Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

Gower drew in his breath, and then let it out again. “Yes, sir. I’ll stay here and watch Wrexham, and whoever he meets with.” Then he flashed a quick, bright smile. “I might even go down into the square and see the pretty girl with the pink dress again, and drink a glass of wine.”

Pitt shook his head, feeling the tension ease away. “I think you’ll do better than I will,” he said ruefully.

MCIVER LIVED SOME FIVE miles outside St. Malo in the deep countryside. He was clearly longing to speak to someone in his native tongue and hear firsthand the latest news from London. Pitt’s visit delighted him.

“Of course I miss London, but don’t misunderstand me, sir,” he said, leaning back in the garden chair in the sun. He had offered Pitt wine and little sweet biscuits, and—when he declined those—fresh crusty bread and a soft country cream cheese, which he accepted with alacrity.

Pitt waited for him to continue.

“I love it here,” McIver went on. “The French are possibly the most civilized nation on earth—apart from the Italians, of course. Really know how to live, and do it with a certain flair that gives even mundane things a degree of elegance. But there are parts of English life that I miss. Haven’t had a decent marmalade in years. Sharp, aromatic, almost bitter.” He sighed. “The morning’s Times, a good cup of tea, and a manservant who is completely unflappable. I used to have a fellow who could have announced the Angel of Doom with the same calm, rather mournful air that he announced the duchess of Malmsbury.”

Pitt smiled. He ate a whole slice of bread and sipped his wine before he pursued the reason he had come.

“I need to make some very discreet inquiries: government, you understand?”

“Of course. What can I tell you?” McIver nodded.

“Frobisher,” Pitt replied. “Expatriate Englishman living here in St. Malo. Would he be the right man to approach to ask a small service to his country? Please be candid. It is of … importance, you understand?”

“Oh quite—quite.” McIver leaned forward a little. “I beg you, sir, consider very carefully. I don’t know your business, of course, but Frobisher is not a serious man.” He made a slight gesture of distaste. “He likes to cultivate some very odd friends. He pretends to be a socialist, you know, a man of the people. But between you and me, it is entirely a pose. He mistakes untidiness and a certain levity of manner for being an ordinary man of limited means.” He shook his head. “He potters around and considers it to be working with his hands, as if he had the discipline of an artisan who must work to live, but he has very substantial means, which he has no intention of sharing with others, believe me.”

“Are you sure?” Pitt said as politely as he could. However he said it, he was still questioning McIver’s judgment.

“As sure as anyone can be,” McIver replied. “Made a lot of noise about getting things done, but never done a thing in his life.”

“He had some very violent and well-known people visiting him.” Pitt clung to the argument, unwilling to concede that they had spent so many days here for nothing.

“See ’em yourself?” McIver asked.

“Yes. One of them in particular is very distinctive,” Pitt told him. Then even as he said it, he realized how easy it would be to pretend to be Linsky. After all, he had never seen Linsky except in photographs, taken at a distance. The hatchet features, the greasy hair would not be so hard to copy. And Jacob Meister was also ordinary enough.

But why? What was the purpose of it all?

That too was now hideously clear—to distract Pitt and Gower from something else entirely.

“I’m sorry,” McIver said sadly. “But the man’s an ass. I can’t say differently. You’d be a fool to trust him in anything that matters. And I hardly imagine you’d have come this far for something trivial. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I don’t get into St. Malo very often, but if there’s anything I can do, you have only to name it, you know.”

Pitt forced himself to smile. “Thank you, but it would really need to be a resident of St. Malo. But I’m grateful to you for saving me from making a bad mistake.”

“Think nothing of it.” McIver brushed it away with a gesture. “I say, do have some more cheese. Nobody makes a cheese like the French—except perhaps the Wensleydale, or a good Caerphilly.”

Pitt smiled. “I like a double Gloucester, myself.”

“Yes, yes,” McIver agreed. “I forgot that. Well, we’ll grant the cheese equal status. But you can’t beat a good French wine!”

“You can’t even equal it.”

McIver poured them both some wine, then leaned back in his chair. “Do tell me, sir, what is the latest news on the cricket? Here I hardly ever get the scores, and even then they’re late. How is Somerset doing?”