Treachery at Lancaster Gate Read Online Free PDF Page A

called La Belle Epicerie. This was another favorite place for anarchists, run by a passionate and generous sympathizer.
    Pitt waited in the queue, listening and passing the time of day. The bombing in Lancaster Gate was mentioned and greeted with indignation by a large man with a beard and crumbs on the front of his coat.
    “Damn fool!” he said angrily.
    A much smaller man next to him took exception. “Not for you to criticize,” he snapped back. “At least he’s doing something, which is more than you are!”
    “Something stupid,” the bearded man retorted. “Nobody even knows who it is! Could have been gas mains blowing up, for all the public knows. Fool!”
    “That’s only because you don’t know who it is,” the small man sneered.
    “And I suppose you do?” a third man joined in.
    “Not yet! But we will,” the small man said, as if he were certain. “He’ll tell us…when he’s ready. Maybe after he’s blown up a few more bloody police.”
    Pitt kept his temper and a calm face, as if the man were speaking of blowing up some derelict building rather than human beings, men he had known and worked with. “Gets the attention,” he murmured.
    The bearded man glared at him. “You want attention, then? That what you want? You in your nice warm coat!”
    Pitt glared back at him. “I want change!” he said equally aggressively. “You think it’s going to come some other way?”
    The small man smiled at him, showing broken teeth. A customer was served and left with a paper bag in his hands. The queue moved forward.
    —
    P ITT WENT ON AND kept appointments that in more usual circumstances Stoker would have kept. He needed to do this himself. He was haunted by the fact that he had seen no warning of this bombing. What sort of a person would do such a thing? If it had not been an anarchist protest, then what? What conceivable purpose was there in killing these policemen?
    “Nothing,” Jimmy said as they sat over yet another pint of ale in one of the dockside public houses. It was narrow and crowded, straw on the floor, steam rising from rain-sodden coats. The smell of beer and wet wool filled the air. Jimmy was a long-time informer, a lean man, almost graceful, were it not for one slightly withered hand, which he carried always at an odd angle.
    “Don’t believe you, Jimmy,” Pitt said quietly. “It was yesterday morning. Somebody’s said something. I want to know what.” He had known Jimmy for years, and getting information out of him was like pulling teeth, but in the end it was usually worth the trouble.
    “Nothing useful,” Jimmy replied, his dark eyes watching Pitt’s face.
    Pitt knew the game. He also knew that Jimmy wanted to tell him something, and he would stay here until he did. “Who says?” he asked.
    “Oh…one feller and another.”
    “Who says it’s not useful?” Pitt persisted. “We’ll get to who told you in time.”
    “No we won’t!” Jimmy looked alarmed.
    “Why not? Unreliable?”
    “Don’t try that one!” Jimmy warned, shaking his head. “You’re sunk, Mr. Pitt. This Special Branch in’t good for yer. Yer used ter be a gentleman!” It was an accusation, made with much sorrow.
    Pitt was unmoved.
    “What have you heard? Two policemen are dead, and the other three are gravely injured. This information could be of the utmost importance, and I can promise you, if I don’t find whoever it is did it, I’m going to go on looking, and that’s going to get unpleasant.”
    Jimmy seemed affronted. “There’s no need for that, Mr. Pitt.”
    “Get on with it.”
    “Yer won’t like it,” Jimmy warned. Then he looked again at Pitt’s face. “All right! Yer won’t find a whole lot o’ help coming because there’s talk o’ them police being bent, on the take, like.”
    “You don’t bomb buildings to get at police on the take,” Pitt said carefully, watching Jimmy’s eyes. “You find proof of it and turn them in. Unless, of course, they’ve got