Fatal Enquiry (26 page)

I stopped, thought for a moment, and then chuckled.

“You win, Mr. Nightwine. My hat is off to you. Congratulations on your successful scheme to bilk the British Empire of thousands of pounds. I’m no match for you, I confess it, but Barker will get to you. Neither of us knows where or when he’s going to turn up. I only hope I’m there to see you brought low. That is something I’d really like to see. You know, someday, when your bones are rotting in the ground, I’m going to write about these last few weeks. It should make an interesting book.”

“You do that. Write your little book. Then step out of your office and look down Whitehall Street where my bones are interred in Westminster Abbey as the Liberator of Tibet.”

“Liberator?” I repeated, rising to my feet. “I’m sure that’s a word that shall be on every Tibetan’s lips.”

Summoning as much dignity as I could, I walked from the room where I had been held prisoner. I went down a corridor and a staircase to a lobby, trading curious glances with the desk clerk. Opening the door, I stepped out into a cool April afternoon. I walked, or rather shuffled, to a corner and looked at a street sign attached to a building. Praed Street in Paddington. My ribs ached when I raised an arm to hail a cab in Edgware Road, and crawling into the vehicle was a painful process, but I was finally on my way home.

Leaning back in the cab, I rested my head on the cushion, trying not to think. There had been enough torturing myself over the past several days. No more Sofia hovering over me, no more Thompson’s Elixir. I would sleep well in my own bed that night. The last of the laudanum worked its way out of my system and I was lulled to sleep, waking only when we came to a stop in the New Kent Road. I eased out and strained my ribs again paying the cabman. It was gratifying to shock Jacob Maccabee from his usual decorum. When I walked in the door, his jaw hung open and I thought his eyes would pop out.

“My word, you’re a fright!”

“Thank you, Mac. That’s reassuring.”

“Where have you been?”

“Beaten nearly to death by Sebastian Nightwine and then restored back to health by his daughter in a hotel in Praed Street.”

“You’re having me on,” Mac insisted, arms akimbo.

“I’m not, and don’t argue. It hurts to talk.”

“Sorry. It just doesn’t make sense. Unless you and she…”

“Yes?”

“Unless there was an understanding.”

“There is no understanding. I’ve merely been trying to stay alive.”

I sat down on the staircase in the hall. I still did not have much stamina. My epidermis might heal over the next month but Nightwine had bruised both muscle and bone. Mac’s look of horror didn’t assure me that when I healed I would look like my former self. Was this another price to be paid?

“Have you heard that the Metropolitan Police dropped the charges against us?”

“It was in
The
Chronicle
this morning. Mr. Zangwill wrote an article claiming that the reward money on the Guv comes from no recognized source, and if it is true, must have come from the criminal Underworld. I’d like to think that would give some citizens pause.”

“Good old Israel. He is a better reporter than he was a teacher. Is everything back to normal here?”

“For the most part. The safe manufacturer has scheduled an appointment to replace the front panel. And I should tell you that Etienne has returned.”

“Has he? That’s a relief.”

“Of a sort, perhaps. He appeared one morning, I think it was Thursday, and went into the kitchen for twenty minutes or so, then came out again and made a telephone call on the set in the alcove. He spoke for about five minutes in French; then hung up and propped open the back door. Suddenly he began throwing everything from the kitchen into the garden: pots, pans, plates, glasses, silverware, crockery, utensils; in short, anything he could lift. Thank heavens the best china and silver is kept in the dining room.”

“He left it all for you to clean up?”

“No, an hour later, a wagon arrived with several employees from his restaurant. They brought packing cases full of all new equipment for the kitchen and took away all that had been thrown out. It took two hours, at least, before everything was unpacked to his specifications and the garden in order again. During the entire time, and even after, he didn’t say a word about it to me.”

“He’s a funny old bird, Etienne, isn’t he?” I noted.

“If by funny you mean peculiar, then most certainly,” Mac replied. “Do you think the Guv will come home soon, then?”

“I hope so.” By this time, I was holding on to the banister for support. “I’m exhausted. I need to go to bed. Pretend I’m a badger that has gone into hibernation and don’t disturb me. I’ll call if I need you.”

“But you need a doctor’s care,” he pointed out, with at least some degree of concern for my welfare.

“No hovering, please. I don’t want a face swathed in sticking plasters. I just want to rest. I think I could sleep for a week.”

He helped me upstairs to my room. Oh, how I loved those homely four walls. At a turtle’s pace I changed into my nightshirt and closed the curtains so that not a beam of sunlight could be seen. Then I crawled into my bed. My own bed: the best phrase in the English language.

Very well, so a week was an exaggeration. I slept until the following day just before noon.

Mac brought a light lunch and I slept again until after dinner. I woke around six o’clock, unable to get the conversation with Nightwine out of my mind. His preening over what a success he had become was too much to bear. He could not possibly triumph after all we had done to stop him. Perhaps he was lying to discourage us. Saying something enough times and to enough people can sometimes cause it to occur. That was Sebastian Nightwine’s way. Take away the rank, the suave manner and pleasing looks and what have you got? Merely a confidence man with an unchecked opinion of his own worth.

I climbed out of bed and began to run a brush through my hair. Opening my wardrobe, I chose a suit reserved for when I was not in the office, brown with velvet lapels. I wore a white shirt with a soft collar, and a waistcoat of tan gabardine. I tied my favorite Liberty tie, an Indian paisley of red and gold. Lastly, I donned a pair of Barker-style spectacles that reduced the view of my eyes to a smoky brown haze. It was not mere affectation, but covered the purple bruises under my eyes.

Studying myself in the mirror, I couldn’t call myself handsome, but certainly stylish. I should fit in very well among the evening crowd at the Café Royal. It was time to ask Pollock Forbes what the government meant by fraternizing with the likes of Sebastian Nightwine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I suppose one cannot have everything, although I wouldn’t mind trying it sometime. I had long intended to visit the Café Royal during the dinner hour, but not with a face that looked like a summer peach left in the sun for two weeks too long. My cheeks and chin were tinted pink as if growing a new layer of skin. Had I bumped into Mr. Whistler I’m sure he would have asked to paint a rendering of my bruised eyes,
Nocturne in Purple and Puce.
I kept my spectacles on, though they made the dark, elegant room look even darker. People noticed and pointed me out to their neighbors as I passed, but then, that was the point of going there in the evening, to be seen and noticed and especially discussed. Who is that fashionably dressed young man with the roughened face and the dark spectacles? Isn’t he that detective fellow mentioned in the
Gazette
?

I finally spotted Forbes in a corner, talking with a tall woman with an ostrich-feather band that quivered as she spoke. He was dressed in the height of nouvelle fashion, with a navy-colored shirt and a white tie tucked into a charcoal-colored waistcoat. I regarded him for a moment, almost afraid to interrupt his evening with important matters. He was a contradiction, Forbes was. On the one hand, he dealt in vital political matters and concerns from the Continent, and on the other, he had to know the latest gossip, what people wore, and who was seen with whom. To him, perhaps, it was all one larger picture and I was too close to the canvas to make it all out.

Finally, unbidden, he caught my eye during one of those casual glances he made across the room every five minutes or so. He raised a brow, but whether it was my presence there, the sight of my injured face, or he was dazzled by my tie, I couldn’t be certain. Rather than approach him, I confiscated a table for two when the last patrons left and ordered some café mocha, which is even better than the mocha at the Barbados coffeehouse in St. Michael’s Alley, and that is saying something. I sat and sipped and waited. Five minutes later, give or take a minute, Forbes deposited his lean frame in the seat across from me.

“Well,” he said, at a loss for words for once. “You’re here.”

“Yes, and before you ask, I don’t know where Barker is. Thank you, by the way, for my stay in St. John’s Priory. Had I remained in a casual ward in Charing Cross, I’d probably be dead by now.”

“You certainly didn’t stay long,” he said, as a demitasse full of mocha was set in front of him, unbidden. I’d heard that on a good day he had as many as thirty of them. “I stopped in to see you and discovered you had gone. Really, Thomas, the doctors were only trying to help you get better.”

“I was removed from the ward without my knowledge by a woman who tended my wounds.”

Pollock Forbes opened his mouth to make some comment, probably at my expense, but closed it again. He was known for his diplomacy, after all.

“Glad that you survived it,” he finally said.

“I spoke to Nightwine yesterday,” I told him, stirring the cocoa at the bottom of my cup. “He was insufferable. Surely he can be stopped somehow.”

“I don’t see how. His plan, audacious as it is, is simply too good to pass up. I mean, my God, man, we could practically own the whole of Asia by 1900! That’s earth-changing.”

“He says they’re going to make him a brigadier general.”

“It gets worse than that, Thomas. I have it on authority that he’s getting a knighthood. That’s only the start. Remember, Disraeli became Earl of Beaconsfield when he made Victoria an empress.”

“Meanwhile, Barker has a price on his head.”

“I’ve done what I could,” Forbes said. “You have no idea the prejudice against your employer at the moment. Military deserter, possible murderer. You know, he’s never given a reasonable explanation of how he acquired his wealth in China. There’s even a popular concern over his beliefs as a Baptist. It’s out of fashion, whereas Nightwine’s are more … worldly, shall we say?”

“Old-fashioned,” I repeated, thinking of Mrs. Ashleigh.

“I beg pardon?”

“Nothing. So, would you say that the conflict between the Guv and Nightwine has become common knowledge?”

Pollock Forbes shook his head like he was a schoolmaster and I a wayward pupil. “No. I’m saying you can walk into any betting establishment in London and find out that not only are there bets that one will destroy the other, either figuratively or literally, but the odds are three to one in Nightwine’s favor.”

“Is that even possible?” I asked, more to myself than him.

“Of course it is. You can be sure Nightwine has placed a wager on himself to win as well and told his friends to do the same. He’s in this to win. Every pound he makes is used to influence someone. The more irons you place in the fire the less chance the flame will go out. Do you know what Barker should be doing? Instead of disappearing, he should be showing his face any and everywhere.”

“But he’s got a price on his head,” I pointed out. “Five hundred pounds.”

“Who is stupid enough to go after Cyrus Barker? Would someone pull a gun on him, knowing how good a shot he is? Would someone dare take hold of his sleeve, knowing he’d wake up in hospital, if not the morgue?”

“So, some are betting on Barker, then.”

“Aye,” he said, reminding me that like the Guv, Forbes was a Scot. “And you can tell his supporters everywhere. Like yourself, they’re all wearing colored spectacles.”

In spite of my cut lip, I couldn’t help but smile and think of a box of spectacles I’d seen in a shop window. I had Soho Vic to thank for that.

“It’s become common knowledge, then.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he admitted. “It isn’t in the newspapers per se, though any news on Barker is quickly exploited. The odds rose significantly in his favor when he was cleared of the charges against Clayton.”

“Have you placed any bets yourself? I notice you’re not wearing the dark lenses.”

“I cannot be seen to take one side over another, if I wish to continue to do my work. If I decided to have a flutter on the side, that’s my business.”

I looked at him hard. Every Scotsman enjoys a good gamble, or so my father always said. Did Pollock bet where his pocketbook told him to, or did he go for the sentimental favorite?

Another cup arrived. Who knows what number Forbes was on? I could feel my body thrumming with the stimulant.

“Pollock,” I heard myself say. “Do you know where the Guv is?”

“You’re asking me?” he said, tapping his chest.

“Yes, I am. I need him to know something. Something very important about the case.”

“Sorry, old man. I honestly would tell you if I knew. He hasn’t confided in me or anyone else that I know about. He could have sailed to the Continent, for all I know, though I doubt it. He doesn’t like to leave London for very long.”

I drank my cup and looked at him speculatively.

“What?” he finally asked.

“I hold an awfully large piece of this puzzle, one that even Barker doesn’t have. If I die, the information would die with me.”

“Why not tell me, then? Is it because I wouldn’t tell you which way I would bet?”

“Something like that. When we were last here, he told me that while you generally helped him, your interests are mainly for the good of London itself. Or the government, or the empire. I forget precisely how he put it. In other words, he trusts you, but your main concern is not necessarily the welfare of Cyrus Barker and his agency.”