Greville hesitated, but the reasoning was overwhelming.
“Very well. I will arrange it. But you will come, with your own ‘valet’?”
There was no point in hesitation. He had no choice.
“Yes, Mr. Greville. But if I am to be of any service to you, I must ask you to take any advice I may give you regarding your safety.”
Greville smiled, a trifle tight-lipped.
“Within the bounds of fulfilling my duty, Mr. Pitt. I could remain at home with a constable at my entrance and be perfectly safe, and accomplish nothing at all. I shall weigh the danger against the advantage, and act accordingly.”
“You mentioned an attempt on your life, sir,” Pitt said quickly, seeing Greville about to rise. “What happened?”
“I was driving from my home to the railway station,” Greville recounted, keeping his voice deliberately very level, as though the matter were of no more than casual importance. “The road was through open countryside for the first mile, then a wooded stretch of about two miles before another similar distance through farmland to the village. It was during the drive where the road is concealed by trees that another very much heavier coach came out of a side turning and drew behind me at close to a gallop. I told my coachman to hasten to a place where he could get off the road safely to let it pass, but it quite quickly became apparent that the other driver had no intention of slowing down, let alone remaining behind me.”
Pitt noticed that Greville was sitting more rigidly as he recalled the event. In spite of his effort at calm, his shoulders had stiffened and his hand was no longer at ease on his knee. Pitt remembered the body of Denbigh in the London alley, and knew Greville had every cause to be afraid.
“My driver had moved to the left of the road,” Greville went on, “at some danger, since it was heavily rutted from recent bad weather, and reined in the horses to little more than a walk. However, the other vehicle came by still at a hectic pace, but instead of swerving to avoid us and swinging wide, the driver quite deliberately steered so that he crashed into the side of us and all but tipped us over. We broke a wheel, and one of the horses was injured, fortunately not critically. A neighbor passed by a few moments afterwards and took me to the village, while my coachman cared for the injured animal and I sent assistance back to him.”
He swallowed with slight difficulty, as if his mouth were dry.
“But had no other vehicle chanced to pass that way at that precise time, I do not know what would have happened. The other coach simply kept going, increasing speed again and disappearing.”
“Did you discover who they were?” Pitt asked.
“No,” Greville said flatly, a frown between his brows. “I had enquiries made, naturally, but no one else saw the men. They did not go on to the village. They must have turned off somewhere within the wood. I saw the driver’s face as he passed. He turned towards me. He had his animals under perfect control. He intended to push us off the road. I shall not forget the look in his eyes easily.”
“And no one else saw this coach before or afterwards, to assist in identifying it?” Pitt pressed, although he had no hope it would be of use. It was simply a matter of showing Greville he took him seriously. “It was not hired from a local stable, or even stolen from someone nearby, a farm or a large house?”
“No,” Greville answered. “We were unable to learn anything of use. Tinkers and traders of one sort or another come and go along the roads. One coach without a coat of arms looks much like another.”
“Would not a tinker or trader have a cart?” Pitt asked.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“But this was a coach, closed in, with a driver on a box?”
“Yes … yes, it was.”
“Anyone inside?”
“Not that I saw.”
“And the horses were at a gallop?”
“Yes.”
“Then they were good horses, and fresh?”
“Yes,” Greville said, his eyes on Pitt’s face. “I see what you mean. They had not come far. We should have pursued the matter further. We might have found out whose they were, and who owned or bred them for that occasion.” His lips tightened. “It is too late now. But if anything further should happen, it will be in your hands, Superintendent.” He rose to his feet. “Thank you, Commissioner. I am much in your debt also. I realize I have given you little notice, and you have accommodated me excellently.”
Pitt and Cornwallis both rose also and watched as Greville inclined his head, walked straight-backed to the door and left.
Cornwallis turned to Pitt.
“I’m sorry,” he said before Pitt could speak. “I only heard this morning myself. And I am sorry you will have to hand over the Denbigh case to someone else, but there is no help for it. You are obviously the only person who can go to Ashworth Hall.”
“I could leave it with Tellman,” Pitt said quickly. “Take someone else as ‘valet.’ There could hardly be anyone worse!”
A shadow of a smile crossed Cornwallis’s face.
“There could hardly be anyone who would dislike it more,” he corrected Pitt. “But he will make an excellent job of it. You need your best man there, someone you know well and who can think for himself in a new situation, adapt, have the personal courage if there should be another threat to Greville’s life. Leave Byrne in charge here. He’s a good, steady man. He won’t let it go.”
“But …” Pitt began again.
“There isn’t time to bring in anyone else,” Cornwallis said gravely. “For political reasons they have conducted it this way. This is a highly delicate time for the Irish situation altogether.” He looked at Pitt steadily to see if he understood. He must have realized that he did not, because he went on after only a moment’s hesitation. “You are aware that Charles Stewart Parnell is the most powerful and unifying leader the Irish have had for many years. He commands respect from almost all sides. There are many who believe that if there can be any lasting peace effected, he is the one man all Ireland will accept as leader.”
Pitt nodded slowly, although already he knew what Cornwallis was going to say. Memory came back like a tide.
Cornwallis looked tight-faced and a trifle confused. Moral matters of a personal nature were subjects he did not enjoy addressing. He was a very private man, not at ease with women because his long years at sea had deprived him of their company. He held women in a greater respect than most warranted, judging them to be both nobler and more innocent than they were, and a great deal less effectual. He believed, as did many men of his age and station, that women were emotionally fragile and free from the appetites that both fired and, at times, degraded men.
Pitt smiled. “The Parnell-O’Shea divorce,” he said for him. “I suppose that is going to be heard after all. That is what you are referring to?”
“Indeed,” Cornwallis agreed with relief. “It is all most distasteful, but apparently they are bent on pursuing it.”
“You mean Captain O’Shea is, I presume?” Pitt said. Captain O’Shea was not a very attractive character. According to the account which was more or less public, he seemed to have connived at his wife’s adultery with Parnell—indeed, to have put her in his way—for O’Shea’s own advancement. Then when Katie O’Shea had left him entirely for Parnell, he had made an open scandal of it by suing for divorce. The matter was to be heard any day now. The effect it would have on Parnell’s parliamentary and political career could only be guessed at.
What it would do to his support in Ireland was also problematical. He was of Anglo-Irish Protestant landowning descent. Mrs. O’Shea was born and raised in England, from a highly cultured family. Her mother had written and published several three-volume novels. She too was Protestant But Captain William O’Shea, looking and sounding like an Englishman, was Irish by lineage and an unostentatious Catholic. The possibilities of passion, betrayal and revenge were endless. The stuff of legend was in the making.