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“Do you think you can defend Sidney…I mean, get him off?”
“If the prosecutor is halfway competent, I will not be able to get him off if he’s guilty.” Daniel met Patrick’s eyes squarely and saw him wince, but there was no evasion in them. Some of his fear melted away, but then a different part of him knotted up. He liked Patrick. It would hurt very much if, somehow, he had rigged this.
* * *
—
DANIEL NEXT REPORTED to Marcus fford Croft and told him all the progress he had made so far.
“Humph,” Marcus said, looking at him narrowly. “I’m not watching you that closely, Pitt. Why are you explaining this to me now, to be precise?”
Daniel had the strong feeling that Marcus knew exactly why he was doing it, he just wanted to see if Daniel had the nerve to tell him.
“Well?” Marcus demanded.
“Because I need to see someone high enough up in the diplomatic service to take the next step in finding out about those documents,” he replied. “Whether they’re real or forged, they came out of the embassy in Washington and landed in London at exactly the right time to convict Sidney. It may all be coincidence, but I don’t believe that. And if the prosecution is going to succeed, they need to prove it.”
“You really are trying to defend him, aren’t you!” Marcus raised his eyebrows. “Good! I was not looking forward to having to tell your father I couldn’t keep you anymore.”
Daniel felt a wave of shame engulf him knowing that had ever been in question.
“Don’t look so surprised!” Marcus said sharply. “I meant what I said. No empty threats. In my place, would you keep a man who professed to be defending a client, while actually sitting as judge, jury, and executioner of the poor bastard, without telling him?”
Daniel could feel the flush washing up his cheeks. “No, sir…”
“Good. Because you haven’t a snowflake’s chance in hell of ever sitting in my chair if you would. Your first duty is to the law! Family, friends, anybody else comes after that! I hope you really mean that?”
“Yes, sir. I need to know the truth before I can defend Sidney. For that, I need to know who Cross gave the papers to, and how they got them out of the embassy and to London. And if possible, why. For themselves, or because someone else asked them to? And if so, I want the name of that someone.”
Marcus’s face softened into a seraphic smile. “Excellent. You want to see Sir John Armitage. High office in the British Embassy in Washington. In London for a few weeks. Or maybe it’s a few days. Comes this way regularly. I’ll arrange. Don’t let me down by being in awe of him. He’s a clever man, but he’s got two arms and two legs, just like you. Now go and make yourself useful. I’ll let you know what I’ve arranged. And straighten yourself up a bit! You look like you’ve been crawling around the floor, searching for something you’ve dropped. Reminds me of your father—in his early days!”
“The lawn, sir.”
“What?”
“Crawling around the lawn. I was speaking to Flannery.”
“Well…I suppose you know what you’re doing! Can’t imagine it myself.”
“He has a three-year-old daughter, sir.”
Marcus sighed. “Ah! That explains everything.”
For an instant, Daniel remembered Miriam fford Croft, Marcus’s daughter. She was thirty-nine now, fourteen years older than Daniel, brilliant, irrepressible, eccentric, and, underneath it, Daniel had glimpsed, vulnerable as well. He had not seen her since the Graves case, three months ago. Perhaps Marcus did know about little girls?
“Thank you, sir,” he said quietly, and escaped to see what he and Kitteridge could do between them.
* * *
—
IT WAS TWO long and unproductive hours later when Impney came into the library with Kitteridge’s tea and excused himself to speak to Daniel. “I have a taxicab waiting for you, sir. It has instructions to take you to the Foreign Office, where Sir John Armitage will see you. If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, you had best hurry. You don’t want to make a bad impression by being late, and…er…you might tidy yourself up a bit?” He flushed slightly at his own temerity.
“Thank you, Impney. Indeed, I don’t!” Daniel smiled. “And yes, I’ll find a comb, and even a mirror.”
He left Kitteridge sending another wire to the Washington police, asking them to track down Morley Cross and learn more about those receipts and invoices. Who was this Cross fellow, and why had he waited so long before exposing Philip Sidney’s embezzlement?
Daniel spent the whole ride, although it was not so very long, forming and re-forming in his mind exactly what he was going to say. He could not forgive himself if he spoiled this one chance to speak to Armitage in a non-adversarial setting. Never mind what Marcus would think of him!
