Anne Perry: Buckingham Palace Gardens

“The African one? We never will.”

“No, I’m not sure she had anything to do with it, except as a tragedy to make us think Dunkeld had to be innocent, and Sorokine guilty. I meant the woman in the linen cupboard, whom we thought was Sadie. Who was she? Did the carter who brought her here kill her simply for Dunkeld to use? Did he do it knowing what it was for? Or does he simply kill for money?”

“Too dangerous,” Narraway said immediately. “Dunkeld would be a fool to put himself in the hands of a man like that.”

“Then he was a conspirator. And he had to know Sadie in order to find a woman sufficiently like her,” Pitt added. “So he’s intelligent, resourceful, devious, and has a hell of a cool nerve. He’s not just an as-sassin for hire.”

“You’ve made your point, Pitt,” Narraway agreed with the ghost of a smile. “We have to find him, and Dunkeld isn’t going to help us.

It is almost certainly the carter, but there is no reason to suppose he actually looks anything like the man the servants glimpsed on the night he brought the box. His clothes were nondescript and dirty, he wore a hat, and fingerless mittens to protect his hands. Usual enough if you’re driving a horse, or lifting boxes. We’d better start with looking for Sadie.”

“She’ll have disappeared,” Pitt told him. “Dunkeld will have paid her to do that.”

“I know!” Narraway snapped, his temper closer to the surface than he wished to betray. “I mean where she used to be. Dunkeld found her in some brothel, or through a pimp. London can be a small city at times. He met her somewhere. Other women will know her.

They might have seen the carter.”

Pitt nodded. “I’ll find him if he’s in London.”

Narraway swore. “We may not have long. Since the scheme has failed, as soon as he knows Dunkeld’s caught, he may make himself scarce. He could go anywhere: Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin, even the Continent. I’ll call every contact I have in the police. Thank God for inventions like the telephone. I don’t think we have anything more to do here.”

Less than half an hour later, when Pitt was in the sitting room and Narraway had returned to his office, the Prince came in, closely followed by Watson Forbes. It was instantly apparent that Forbes had accepted the Prince’s offer. How it had been phrased, or what additional incentive had been offered, was not mentioned. Everyone was introduced, although only Olga Marquand had not previously known him.

Pitt was merely mentioned. Forbes’s eyes lingered on him in a moment’s interest, but he did not speak.

“Mr. Forbes has accepted the responsibility of Dunkeld’s position to lead the building of a Cape-to-Cairo railway,” the Prince announced with a smile. “He is by far the best man in England for the task; in fact, very possibly the only man who could succeed. We are very fortunate that he has agreed to pick up this burden, immediate from today. I have promised him that he will have the total co-operation of everyone involved, and the freedom to make any decision in the further-ance of our cause that he considers wise and just.”

Complete control. Was that the power Dunkeld had had? Or was it Forbes’s price? The very slight emphasis the Prince placed on the words suggested that it was the latter.

“Her Majesty will return from Osborne in two days,” the Prince continued. “I am very pleased at that time to present to her such a magnificent project for the Empire she loves so dearly.” He turned to Forbes and made a small gesture of invitation.

Watson Forbes stepped forward, smiling. “Thank you, sir. It will be my privilege to serve my country, and future generations in that great Continent of Africa. Gentlemen, we have a momentous opportunity before us. It will call for every resource of mind and body that we possess. Let us not underestimate it. We shall require all the honorable assistance that we may be offered, or lay claim to. And we must be of a single mind. This is not for the glory of any one man, but of our Queen and country.”

Pitt slipped away without excusing himself, and no one except Julius Sorokine noticed.

Pitt left the Palace and took a hansom cab to Narraway’s office. It had been only a matter of days that he’d been on the case, and yet his sudden sense of freedom was immense, as if he had escaped from enclosing walls, opulent as they were and hung with some of the greatest works of art in Western civilization. Now he was surrounded by the noise of traffic, hoofs, wheels, voices shouting, and occasionally the barking of dogs. It was midafternoon, hot and dusty, but the sense of space, even crowded as it was, and the urgency that drove him, was exhilarating. He found himself sitting forward as if it would somehow add to his speed.

Dunkeld was to blame for much. He was an arrogant and callous man, but he had not killed the prostitute, whoever she was. Whether the man who had was a willing colleague, Pitt did not yet know, but he was guilty of a brutal murder, purely for the convenience of having a body with which to blackmail the Prince of Wales. He, at least, would be someone they could charge, try, and, in the end, hang.

There would be no secret incarceration in an asylum for him. Not that death, even on the end of a rope, might not be better than the rest of one’s life in a place like Bedlam.

Pitt alighted a street away from Narraway’s office-a precaution of habit-and ten minutes later was upstairs in his usual chair at the far side of Narraway’s desk.

“Forbes accepted,” Pitt said briefly. “Complete control.”

Narraway nodded. “I think the carter was a colleague, not an employee. Dunkeld would never be fool enough to trust anyone with that sort of power over him.”

“I’m not sure what I think,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “I’m not certain if the plan originally was Dunkeld’s or the other man’s, or even if it changed halfway through, when Minnie died. Perhaps each of them thought the plan was theirs, and in fact there were two?” He saw the wry look in Narraway’s face. “But I am absolutely certain that I want to find the man who killed that girl, whoever she was. If we don’t care about justice for her as much as for Minnie, or Julius Sorokine, or the Prince of Wales, then we are the wrong people for this job.”

Narraway’s face was wry, and for a minute uncharacteristically gentle. “There are plenty of wrong people in jobs, Pitt, but I admire the sentiment, even if we may not be able to live up to it. I’ve sent orders to every police station in the city within an hour’s travel of the Palace to see if they know of a prostitute missing from her usual patch, if any brothel’s lost a girl, or any street woman known as missing, whatever the reason.”

“We can’t sit here and wait!” Pitt protested. “How long is it going to take before someone reports her, or any police station cares? It could be-”

“Hours,” Narraway cut across him. “Or less.”

“Days,” Pitt contradicted him. “Or not at all.”

“I don’t think you understand the importance, Pitt,” Narraway observed drily. “One has only to mention bombers or anarchists and even the busiest and least sympathetic policeman will take notice. If there is any report at all, we will have it before dark.”

Pitt had to be content. Narraway forbade him to leave, and it was as dusk was beginning to close in that the report came. It was still barely dark when they alighted at the police station on the Vauxhall Bridge Road, less than three miles from the Palace.

Narraway did not waste time or energy on niceties. He introduced himself and came immediately to the point. “You reported a prostitute missing, possibly dead,” he said to the constable on duty. “I need to see your superintendent.”