The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne

by Elsa Hart

  She was on the second floor. Covo’s voice still reached her faintly from below. “The greater the secret, the higher the price of keeping it,” he was saying. “Just as a bright jewel is more difficult to conceal than a dull one, a valuable secret is more difficult to silence. You understand I am a businessman.” He spoke in a voice Cecily had not heard him use before, a cold voice rimed with greed. She listened until she heard the reply. For now, the diversion was working.

  The voices faded to silence as she continued her ascent through the house. Her destination was the single lit room she had seen from outside, its window glowing like an open eye in the night. She kept it firmly in mind as she made her way up narrow staircases and along hallways. The walls around her seemed to crawl with creatures animated by the pale moon. Lizards surrounded alligators like supplicants flanking their king. Horseshoe crabs and turtle shells studded the spaces between specimen jars, the floating occupants of which pressed their faces, claws, and paws to the glass as if trying to escape.

  At last she reached the uppermost floor. There was a closed door at the end of the hall with a seam of golden light beneath it. She moved cautiously forward, tensing her body in her effort to be silent. Between her and the door, two marble statues stood facing each other. As she passed between them, she imagined she could feel their breath, cold on her cheeks like air hovering above a frozen pond.

  There was silence from inside the lit room. Cecily turned the doorknob and pushed the door slowly open. She repressed a cry of relief as she rushed forward. Meacan’s eyes, which had met hers with glittering fury when she first entered, widened in surprise. Through the cloth that gagged her mouth she made an incoherent sound of joy. In an instant Cecily had removed the gag.

  Meacan’s whispered words were harsh with her effort to restrain her excitement. “You are real.”

  Cecily assessed her anxiously. Meacan was seated in a chair with her arms behind her and her wrists bound. Her appearance was disheveled and there was a cut on her cheek surrounded by a swollen bruise. “Of course I’m real. Are you alright?”

  “Not badly hurt,” said Meacan. She squeezed an eye shut, testing the wounded side of her face, and winced. “And as to whether you’re real, there’s no of course about it. There has been far too much talk of spirits and demons for me to trust my eyes.” She looked over Cecily’s shoulder at the door. “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs,” whispered Cecily. “We must be quiet.” She moved around to the back of the chair and began to work on the bindings. The rope was thin, the knots difficult to pick apart in the weak light.

  “You know he killed Sir Barnaby,” Meacan whispered.

  “Yes.”

  Meacan twisted in the chair, pulling at the ropes. “Do you know why?”

  “Yes. Stop moving.”

  Meacan stilled obediently. “All I know,” she whispered, “is that he did it for that.”

  Cecily glanced up and saw that Meacan was looking at a group of boxes arranged neatly on the floor. She recognized the objects of the Rose collection at once. Nestled in the padded compartments designed to accommodate them, they appeared untroubled by their recent relocation. The room around them, she now realized, was lined with bookshelves and filled with maps and globes. In the moving light of candles, the duplicated surfaces of the world were spread in a bewildering display of wrinkled shorelines and painted oceans.

  As Cecily returned her attention to the knot, wondering whether to search the room for a knife to cut it, Meacan continued to whisper. “He came for it when I was in the Mayne house. I think he would have killed me, but I was lucky. He asked me what I knew about the Rose collection. I told him that I knew everything, and that he’d be sorry if he silenced me. That’s why he brought me here. I haven’t said a word, though. It seemed wisest to pretend as long as possible to know more than I do.”

  Cecily had freed one knot only to find another. “We have to get out quickly. I don’t know how long Covo will be able to keep his attention.”

  “Covo is here?”

  “And he brought help. They’re waiting outside. I didn’t want to risk a confrontation before we found you.”

  “I hope he brought his strongest,” said Meacan.

  “Why?”

  “You don’t think I was overpowered by one person, do you? The villain has—”

  The quiet was suddenly broken by distant shouts and crashes. Then Cecily heard a sound that made her breath catch. There were footsteps coming toward the room. “Hurry,” whispered Meacan.

  But it was too late. Cecily had time only to whisper a single sentence before two figures appeared at the door. The first was the man who had attacked Cecily in the field. As he entered the room, she noticed that he limped. When he recognized her his lips spread into a terrible smile, and his eyes glittered with promised violence. As he advanced toward her, a word from the door stopped him mid-stride. He retreated to a corner of the room, his gaze still fixed on the two women. The man behind him stepped into the light of the candles. With dread, but without surprise, Cecily beheld the face of Giles Inwood.

  Even now, Inwood’s face retained the expression of trustworthy charm that was natural to it. He spoke politely. “I must request that you cease your efforts to untie Mrs. Barlow. If you do not, I will be obliged to put an end to this more quickly than either of us would like.”

  Slowly, Cecily stood and came around from behind the chair. “Where is Covo?”

  “Signore Covo is no longer of consequence to the evening,” said Inwood. “Nor are his friends. I am curious how you—” He paused. A slightly rueful expression crossed his handsome features. “Ah yes, the broken door to the garden. I suppose I should be flattered that you were paying such close attention when you toured my collection.”

  Trying not to think about the possibility that Covo was dead, Cecily looked over Inwood’s shoulder at the dark hall. “If you are thinking of attempting to overpower me,” said Inwood, “I would advise against it. My associate has expressed his eagerness to address the very reasonable grievance he has against you and Mrs. Barlow. I have thus far dissuaded him, but I sympathize with the poor fellow. His leg pains him, you understand.”

  “It wouldn’t if you hadn’t sent him after Cecily,” said Meacan.

  Inwood was unruffled. “I had no desire to harm Lady Kay.” He addressed Cecily. “Had you limited your inquisitiveness to the names of plants, I think we might have enjoyed many conversations in years to come. It disappoints me that we will not have the opportunity to do so.”

  He wanted to talk, Cecily realized. And he was confident. If she could keep him that way, her task would be easier. “I cannot think my company will be such a great loss,” she said. “Now that you have what you wanted.” Her eyes dropped to the boxes on the floor.

  Inwood followed her look. “Attained at great cost and difficulty.” He spoke wistfully, but the self-satisfaction in his eyes belied his tone. “I want you to know, Lady Kay, that I took no pleasure in what I did. Just as you forced my hand, so did he.”

  Cecily tried to look deferential. “I believe I understand, but it would ease my mind to know whether my theory is correct. If this is to be our last conversation, may I request that it be an honest one?”

  Interest flickered in Inwood’s eyes. Cecily watched the battle between caution and arrogance play across his expression. Arrogance won. “Very well, Lady Kay. Tell me what it is you think you know.”

  For a moment Cecily hesitated. The truth was in her possession, but if they were to get out of the room alive, it had to be revealed in the proper order. Telling stories designed to fascinate was not her strength, and it occurred to her that their chance of survival might be higher if she and Meacan were in opposite places. She glanced at Meacan, and received in return a look of mystified encouragement that gave her strength.

  She drew in a breath and met Inwood’s eyes. “I believe that when you and Sir Barnaby had supper together on the night before the tour, he expressed his intentio
n to end the contract between you. He no longer trusted you to protect his collection after his death, for the reason that he had learned your investments in the recovery of sunken ships had left you deeply in debt. Am I correct?”

  Inwood’s eyebrows lifted in surprise and appreciation. “I am inclined to blame your friend Signore Covo for spreading rumors about my private affairs. Indeed, I cannot bring myself to regret that his place in our community will soon be filled by another. Perhaps I may even exert some small influence over the choice, and ensure the installation of someone more sympathetic to my interests. But that will not concern you.”

  Cecily ignored the fear his insinuations inspired. She continued calmly. “Sir Barnaby was worried that you would not be able to pay his widow, or to afford the expense of transferring and maintaining his objects. He could have altered the contract, reduced the amount you were required to pay, but I suspect his pride prevented him.”

  Inwood nodded. “He always had an inflated idea of the worth of his cabinets. But I will give my old friend the credit he is due. He had no sense that he was wronging me. In his mind, he was doing me a kindness by relieving me of my obligation. He expected me to be grateful. In the moment, I was able to convince him that I was.”

  “But that was not what you felt.”

  “No, it was not.” Inwood’s gaze slid to the Rose collection and he spoke with quiet fervor. “I had already waited longer than should have been required of me. To lose it entirely—that I could not accept.”

  Cecily willed his attention back to her. “You must have been even more upset when he told you that he had already made other plans,” she said. “Sir Barnaby was going to propose a new contract, one by which the Mayne collection would be purchased, upon his death, by Tsar Peter of Russia.”

  “Very astute,” said Inwood. “How did you come by this knowledge?”

  “The possibility occurred to me when I learned that Sir Barnaby had invited a diplomatic envoy from Russia named General Belyaninov to join the tour. I knew from Martha that the Tsar had admired the Mayne collection during his time in London. He had expressed to Sir Barnaby his desire to build his own cabinets, and to make them the most wondrous in the world. This year, the tide of the war between Russia and Sweden has turned. The Tsar is now poised to build a new capital, a city that will be the crown of his empire. I suspect it occurred to Sir Barnaby that this was the perfect opportunity to offer the Tsar a jewel to set in that crown. What better way to ensure the preservation of the Mayne collection than to house it in the glittering walls of a royal palace? I believe Sir Barnaby meant to propose the idea to General Belyaninov, and ask him to convey it to Tsar Peter.”

  “It was an elegant notion,” said Inwood. “But one I could not permit to succeed. Have you spoken to the general?”

  “I have.”

  “You what?” the astonished question came from Meacan, whose attention had been flickering warily between Inwood and his grim accomplice. “I’ve been tied to a chair, and you’ve established diplomatic ties with a foreign nation?”

  Inwood ignored Meacan. “That is unfortunate. I was hoping to keep him out of the matter entirely. But it is of no consequence. Whatever he thinks he was told by a—shall we say an unconventional woman—can be easily discredited. He and Sir Barnaby never spoke. That is the essential point.”

  “You knew,” said Cecily, “that if Sir Barnaby presented the plan to Belyaninov, then even if it took months to formalize a contract, should Sir Barnaby die, your claim could be challenged. You had to prevent them from meeting.”

  Inwood nodded. “I would have preferred to take my time and accomplish the thing in a simpler way, but I had precious few hours.”

  “You sent Belyaninov a message purporting to be from Sir Barnaby telling him the tour was canceled,” said Cecily. “But that only bought you time. You knew that Sir Barnaby would make another attempt to contact the general. You could not allow him to do so. He had to die.”

  Inwood looked grieved. “I did not want to do it,” he said. “I had been so patient. The collection was coming to me. I was the younger man by twenty years. I was content to wait for my friend, for he was my friend, to go peacefully to his rest. I wished that for him. It was his own action that necessitated a different end.”

  Cecily tried to appear sympathetic. She needed to keep him at ease. “It must have been a challenge to plan it,” she said. “With so little time, and in a house full of people.”

  Inwood’s expression turned self-congratulatory. “Oh, it was indeed, Lady Kay.”

  “To accomplish it,” Cecily continued, “you had to forge a second letter, one that would draw Sir Barnaby down to his study at a time you ordained.”

  “I wasn’t certain it would succeed,” said Inwood, with affected modesty.

  “But it did,” said Cecily. “He came downstairs as soon as he received your forged note. And you were waiting. As soon as you saw him go into his study alone, you went in after him.”

  “It was a terrible risk,” said Inwood. “I knew I would have to endure the suspicion of those who knew the collection was to come to me.”

  “Yes,” said Cecily, “but you trusted that suspicion would fade once word spread of the price you were required to pay for it.”

  “That is what I hoped, yes. Of course, we cannot fail to mention the remarkable turn of events that relieved a great deal of my fears.”

  Meacan spoke up. “You mean Walter Dinley’s confession.”

  Inwood nodded. “I still don’t know why the young fool did it.”

  “For love,” said Meacan. “Something about which you know very little.”

  “Well, I am most grateful to him,” said Inwood. “And if there is any word I can put in to reduce the agony of his execution—a clean hanging, perhaps—I will of course do so.”

  “Dinley’s confession was not your only piece of good fortune,” said Cecily. “In the end, Lady Mayne’s decision to auction the collection has relieved you of having to raise the money to pay her. Now you have in your possession the only part of the Mayne collection you ever really wanted. You have the cabinets of John Rose.”

  Inwood turned loving eyes to the boxes. “I could not risk them going to auction,” he said. “What if Lady Mayne, bearing some animosity toward me, refused my bid? What if the boxes had been separated?” He closed his eyes as if the idea pained him. When he opened them, his expression was peaceful. “Perhaps you are right, Lady Kay. Perhaps it has all been for the best. Few threats remain, and they will soon be gone. Allow me to say once more that I regret it must be so.”

  He spoke with the polite contrition of a host obliged to bring an evening’s light entertainment to an end. The illusion was broken by Meacan’s exasperated voice. “But why? Why so much trouble and death for the cabinets of John Rose?”

  Inwood looked slightly disappointed. “You do not know, Mrs. Barlow?”

  Meacan’s considered. “Well, we—”

  “Rose told him,” said Cecily, cutting her off. “Rose told him about the shipwrecks.”

  Inwood turned slowly back to Cecily. “Lady Kay, you do not cease to amaze. Yes, he told me.”

  “I imagine it was when you met him in the West Indies,” said Cecily. “Shortly before his death.”

  Inwood bent down over the nearest box and plucked from a compartment the tiny, white skull of a bird. He turned it over gently in his hands. “I recall it as if it were yesterday. A storm had taken the island into a violent embrace. From his cottage we could hear the roar of the waves and the crack of breaking trees. The air was sharp with salt and sand. On that tormented isle, John Rose was the only creature who was at peace. The hour ordained by God for him to depart this world was approaching. I had no hand in his end, I assure you, Lady Kay. Nothing could be done. But thanks to the medicines I brought him, he felt no pain. If only you could have seen the gratitude that shone in his eyes as he lifted them to heaven, thanking God that in the very hour of his death, the Almighty had brought him
a man worthy of the secret he had thought to carry to his grave.”

  Cecily concentrated her strength into her words. “John Rose had devoted his life to seeking out the remote paths of the earth. He had sailed into coves visible only from a single vantage point, and only when the sun and mist meet as lovers between spring storms. He had journeyed through deserts that had long ago been oceans, where the masts of ancient ships and hands of stone colossi reach up from beneath the sand. He had read every tale of an ill-fated voyage ever scrawled or printed, from accounts of treasures sent as gifts to win princesses that never arrived at their destination to diaries charting the courses of the ships that sailed victorious from Troy. He had listened to every rumor whispered by every sailor, captain, and pirate drunk and dreaming of unimaginable wealth.”

  Inwood listened, rapt. His eyes shone as if with fever, reflecting the glitter of a thousand jewels and the gleam of golden doubloons heaped high like hoarded suns. He spoke. “Rose never claimed the treasures he found, and he never spoke of them to anyone. Madness, perhaps, but what wondrous madness. Instead of taking them for himself, he hid everything that he found, every coordinate and distance and depth, here.” Inwood touched a fingertip reverently to the markings etched on the beak of the skull.

  “And he waited,” said Cecily. “For someone he deemed worthy of the quest. As a younger man, he had promised his collection to his friend, Sir Barnaby Mayne, but Sir Barnaby had disappointed him. He was not deserving. So Rose told him nothing. But he told you. In time, the collection would be yours, and you alone would find what he had hidden there.”

  “You understand,” said Inwood. “You understand I did what it was necessary to do. Rose chose me. He meant for me to have it. And now I do have it. I will find what he left for me. The lost wealth of ancient kingdoms will be mine.” The mad glow did not fade from his eyes as he returned his attention to Cecily. “I wish you and I could journey together on this quest, Lady Kay. I regretted my first hasty decision to silence you. I was even pleased when he told me you’d survived.” Inwood indicated his companion.