“Indeed,” he said quietly, looking at the next painting, a rather flat still life with flowers. “Anarchists, for example. Destroy everything and create nothing.”
Alexander did not reply for several moments.
Pitt was about to speak again.
“Sometimes it’s only the destroyers who get noticed,” Alexander answered then. “Everybody remembers the man or men who assassinate a president that oppresses his people and puts to death hundreds of the poor who dare to protest. Who’s going to remember the man who drew the mice? Are you?”
Pitt felt a moment’s embarrassment. He had been too absorbed in the drawing to look for the artist’s name.
“No,” he admitted. “Who was he?”
Alexander smiled, a wide, flashing radiance that was instantly gone as the darkness swept back in again. “Actually it was a woman. Mary Ann Church.”
“And the anarchists?” Pitt said.
Now Alexander’s face was shadowed and his body tense, visibly so, even under his beautifully cut jacket. “I wouldn’t tell you, even if I knew.”
Pitt did not hide his surprise.
Alexander shrugged. “Well, perhaps if I knew, and they got the wrong people, and were going to hang them, I would,” he amended. “Justice is a very big thing, kind of ugly and beautiful at the same time. Like that tiger over there!” He pointed vaguely.
Pitt searched the paintings on the far wall.
“I can’t see a tiger.”
“That’s rather my point,” Alexander replied. “There are some more nice things in here, if you look. I must go.” He turned and walked away, and as Pitt watched him he was aware of a considerable limp, as if the young man’s back gave him constant pain.
Pitt looked at the mice, tiny, pulsing with life, and now immortal, at least in the mind.
Tellman came to Pitt’s office late, just as Pitt was thinking of going home. Tellman looked tired and his lean face was pinched with unhappiness. He stood stiffly in front of Pitt’s desk. He would not sit down until he had been given permission. It was as if he were making a statement that he did not belong here. He had an overcoat on, but no gloves, and Pitt noticed that his hands were red from the cold air outside.
“Tea?” Pitt offered. These days he had someone who would make it for him and bring it.
“I’ve little to report,” Tellman replied. “Not be here long enough to take tea. But thank you…sir.”
“Yes, you will. Please sit,” Pitt told him, pulling the bell cord for someone to come. As soon as they did, he asked for tea, and biscuits as well.
Reluctantly Tellman took off his coat and hung it on the coat stand by the door, then sat down.
“Haven’t got anything very helpful yet, sir,” he repeated. “Been to all our usual informers, and nobody seems to have anything. Sorry, but it looks as if you’ve got a new and very bad sort of anarchist in the city. Might have got the dynamite from one of the quarries inland a bit. Bessemer and Sons is missing a noticeable amount. A dozen sticks or more. Reported it unwillingly. Didn’t want to look as incompetent as it seems they are. Somebody’s head will roll for that. Probably the foreman’s.”
“Any idea who took it?” Pitt asked. It could be a lead, and so far the only certain direction in which to look.
“Working on it,” Tellman replied.
The tea with biscuits came, and Pitt thanked the man as he left.
Tellman glanced at the teapot reluctantly, but could not resist the fragrant steam and the suggestion of warmth. He took a biscuit and bit into it, clearly suddenly hungry.
“You find anything?” he asked with his mouth full.
“I’m not sure,” Pitt replied. He looked at Tellman’s tired, unhappy face, and knew that he was still deeply shocked by the violence of the bombing. Of course policemen were killed in the line of duty every now and then, and there were traffic accidents, even train wrecks where the casualties were appalling. Buildings burned, bridges collapsed, sometimes floods caused terrible damage. But this was deliberate, created by human imagination and intent, and directed specifically at police, men that Tellman knew.
“Not sure?” Tellman said with surprise. He put his mug down, no longer warming his hands on it. “What do you mean?”
“Isadora Cornwallis came to see me, privately, so this is confidential,” Pitt told him. “If she chooses to tell her husband that’s up to her. I don’t want it getting back to him through police gossip. I’m telling you it was she simply so that you know what I learned was not lightly given, or something I can afford to ignore.” He watched Tellman’s expression to be certain he understood.
“What does she know about anarchy?” Tellman pursed his lips, doubt in his face.
“Some anarchists come from privileged backgrounds,” Pitt told him. “They aren’t all peasants or laborers with a pittance to live on.”
Tellman stared at him, waiting.
“She is acquainted with a young man of excellent family who has a profound grudge against the police, many of whom he believes are corrupt,” he continued. “He also has possible connections with anarchists. Only philosophically, so far as we know, but he might know where to go to purchase dynamite, possibly stolen from a quarry such as Bessemer and Sons, who you say are presently missing about a dozen sticks.”
Tellman put his hands back around the mug. “What’s his complaint about the police? Thinks he’s above having to accept order and behave himself?”
“It’s a great deal more serious than that. At least, he believes it is.”
“Like what?” Tellman said sharply.
“Like police accidentally shooting someone and then blaming an innocent man, Dylan Lezant, and seeing him hang for it.”
“Oh, yes?” Tellman sneered. “And who says Lezant was innocent? His good friend the anarchist sympathizer?”
Pitt put down his own tea. “They were good friends, it’s true. And what actually happened doesn’t matter, Tellman. If this young man thinks that’s what happened, then that’s what he’s going to act on.”
“That’s what he says,” Tellman argued. “Have you any reason to believe this man of yours isn’t just an ordinary bomber who thinks he can terrify us into doing whatever political madness he wants?” There was an edge of challenge in his voice, as if Pitt had deliberately suggested there were some justification for the murder of the policemen.
Pitt measured his reply carefully, but he felt his own anger rise, even though he understood Tellman’s grief. He had seen those broken bodies himself.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know if he had anything to do with it. I’m telling you that we can’t rule him out as a possibility.”
“What’s his name?” Tellman asked.
“I’ll deal with it, for the time being.”
Tellman froze, the color flushing up his cheeks. “You don’t trust me to tread softly with this young gentleman of yours?” His voice was strained, his jaw tight. “I’m an inspector, Commander Pitt. I’m just as capable and used to speaking to quality as you are, even if I’m not married to a lady. And maybe I appreciate the ordinary policemen, like those in the hospital, or the morgue, a bit more than you do.” He put his mug down and rose to his feet. “I answer ultimately to the police commissioner, not to their lordships in Parliament. I’ll find the man that set that bomb, whoever’s son he is.”
Pitt was momentarily taken aback. He had not been sensitive to just how deeply Tellman had been hurt by the bombing, or, to tell the truth, to how profound his loyalty was to the force. There was an element of truth to the insinuation that Pitt’s identity had changed when he left the police and joined Special Branch. He’d had no choice, if he was to succeed in his new position.
Pitt remained seated. “You may prefer then that I don’t tell you in future, should there be anything further to this lead. If that is the case, then I shall have to take it directly to Bradshaw. But I would rather not. He doesn’t know the dead men personally; you do.”
Tellman looked confused. He had made something of a fool of himself, and he was now aware of it, but unwilling to step back.