Treachery at Lancaster Gate by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

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