Free Dorchester Terrace by Anne Perry Page A

Narraway. “We have more than enough to worry about. Let the past lie in whatever peace it can.”
    “It wasn’t important,” Narraway lied. “A passing kindness I might have been able to do.” He smiled apologetically. “I’m a trifle bored with listening to their lordships in the House. Perhaps I should findmyself a country pursuit, except I am not a countryman, apart from the odd weekend.”
    “Perhaps you should remain in London and listen more closely to their lordships. I’m sure you could find something to argue about, concentrate their minds now and then on a useful issue.” Tregarron frowned slightly. “I … I hate to ask this, but are you confident in this fellow Pitt that they’ve put in your place in Special Branch? I know he was a good policeman, but this is not quite the same thing, is it? He’ll need judgment, a keenness of perception that police experience won’t have taught him. He might be brilliant at solving mysteries and be able to unravel criminal activity and tell you exactly who’s involved, but can he see the larger picture, the political ramifications? Has he actually mastered anything beyond the art of solving crime? Does he understand anything deeper than that?”
    Narraway knew exactly what Tregarron meant, but he affected a slight confusion to give himself time to think.
    Tregarron leaned forward, filling the silence in an abrupt way, as if worried that he had offended Narraway. “I know he’s a good chap, and probably as honest as the day is long, and after that disaster with Gower, we’ll destroy ourselves without honesty. But for God’s sake, Narraway, we need a little sophistication as well! We require a man who can see ten jumps ahead, who can outwit the best against us, not just put a hand on the shoulder of the actual perpetrator of a crime, the fanatic with a stick of dynamite in his pocket.”
    “I think one of Pitt’s greatest assets will be that men who think they are clever will always underestimate him,” Narraway replied.
    Tregarron’s eyebrows shot up and a faint humor lit his face. “Should I consider myself suitably rebuked?” he inquired.
    Narraway smiled, this time with genuine amusement. “Not unless you wish to,” he said smoothly. “I have every confidence in Pitt, and you may also.”
    But as he went outside into the rain half an hour later, he was less certain than he had led Tregarron to suppose. Was Pitt’s own innate honesty going to blind him to the degree of deviousness in others?
    Pitt had been born a servant, and had spent his boyhood withrespect for the master of the estate, Sir Arthur Desmond, a man of unyielding honor and considerable kindness. Might Pitt, at some level below his awareness, expect others of wealth and position to be similar?
    How would he cope with the disillusion when he discovered that it was very often not the case?
    Then Narraway remembered the affair at Buckingham Palace, and thought that very possibly his anxieties were unnecessary. He lengthened his stride toward Baker Street, where he would assuredly find a hansom to take him home.

P ITT ’ S OFFICE WAS WARM and comfortable. The fire burned well, and every time it sank down, he put more coal on it. Outside the rain beat against the windows, sharp with the occasional hail. Gray clouds chased across the sky, gathering and then shredding apart as the wind tore through them. Down in the street passing vehicles sent sprays of water up from the gutters, drenching careless pedestrians walking too close to the curb.
    Pitt looked at the pile of papers on his desk. They were the same routine reports that greeted him every day, but if he did not read them, he might miss one thread that was different, an omission or cross-reference that indicates a change, a connection not made before. There were patterns that anything less than the minutest care would not disclose, and those patterns might be the only warning of a betrayal or an attack to come.
    He was disturbed in