
Matthew’s heart sank. It was far too little information to be of any use. “How the hell did we get lumbered with having him prosecute the men accused of killing Northrup? And how do we get him changed for someone with a little more compassion and imagination, possibly amenable to considering the larger picture?”
Lashwood pulled his mouth into a grim line. “Difficult, old fellow. He’s a friend of your boss. Sorry, but for all I know, it could have been he who picked him out.”
Matthew was suddenly cold. “Picked him out? You mean for this prosecution?” Was this at last what Sandwell had been wanting him to find out? It was the fear that had rested like poison at the back of his mind almost from the beginning—the Peacemaker was Shearing himself. He had hated the Peacemaker for killing John and Alys Reavley, and all those since then: good people, men who had trusted him.
But how many more had died fearful deaths on battlefields all over the world? How many were shot, frozen, gassed, drowned in mud, or carried to the bottom of the sea in the millions of tons of shipping lost? How many starved to death, even here at home? How many more were maimed in mind and body or crippled by grief? How much of the whole world was ruined in blood and fire and grief?
The Peacemaker had wanted to prevent it and, when that was too late, to stop it, at any cost! He was an idealist who had lost his balance. He had worked to save lives, but had taken to himself the power to decide what cost was to be paid.
He could hate such a man, but he could also understand him.
“Reavley!” Lashwood’s voice cut across his thoughts.
Matthew jerked himself back to the present. “Yes. You are quite sure? No possibility of a mistake?”
Lashwood frowned. “I’ve known Faulkner for years, and his mother.” He leaned forward across the table. “You look a bit green, old boy.”
Matthew struggled to compose his face and respond noncommittally. “So you think there’s no chance of getting him changed?”
“Not really. Bad show. Wish I could think of something helpful. But from what I hear, he actually requested the case.”
“No point in going over it. Spoil what’s left of a good meal,” Matthew said, trying to smile. He left the thoughts raging in his mind until he could escape and find privacy to think.
That opportunity came as he walked back across the park. It took him a mile and a half longer than necessary, but he could not yet bear to face Shearing. Lashwood would not have lied, nor could he have been mistaken. Shearing knew the man, knew his rigidity, and had allowed this, possibly even contrived it. Was that something Sandwell had also known Matthew would find, and be driven to the inevitable, hideous conclusion?
He found himself taking the other path across the grass, not in the direction of his own office, but back toward Sandwell’s.
He had to wait most of the afternoon to see him, but at four Sandwell returned from a Cabinet meeting in Downing Street, and admitted Matthew immediately.
“I see by your face that you have followed the trail to its bitter conclusion,” he said quietly. He walked over to the table at the far side of his office and picked up the crystal decanter from the tantalus, pouring two glasses of brandy and offering one to Matthew. “I’m sorry. It’s the worst of all answers.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Matthew asked, taking the brandy. “Who is he? What is he? There’s nothing in his office—no pictures, no mementos, nothing from the past at all! He never mentions family, or even friends, where he went to school or university, or any other place that matters to him.”