Dorchester Terrace by Anne Perry Page B

eyebrows.
    Pitt nodded and smiled bleakly. “I considered that as well. That it could all be a bluff.” He thought for a moment. “Or perhaps a double bluff?”
    Blantyre let out a sigh. “Of course you are right. I really don’t think there is any likelihood of an assassination here at the moment, but I will look into it, ask a few discreet questions, at least about the possibility.”
    “Thank you.” Pitt rose to his feet. “I can’t afford to ignore it.”
    Blantyre smiled and stood also. He held out his hand and Pitt took it, returning the firm grip before he turned to go.
    Pitt left the office feeling relieved, if only because Blantyre had taken him seriously. He had treated him as he would have treated Narraway.
    Pitt smiled to himself as he went down the steps and out into the street and the heavy traffic.
    T WO DAYS LATER , Pitt was sitting alone in his office. It was close to the end of February, and the daylight faded all too quickly. Within the next quarter-hour he would have to stand up and turn on the gaslight.
    There was a knock on the door, and Stoker put his head around it.
    “Mr. Evan Blantyre here to see you, sir,” he said, his tone a mixture of surprise and respect. “Says it’s pretty urgent.”
    Pitt was surprised too. He had accepted that Blantyre, for all his courtesy, had still mostly seemed to think that the whole possibility of a threat to any visiting Austrian dignitary was largely a misreading of the information.
    “Show him in,” he said immediately, rising to his feet.
    A moment later Blantyre came in, closing the door behind him. He shook Pitt’s hand briefly, and started to speak even before both of them were seated.
    “I owe you an apology, Pitt,” he said gravely, hitching his trousers a little at the knees to preserve their shape as he crossed his legs. “I admit, I didn’t take this theory of yours very seriously. I thought you were jumping at shadows a bit. Understandable, after some of the recent tragedies.”
    Pitt presumed he was referring to the Gower case and Narraway’s dismissal. He said nothing. It was ridiculous to have hoped that some of that wretched betrayal would have remained secret, but it still hurt him that so many people seemed to know of it. He waited for Blantyre to continue.
    Blantyre’s face was very solemn. “I looked into the information you gave me,” he went on. “At first it seemed to be very superficial, a series of odd but basically harmless questions, unconnected to each other. But then I examined them a little more deeply, one at a time, beginning with the tracing of the most likely route from Dover to London, which of course is by train.”
    Pitt watched Blantyre’s face, and the intensity in it alarmed him. He waited without interrupting.
    “It seemed to mean very little.” Blantyre gave a slight shrug. “Hundreds of people must make such a journey. Inquiries would be natural enough, even several days in advance of travel. Then I looked at the signals you mentioned, and the places where such trains would pass a junction on the track. You are perfectly right, of course. Freight trains also travel there regularly, and a series of accidents—signals green when they should be red; points changed and a freight train diverted onto the wrong track—could create a disaster with enormous proportions. You would have far more than just one man dead.”
    He drew his breath in slowly, then let it out again.
    “But I thought I had better see if the route tied in with any known person of importance. It did, rather more than I supposed. It turns out that you are right. One of the minor Austrian dukes is coming. He is of no importance himself, but he’s still a member of the imperial family, and grandnephew of our queen, or something of the sort. He is making a private visit to a grandson of the queen’s. It is not a government matter at all. But his coming, and the time that the inquiries concern coincide precisely with the plans made for