“Do you want to give up?” Gower asked. His voice was tight with disappointment, and Pitt thought he heard a trace of contempt in it.
“No.” There was no uncertainty in the decision. Special Branch was not primarily about justice for crimes; it was about preventing civil violence and the betrayal, subversion, or overthrow of the government. They were too late to save West’s life. “No, I don’t,” he repeated.
————
WHEN THEY DISEMBARKED IN the broadening daylight it was not difficult to pick Wrexham out from the crowd and follow him. He didn’t go, as Pitt had feared, to the train station, but into the magnificently walled old city. They could not risk losing sight of him, or Pitt would have taken time to look with far more interest at the massive ramparts as they went in through an entrance gate vast enough to let several carriages pass abreast. Once inside, narrow streets crisscrossed one another, the doors of the buildings flush with footpaths. Dark walls towered four or five stories high in uniform gray-black stone. The place had a stern beauty Pitt would have liked to explore. Knights on horseback would have ridden these streets, or swaggering corsairs straight from plunder at sea.
But they had to keep close to Wrexham. He was walking quickly as if he knew precisely where he was going, and not once did he look behind him.
It was perhaps fifteen minutes later, when they were farther to the south, that Wrexham stopped. He knocked briefly on a door, and was let into a large house just off a stone-paved square.
Pitt and Gower waited for nearly an hour, moving around, trying not to look conspicuous, but Wrexham did not come out again. Pitt imagined him having a hot breakfast, a wash and shave, clean clothes. He said as much to Gower.
Gower rolled his eyes. “Sometimes it’s easier being the villain,” he said ruefully. “I could do very well by bacon, eggs, sausages, fried potatoes, then fresh toast and marmalade and a good pot of tea.” He grinned. “Sorry. I hate to suffer alone.”
“You’re not!” Pitt responded with feeling. “We’ll do something like that before we go and send a telegram to Narraway, then find out who lives in number seven.” He glanced up at the wall. “Rue St. Martin.”
“It’ll be hot coffee and fresh bread,” Gower told him. “Apricot jam if you’re lucky. Nobody understands marmalade except the British.”
“Don’t they understand bacon and eggs?” Pitt asked incredulously.
“Omelet, maybe?”
“It isn’t the same!” Pitt said with disappointment.
“Nothing is,” Gower agreed. “I think they do it on purpose.”
After another ten minutes of waiting, during which Wrexham still did not emerge, they walked back along the way they had come. They found an excellent café from which drifted the tantalizing aroma of fresh coffee and warm bread.
Gower gave him a questioning look.
“Definitely,” Pitt agreed.
There was, as Gower had suggested, thick, homemade apricot jam, and unsalted butter. There was also a dish of cold ham and other meats, and hard-boiled eggs. Pitt was more than satisfied by the time they rose to leave. Gower asked the patron for directions to the post office. He also inquired, as casually as possible, where they might find lodgings, and if number 7 rue St. Martin was a house of that description, adding that someone had mentioned it.
Pitt waited. He could see from the satisfaction in Gower’s face as they left and strode along the pavement that the answer had pleased him.
“Belongs to an Englishman called Frobisher,” he said with a smile. “Bit of an odd fellow, according to the patron. Lot of money, but eccentric. Fits the locals’ idea of what an English upper-class gentleman should be. Lived here for several years and swears he’ll never go home. Give him half a chance, and he’ll tell anyone what’s wrong with Europe in general and England in particular.” He gave a slight shrug and his voice was disparaging. “Number seven is definitely not a public lodging house, but he has guests more often than not, and the patron does not like the look of them. Subversives, he says. But then I gathered he was pretty conservative in his opinions. He suggested we would find Madame Germaine’s establishment far more to our liking, and gave me the address.”
In honesty, Pitt could only agree. “We’ll send a telegram to Narraway, then see if Madame Germaine can accommodate us. You’ve done very well.”
“Thank you, sir.” He increased very slightly the spring in his step and even started to whistle a little tune, rather well.
At the post office Pitt sent a telegram to Narraway. Staying St. Malo. Friends here we would like to know better. Need funds. Please send to local post office, soonest. Will write again.
Until they received a reply, they would be wise to conserve what money they had left. However, they would find Madame Germaine, trusting that she had vacancies and would take them in.
“Could be awhile,” Gower said thoughtfully. “I hope Narraway doesn’t expect us to sleep under a hedge. Wouldn’t mind in August, but April’s a bit sharp.”
Pitt did not bother to reply. It was going to be a long, and probably boring, duty. He was thinking of Charlotte at home, and his children Jemima and Daniel. He missed them, but especially Charlotte, the sound of her voice, her laughter, the way she looked at him. They had been married for fourteen years, but every so often he was still overtaken by surprise that she had apparently never regretted it.
It had cost her her comfortable position in Society and the financial security she had been accustomed to, as well as the dinner parties, the servants, the carriages, the privileges of rank.
She had not said so—it would be heavy-handed—but in return she had gained a life of interest and purpose. Frequently she had been informally involved in his cases, in which she had shown considerable skill. She had married not for convenience but for love, and in dozens of small ways she had left him in no doubt of that.
Dare he send her a telegram as well? In this strange French street with its different sounds and smells, a language he understood little of, he ached for the familiar. But the telegram to Narraway was to a special address. If Wrexham were to ask the post office for it, it would reveal nothing. If Pitt allowed his loneliness for home to dictate his actions, he would have to give his home address, which could put his family in real danger. He should not let this peaceful street in the April sun, and a good breakfast, erase from his mind the memory of West lying in the brickyard with his throat slashed open and his blood oozing out onto the stones.
“Yes, we’ll do that,” he said aloud to Gower. “Then we will do what we can, discreetly, to learn as much as possible about Mr. Frobisher.”
IT WAS NOT DIFFICULT to observe number 7 rue St. Martin. It was near the towering wall of the city, on the seaward side. Only fifty yards away a flight of steps climbed to the walkway around the top. It was a perfect place from which to stand and gaze at the ever-changing horizon out to sea, or watch the boats tacking across the harbor in the wind, their sails billowing, careful to avoid the rocks, which were picturesque and highly dangerous. In turning to talk to each other, it was natural for them to lean for a few minutes on one elbow and gaze down at the street and the square. One could observe anybody coming or going without seeming to.
In the afternoon of the first day, Pitt checked at the post office. There was a telegram from Narraway, and arrangements for sufficient money to last them at least a couple of weeks. There was no reference to West, or the information he might have given, but Pitt did not expect there to have been. He walked back to the square, passing a girl in a pink dress and two women with shopping baskets. Ascending the steps on the wall again, he found Gower leaning against the buttress at the top. His face was raised to the westering sun, which was gold in the late afternoon. He looked like any young Englishman on holiday.