This beautiful but sad woman was named Angela, and she begged Ida Payne for assistance in finding her son. He should have been with her when she disembarked the ship, but he had disappeared. This son was very ill—he had lost his memory, and he was in grave danger, she told Mrs. Payne. I asked if the boy had amnesia. Yes. That is what she was told, said Payne. The sick woman showed her a photograph of the child (which is inside the box—more on this in a moment, so be patient!). Angela described the boy, asking Ida Payne’s help in finding him. The boy, he was kind and tall, and blue-eyed with thick dark hair that curled. He spoke with a Scottish accent. His full name was Charles Robert Arthur Sinclair III. Not St. Clair. I asked about the boy. Was he ever found? Yes, she told me. Two years later, one week after the mother had died inside the sanitarium.
Ida Payne told me that the mother had been deemed insane because the police thought she’d made up the boy—she was diagnosed with advanced syphilis and left to linger alone. Ida Payne did not believe this diagnosis, but she remained there as a nurse to tend and aid Angela. Payne alone hunted for the boy to help her friend. Later, she learnt from a cousin that a boy just like the one Angela had described was left at the registry office. (I confirmed this with the local police, who had a record of it.)
No one knew precisely when the boy arrived, but a man took him there. A tall man with a foreign accent and a fur hat, she said. The tall man claimed that he had found the boy at the shipyard, and that he had no memory, so the man looked after him for two years. He only then remembered his name, but nothing else. There was a note pinned to the boy with a copy of a birth certificate—a false birth certificate—listing his name as Charles Arthur St. Clair. This mystery man said he would send a nice couple to the registry office to claim the boy as their nephew. They would raise him. Then, he paid the registry office five hundred pounds (an enormous sum!) and asked that they enter the false birth certificate to show that the boy was born in Liverpool in 1855, and that his parents died in a rail accident in 1862. This false record showed his name as St. Clair and his mother as Angelina McKay with no father listed.
I asked Ida Payne if she knew anything more about this strange man with so much money and influence that he could buy his way into the registry office, but she had little to offer, save this: She thought she had seen him once, and if this man was the same, then she told me he was evil, for he had vanished before her very eyes, like smoke on a mirror. She said she would likely die soon (she did cough a lot), so she was unafraid, but this man’s identity was a mystery to her.
I asked if she still had the box the woman gave her. She did, but Angela told her never to give it to anyone without the sign. What sign, I asked? The secret sign, she said. I asked her if that sign looked like this—and I made a P crossed by an S enclosed within a circle. She was amazed! She could not believe I knew the sign. She thanked me, gave me a piece of cherry pie and offered me the box. I ate the pie and took the box, but I warned the woman to change her name again and move, because others who did not know the sign might find her. She laughed, and told me that they had already tried. Three times, men came, and each time she asked for the sign. One made a funny bird picture, she told me. I laughed, took the box, and I gave her the three hundred pound reward you offered for information regarding your missing nephew. She was shocked but took the reward. I thanked her, told her the pie was good, and I left.
So. Now you know. I’ve traced the mother’s point of departure to Crovie, a sea town near the castle. When I arrive there next week, I shall make inquiries to assure that no Angelina MacKay actually lived there, but my friend duke, it is clear to me that your thoughts have been right all along. We have found our Charles at long last. – K.
Charles finished the extraordinary letter and then read it through again. His uncle and aunt had both died within the last five years, so he had no way to verify any of this information with them. Angela Sinclair? Was this woman his real mother? And what of his father? Kepelheim makes no mention of him, and yet he traces Angela’s journey back to a small village not far from this very castle.
Wishing he’d allowed the duke to share more with him earlier, Charles began to pace. How was he to reconcile this news with all he’d been told growing up? Why fabricate an accident, unless it was to throw him off track entirely? And who was this mysterious, wealthy man?
In truth, he had no recollection of a life before the Burkes, but he did remember being told to speak with an English accent as a school boy. His uncle had even hired a tutor to help him learn to speak in a polished manner, and his teachers in school had helped him to excel. Though the Burkes had little money, they had somehow managed to send him to Harrow and then to Cambridge, where he’d tied for first in the Mathematics Tripos, but a chance meeting with a police detective revealed a keen aptitude for criminal investigation, prompting Charles to apply to the Metropolitan Police rather than pursue a higher degree.
He shuffled through the papers and photographs inside the box, finding a faded Daguerreotype inside a Union Case of a handsome, dark-haired man with a small boy on his lap. The child looked to be four or five years old, and he seemed eerily familiar to Charles, though the detective could not reason why. The man’s features resembled his own, particularly the shape of the eyes, nose, and forehead. The letters appeared to be correspondence from Angela Marie Sinclair to her husband, Robert Sinclair, written on stationery bearing a beautiful crest and engraved with the words ‘Marchioness Haimsbury, Rose House’ at the top.
What could this box mean? Was his entire life a lie? Had someone miscopied his name as St. Clair rather than Sinclair, or had it been an intentional ‘error’ meant to throw off investigation as Kepelheim’s detective work seemed to indicate? And who was this mysterious man of wealth and influence who left him at the registry office? As he paced, Charles began to awaken, and though the hour of midnight drew near, he wondered if a stroll around the castle grounds might not refresh him more than sleep.
Dressed in Paul’s borrowed clothing and hunting coat to keep warm, Charles left the room and wandered through the halls, eventually reaching the grand foyer at the front of the house. Despite the hour, the detective noticed that four men kept watch outside the main doors, rifles on their backs. The Irish Wolfhounds and a pair of terriers ran amongst the men’s legs, chasing down unlucky rodents. Waving to the men as he exited the castle, Charles set out on the worn, brick walkway that led around to the steep cliff that overlooked Loch Linnhe. Carlton had mentioned that the 5th duke had built a knot garden for his bride on this side of the castle, and that it rivaled anything found in French or English gardens. Castle Drummond had replaced an ancient motte and bailey keep in the 16th century with a classic take on a French chateau, and since then, Carlton had explained, each duke or duchess had added a wing, a tower, or a garden to commemorate his or her reign. In Scotland, it seemed primogeniture was not a given, as with most titles in England (the Branham ducal title being a rare exception), but that daughters may inherit and even share inheritance.
Am I from Scotland? he mused as he wandered along the cobbled sidewalk toward the southwestern entrance they had earlier used to bring in the earl and Elizabeth. To his surprise, Charles found a small curricle and pair, parked near the door, and no sooner had he rounded within eyesight, but the carriage’s driver snapped the whip, and it raced away down a side road toward the southeast. A deep, worrying alarm bell sounded in his brain, and Charles ran back through this same side door, toward Elizabeth’s room. Not bothering to knock, he burst into the room.
Empty! No one! Running next to the earl’s room, he snatched open the door and found Paul sleeping soundly, the room dark, and the windows shut.
He next ran into the hallways and began to shout, not caring if he woke the dead. “Carlton! Laurence! Your Grace!” he shouted, dashing from room to room like a madman. In moments, lamps and candles blazed to life, and two dozen men and women emerged from all doors to meet his calls. Amo
ngst these was the duke himself, dressed only in a nightshirt and robe, a white cap upon his head.
“What is it?” he called, running down the main staircase, two steps at a time, and rushing up to St. Clair.
“She’s gone, sir! Someone’s taken her!”
“Who? Elizabeth, you mean? Why, she’s just sleeping.”
Charles led the duke into her sitting room, and Drummond gaped in despair at the empty couch. “Can she have gotten up? Beth! Beth!”
Shouts of Elizabeth and Beth and my lady rang through every hallway now, and soon Paul Stuart, pale, dazed but resolute, appeared at his doorway, eyes bleary, his face set.
“She is gone?” he asked, his voice but a whisper as pain shot through his arm and shoulder.
“She is. A man in a black carriage drawn by a matched pair of paints took her. Not fifteen minutes past. He headed southeast, toward the main road,” Charles explained.
“I’m going after them,” Paul declared, reaching for his boots, but falling instead into St. Clair’s arms. “Please, Charles, you must save her! Please! I beg you!”
The duke called for a horse, one named Clever Girl, and he walked Charles to the southwest door, where five minutes later a groom rode up on a silver mare with a black mane and tail.
“Charles, take her. She is my fastest horse, and she can maintain speed for an hour without tiring. If you go now, you can still catch them, but if you are unsure of their path, take the drive out to the main road, then head south toward the north part of Glasgow. Five miles or so before you reach the city, you’ll turn eastward at a white stone church with a great steeple; follow that road. It’ll curve ‘round a lot, but it will lead you to the house, all right. Look for a thatched roof, stone cottage with a white fence and a large red door, sitting atop a small hill. It is thirty miles or more, but you can get there if you hurry. That rig belongs to our turncoat doctor, and he’s drugged her and taken her for money, I know it. No time to think, son. Just ride! And bring our girl back to us!”
Again the stranger’s prophetic warning rang inside the detective’s brain: “Ride. Ride swiftly, or she will die. When you see the horse, ride!”
Charles mounted the horse and thanked the angels who had put the thought into his mind to walk just then as he spurred Clever Girl toward the road, the full moon high overhead to light the way.
CHAPTER Sixteen
The horse Clever Girl was indeed quick on her feet, and Charles soon found himself within sight of the carriage. Though traveling at great speed, the driver must have noticed St. Clair in pursuit, because he cracked his whip, and the paints raced faster still. Ahead, the road—not much more than a gravel lane—turned sharply to the left, and the coach would need to slow to take it safely. Having ridden horses since age nine, the detective gripped his long legs more tightly ‘round the horse, and she spurred into a mighty burst of speed, her hooves taking the road in leaps that seemed to Charles impossible.
The carriage came to the bend, but the driver did not slow, and one of the two wheels left the road briefly as the vehicle leaned precariously to the right.
Good Lord! Charles thought. He’ll turn over if he keeps this up!
Charles rode for nearly an hour, but the horse did not slow, and once again he had nearly caught up to the carriage as a two-storey thatched roof house with a red door appeared on the hill ahead. Charles slowed Clever Girl’s pace and followed the carriage as it stopped in front of the house. Without waiting for the mare to completely halt, he jumped down from the saddle and ran to the carriage, finding himself face to face with the strange-haired doctor, who now held a serious and deadly looking shotgun.
“Don’t make me shoot you,” the man said, but Charles did not even pause his steps. Instead, he wrenched the weapon from the thin man’s hands and turned it back on the kidnapper.
“Why?” he demanded. “Why have you taken her? I swear, if you have harmed her, you will die here, where you stand.”
“She is only sleeping!” the doctor assured him, his entire frame shaking. “I had no choice! They knew about my past. They knew about the charges in London. They found them, even after I had paid to hush it up! I couldn’t say no. They told me only to take her and leave her here for the night. That they would contact me. That they would protect me.”
“Who?” Charles asked, pointing the shotgun at the doctor’s forehead. “WHO?”
“Redwing. I know, I know! They are the enemy, but they promised they would not harm her. They gave their word!”
“They lie,” he replied through clenched teeth.
From the carriage, he heard Elizabeth moan, so he took the gun and turned to see that she was unharmed. “Beth?” he called softly. “Beth, darling, can you hear me?”
She moved slightly, apparently unaware of his presence, her eyes closed in dreams.
He turned the gun back onto the terrified physician. “Tell me his name,” Charles demanded.
“I do not know names. They only sent a letter and documents of—of the women I had sterilized.”
“Sterilized? You mean, you made them incapable of bearing children?”
“It was all for research! I swear to you! But it is illegal, so when the police in London discovered my activities, I had to flee and change my name. I was only a medical student then. I’ve reformed!”
“You call this reform?” he asked, pointing to the woman he loved. “Did she give permission for her abduction?”
His face fell, and he shook his head. “I am but a man. You cannot know. You do not know what they are—what they can do!”
“What drug did you give her? Tell me now!”
“It will not harm her,” he claimed. “Just a mild soporific.”
“Tell me the name. Now!” the detective demanded.
The doctor opened his mouth to answer, but a shot rang out from somewhere above them, a sniper on the hills. Lemuel’s checkerboard hair turned to crimson, and blood dripped down his face onto the garish waistcoat. He dropped dead at St. Clair’s feet.
A second bullet sang past the detective’s ear, so rather than take on an unseen foe, he quickly placed the gun into the floor of the carriage, climbed onto the seat, and then turned the curricle back toward the castle as he cracked the whip. He called to Clever Girl, who seemed to understand, for she ran ahead and crossed over the lush green hills, disappearing as she headed toward home.
The round moon had disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds, and Charles prayed as the carriage lurched ahead at full speed. But to where? He’d lost track of the long road’s many turnings, and now that he no longer chased behind he found himself hoping to catch sight of the castle or its towers over the next rise. The sniper might also be anywhere, perhaps following them, he realised, so seeing a small farm, he made a decision he would soon come to regret. He turned the carriage toward the farmhouse to ask directions.
Elizabeth lay inside the dark interior, and the exhausted horses panted for water, their breath clouding the crisp autumn air as Charles knocked on the farmhouse door. Though it was long past one in the morning, a muscular older man opened the door, wearing an undershirt and woolen trousers held up by braces, hastily donned from all appearances. The man spoke in a thick Scottish brogue.
“Awa’ w’ ye! Unless ye ha’ goot razin’ fer callin’ nigh on to two o’ the mornin’!”
Charles caught just enough to determine that the man had stated a perfectly rational fact. “Forgive me for waking you, sir. We are guests of the duke, and we’ve become lost on the road. I’m from London, as you can tell, I’m sure, so I’ve no way of knowing which way to turn.”
The man’s face lit up. “The duke’s hoose! An’ yer lost? Oh, aye. I’ happens all the time,” he replied, his accent thinning to a more decipherable level. “You an’ yer missus are an hour away from the duke, an’ no one’ll be aweek nigh. Wai’ ‘til sunrise, an’ I’ll show
ye the way mysel’.”
A woman’s voice called out from a room near the back of the house, and soon a flaxen-haired woman of similar age to the man joined him in the doorway.
“Lost,” he told her. “Guests of the duke’s, an’ los’ their wee.”
She laughed and nodded. “Lost your way? Oh, aye, come in,” she said, her mild accent far less strenuous on the ear, and Charles fetched Elizabeth from the carriage seat. The man left to water the horses and bed them down in his barn for the night. Charles carried Beth into the small house, gently setting her down into one of a pair of well-used wooden rocking chairs.
“My name’s Maggie,” the woman said cheerfully. “I’ll put a kettle on to boil. I hope ye like yer tea strong. Tha’s how Hamish prefers it.”
“That would be wonderful,” he said, checking Elizabeth’s face and hands to make sure the doctor had not harmed her. Paul’s ring glittered on her left hand, a stark reminder of reality. She still wore the trousers and shirt from the day before, knees stained with blood, having collapsed into sleep after arriving at the castle. No doubt, Lemuel drugged her almost immediately, the fiend!
Blood Lies Page 29
