Bradamant hadn’t been the type to insist on formality while Irene reported back. No, they’d always sat together or facing each other, as comfortable as one could possibly ask. And every time Irene had tried to explain something, she had been wrong. Always.
Bradamant considered the reply, clearly looking for holes. “You could have given him a story about a secret society,” she said. “That’s what I told Inspector Singh.”
Irene was going to answer in the negative again, say something like I didn’t think that it would work or I couldn’t think of a way to make it convincing, when she felt Kai’s eyes on her. He clearly understood what they were saying. He was looking at her with something that took her a moment to identify as trust, as expectation that she could handle things. She had to deserve that trust.
She composed herself, took a firm grip on her cup of coffee, and turned to meet Bradamant’s eyes. “I took a field decision that Vale would be more useful and cooperative if he knew the truth—well, some of the truth,” she said. “In this place and time, I am not a courtier to present an opinion to a king, but a general in the field, expected to handle things as they arise for the good of the Library. Vale is a highly intelligent man, well-informed on the current situation and trained in noticing discrepancies. Alberich had already made reference to the Library, and I was forced to use my own abilities to break free from his trap.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kai relax a fraction, leaning back into his chair. “An incomplete story would only have roused Vale’s distrust. We have enough enemies in this place and time as it is . . . Belphegor.”
Bradamant snorted. “My actions were a valid response to the situation.”
“Do you still have the books?”
Bradamant hesitated a moment. Possibly she could guess what Irene was about to suggest. “I do. Some of them are rarities, you know. They would be appreciated by other Librarians.”
“I have no doubt,” Irene said wryly. “You have always had excellent taste. But it may be necessary to return those stolen books to their owners in order to secure cooperation.”
Bradamant put down her toast very deliberately and stared at Irene. “You have no authority to order me to do such a thing. Or are you planning to turn me over to your new friends instead?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Irene said, and tried to ignore the mental voice that pointed out that yes, it would certainly convince Vale and Singh that she was on their side. And Bradamant could easily escape from any prison cell anyway. “I am assuming that you were sent by one of our superiors. Why?”
“To find the Grimm book,” Bradamant answered. “And, yes, let me reassure you: I do have orders from one of our superiors to that effect.”
Irene tried not to show her relief. Bradamant was still loyal to the Library. A number of unpleasant possibilities had just been ruled out. Even if there was some sort of internal dispute going on inside the Library about who was supposed to be fetching the damned book, at least she didn’t have to worry about Bradamant being in league with Alberich. “It’s possible that our target is one of those books that’s linked to the whole alternate,” she said. “The fact that Alberich’s after it shows just how important it is. And you could only know of my mission from someone highly placed. Surely these factors make it an absolute priority for us to work together to find the book and bring it to the Library? Or do you have some other goal?”
Bradamant brushed crumbs off her fingers. The toast lay on her plate, slowly cooling. “Certainly my highest priority is to bring the book back,” she replied. “But I cannot see why Alberich should want to kill you. It isn’t as if you have the book.”
“And you do?” Kai put in, his tone highly formal. But it wasn’t the formality of junior to senior: it was the formality of someone with authority in his own right, to a peer in another discipline.
From the look on his face, he realized that a second too late.
Bradamant didn’t seem to mind. She graced him with a delicate smile, and Irene wondered if anyone who didn’t know her would have recognized the calculation in her eyes. “If I did,” she said, “I wouldn’t be here now.”
“I think we would profit from a council of war,” Irene said. “Or we will all assuredly hang separately.”
Bradamant thought about it, dusting her fingers again and again until not even the smallest crumb could have remained on them. Finally she said, “I will agree to that much. For the moment.”
Irene nodded. She turned towards the door. “You can come in now, gentlemen,” she called. She’d have been listening if it had been the other way round, after all.
Vale opened the door and held it for Singh to enter. Both men looked a little irritated, Singh more than Vale—but then, Irene reminded herself, who knew what Bradamant had been telling him last night? There were few things worse than thinking you knew everything about secret goings-on and then finding out you’d been fed a nice plausible mess of lies.
Vale occupied his armchair again. Singh looked at Kai in a way that suggested that he usually got the comfortable chair Kai was sitting in, then pulled over the high-backed chair from by the desk. He cleared off a stack of newspapers and settled down with a snort, flipping out notebook and pen.
“I have been discussing the situation with Inspector Singh here,” Vale said. He steepled his fingers. “It has become quite clear that we are all in pursuit of the same thing. Several members of the Iron Brotherhood were questioned last night, with Madame Bradamant’s cooperation”—he nodded to Bradamant—“which has established some interesting facts.”
“May I ask what you’ve found?” Irene said, glancing at Kai, who looked impatient for news.
Inspector Singh regarded her with the same wary distrust that he was displaying towards Bradamant. What fun.
“You may recall the explosion a couple of nights ago, under the Opera House?”
“I’m afraid I only know the very basic details about that,” Irene said. “Was it related to the Iron Brotherhood?”
Inspector Singh nodded. “It was indeed, madam. They happened to meet there, and unfortunately the blast took out a number of their more senior members.”
“Unfortunately?” Kai said. “Surely, if these people are criminals . . .”
Inspector Singh shook his head. “Your reaction is understandable, sir, but you must understand that we have infiltrated some of these societies to a degree. We know who runs them, Mr. Strongrock, and we know who’s in charge. We have some idea of which way they’re going to jump in a crisis, even if we can’t bring any charges against them. For the moment,” he added ominously. “The unfortunate result of this little affair was that a woman of whom we know little is now leading the society. The Grand Hammer, I believe they call her. And this woman is, shall we say, an unknown quantity. I don’t like unknown quantities, Mr. Strongrock. They don’t fill my notebook and they don’t go to prison as they should.”
Irene leaned forward. “Are you saying, Inspector, that this ‘unknown quantity’ is linked to last night’s events at the Liechtenstein Embassy?”
“You would be quite correct, Miss Winters,” Inspector Singh said. He rearranged his lips in a thin, distrustful smile. “Now, from what Mr. Vale here has told me, I’m inclined to wonder if this woman is linked to the person you know as ‘Alberich.’ Given that one of the aims of last night’s little exposition, alligators and all, was to search Lord Silver’s rooms while he was otherwise occupied.”
“For a book,” Vale interjected.
“Indeed,” Inspector Singh agreed. “That’s what our questioning confirmed. For a very specific book. The same book that was stolen from Lord Wyndham recently by a certain thief. Or should I say believed to have been stolen?” He shot a glance at Bradamant. His face was inexpressive enough, but his eyes were very dark and very angry.
Bradamant seemed to crumple in on herself. If she had had a handkerchief, no
doubt she would have held it to her eyes and sniffled bravely. As it was, her lower lip quavered and her eyes were wide and limpid. “If Irene has told you about the Library,” she said, “then there’s nothing more that I can say. I admit that I took”—Irene admired her careful avoidance of the word stolen—“some books in order to make the Grimm’s disappearance look unimportant. But I certainly didn’t kill Lord Wyndham. Why would I have wanted to? I didn’t even know the man.”
Irene raised her hand to get Vale’s and Singh’s attention.
“Would you mind if I ask Bradamant a couple of questions, gentlemen? To fill in a part of the story on my side.”
“Certainly, Miss Winters,” Vale said. Singh gave her a brief nod.
Irene turned back to Bradamant. “I saw a card in Wyndham’s safe. It was embossed with a gold mask and signed with the name Belphegor. Was that you?”
Bradamant sighed. “Yes. It was. I had the plans of the house from a local contact—”
“This Dominic Aubrey person?” Vale cut in.
Bradamant glanced to Irene, with an I see you’ve been giving away all our local secrets look, then nodded. “He and Wyndham had been acquaintances for a while. I think Aubrey may have actually been rather indiscreet in what he told Wyndham, but that’s a different problem.” Just as you’ve been with Vale, was the unspoken message. “Anyhow, I came in by the roof while Wyndham was at his party downstairs. It was comparatively easy to deactivate the alarms on the display-case where he kept the book—”
“Oh, was it now,” Singh muttered.
“—and after I’d taken the book, I left the card in the case before leaving, by the roof again. I don’t know why it should have been in the safe.” She shrugged.
“What time was this?” Singh asked.
“About half past eleven,” Bradamant answered. “The party was in full swing downstairs. I didn’t expect anyone to come up to Wyndham’s study at that point.”
Singh nodded. He turned to Irene. “According to our forensic specialists, Lord Wyndham was slaughtered somewhere between midnight and one o’clock. It is difficult to tell with vampires, but the fact that his head was found on the palings outside at one o’clock gives us some idea of the time frame.”
Irene wasn’t sure whether that was supposed to be a joke. “I see,” she said neutrally. “So in that case, who put the card in the safe? Lord Wyndham himself?”
“It seems the most likely hypothesis,” Vale agreed. “The man—I apologize, the vampire—was beheaded in his study, at his desk. Some of the other guests at the party said that he went upstairs at midnight, saying that he was going to arrange a surprise.”
Kai nodded. “So when he walked in to find the book gone, he determined to preserve Belphegor’s card for future investigation. Though it seems overly careful to put it in the safe rather than simply leave it in a drawer of his desk. But then he was attacked?”
“That is so,” Singh said. “By members of the Iron Brotherhood. I have information from some of our agents. We believe they must have been masquerading as guests. They simply lopped his head off, walked out normally, and impaled it upon the palings as they left.”
Irene frowned. “But then Wyndham’s murder was before the Opera explosion and change in command in the Brotherhood. Is there a connection?”
Singh and Bradamant traded glances. “That is a very interesting question, Miss Winters,” Singh said. “But at the moment, I am more interested in knowing the whereabouts of the book which Madame Bradamant stole.”
Bradamant regarded him stonily. “It was a fake.”
For a moment everyone was talking, mostly along the lines of What? and Are you certain?
“And I know it was a fake,” Bradamant said, cutting through the noise, “because when I took it back to my superior, he looked at it and then explained to me that he was not interested in facsimiles. Especially those which were missing certain relevant parts.”
“Which relevant parts?” Irene demanded. She was fairly sure who the superior in question must have been. Bradamant answered directly to Kostchei, just as Irene answered directly to Coppelia. The possibility of someone else having been involved and giving Bradamant orders . . . well, it wasn’t impossible, but it was too unlikely. At the moment the principles of Occam’s razor, starting with the most obvious answer, seemed the best plan. “Did he tell you?”
“No,” Bradamant said bitterly. For a moment her face betrayed genuine emotion: anger, bitterness, and sheer thwarted curiosity. “I was given the strong impression that it was better for me not to know.”
Irene worked out times and dates in her head. “Then, when you met myself and”—she almost said Kai but caught herself in time—“Mr. Strongrock, on our way to our assignment, this was after you’d discovered the book was a fake?”
“It was,” Bradamant agreed. See how honest and forthcoming I’m being, her vague smile said, her expression under control again. “I thought that if I could intercept you on the way, then I could try to find the real book without your interference. Pardon my phrasing.”
“Of course,” Irene said blandly. She was conscious of the three men listening. “So after that, you decided to come through anyhow?”
“I had the advantage of already knowing this place,” Bradamant said. “I didn’t expect you to work as fast as you did.”
Irene glanced round at the three men. Somehow they shared a similar demeanour, whatever their reaction to this new information. Perhaps it was a kind of aristocratic poise, an in-built certainty that the world was going to cooperate with their needs.
She wished she shared it.
“Wyndham is the obvious candidate to have created the fake, since records show he had the original book,” Vale said briskly. “Inspector Singh, if you would—”
“Of course,” Singh said. He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. “The clerks and difference engines at the Yard have tabulated records of Lord Wyndham’s last few weeks. He only obtained the book two and a half weeks ago, at an auction of the late Mr. Bonhomme’s effects. And it was certified as genuine by the auction-house at the time, which resulted in a quite remarkable price being set on it.”
Vale nodded. “I managed to trace one of the proxy bids to Lord Silver, through the solicitor that he employed. We can be sure of his interest.”
“There were some threats after the auction too,” Singh went on. “This all resulted in the book being under tight guard. So if he had the fake made, then it was within that time period.”
“Could it have been done that quickly?” Irene asked, startled.
Vale leaned back in his chair. “There are precisely three forgers in London at the present moment who could have done it,” he said. “And even they would have taken at least two weeks to do so.”
“So there are,” Singh agreed. “And a delivery came from one of them—”
Vale held up a hand. “Matthias?”
“No, Levandis,” Singh said smugly.
“I thought Matthias was the one he’d dealt with before,” Vale said.
“Possibly why he chose not to deal with him this time,” Singh said. “In any case, one of our people was watching Levandis at the time—the Severn matter, you know—and she confirms that he was making daily trips to Wyndham’s house. The servants agree that he called, but they had him down as a workman doing some alterations on the panelling in Wyndham’s study. They can confirm that was where he was spending his time daily. He sent a final delivery to Wyndham three days before Wyndham’s murder and didn’t visit again after that.”
Vale nodded. “Convenient.”
“Sometimes we get lucky,” Singh agreed. “She wasn’t able to determine what was going on at the time, but given this other business . . .”
“Wait,” Kai said, frowning. “Assuming that Wyndham had a forgery made for some reason and then displayed it, what did he d
o with the original?”
“He hadn’t given it to Lord Silver,” Irene said thoughtfully, remembering the encounter in Wyndham’s study. She saw Singh’s lips twitch in an expression of distaste. “Silver was searching Wyndham’s study and his safe, and I think it was the book that he was looking for . . . Maybe Wyndham had intended to give it to Silver, or promised it to him.”
“If Silver’s involved, there could be all sorts of reasons Wyndham might have had a fake made,” Bradamant agreed. “If the book was hugely valuable, Wyndham might have wanted to safeguard it by only displaying the fake. Or perhaps he meant it as bait for Silver to attempt to steal it; we know that the Fae love things they can’t have. Also they had a very close, if antagonistic relationship at times—the papers have made a great deal of that. Maybe Wyndham wanted to show off by loaning Silver the real thing, or had even promised him it to repay a favour. Or maybe he meant to fob him off with the fake. It’s impossible to know without questioning Silver.”
Or maybe the copy was meant for Alberich, Irene thought. Was that where Alberich fitted in all this? But if that was the case, then why didn’t Alberich already have the book?
“Lord Silver was certainly Wyndham’s best-known ally and contact,” Vale was saying. “As well as one of his best-known enemies. Fae relationships.” His lips pursed in disapproval. “But in that case, the book may still be in Wyndham’s house.”
Singh was shaking his head. “If it is, sir, then it’s very well hidden.” Irene suspected the sir was due to the presence of outsiders. “We, ah, searched the place thoroughly after Lord Wyndham’s murder. We did find a number of interesting items and documents, which have been enlightening with respect to other cases, but the Grimm book was not there.”
“It could perhaps be very well hidden,” Kai said hopefully.
“We had our best searchers on the job, Mr. Strongrock,” Singh said, in a tone that closed the subject.
“So the real book is not in Wyndham’s house,” Irene reiterated, thinking aloud, “and the forgery Bradamant stole couldn’t have been started until Wyndham actually had the book. This would have taken at least two weeks to create. So was it moved during that period or copied before it arrived?” She turned to Singh. “Can we confirm that the book entered Wyndham’s house directly after the auction and remained in a public place there until it was stolen?”
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