nothing for a few moments as we waited for sign of Matthew Winthrop and his contact, the person who presumably had killed Thomas Harden and taken the papers from him. After that, it would just be the matter of finding the chance to switch out the real documents for the false ones.
Something occurred to me then.
“Isn’t this a bit of a public place for an exchange of highly sensitive documents?” I asked. “It seems as though they should’ve done it in a park or a deserted alleyway.”
“This sort of thing is actually best done in a crowded place,” he replied. “It makes it less noticeable.”
I would have to take his word for it. All the illegal things I’d ever done had been best done under the cover of darkness.
“Stop looking out into the street every few seconds,” he said when I again peeked around the corner of the alcove for a better view down the street.
I knew we were meant to look like young lovers having a private conversation in this little alcove, but I found, as I usually did with Major Ramsey, that I was having a devil of a time keeping a pleasant expression on my face.
“I don’t want to miss him.”
“We won’t.”
I had to admit I was a bit surprised Winthrop was our man. I’d have laid odds on Sir Nigel. There was something very fishy about the man. Granted, this didn’t seem to be the sort of place he’d frequent for lunch. I thought he’d be more likely to dine at his club, where he wasn’t likely to brush shoulders with the lower classes in the streets.
A poet, however, wouldn’t mind mixing a bit with the bourgeoisie.
I didn’t have time to make any more assumptions because I suddenly saw the major stiffen ever so slightly. It might not have been noticeable to most people, but I was perceptive about things like that. Something had taken him by surprise.
I had been looking down the street, but he was looking over my shoulder at the door of the tearoom.
I followed his gaze, expecting to see our quarry, Matthew Winthrop, who had come from the direction in which I hadn’t been looking.
Instead, I saw Jocelyn Abbot.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I looked at the major. When I saw the grimness of his expression, I knew that things were serious. He so seldom looked anything but supremely confident, but now there was an expression on his face I couldn’t quite interpret. I knew well enough, however, what he was thinking.
“It might not be her,” I said. “Perhaps it’s just a coincidence.”
“You know as well as I do how unlikely that is,” he replied.
He was right, of course. But one part of it didn’t make sense.
“Surely she didn’t … kill Harden and that other man herself?” I couldn’t picture that elegant woman slitting people’s throats, but I supposed anything was possible.
“I don’t know,” he said flatly. “Perhaps she has an accomplice.”
The major didn’t very often win my sympathy, but I could imagine how it felt, to discover definitively that someone you’d once cared about was involved in a plot against the country you were fighting for. She’d been on our suspect list, yes. But I assumed that he had secretly hoped the one person he truly thought he knew wasn’t guilty of something like this. I almost felt like trying to say something comforting, but I knew I would make a muck of it, and he wouldn’t want it anyway.
“There’s a telephone up the street,” he said after a moment. “I’ll ring Kimble and tell him to come here. I told him to pick up your uncle and meet us back at my office to confer this afternoon. He may be there already.”
“You think she won’t exchange the papers if she sees you,” I said.
“I very much doubt it,” he replied. “If Kimble can get here in time, the two of you can go in together.”
Apparently, he really hadn’t believed Jocelyn Abbot was our quarry if he had not prepared for this eventuality. It was unlike him.
“I’ll go alone,” I said.
“No, you won’t.” He said this automatically. I think he was just used to contradicting me by this point, but his gaze was still not focused on me. He was weighing the options. There were few of those at this point.
I pressed on. “If we go in there together, she’ll realize something is amiss. As you’ve said, it would be too much of a coincidence for both of us to arrive in the same place