Knowing what you do now, do you really believe you ever had a chance of changing the cotton industry, before the political and financial tides have changed, no matter what Mr. Ryerson might believe or wish for?"
She thought about it for several moments before conceding. "No," she said almost under her breath.
"Then surely it is possible that whoever sent you also knew that, and had in mind another plan altogether?" he pressed.
She did not answer, but he saw that she had understood.
"And he does not care if you hang for a murder you did not commit," he went on. "Or that Ryerson should also."
That hurt her. Her body stiffened and some of the richness of color faded from her skin.
"Could he have killed Lovat?" he asked.
Her head moved fractionally, but it was an assent.
"How?" he asked.
"He... he poses as my servant..."
Of course! Tariq el Abd, silent, almost invisible. He could have taken her gun and shot Lovat, then called the police himself to make sure they came, and found Ryerson. He could easily have organized the whole thing, because she would naturally have given him any letter to deliver to Lovat. No one would question it; in fact, they would have questioned anybody else. It was perfect.
"Thank you," he said with sudden depth of feeling. It was at least a resolution of the mystery, even if it did not solve the problem. And he had not realized until this moment how much it mattered to him that she was not guilty. It was almost like a physical weight removed from him.
"What are you going to do, Mr. Pitt?" Her voice was edged with fear.
"I am going to prove that you have been used, Miss Zakhari," he replied, aware that his choice of words would remind her of that other time, years ago, when she had been used and betrayed before. "And that neither you nor Mr. Ryerson is guilty of murder. And I am going to try to do it without soaking Egypt in blood. I am afraid the second aim is going to take precedence over the first."
She did not answer, but stood motionless as an ebony statue while he smiled very slightly in parting, and knocked on the door to summon the warder.
He debated for only moments whether to go alone or to find Narraway and tell him. If Tariq el Abd was the prime mover behind the plan to expose the massacre and set Egypt alight, then he would not meekly accept arrest from Pitt or anyone else. By going to Eden Lodge alone, Pitt might do no more than warn him, and possibly precipitate the very tragedy they dreaded.
He stopped a hansom in the Strand and gave Narraway's office address. Please God, he was there.
"What is it?" Narraway said as soon as he saw Pitt's face.
"The man behind Ayesha is the house servant Tariq el Abd," he replied. He saw from Narraway's expression that no more explanation was necessary.
Narraway breathed with a sigh of comprehension, and fury with himself because he had not seen it before. "Our own bloody blindness!" he swore, rising to his feet in a single movement. "A servant and a foreigner, so we don't even see him. Damn! I should have been better than that." He yanked a drawer open and pulled a gun out of it, then slammed the drawer shut again and strode ahead of Pitt. "I hope you had the wits to keep the cab," he said critically.
"Of course I did!" Pitt retorted, striding after him out of the door and down the steps to the pavement, where the cab was standing, the horse fidgeting from one foot to the other, perhaps sensing the driver's tension.
"Eden Lodge!" Narraway said tersely, climbing in ahead of Pitt and waving the man forward as Pitt was scrambling in behind him.
Neither of them spoke all the way through the crowded streets, around squares and under fading trees until the hansom stopped outside Eden Lodge.
" 'Round the back!" Narraway ordered, moving swiftly ahead of Pitt.
But there was no one in Eden Lodge. The entire house was deserted. The stove in the kitchen was cold, the ashes in the fires gray, the food in the pantry already going stale.
Narraway swore just once, with white-hot fury, but there was nothing he or anybody else could do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
NO TRACE WAS FOUND of Tariq el Abd by the police, or any of the men upon whom Narraway could call. Sunday was a wretched day, cold and windy,