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them!
    The mechanics of it were beginning to make sense.
    Had the police at the back been careless and let at least one man through, perhaps more? Or corrupt, and intentionally allowed them to escape?
    Who was the man who had shot Landsborough from behind the door, and then raced downstairs pretending to be a policeman? Had he seized a chance suddenly presented to him by fate, or had he waited in the building in Long Spoon Lane, knowing that after the explosion the bombers would return here?
    Why? An internal rivalry, one group against another? A clash of ideals, a war for territory? Or a fight for leadership within one group?
    Or something else altogether?
    Pitt walked slowly across the room and out of the door to the back stairs, the way the killer must have gone. Outside in the street he found another constable, but he could tell him nothing more.

 
     
     
     
     
    2
     
     
     
     
    P ITT CLOSED THE front door quietly, took off his boots and walked along the passage towards the lights and the sounds of laughter in the kitchen. It was nearly eight o’clock, and although it was a mild evening, he was shivering cold with exhaustion, not so much of body as of mind.
    He pushed the door open and was engulfed with the warm smells of hot pastry, vegetables, and the dry, delicate odor of clean linen on the airing rail above. The gaslight shone on the blue-ringed china on the dresser and the pale, scrubbed wood of the table.
    Charlotte swung around to smile at him. Her hair was still pinned up, but wisps of it were coming loose, and she had an apron on over the sweep of her skirt.
    “Thomas!” She moved quickly towards him, then looked at his face and frowned. “There was a bomb! What happened? Are you all right?”
    “Yes, I’m just tired,” he answered her. “No one was hurt in the blast. One policeman was shot in the siege, but it was just a flesh wound.”
    She kissed his cheek quickly and pulled away. “Have you had anything to eat?” she said with concern.
    “No,” he admitted, pulling out one of the hard-backed chairs and sitting down. “Not since a ham sandwich at about three o’clock. But I’m not really hungry.”
    “Bombs!” Gracie said with a snort of disgust. “I dunno wot the world’s coming ter! We should put the lot of ’em on the treadmills down the Coldbath Fields!” She turned around from the stove and regarded Pitt with proprietary disapproval. She was far more than a maid, and her loyalty was passionate.
    “Well, a bit o’ apple pie won’t do you no ’arm. An’ we’ve some cream, thick as butter, it is. Could stand yer spoon up in it, an’ all.” Without waiting for him to accept or decline, she swept into the pantry, swinging the door wide open.
    Charlotte smiled across at Pitt, and got him a clean spoon and fork out of the drawer. Just then, eleven-year-old Jemima came racing down the stairs and along the passage.
    “Papa!” She threw herself at Pitt and hugged him with enthusiasm. “What happened in the East End? Gracie says the anarchists should all be shot. Is that true?”
    He tightened his arms around her, then let her go as she remembered her dignity and pulled away.
    “I thought she said to send them to the treadmill?” he replied.
    “What’s a treadmill?” Jemima asked.
    “A machine that goes ’round and ’round pointlessly, but you have to keep walking in it or you lose your balance and it bruises you.”
    “What use is that?”
    “None at all. It’s a punishment.”
    “For anarchists?”
    Gracie returned with a large wedge of apple pie and a jug of cream and set it on the table.
    “Thank you,” Pitt accepted, helping himself. Perhaps he was hungry after all. Anyway, it would please all of them if he ate it. “For anyone put in prison,” he answered Jemima’s question.
    “Are anarchists wicked?” she asked, sitting at the other side of the table.
    “Yes,” Gracie answered as Pitt had his mouth full. “O’ course they are. They bomb people’s