was holding control of himself with an effort. They had failed to help Ryerson, and again Pitt was reminded sharply that for some reason deeper than anything he understood, it mattered intensely to Narraway. Was it simply failure that hurt him, or was there a personal wound to do with events, feelings in the past of which Pitt was ignorant?
Narraway was waiting.
"I came to tell you that Arnold Yeats is dead," Pitt replied. "He was the fourth soldier of the group of Lovat's friends. Lovat was murdered, Garrick is missing, and Sandeman has become an obscure priest in the back alleys of Seven Dials."
Narraway stood quite stiff. "Indeed? And how do you know this?"
"I asked the War Office!" It was the obvious answer. Then he realized that Narraway was referring not to Yeats but to Garrick and Sandeman.
"Keep your wife out of it, Pitt," Narraway said in a low, careful voice, his face pinched. He ignored the flash of responding anger in Pitt's eyes. "She is the only one who has connected Lovat, Garrick, and Sandeman, so far as I know. And I still have no idea what we are dealing with." He reached out and took Pitt by the elbow, his fingers gripping hard, pulling him out of the melee towards a doorway to the side.
"It's going badly?" Pitt said. It was barely a question.
Narraway leaned against the door arch, but his body was rigid; there was no grace in it. He looked too tense to remain in any position long. "They are not here to see proof of guilt or innocence," he replied bitterly. "They take the guilt for granted, and I think the jury probably does as well. It is about whether the government can survive the scandal. It is the same instinct which makes people go stag hunting, or shooting wild animals-the spectacle of seeing something with more grace and power than themselves dragged down. They haven't the ability to create, only to destroy, and that is more intoxicating than nothing at all."
Pitt looked at the anger and helplessness in Narraway's face, and again was almost submerged in his emotion. "Are you saying it is political by accident or by design?" he asked.
Anger filled Narraway's eyes, then disappeared. "I don't know!" he said with a note of desperation.
"I don't believe Ayesha Zakhari is guilty of the stupid murder of a man she no longer knew or cared about," Pitt said miserably.
"And if her intention was to bring Ryerson down, in whatever way she could?" Narraway asked, his black eyes hard and angry.
"She came as an idealist, believing she could improve her country's economic independence," Pitt said with complete conviction. "That is not so unrealistic."
"I am as familiar with Egyptian economic history as you are!" Narraway snapped. "And it was the expansion under Said Pasha, then Khedive Ismail, and the return of American cotton after their civil war, which crippled them and forced Ismail to abdicate in '79 and opened the way for us to take the control we now have. If Ayesha Zakhari is as well-educated as you say, surely she must have known that even better than we do."
Pitt had no answer. They were caught in a morass of facts which made no coherent story, except one of impulse and stupidity, and that was not what he wanted to believe.
"You had better follow it," Narraway said quietly, already half turning away, almost as if he did not wish Pitt to see any hope in his face. "Be in my office at seven in the morning," he ordered. "Day after tomorrow." And he walked away, leaving Pitt alone.
Pitt learned all he could about Arnold Yeats, but it added nothing to his understanding of Lovat's death, or anything that had happened to him in Egypt, and there was no connection that he could see with Ayesha Zakhari. Nor was there anything in Morgan Sandeman's military record or his decision to leave the army and enter the priesthood which seemed to have any relevance. The only fact Pitt remarked with any interest was that the friendship which had been close in Alexandria appeared to have disappeared altogether after their return to Britain. But then, had they written to each other, he would not have known.
THE DAY THAT PITT left early to keep his appointment with Narraway, Charlotte also went out, but in the opposite direction. She did not tell Gracie where she was going, because she did not want to place her in the position of having to