Croxdale smiled, leaning back and crossing his long legs. ‘Unfortunate, but luck cannot always be on our side. It is the measure of your men that they kept track of the assassin. What is the news now?’
‘I’ve had a couple of telegrams from Pitt in St Malo,’ Narraway answered. ‘Wrexham, the killer, seems to have more or less gone to ground in the house of a British expatriate there. The interesting thing is that he has seen other socialist activists of note.’
‘Who?’ Croxdale asked.
‘Pieter Linsky and Jacob Meister,’ Narraway replied.
Croxdale stiffened, straightening up a little, his face keen with interest. ‘Really? Then perhaps not all is lost.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Tell me, Narraway, do you still believe there is some major action planned?’
‘Yes,’ Narraway said without hesitation. ‘I think West’s murder removes any doubt. He would have told us what it was, and probably who else was involved.’
‘Damn! Well, you must keep Pitt there, and the other chap, what’s his name?’
‘Gower.’
‘Yes, Gower too. Give them all the funds they need. I’ll see to it that that meets no opposition.’
‘Of course,’ Narraway said with some surprise. He had always had complete authority to disburse the funds in his care as he saw fit.
Croxdale pursed his lips and leaned further forward. ‘It is not quite so simple, Narraway,’ he said gravely. ‘We have been looking into the matter of past funds and their use, in connection with other cases, as I dare say you know.’ He interlaced his fingers and looked down at them a moment, then up again quickly. ‘Mulhare’s death has raised some ugly questions, which I’m afraid have to be answered.’
Narraway was surprised. He had not realised it had already gone as far as Croxdale, and before he had even had a chance to look into it more deeply, and prove his own innocence. Was that Austwick’s doing again? Damn the man.
‘They will be,’ he said now to Croxdale. ‘I kept certain movements of the funds secret to protect Mulhare. His enemies would have killed him instantly if they’d known he received English money.’
‘Isn’t that rather what happened?’ Croxdale asked ruefully.
Narraway thought for a moment of denying it. Special Branch knew who had killed Mulhare, but it was only proof they lacked; the deduction was certain in his own mind. But he did not need another moral evasion. His life was too full of shadows. He would not allow Croxdale to provoke him into another. ‘Yes.’
‘We failed him, Narraway,’ Croxdale said sadly.
‘Yes.’
‘How did that happen?’ Croxdale pressed.
‘He was betrayed.’
‘By whom?’
‘I don’t know. When this socialist threat is dealt with, I shall find out, if I can.’
‘If you can,’ Croxdale said gently. ‘Do you doubt it? You have no idea who it was here in London?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘But you used the word “betrayed”,’ Croxdale persisted. ‘I think advisedly so. Does that not concern you urgently, Narraway? Whom can you trust, in any Irish issue? Of which, God knows, there are more than enough.’
‘The European socialist revolutionaries are our most urgent concern now, sir.’ Narraway also leaned forward. ‘There is a high degree of violence threatened. Men like Linsky, Meister, la Pointe, Corazath, are all quick to use guns and dynamite. Their philosophy is that a few deaths are the price they have to pay for the greater freedom and equality of the people. As long, of course, as the deaths are not their own,’ he added drily.
‘Does that take precedence over treachery within your own people?’ Croxdale asked with quiet, tense amazement. He left it hanging in the air between them, a question that demanded answering.
Narraway had seen the death of Mulhare as tragic, but less urgent than the threat of revolution. He knew how he had guarded the provenance of the money, knowing those of whom Mulhare was afraid. He did not know how someone had made the funds return to Narraway’s own personal account. Above all, he did not know who was responsible, or whether it was incompetence or deliberately done in order to make him look a thief.
‘I’m not yet certain it was betrayal, sir. Perhaps I used the word hastily.’ He kept his voice as level as he could; still, he heard a certain roughness to it. He hoped Croxdale’s less sensitive ear did not catch it.
Croxdale was staring at him. ‘As opposed to what?’
‘Incompetence,’ Narraway replied. ‘We covered the tracks of the transfers very carefully, so no one in Ireland would be able to trace the money back to us. We made it seem like legitimate purchases all the way.’
‘Or at least you thought so,’ Croxdale amended. ‘But Mulhare was still killed. Where is the money now?’
Narraway had hoped to avoid telling him, but perhaps it had always been inevitable that Croxdale would have to know. Maybe he did, and this was a trap. ‘Austwick told me it was back in an account I have ceased using,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know who moved it, but I shall find out.’
Croxdale was silent for several moments. ‘Yes, please do, and with indisputable proof, of course. Quickly, Narraway. We need your skills on this wretched socialist business. It seems the threat is real.’
‘I’ll look into the money as soon as we have learned what West’s killers are planning, and prevented it,’ Narraway answered with a chill inside him. ‘With a little luck, we’ll even catch some of them and be able to put them away.’
Croxdale looked up, his eyes bright and sharp. Suddenly he was no longer an amiable, rather bear-like man but tigerish, the passion in him like a coiled spring, only masked by a superficial ease. ‘Do you imagine that the sacrifice of a few martyrs to the cause will stop anything, Narraway? If so, I’m disappointed in you. Idealists thrive on sacrifice, the more public and the more dramatic the better.’
‘I know that.’ Narraway was stung by the misjudgement. ‘I have no intention of giving them martyrs. Indeed, I have no intention of denying them social reform and a good deal of change, but in pace with the will of the majority of the people in the country, not ahead of it, and not forced on them by a few fanatics. We’ve always changed, but slowly. Look at the history of the revolutions of ’forty-eight. We were about the only major country in Europe who didn’t have an uprising. And by 1850 where were all the idealists from the barricades? Where were all the new freedoms so bloodily won? Every damn one of them gone, and all the old regimes back in power.’
Croxdale was looking at him intensely, his expression unreadable.
‘We had no uprising,’ Narraway went on, his voice dropping a level, but the heat of feeling still there. ‘No deaths, no grand speeches, just quiet progress, a step at a time. Boring, perhaps unheroic, but also bloodless, and more to the point, sustainable. We aren’t back under the old tyrannies. As governments go, ours is not bad.’
‘Thank you,’ Croxdale said drily.
Narraway gave one of his rare, beautiful smiles. ‘My pleasure, sir.’
Croxdale sighed. ‘I wish it were so simple. I’m sorry, Narraway, but you will solve this miserable business of the money that should have gone to Mulhare immediately. Austwick will take over the socialist affair until you have it dealt with, which includes unarguable proof that someone else placed it in your account, and you were unaware of it until Austwick told you. It will also include the name of whoever is responsible for this, because they have jeopardised the effectiveness of one of the best heads of Special Branch that we have had in the last quarter-century, and that is treason against the country, and against the Queen.’