The Vanishing Thief (23 page)

Emma was dancing again, this time with a dandy dressed like Voltaire. How the man waltzed while balancing a flowing powdered wig and with a half mask blocking his vision, I couldn't guess. They made a graceful pair, and I noticed the wizard and Henry VIII watching them as closely as I. I was surprised the wizard hadn't asked her to dance yet. Maybe the Frenchman had beaten him to Emma's side. Her beauty was difficult to ignore.

I continued my circuit of the room. The music changed, and I saw Emma dancing with Henry VIII again. When I stopped and looked around, I heard a smooth male voice in my ear. “Let's go out into the garden, Miss Fenchurch.”

I spun around and found myself facing a black half mask and a tall, white wig. Looking down, I saw pale blue knee breeches and black shoes with silver buckles. There were a half dozen identical costumes at this ball. “Who are you, and what have you done with Marie Antoinette?”

“Unlike her, I'm trying not to lose my head. Nicholas Drake, at your service.” He gave me as much of a bow as he could manage with bodies squishing us from all directions and his wig threatening to topple off his head.

“How did you know it was me?”

“I'd like to say it was a brilliant deduction, but the Duke of Blackford told me what you would wear. I wanted you here to assure my safety.”

I'd never been in a situation where I was less able to assure his well-being. All I had was a ceremonial dagger, and we were being pushed on from every direction. “Why have you come here? There must be safer places for you to hide.”

“I received a tempting proposition from the Duke of Blackford. This seemed the safest place for us to negotiate. He arranged for my invitation.” Even with his mouth next to my ear, I had to guess at every other word.

My suspicions of the duke intensified. “What proposition?” I found I was nearly bellowing in Drake's ear to be heard.

“We can't talk in here. Let's go out in the garden.”

I trusted Drake almost as much as I trusted the Duke of Blackford. Putting a hand over my dagger, I nodded and followed him outside.

The veranda near the doors was well lit with gas lamps. The music and the laughter from inside poured over us. The garden beyond was a mass of shadows cast by hanging lanterns and thick bushes. While this dark area would be a great place for a tryst, it wouldn't be good for a business meeting. Or preventing an attack.

Drake nodded his head toward the garden. “That way. It's too loud and public here.”

“And much safer.”

He laughed, a seductive sound if I were to fancy him. I didn't, but I could understand why the young debutantes flocked around him. “I didn't take you for a coward. Come on. I won't hurt you.”

No, he wouldn't. That was why I wore a dagger.

We walked a little way into the garden and looked around to make certain we wouldn't be overheard. “We had your house under watch. You were safe there. Why come here tonight?”

“No place is safer than in the middle of a crowd.”

He might sound foolhardy, but I saw how his eyes glanced all around him. He was scared. “What is the duke's proposition?” I whispered.

“All of my blackmail material in exchange for a sizable sum of money and two first-class passages to Canada.”

“It sounds like a good deal. You should take it.”

He shook his head and glanced around, making certain no one was approaching. “I want assurances.”

“What kind of assurances?”

“The kind that doesn't have me handing over the letters only to get a knife in the back.”

“I think if the Duke of Blackford wanted to double-cross you, you would already be dead.”

“Are you positive he isn't the one who's sent his thugs to kill me?” Despite the shadows, I saw him raise an eyebrow.

I considered my answer. “Yes. He's done everything to make himself look guilty, including lying to the Archivist Society and planning whatever is supposed to happen here tonight. But I'm certain he's not the person threatening your safety. He doesn't threaten. He just acts without warning or explanation.”

“Thank you for that robust defense of my honor.” I peered into the thick shadows away from the house where the deep, ironic voice came from. Then a highwayman stepped out of the darkness. Black half mask, black tricorn hat, a pistol tucked into the black sash at his waist. Straight black hair gleaming in the light of a hanging lantern. The only white was his shirt. I suspected there was a knife strapped to his forearm under the loose sleeves.

The air fairly hummed with danger, and I could have sworn I smelled gunpowder mixed in with the scent of spring flowers.

I glanced from Drake to the duke. There was no comparison. The duke raised my heart rate. Drake annoyed me.

Wanting answers to the mysteries he left in his wake, I took a step toward him. “We need to talk, Your Grace.”

“No time for that now. Stand guard while Mr. Drake and I negotiate.”

Drake took a couple of steps into the darkness and I stood next to a tall bush, keeping an eye out for anyone entering or leaving the veranda. I rubbed my hands up and down my bare upper arms as I grew chilled standing outside. The overwarm, overbright ballroom looked more appealing by the moment.

I could hear the two men talking behind me in low, strident tones. There were no other sounds of footsteps or voices nearby, and the only time I could hear the music was when someone opened the French doors. It was peaceful out there. Unfortunately, I was only aware of being cold and bored.

To fend off boredom and, I admit, to satisfy my curiosity, I tried to hear what the two men had to say to each other. I thought I heard a large sum of money mentioned and decided that couldn't be right. A couple, a Harlequin and an Elizabeth I, started in my direction and I moved a little. They must have wanted privacy because they turned toward the far side of the garden.

Between the gasps and giggles at a distance and Drake and the Duke of Blackford muttering figures closer at hand, the evening was less boring but still chilly. I tried counting stars but the sky was too cloudy. I resisted the growing urge to tell the two men to make up their minds before the ball ended.

Just as I ran out of patience, they approached me. “Miss Fenchurch, if you'd come with us,” Drake said. “For a sum of money that the duke is going to remove from the bank tonight, I'm going to hand over all my . . . incriminating papers. I'd like you along to assure fair dealing.”

“How do you plan to get into a bank at this hour?”

“Sir Izzy Fairweather is in the card room. I'll ask him to join us,” the duke said.

“And the papers?”

“Are in a safe box in his bank,” Drake said.

The duke laughed. “Wise man.”

Amazing how the letters Drake held and the duke's money were both in the bank owned by a guest at the ball. Some people would call that a coincidence. Knowing how much the Duke of Blackford had interfered, I suspected he'd somehow learned where the papers were and made certain the money and the banker were available tonight.

We'd reached the French doors. “I need to tell Emma all is well and to enjoy the ball without me.”

“No need. Sumner is here watching out for her, and I'm sure you have guards here, too. We'll bring you back as soon as our business is finished.”

Sir Izzy Fairweather, dressed as a portly Lord High Justice in judicial wig and gown, appeared overjoyed to see us and rose from the card table immediately. As I collected my cloak, I heard him grumble to Blackford, “You'll drop me off at home after we stop by the bank? I've had enough of Arlington's kind regards for everyone in my family. The man must want something, and it's difficult to say no to your host.”

The duke gallantly swung my cloak over my shoulders, one hand tenderly grazing my neck. For an instant, I felt as if I belonged in this dress, in these jewels, with these men.

As soon as I stepped outside, Fogarty approached me, reminding me of my place in society. “It's all right,” I told him. “Emma is still inside. Watch out for her. I should be back shortly. If I'm not, question Blackford.”

I entered the carriage with the Duke of Blackford, Sir Izzy, and Drake. In the hours between the beginning and the end of a ball, the roads to the City appeared empty compared to the workday. We were soon at the bank, where the night guard recognized Sir Izzy and let us in.

All I was required to do was stand nearby and make sure all the papers from the safety box came into Blackford's possession and a stack of banknotes from Blackford's account was handed to Drake. The whole business took two minutes, and then we left the bank to the visible relief of the guard.

Blackford summoned a hansom cab for me and said, “Go back to the ball. I'll take the papers to Sir Broderick after I drop off Sir Izzy and then I'll join you there. I look forward to claiming a waltz.”

I stopped him with a hand on his sleeve before he sent the cabbie on his way. “I would love to waltz with you, Your Grace. But first, I must know. Why are you giving blackmail material you paid so much for to Sir Broderick?”

“There are only a few letters I'm interested in. It's best if Sir Broderick is in charge of the rest. He's famous for his discretion.” He gave my hand a squeeze and signaled the driver to take me back to the Arlingtons' ball.

I returned and handed my cloak to a servant. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, I could hear a lively dance tune from the orchestra. I walked past the card room, down the stairs, and into the ballroom, picturing myself at the center of the dance floor with the duke.

I didn't see Emma. Brightly costumed revelers filled my view in every direction, but I couldn't find the shimmering blue fabric.

Jacob, dressed in a formal footman's uniform now splattered with goo, frantically waved to me from a doorway in the corner of the room. I bolted toward him around chairs filled with wallflowers and chaperones.

“Georgia. Thank God. Emma was carried out of here not five minutes ago. She's been abducted.”

Chapter Twenty

I
GRABBED
Jacob's flailing arms. “What happened? Who carried Emma out?”

“I don't know. She looked fine the last time I saw her, dancing with a man in a wizard costume. Then I saw that same man carrying her down the servants' hallway. I ran after them, but the wizard knocked over two maids carrying trays of ices and strawberries along the back way to the dining room. In all the slipping and sliding, I lost the man carrying Emma. He escaped the house through the side door. And Emma was limp.”

The wizard. Not Price dressed as the angel of death. “Oh, good heavens. Where were they going?”

“I don't know.”

“Show me the route he took.” I held up my skirt to follow Jacob as fast as he ran. My feet skidded on the liquid left on the wooden floor. Once out the service door, we were on a dark, narrow path that led in two directions, to the garden or the street.

“Which way?” Jacob asked.

A glimmer close to the street caught my eye. I rushed forward and pointed, since my corset wouldn't allow me to bend enough to pick up the jewels.

Jacob reached down and swept up Emma's tiara. Her very expensive tiara. “No common thief would leave this behind,” he said, pocketing the crown.

A bulky shadow in worn clothing and a battered hat came up to us. “Georgia, Emma's been snatched. I couldn't stop him.”

“Oh, no, Fogarty. Did you see where Emma was taken?”

“I heard,” the ex-policeman said. “He told the driver Chelling Meadows. I couldn't get a good shot at the man in the funny robes without hitting Emma.”

“That's all right,” I said. “We'll save Emma.”

Fogarty was pacing in front of me. “I told your driver to come around front and I told the bobby on this beat to get word to Scotland Yard.”

“Chelling Meadows used to be Hancock's home,” I told them. “I don't know who lives there now. It's past Holland Park. We'll have to go there at once.” Why had the villain taken Emma to Hancock's former home? Then I remembered Emma telling me Hancock still worked in his laboratory there. I was embarrassed by my failure to realize who Drake's enemy was and ready to rip Hancock apart.

“I saw that ugly brute that works for Blackford jump on the back of the carriage. He must have had orders to follow if either of you were abducted from the ball. They should have reached Chelling Meadows by now.” Fogarty helped me into the unmarked carriage that had brought us here.

“That must be Sumner you saw. Was Hancock's niece with them?”

“No. I noticed the man in a wizard costume talking to a young, blond shepherdess shortly before he asked Emma to dance. The shepherdess could have been his niece. Whatever he said, she shook her head no and went off to dance with someone in a knight costume,” Jacob said as he and Fogarty piled in behind me and our driver started to pick his way around the other carriages.

“The wizard was alone when I spotted him carrying Emma. She appeared to be unconscious,” Fogarty said. “I think she was still alive.”

My heart squeezed tight. I had to save Emma. We finally broke free of the tangle of carriages and rode out past Kensington Palace and Holland Park.

“Why does it have to be out in the country?” I asked. Traffic had been heavy through town and our trip was slow. I could have run faster. It was all Fogarty could do to keep me from bolting from the carriage.

“This isn't the country anymore,” Fogarty told me. “He still owns the house and grounds, but the estate has been sold off and built up. Part of the London suburbs now.”

“Are we ever going to get there?” Tears were filling my eyes.

“If he drove the horses any faster, we'd tip over on a curve,” Fogarty said. “Jacob, are you armed?”

“I've got my knife.”

“I have a dagger,” I added.

“Can you throw it?” Fogarty asked me.

“No, but I'll have no problem stabbing him in the heart. Poor Emma. She's so young. What did he do to her?” I started to pull the weapon out of its sheath, but Fogarty put out a hand to stop me.

“Leave it where it is until we know there's no other way.”

Fogarty stopped the driver on the road in front of Chelling Meadows and told him to wait for us. Then we climbed down and entered the grounds past a tall wrought-iron fence. None of us spoke as we stepped through knee-high weeds and around a dry fountain, Fogarty leading the way with a lantern from the carriage.

The house loomed before us, an old three-story structure with a two-story wing on one side and the crumbling remains of a conservatory on the other. Every window was dark.

Fogarty turned the knob on the front door and it opened with a creak. We walked inside the empty front hall, expecting to be challenged by a thug at any moment. The only footsteps and breaths we heard were our own.

Holding the lantern ahead of us, Fogarty was the first to see the wire across the doorway in front of us. He held up his hand, and we stopped. He stuck his head into the space beyond and looked around. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into the next room, pushing the lantern ahead of him.

When Fogarty was through, he stood up and gestured to the side. I stuck my head over the wire and saw it went to the stopper of a glass vial perched on top of a barrel of whitish powder. Hancock was an inventor of weapons. I guessed this was one of his creations.

Fogarty carefully unhooked the wire from the loops on either side of the doorway and pushed it to the side. Now no one could accidently trigger the fire or explosion or whatever Lord Hancock had planned. We walked on, smelling wood rot and stale air, until we reached the back of the house, where we found a door with light showing underneath.

Fogarty set down his lantern and pulled out his pistol. Then, with a nod, he pushed open the door and the three of us spilled into the room.

I had never seen a room like it before. Once it had been a small ballroom, but now it was covered with tables holding glass vials in metal stands with gas jets underneath, glass tubes running from glass jar to glass jar, and clear containers of different-colored powders and liquids. In one corner, barrels were stacked up. The air smelled of sulfur and coal fires and spices.

In the very center in the crossroads of two aisles, Emma sat bound to a large wooden chair with thick ropes. Her head drooped forward. There was blood on her skirt. I reached for my dagger.

Fogarty put out a hand to stop me.

“I'm glad someone in your group has some sense.” Lord Hancock, in a heavy canvas coat like the one Lady Westover wore for gardening, stood facing us a few feet away from Emma. He stood behind a table three rows back, measuring an orange powder into a beaker.

Emma looked up then, and I saw relief in her eyes. She tried to squirm, but she was tied too tightly to move more than a shiver. Then she glanced upward.

That was when I noticed the beaker of clear liquid poised over Emma's head. It was held in place by a rope and pulley that ran through a glass dish containing a reddish jelly. The dish was on a metal stand. A few inches beneath the dish sat an upright tubular gas jet, and Lord Hancock stood near the gas jet. He set down the beaker and picked up a friction match.

“Would you like a demonstration of how this works? I'd love to show you, but I don't think your friend would like the outcome. Acid causes such frightful burns.”

I thought for a moment I'd throw up. Emma was so incredibly beautiful, inside and out. I'd never once regretted my decision years before to take her in. She was my sister in all but name, and at that moment she depended on me to save her. “Why did you abduct her from the ball?”

“You were the only two not announced by name. The Ice Queen and the Fire Queen? Really? I was certain you were from the interfering Archivist Society. If it weren't for you and the rest of your nosy group, I'd have Nicholas Drake and my papers. I'd be free to continue my work.”

I had to find a way to stop this madman. Taking a deep breath to steady my heartbeat, I said, “But why abduct Emma?”

“To use her for a trade, of course. Her life for Nicholas Drake and his papers.”

As long as he was talking, he wouldn't strike the match and Emma would be safe for the moment. “Why use Emma for a trade? Wouldn't anyone do?”

“She's part of the Archivist Society. The society found Nicholas Drake. I want him. Turn him over to me. Now.” He waved the gas jet to his left. “And make this man disappear.”

Glancing in the direction he pointed, I saw Sumner standing with his weight on the balls of his feet and a knife poised in his hand. He and Fogarty seemed to have reached some sort of agreement with the slightest of moves.

Hoping I'd make a good distraction, I took two steps forward but I wasn't nearly close enough to pull Emma free. How long did we have until Hancock decided to act? The man was insane. “Why did you bring Emma here? I thought you'd moved out.”

“It's being stolen from me by my creditors. I used it to get loans to continue my research, but I've not been able to sell any of my ideas and couldn't repay the loans. They've been trying to take this away from me since last summer. My laboratory!”

“Why bring Emma here when you never let anyone in?”

“Because I knew you couldn't resist coming here to search for her. And I have the advantage of knowing every inch of my laboratory and what each chemical will do.”

I tried again. “Why are you doing all this?”

His sneer said he didn't think I was too bright. “Ultimately? Recognition in my field. My inventions in use by the British army. Respect. Drake stands in my way. He and those damnable papers will ruin me. I should have destroyed them long ago, but I didn't know about the one until recently when Drake told me what he'd stolen from Daisy. And I kept the other locked safely in here where only I would see it. That letter's a memento of my cleverness. That is, until Drake broke in here and stole my prize from me.”

“It wasn't very clever to let Drake gain the upper hand.” Seeing his eyes narrow and his grip on the gas jet tighten, I knew I'd erred badly. I held up my hands, palms out. “We're not experts in your field. And Drake knows nothing about weapons. He's not in a position to order your inventions. What do you want with him?”

“I don't want him. I want what he has. His blackmail papers.” Lord Hancock struck the match.

“What's in Drake's papers that you want?” Desperation clogged my voice. I knew Lord Hancock could hear it. I certainly could.

“That's none of your business.” He moved the match toward the gas jet as he turned it on.

“Wait! If it's a document or letter, Drake doesn't have it any longer.”

He turned off the gas and blew out the match. “What do you mean, ‘any longer'?”

“He sold all his papers. He handed them over to a buyer tonight. You don't have to worry about Nicholas Drake any longer.”

“Who did he sell them to?”

“The Duke of Blackford.”

“Bloody hell. He's worse to negotiate with than Drake. Where is he now?”

“I don't know. All I know is the duke said he's giving the papers to someone else. All of the papers.”

“Who?”

“Someone who would never harm you.” My voice rattled from my shivers.

“Who?” Louder this time.

“The head of the Archivist Society. Sir Broderick duVene.”

He stared at me for a moment before speaking, and I exhaled with exhaustion. I hadn't realized how stiffly I was holding myself in my terror over Emma's plight.

“He's giving all the blackmail letters to the head of the Archivist Society? After he paid good money for them? Why would he do that?”

I had captured Hancock's attention for the moment. I hoped I could hold it until someone thought of a way to stop him or to free Emma. “Blackford only wanted a few of them that belonged to him. He doesn't care about the rest of the letters.”

“It doesn't matter whether it's Blackford or Sir Broderick who reads them. Once those letters are read, I'm a dead man.” He began a crooning wail as he twisted his whole body from side to side.

“You're a dead man? Why? What could be so terrible?” Anything to keep him talking.

“Army headquarters rejected my latest invention today. The official said not to worry. Perhaps some other time.” He gave a hysterical laugh. “And the chair of the Royal Society told me they'll reconsider my application for full membership in the autumn. Said he was sorry. Nothing he could do. I need two useful inventions, not just one, to become a full member.”

His laugh turned into a sob. “I won't have another chance. My creditors will seize my laboratory. I'll hang. Anything that's left will go to either my creditors or a distant cousin as the next Lord Hancock. I'll miss out on the accolades and the successes that should have been mine. Mine! All my life I've had to take second place to someone else. My perfect older brother. Other scientists. Well, no more.” He held a match against the friction paper.