I plaited my hair and wound it snugly into a Psyche knot at my nape, pinned well out of the way in case any grappling would be required of me. Everything else about my appearance was neat and tidy and deceptively simple.
After I had changed and rejoined Stoker in the Belvedere, we took a simple meal together, fortifying our strength with plates of roast beef and tall glasses of porter. Just before we left, as Stoker patted his pockets for the jewels for the twentieth time, I penned a swift note to Sir Hugo.
“Why the devil are you doing that?” he demanded.
“I gave him my word.” I sealed the note in an envelope and wrote out Sir Hugo’s direction at Scotland Yard. We patted the dogs and Stoker put down the remains of the roast beef for them to finish.
We left just as dusk was falling and opened the door to find Lady Wellingtonia standing there, her hand upraised as if she were about to knock.
“Hello, children!” she said in her booming voice. “I thought to invite you to take dinner up at the house, but I see you have other plans tonight.”
“A lecture,” Stoker said smoothly. “At the Academy.”
She narrowed her eyes and folded her hands over the top of her walking stick. “Which Academy?”
“The Royal one,” he said, his eye twitching slightly.
She pursed her mouth as if to pursue the matter, but I held up the note. “Lady Wellingtonia, I wonder if you might oblige us with a favor. I have a note here that must be delivered. Perhaps you would be so kind as to ask the hall boy to see to it? But not until tomorrow morning,” I told her firmly.
She took it from me, making no bones about her curiosity. She read the address aloud with an expression of increasing incredulity. “Sir Hugo Montgomerie? Scotland Yard? What kind of business can you possibly have with the head of Special Branch?” she demanded.
“He likes butterflies,” I said with a smile. “He has a particularly fine examplar of Teinopalpus imperialis I am longing to acquire for Lord Rosemorran’s collection of Nepalese swallowtails.”
“Teinopalpus imperialis,” she said, suspicion dripping from every syllable.
“Commonly known as the Kaiser-i-Hind,” I said helpfully. “He has a female, which is the larger of the species, and it is a quite spectacular imago, isn’t that right, Stoker?”
Stoker gave a start. “Yes. Imago. Quite spectacular.”
I rolled my eyes heavenwards at his vagueness, but Lady Wellingtonia seemed mollified. “Very well,” she said with a gracious nod. “Although I am quite disappointed you won’t be joining us this evening. Perhaps tomorrow. You can tell us all about the lecture,” she said with a malicious smile. “In detail.”
“We shall be delighted. But now we must hurry,” I said, tucking my arm through Stoker’s and dragging him away. When we were out of earshot, I turned on him. “What in the name of all that is holy ails you?”
“I cannot lie to old women,” he said, wiping his brow. “They remind me of my grandmother, a woman who had no equal for ferreting out the truth. Whenever my brothers or I were up to some mischief, it was Grandmother who invariably managed to discover the culprit. She might’ve given Torquemada lessons.”
“Illuminating as is this insight into your childhood , we must get on,” I urged. “I want to be there and in position well ahead of the appointed hour. We have the element of surprise, and we must make the most of it.”
• • •
We made our way to Littledown in silence. I could not intuit Stoker’s thoughts, but mine turned to Princess Louise. I imagined her, sitting in solitary splendor at Kensington Palace while a fortune in jewels—as well as her reputation—rested in our hands. But there was more at stake than that, and I thought too of Miles Ramsforth. I had given him little consideration as a person during our investigation. He was a cipher to me. We had collected impressions of him, glimpses given by various people, but I could not entirely grasp the whole of the man, as if someone had painted his portrait and then cut it into pieces, scattering them for us to find. It was the contradictions that interested me most. He was a devoted husband, yet a faithless philanderer. He was a patron of the arts with exquisite taste, but he hosted salacious entertainments at the Elysian Grotto. I wondered if we would ever be able to reconcile the Janus faces of Miles Ramsforth or if he would hang in spite of our efforts. The thought might have cowed me a little, but I refused to be daunted by the task. Whatever his sins, the man was no murderer, and he would not swing for a crime he did not commit, I vowed.
We reached Littledown in good time. It lacked an hour before the appointed rendezvous with our blackmailer. I moved with the same quickness of step that I employed in the jungles as I followed the mazy paths of my butterflies. For his part, Stoker showed no sign of heightened excitement at the coming fight. He walked with his customary loose-limbed stride, the sort of gracefully lithe gait one sees in men who have spent much time astride horses or aboard ships. His hands were relaxed and his shoulders down, his brow as untroubled as if he were out for a Sunday stroll. Only the tiniest twitch of the muscle at the corner of his mouth betrayed any emotion.
Under cover of darkness, we climbed the wall at Littledown, not wishing to alert anyone to our presence just yet. We kept to the tree line as we made our way to the grotto, alert to any noise that would indicate the watchman or his dog were abroad. We reached the grotto unimpeded; I put a hand to the gate and pulled gently. It was locked, and I shot Stoker a triumphant glance. We had beaten our adversary to the field, and the advantage was ours. I drew the key from my pocket and fitted it to the lock, opening the gate just enough for us to slip inside before shutting it quietly.
We crept forward, into the darkness, and as we reached the narrow tunnel, Stoker put a hand to my shoulder, halting my movement. He struck a match and lit one of the lanterns, gesturing that he meant to go ahead of me. I pursed my lips and plucked the lantern from his hand, holding it high as I moved into the passage. He gave a sigh of irritation but let me go, following as closely behind as the modest dimensions of the space would permit.
The trip through the tunnel was much the same as the last time—the cold, clammy feel of the rock under my fingers, the dank air in my lungs—but as we rounded the last bend, I was conscious of a change. There was a glow just ahead, and a sharp metallic scent in the air.
Stoker, whose sense of smell was better than mine, knew it for what it was. He reached to pull me back, but it was too late. I stepped into the large chamber, my own little lantern unnecessary now, for the vault of the grotto was illuminated by the magic lanterns. Their flames cast the pictures of copulating couples and groups upon the walls, and the very stones seemed alive with their wild undulations.
But I was only vaguely aware of the pictures as they whirled past. My attention was fixed upon the siège d’amour in the center of the chamber, the seat of love that must have so often been the focus of past bacchanals. Once more it held a naked figure, the limbs and head thrown back in a sort of parody of pleasure. One could almost imagine the parted lips were about to speak. But Julian Gilchrist, his throat slashed from ear to ear, would never speak again.
CHAPTER
26
A scarlet river of blood flowed from the obscene gash in his throat, pooling wetly in the hollows of his hips. Golden hair tumbled about his ears, and his eyes were open wide in surprise. One arm lay outstretched like that of a crucified saint, the fingers curving in a gentle arc, the forefinger extended slightly as if pointing to the blood puddling upon the floor.
Just beyond the chair, Emma Talbot stood at the edge of the shadows, her face corpse white, her eyes fixed upon the bloody blade gripped in her hand.
“Do not come closer,” she warned, raising the knife. Stoker eased around me, raising his hands to show he meant her no harm.
“Emma,” he said softly, “give me the knife. You do not want to harm me, nor do you wish to harm Miss Speedwell.
Give me the knife,” he repeated.
He edged closer, and she flinched, raising the blade level with his heart. He stood a foot or so out of striking distance but did not falter as she brandished her weapon. He merely spoke, using the same calm tone he might employ to gentle a restless animal.
“Emma, I want you to give me the knife. This will go far better for you if you cooperate,” he urged.
She shook her head, blindly, as she jerked the blade again, closing a little of the distance between them.
“Emma,” he said serenely, “if you do not give me the knife, I will take it from you. Now, I can see from the way you are holding it that you have no experience of such things, so believe me when I say I could take it easily, and if I have to take it from you, it will be hard and painful. I will probably break your wrist simply because you are threatening us right now, and I do not like to be threatened. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes, the irises ringed with white, widened even further. “If you are going to kill me, do it quickly,” she said, fairly spitting the words.
“What do you mean if I am going to kill you? I have no wish to kill you,” he told her.
“Then what about that?” she demanded. She did not say Gilchrist’s name, but merely pointed with a shaking hand to the atrocity upon the chair. “You have killed him and now you want to kill me as well.”
I looked at Stoker. “Is she hysterical, do you think? Shall I slap her? I wouldn’t mind.”
He did not turn his head, but I could see the muscles of his jaw tense. “Veronica, do not try to be helpful, I beg you.”
“I am not hysterical,” Emma said, her voice trembling. “But if you have done that to him, why would you spare me since I have discovered you in the act? I am a witness to your treachery.”
“You are a witness to precisely nothing,” I told her. “In case it has escaped your attention, you were here first. I rather think you did this and your current state of frenzy is simply a ruse to throw us off the scent.”
She stared at me. “Do you really think I could bring myself to do that?” she demanded. “I did not like Julian, but my God!” A great shudder ran through her body and her knees buckled a little as she dropped the knife. Stoker kicked it aside and put out an arm to steady her. She took it, albeit reluctantly, as he gave me a pointed look.
“Veronica, stop tormenting Miss Talbot. You know she is innocent.” He turned to the trembling woman. “Emma, we did not do this to Gilchrist, and in spite of how things look, we know you did not either.”
She gripped his arm, her knuckles white against the black of his coat. “Then I was right,” she said, forcing the words through bloodless lips. “She did it.”
“Yes, Miss Talbot,” I told her gently. “Miles Ramsforth never murdered Artemisia. Ottilie did.”
She collapsed then into great heaving sobs that rocked her from head to foot. Stoker kept an arm about her while I rolled my eyes and waited for the frenzy to finish.
“I really ought to slap her,” I urged Stoker again, but he merely waved me off and held her more tightly against his chest, one hand cradling her head in its broad palm. He looked like a bear with a china doll, I thought in some annoyance, and I went to pull down one of the velvet draperies to cover Julian Gilchrist. It was the least I could do to offer the fellow some dignity, I thought.
That bit of housekeeping undertaken, I returned to hold a brief council of war with Stoker. “We can hardly finish our plan with Miss Talbot in such a state,” I pointed out. “We shall have to settle her somewhere until we can apprehend Mrs. Ramsforth.”
Emma Talbot’s artist fingers curled around Stoker’s biceps. “She cannot have got far.”
“Yes, Miss Talbot, that much is obvious from the warmth of the corpse and the minimal amount of clotting to the blood,” I informed her.
She paled still further, and Stoker rolled his eyes. “For the love of Christ, Veronica, she is barely keeping her composure as it is.”
He looked far too comfortable in the role of rescuing hero, I decided. I tipped my head as I studied Miss Talbot. “Now that you mention it, she is quite pale. Do you think we just ought to knock her thoroughly senseless until we’ve concluded our business? A light tap to the jaw should do it. Just below the ear,” I said, pointing.
His mouth thinned, and Miss Talbot gave another deep shudder, then pushed him away gently. “Thank you, Mr. Templeton-Vane. But Miss Speedwell is correct, I must master myself and let you finish this. She must not be permitted to get away.” She straightened. It took a visible effort of will, but I liked her better for it.
“She shall not elude us,” I promised her. “We will take this house down brick by brick to find her if need be.”
“That will not be necessary,” said a voice from the shadows. Ottilie Ramsforth stepped forward, holding a small revolver in her hand. It was leveled at the group of us, and it did not waver.
“We were just talking about you,” I said with a thin smile. “How very courteous of you not to make us come looking.”
She advanced a little further but was careful to keep herself a good twenty feet away, the siège d’amour and its shrouded occupant between us. Without looking at one another, Stoker and I immediately assessed the situation and realized she was at a distinct disadvantage. She might have a revolver, but there was only one of her and two of us. If she were a very good shot—and that was a presumption indeed—she could still hit only one before the other was upon her. Naturally I did not include Miss Talbot in my calculations. She had mastered her hysteria, but I was unwilling to test her mettle in a fight. The best we could hope for was that she would throw herself to the ground and stay out of the way.
Ottilie swung the revolver from me to Stoker and back again. “Hold there, Mr. Templeton-Vane. And you, Miss Speedwell. I am a rather good shot, and unlikely to miss entirely at this distance. Miles taught me how to shoot in Greece. There are bandits there, you know. I got quite a bit of practice.” She kept the barrel of the revolver trained upon me, and I stared into its unblinking black eye. It was small, a lady’s toy really, but doubtless big enough to put an unwelcome hole in one or both of us. “If you advance again, Miss Speedwell, I will not shoot you. I will shoot him. And Mr. Templeton-Vane, the same goes for you. If you do not want to see Miss Speedwell harmed, stay where you are.”
Stoker held up his hands. “As you wish, Mrs. Ramsforth. But I am curious as to your plan,” he said in a conversational tone. “There are three of us.”
Ottilie Ramsforth drew the hammer back on the revolver and pointed it squarely at the forehead of Emma Talbot. “Are there?”
Miss Talbot opened her mouth to shriek, but no sound was forthcoming. Her eyelids fluttered, and she closed and opened her mouth a few times, giving a splendid impression of a goldfish before she fell to the ground in a dead faint.
“That was certainly fortuitous,” Mrs. Ramsforth said with some satisfaction. She swung her revolver back around to Stoker.
“I suppose your plan is to kill us and make away with the emeralds,” I suggested.
“In point of fact, I have no interest in the jewels,” she corrected. “That was Gilchrist’s idea, and a thoroughly wicked one it was,” she added with a severity that surprised me. “Although when I discovered why Louise was so determined to clear Miles’ name, I told him to go ahead with it.”
“Yes, that must have been a nasty shock,” I told her, injecting my voice with suitable sympathy. “Most vexing to have devised such a tidy murder only to have it scuppered at the last minute because your bosom friend has decided to interfere.”
Her mouth narrowed. “The murder came off just fine.”
“I wasn’t speaking of Artemisia’s death. I mean the murder of Miles Ramsforth. That is what this is all about, is it not? Your primary target was never the girl. It was your own husband.”
“Do not judge me!” she or
dered, the hand holding the revolver shaking just a little. “Do not presume to judge me. You do not know what it was like, turning a blind eye to his adventures all those years. But I did it because it kept him close. I knew he would never leave me because he had no reason to. I loved him. I understood him. Not them.”
“Until the money began to run out,” Stoker put in. “That is when the fear took root, isn’t it? That is when the uncertainty began to grow. When the money was gone, what was there to keep him?”
“He loved me,” she insisted, pointing the revolver at Stoker’s head.
“But not enough,” I corrected, drawing her attention back to me. The revolver’s eye focused upon the spot between my brows. “Without your money to support the pair of you, what was there to bind him to you? It wasn’t as though you had given him a child.”
The blow struck home. The revolver hand trembled, but she brought up her other hand, steadying her grip. “There had never been a child before, not in any of his liaisons. I thought perhaps it was not entirely my fault, that he might be to blame as well. But then Artemisia told him she had conceived, and it was as if he had been granted his fondest wish. You should have seen him, the proud papa,” she said, her mouth twisting as it shaped the words. “He could not conceal his delight. He meant to acknowledge it. They planned it all out together—that we would go to Greece, to our villa, and she would have the child. And do you know who was supposed to look after it? I was. She would live with us and give him his golden child, and I was to be nothing more than a nursemaid in my own home, reduced to whatever crumbs she saw fit to leave me.”
A Perilous Undertaking Page 30
