Gower turned to Pitt, his fair face puzzled. ‘Yes, about a dozen of them. Do you think they’re really harmless, sir? Apart from Wrexham, of course?’
‘Are they all wild revolutionaries pretending very successfully to be ordinary citizens living satisfied and rather pedestrian lives?’ Pitt pressed.
It was a long time before Gower answered, as if he were weighing his words with intense care. He turned and leaned on the wall, staring at the water. ‘Wrexham killed West for a reason,’ he said slowly. ‘He was in no present danger, except being exposed as an anarchist, or whatever he would call himself. Perhaps he doesn’t want chaos, but a specific order that he considers fairer, more equal to all people. Or it may be a radical reform he’s after. Exactly what it is the socialists want is one of the things we need to learn. There may be dozens of different goals-’
‘There are,’ Pitt interrupted. ‘What they have in common is that they are not prepared to wait for reform by consent; they want to force it on people, violently, if necessary.’
‘And how long will they have to wait for anyone to hand it over voluntarily?’ Gower said with an edge of sarcasm. ‘Whoever gave up power if they weren’t forced to?’
Pitt scanned his memory for the history he could recall. ‘None that I can think of,’ he admitted. ‘That’s why it usually takes a while. But the abolition of slavery was passed through Parliament without overt violence. Certainly without revolution.’
‘I’m not sure the slaves would agree with that assessment,’ Gower said with a twist of bitterness. ‘Perhaps we’re looking at a would-be Wilberforce?’
Pitt looked at him obliquely, slightly ashamed of his shallow remark about slavery.
‘It’s time we found out what we are looking at,’ he conceded.
Gower straightened up. ‘If we ask open questions it’s bound to get back to Frobisher, and he may take a great deal more care. The one advantage we have, sir, is that he doesn’t know we’re watching him. Can we afford to lose that?’ He looked anxious, his fair brows drawn together in a frown, the sunburn flushing his cheeks.
‘I’ve been making a few enquiries,’ Pitt said.
‘Already?’ Suddenly there was an edge of anger in Gower’s voice.
Pitt was surprised. It seemed Gower’s easy manner hid an emotional commitment he had not seen. He should have. They had worked together for over two months even before the hectic chase that had brought them here.
‘As to who I can ask for information without it being obvious,’ he replied levelly.
‘Who?’ Gower said quickly.
‘A man named John McIver. He’s another expatriate Englishman who’s lived here for twenty years. Married to a French woman.’
‘Are you positive he’s trustworthy, sir?’ Gower was still sceptical. ‘It’ll take only one careless word, one remark made idly, and Frobisher will know he’s being watched. We could lose the big ones, the people like Linsky, and Meister.’
‘I didn’t choose him blindly,’ Pitt replied. He did not intend to tell Gower that he had encountered McIver before, on a quite different case.
Gower drew in his breath, and then let it out again. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll stay here and watch Wrexham, and whoever he meets with.’ Then he flashed a sudden, bright smile. ‘I might even go down into the square and see the pretty girl with the pink dress again, and drink a glass of wine.’
Pitt shook his head, feeling the tension ease away. ‘I think you’ll do better than I will,’ he said ruefully.
McIver lived some five miles outside St Malo in the deep countryside. He was clearly longing to speak to someone in his native tongue, and hear first-hand the latest news from London. Pitt’s visit delighted him.
‘Of course I miss London, but don’t misunderstand me, sir,’ he said, leaning back in his garden chair in the sun. He had offered Pitt wine and little sweet biscuits, and — when he declined those — fresh crusty bread and a soft country cream cheese, which he accepted with alacrity.
Pitt waited for him to continue.
‘I love it here,’ McIver went on. ‘The French are possibly the most civilised nation on earth — apart from the Italians, of course. Really know how to live, and do it with a certain flair that gives even mundane things a degree of elegance. But there are parts of English life that I miss. Haven’t had a decent marmalade in years. Sharp, aromatic, almost bitter.’ He sighed, a smile of memory on his face. ‘The morning’s Times, a good cup of tea, and a manservant who is completely unflappable. I used to have a fellow who could have announced the Angel of Doom with the same calm, rather mournful air that he announced the Duchess of Malmsbury.’
Pitt smiled, and ate a whole slice of bread and sipped his wine before he pursued the reason he had come.
‘I need to make some very discreet enquiries: government, you understand?’
‘Of course. What can I tell you?’ McIver nodded.
‘Frobisher,’ Pitt replied. ‘Expatriate Englishman living here in St Malo. Would he be the right man to approach to ask a small service to his country? Please be candid. It is of. . importance, your understand?’
‘Oh quite — quite.’ McIver leaned forward a little. ‘I beg you, sir, consider very carefully. I don’t know your business, of course, but Frobisher is not a serious man.’ He made a slight gesture of distaste. ‘He likes to cultivate some very odd friends. He pretends to be a socialist, you know, a man of the people. But between you and me, it is entirely a pose. He mistakes untidiness and a certain levity of manner for being an ordinary man of limited means.’ He shook his head. ‘He potters around and considers it to be working with his hands, as if he had the discipline of an artisan who must work to live, but he has very substantial means, which he has no intention of sharing with others, believe me.’
Although Pitt had begun to wonder if there were anything more to Frobisher than the comfortable way of life there seemed, he still felt a sinking of bitter disappointment from McIver’s words. If this were not what West had been going to tell them about, and for which he had been killed, then why was Wrexham still here? Why had men like Linsky and Meister visited?
‘Are you sure?’ he said as politely as he could. However he said it, he was still questioning McIver’s judgement.
‘As sure as anyone can be,’ McIver replied. ‘Made a lot of noise, prancing about striking poses, but never done a thing in his life.’
‘He had some very violent and well-known people visiting him.’ Pitt clung to the argument, unwilling to concede that they had spent over a week here for nothing, still more, that West had died for a farce, a piece of pointless pretence.
‘See ’em yourself?’ McIver asked.
‘Yes. One of them in particular is very distinctive,’ Pitt told him. Then even as he said it, he realised how easy it was to ape a man as unusual as Linsky. He had never seen Linsky except in photographs, taken at a distance. The hatchet features, the greasy hair would not be so hard to copy. And Jacob Meister was ordinary enough.
But why? What was the purpose of it all?
That too was now hideously clear — to distract Pitt and Gower from their real purpose. It had succeeded brilliantly, until this moment. Even now, Pitt was confused, struggling to make sense, and with no idea what to do next.
‘I’m sorry,’ McIver said sadly. ‘But the man’s an ass. I can’t say differently. You’d be a fool to trust him in anything that matters. And I hardly imagine you’d have come this far for something trivial. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I don’t get into St Malo very often, but if there’s anything I can do, you have only to name it, you know.’
Pitt forced himself to smile. ‘Thank you, but it would really need a resident of St Malo. But I’m grateful to you for saving me from making a bad mistake.’
‘Think nothing of it.’ McIver brushed it away with a gesture. ‘I say, do have some more cheese. Nobody makes a cheese like the French — except perhaps the Wensleydale, or a good Caerphilly.’