“He knows I’m worried, and why I am,” he told her. “All he asked was that I wait until the contract is signed. Just a few days.”
She smiled, but there was no relief in her. “It’s late. I think we should go to bed. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, and there’s a lot to do, even if we are going to Jack and Emily’s on Christmas Day.”
It was just before daylight when Pitt was woken by a loud and persistent knocking on the door. He had slept later than he meant to. He threw the bedclothes off and stood up, shivering in the bedroom that had lost its warmth overnight.
The knocking on the door had stopped. Charlotte must have answered it. Pitt dressed hastily, putting on heavy underwear and thicker trousers. He splashed water over his face. There was no time to shave before he went to see who it was, and what had happened. No one would dare call on him on Christmas Eve, at this hour, if it were not serious.
He went down the stairs quickly in his stockinged feet, his hair still tousled.
Stoker was standing in the hall, his eyes hollow, his face white. He did not wait to be asked.
“There’s been another bombing, sir,” he said gravely. “Also near Lancaster Gate. Another empty house. No one hurt this time, but it’s a hell of a mess. Still burning, last I heard.”
Pitt stood motionless on the second to last stair.
Charlotte was standing in the hall.
“Shave,” she said quietly to Pitt. “I’ll get Mr. Stoker a cup of tea.” She turned to Stoker. “Have you eaten anything yet?”
“No, ma’am, but-”
She did not let him finish. “I’ll make you some toast. You can eat it while he gets ready. Come with me.”
Stoker did not argue. He was shaking with cold and the beginning of this new nightmare. He looked as if he had already been up for hours, but his visible fatigue was probably only from the exhaustion of too many long days and short nights.
Pitt shaved too quickly, cutting himself on the chin, but not badly. It was only seven minutes later that he went into the kitchen and took a plate of toast and a cup of tea from Charlotte. Five minutes after that he had his boots on and his coat and led the way out of the front door into the street, Stoker on his heels. The hansom that Stoker had arrived in was still at the curb. Stoker gave the man the address, and they moved off into the dark, wet early morning.
Chapter 9
This bombing was on Craven Hill, a street not a hundred yards from Lancaster Gate. A weak daylight breaking through the cloud showed what was left of the house, smaller than the first but also apparently unoccupied. The blast had woken neighbors who had called the fire brigade. They must have come very quickly because there was little still burning, although the acrid stench of charred wood was heavy in the air and there was debris all over the garden and the road.
Two fire engines stood in the street, horses uneasy, moving from foot to foot, tossing their heads as if eager to leave. In each case, one man stood by them, talking gently, comforting, encouraging.
Pitt looked along the street. It was a quiet, domestic neighborhood, indistinguishable from Lancaster Gate except the houses were a little smaller. As he watched, he saw a couple of curtains move. He would have been surprised had they not. People were curious, but above all they would be frightened.
Was this the same as the last? Alexander Duncannon again? Or was he wrong about that, and it was anarchists after all?
Pitt turned as the chief fireman approached him.
“Morning, sir,” the fireman said gravely. It was the same man who had attended the first bombing. This was natural, since it was so close.
“Morning,” Pitt replied. “Any casualties?”
“No, thank God,” the fireman replied. “Seems police weren’t called to this. But definitely a bomb. Hell of a blast, so the neighbor said who called us. About an hour ago, just over. Still dark.”
“Single explosion?” Pitt asked him.
“That’s what he said, and looks right, from what we can see. But it’s as safe as we can make it. Look for yourself.”
Pitt followed the fireman, stepping carefully through the rubble and fallen beams, being careful not to touch anything, even accidentally. The firemen could not make it safe without moving things, and he needed to see it undisturbed.
“That’s where the bomb was.” The fireman pointed to what had been the sitting-room fireplace. “Blast went up the chimney, or at least part of it did. Brought them all down, which caved a lot of the roof in. Big chimneys clumped together, these houses. Sweep’s boy could climb from one to another.”
“Best place to plant the bomb?” Pitt thought so, but he wanted the fireman’s professional view as well.
The fireman frowned. “You’d need a long fuse. You wouldn’t want to be near it when it went off, ’cos the whole damn roof could land on you…which it did…fall in, I mean.” He shook his head, staring at the big pile of bricks and stones that rose almost to the ceiling. This obviously had been the main load-bearing wall, with the strength of the central part, and the weight of the chimneys on it. “Take a big charge to do this much damage.”
“How much? Four sticks?”
“About that…high-quality stuff,” the fireman agreed. He turned to look at Pitt. “Any idea who you’re looking for, sir? It’s been empty houses so far, but that could change.”
“I know that.” Pitt did not mean to sound terse, but he knew he did. “Does it look to you like it was the same man as Lancaster Gate? He seems to know exactly where to put it for maximum effect. And this house was clearly unoccupied…but he didn’t call the police…”
“What I’d like to know, sir, is if he wanted to get the police last time, what’s changed so he doesn’t this time, eh?”
“I wish to hell I didn’t know the answer to that,” Pitt told him. “But I think I do. I want to look around a bit further. See if there’s anything else to learn.”
“I’ll come with you.” It was a statement, not an offer.
Pitt nodded acknowledgment. “I don’t intend to move anything.”
“Damn right you don’t! But I’m coming with you anyway.”
They walked carefully through the rest of the downstairs of the house. The stairs were half blown away and the cellar door was blocked by rubble it would be dangerous to move.
It was on the table in the scullery that Pitt found the piece of white cloth. He picked it up carefully. It was a gentleman’s large handkerchief, made of fine lawn and embroidered with initials in one corner. It was high quality, tasteful and expensive. He knew what the initials were before he looked at it. A.D.
“Mistake, sir? Or a message?” the fireman asked.
“A message, I think,” Pitt replied. “I didn’t take the last one seriously enough.”
The fireman took a deep breath, regarded Pitt for a moment, then changed his mind about saying what was on his mind.
Outside again in the street it was lighter, and a small crowd had gathered almost twenty yards away. As Pitt and the fireman came out onto the pavement a man of about sixty broke away from the others and came striding across the road toward Pitt. He was solidly built, with wings of gray at his temples.
“Are you in charge of this, sir?” he said in a voice edged with anger, and perhaps also fear.
“Yes, I am.”
“Then you’d better investigate rather more successfully! Decent people are afraid to go to bed in their own homes. Decent policemen are getting killed doing their jobs, and there’s no justice for them or their families. We’re suspicious of everyone out alone after dark, or with a package in their hands. Some people are saying it’s anarchists, but others are suggesting it’s revenge for police corruption-”
“Where did you get that from?” Pitt interrupted him.
“Irresponsible newspapers,” the man replied, not backing off an inch. “Left wing. Lunatics, some of them. But is it true? Have we got corrupt police?”
Pitt thought rapidly.