“Greed is a terrible sin,” the priest agreed, a bit sadly.
“A primary motivation for murder,” said Doyle, who realized that she was quoting what Acton had said, for some reason.
“But the blood-money is not sinful in and of itself, my child. It is the sinner, who stands for judgment.”
Doyle stared at him in surprise. “Never say there’s more blood-money, on top of the last? For whose blood?”
But there was no response, and then she gasped, as her eyes flew open and she stared into the darkness of her bedroom.
“Is it time?” Sleepily, Acton reached for the light.
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“No,” she replied, and stayed his hand. “I’m that sorry I woke you, Michael.”
He sank back down into the pillows, and drew her to him. “Need anything?”
“A good night’s sleep,” she teased, and kissed the face so close to hers. She couldn’t tell him that what she truly needed were some answers—the Filipino priest may be a kindly man, but she recognized a scolding when she heard one.
It was a call-to-action, he’d said. And apparently—surprise of surprises—there was even more blood-money being paid over to someone else, which apparently meant that the fair Doyle had to shake her stumps yet again, and find out what was afoot.
Frowning at the dark ceiling, she tried to decide what the priest had meant. At first, he’d said that she knew what had to be done, but then instead of telling her plainly—faith, they never spoke plainly—he’d wandered off-topic by talking about the crooked DCS, and about even more blood-money. Who was Acton paying? And for what?
Thoroughly frustrated, she decided she’d think about a protocol in the morning, when her head was a bit clearer. After intertwining her fingers in her husband’s, she then—almost surprisingly—fell immediately to sleep.
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He arranged for her the doctor to visit that afternoon.
She was tired, and hadn’t eaten much.
D oyle was no further along with a protocol the following morning, as she sat at the table and watched Emile poach her breakfast egg under the careful direction of
Reynolds.
“It’s turned white,” whispered Gemma, who stood atop her chair, observing the proceedings with wide eyes.
“Indeed, it has, Miss Gemma, and so we must take the ladle—carefully, Master Emile; the water is very hot—and slide it onto the toast.”
With a great deal of pride, Emile solemnly carried Doyle’s plate to her, and Gemma was entrusted with the small glass of orange juice, which was only sloshed a bit when it landed at its destination.
“Thank you, Emile, and you are an excellent assistant, Gemma.”
“My mum will bake cookies, when she comes home tonight,” Gemma disclosed in a rare burst of words. “She says a nice man will come to visit us.”
Reynolds advised a bit hurriedly, “Now, Miss Gemma; you mustn’t re-tell private conversations—”
But Doyle smiled. “It’s all right, Reynolds; Mary’s mum has indeed met a nice man, and I imagine it won’t stay a secret long.” She smiled to herself, thinking about Reynolds’ reaction when he found out about the Howard-and-Mary romance; the servant would have to reshuffle his deck of who-was-important, and
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who-was-not. A shame, that she couldn’t mention Gemma’s secret; that would be a reshuffling for the ages.
The servant took this opportunity to send a meaningful glance in Emile’s direction. “I think you should tell Lady Acton your own secret, Emile; I promise she won’t take it away.”
Doyle looked upon the boy with interest. “Have you a secret, Emile? Can you shoot ducks with it?”
The boy smiled, but Doyle could see that he was suddenly wary. “No—it was something I found at the park.”
Interestingly enough, this was an out-and-out lie, and so Doyle’s interest was piqued—Emile was usually too forthright for his own good. “Can I see it?”
“May I see it,” the boy corrected.
“You must not correct Lady Acton, Master Emile.”
“It’s a thankless task, and better men than you have tried,” Doyle agreed. “May I see the secret, Emile?”
At Reynolds’ nod, the boy ran to his room, and then came back, holding something in his hand. With palpable reluctance, he opened his fingers to reveal a gold coin, nearly the size of his small palm.
Doyle stared at it, her scalp prickling like a live thing.
“You may hold it, Gemma, but only for a minute,” the boy offered importantly. “You mustn’t say anything to your mum, though; it’s a secret.”
“Where did you find it, Emile?” Doyle already knew the answer, but decided she’d double-check, on the off-chance that her call-to-action wasn’t staring her in the face.
“On the pavement, at the park,” the boy lied, his cheeks turning a bit pink.
“He wasn’t going to tell me, but I saw it in his hand,” Reynold disclosed. “In exchange for his confidence, Lady Acton, I assured him that he could keep it.”
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“Of course, you may keep it, Emile; besides, it’d be a sleeveless errand to try to find the true owner.” The coin was about two inches across, and sported an unfamiliar language, but if it had said “blood money” in capital letters, it couldn’t have been more clear. Here was the answer to all mysteries, and the reason for her soft-voiced scolding from the night visitor.
She was tempted to interrogate the boy, to see what he’d say, but she decided it was hardly necessary—they weren’t smuggling cigarettes or mobile phones to Savoie; they were smuggling gold. But why? Presumably, Savoie was rich—faith, he was probably swimming in blood-money, and lots of it.
“Impossible, to trace the owner,” Reynolds agreed. “A very lucky find, Master Emile.”
Doyle watched Gemma hold the coin with careful little hands, and realized this was an important point—money could be traced, particularly if was the police who were doing the tracing. But coins like this one could not be traced.
She lifted her gaze to the window, trying to decide whatever-it-was that she was trying to understand. Savoie was sitting in prison, larking about with the guards, and promising Emile that he’d be home soon. For some reason, Acton was smuggling gold coins to him, in Emile’s jacket—although more correctly, it was Lizzie Mathis who was smuggling the coins. But wait—Doyle should be a good detective, and not leap to conclusions. It seemed clear that Mathis was facilitating the smuggling, but she may not know its object—she wasn’t allowed in the room, when Emile visited Savoie.
Indeed, it was possible that Acton himself didn’t know about the coins—but of course he did; Mathis was following Acton’s orders, that much seemed evident. There was no other reason to recruit the unlikely Mathis to escort Emile to visit his father; Mathis could be trusted not to grass about whatever was going forward, and Acton trusted very few people.
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With a twinge of annoyance, Doyle contemplated the unpalatable truth that Acton trusted Mathis more than the wife of his bosom with whatever-this-was. He doesn’t trust me, she realized—at least not in this—because he thinks I’ll try to throw a mighty wrench into the works, and then beat him with a nightstick, for good measure.
Slowly, she lowered her head, a bit ashamed of herself. Acton’s concern was unwarranted, though—his fair bride wouldn’t have tried to throw a wrench, because she was too busy putting her head in the sand, and trying not to face what needed to be faced: Acton had one more misdirection murder to commit, and the victim couldn’t have been more obvious. As the Filipino priest had pointed out—in his gently scolding way— Doyle knew what had to be done.
She lifted her head to watch Emile tell Gemma something about the coin’s origin that Reynolds had told him—she wasn’t listening, because she was trying t
o come up with a protocol. Rescuing the wretched DCS from Acton’s bloody-minded vengeance seemed a tall order—given her present condition— but as she’d a saintly priest urging her on, she’d no choice in the matter, and best get crackin’ on a plan, because she truly should have a plan before she did something impulsive. She’d the feeling, she did, that she was about to do something impulsive.
If the blood-money was being delivered to the prison, it was probably not going to Savoie as much as it was going to bribe others at the prison—certainly the cheeky guard, which would explain his cheeky attitude. Faith, when you thought it through, it all made complete sense; she’d thought it odd that Acton hadn’t killed Mrs. Barayev and the DCS outright, on that Hound-of-the-Baskervilles night, and now it seemed that he’d just decided to delay his revenge a bit—mayhap he didn’t want to make it too obvious that it was his own hand, behind these misdirection murders.
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But Doyle frowned slightly, because try as she might, this theory didn’t piece together very well. Acton was nothing if not efficient, and it seemed the height of inefficiency, to take such pains to disguise the Russian woman’s death, and pay off a Filipino charwoman, to boot. Not to mention it was no easy thing to arrange to have someone murdered in prison—or at least, one would think. Much easier to do the deed before the villain had been locked safely away. “It doesn’t make sense,” she mused aloud.
“I beg your pardon, madam?”
Pulled from her thoughts, Doyle replied, “Sorry, Reynolds—I was woolgatherin’. It comes of nearly goin’ mad, havin’ to sit here, when everyone else is pickin’ up gold off the streets.” She noted that Emile and Gemma had decided to make a game of tossing the coin back and forth, and so Doyle made a show of placing an arm across her forehead, and leaning back into the sofa.
As could be expected, almost immediately Reynolds addressed the children. “Perhaps, Master Emile, you should put the coin away now, and we’ll go for a walk. It is a fine morning.”
“By all means, put it away,” Doyle agreed. “You wouldn’t want the ducks to seize it—the wretched thieves.”
The boy giggled. “These are London ducks, not the St. Petersburg ducks. It’s the St. Petersburg ducks who are the thieves, remember?”
“I wouldn’t trust a single duck a single inch,” Doyle advised darkly. “Mark me.”
“I’d no idea that ducks were such a hazard,” Reynolds remarked, and went to fetch the children’s jackets.
But Doyle wasn’t listening, because she’d suddenly stilled, reminded that Solonik’s evil sister had planned to take Emile back to St. Petersburg, for reasons unknown. Now, there was a niggling loose end to beat all the other niggling loose ends. Emile had said that the woman was at the prison when he’d visited Savoie—the same prison where Mrs. Barayev used to work as a
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matron, doing evil deeds behind the scenes—and that she’d seen to it that Emile had the requisite shots, and travel documents— faith, she’d even had the guards involved in the preparations.
Try as she might, she could make no sense of it; Doyle knew that the woman had no fondness for the boy—she was as cold as an ice shard, through-and-through. And besides, she must have known that Savoie would do whatever it took to fetch Emile right back again, and exact a terrible revenge, in the process. It seemed a very foolish thing to do, to make plans to steal the boy away, right there in the prison. Unless—
Slowly, Doyle lifted her head to gaze out the windows and contemplate a terrible, terrible thought. What if—what if Savoie had been allied with Mrs. Barayev, and was planning to take Emile to St Petersburg along with her, and thus take up the reins of the Solonik underworld? After all, the woman had been deeply involved in her brother’s evil deeds, but now that all her men-folk had been killed, she was in no shape to handle it herself. Why not recruit Savoie, and promise him riches, as well as an unfettered right to Emile?
Was it possible? It would mean that Savoie was willing to double-cross Acton—which ordinarily, wouldn’t be much cause for alarm, since half the villains in London would like nothing more than to double-cross Acton. But Savoie was not your usual villain; Savoie was dangerous, because he was—inexplicably— another one of those rare persons Acton apparently trusted. Although—although, it wasn’t truly inexplicable—it was because of Doyle; because Savoie had saved her life, once, and Acton knew they were friends. And now Savoie knew that Acton was arranging to murder the DCS, and was—perhaps—secretly planning to abscond to Russia, all without Acton’s knowing. Perhaps he was meaning to expose Acton, as well—leave him holding the bag. The implications were alarming, and Doyle tamped down a flare of panic.
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Reynolds paused at the door. “We should return before lunch, madam; please phone, if you require anything.”
Doyle pulled herself together, and mustered-up a smile. “Right then. Emile, I’m countin’ on even more gold, so please keep a sharp eye out.”
The boy’s laughter could be heard as the door shut, and Doyle immediately took the opportunity to press her fingers to her temples—she needed to convince her poor pregnant-brain to start thinking, and to start thinking fast.
If Savoie were double-crossing him, then there was nothin’ for it; she’d have to warn Acton. But—if she warned Acton that she’d twigged on to him, she’d probably not have another opportunity to rescue the wretched DCS. Instead, Acton would nod understandingly whilst she scolded him about not going about killing people, and then the erstwhile minister would probably be transferred to some far-afield Irish prison, and disappear from there.
The ghost-priest was right; I do know what needs to be done, she admitted to herself with deep regret. I’ve got to go to wretched Wexton Prison, and speak with Savoie, to sound him out. Then I’ve got to figure out some way to save the stupid DCS—depending on what Savoie has to say, and how bleak the situation is. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes, and I can’t see any other way out—there’s no one else who can do it.
As she gathered her feet beneath her, she remembered what the priest had said—that we sometimes must go where we’d rather not—and she made a wry mouth, now that she knew what he meant. I’ve got to stop the last misdirection murder, she thought with resolution; there’s no bunkin’ it, and shame on me, for thinking there was nothing I could do to stop it.
With grim determination, she hoisted herself up, and prepared to answer her call-to-action.
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Today was the day. “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity.”
“Mathis,” Doyle said into her phone. “I’m that sorry to bother you at work, but I wanted to ask you about somethin’ Emile told me about his prison visit. It
may not be important, but I wanted to double-check.” “Certainly,” said Mathis, who was probably rolling her eyes. “It’s somethin’ I’d rather discuss face-to-face,” Doyle added.
“It’s a delicate matter, and I’m not sure whether I should bring Acton into it.”
There was a small pause. She knows I’m up to something, thought Doyle; a wily one, was Mathis.
“Of course; I’ll be happy to come by at your convenience, Lady Acton.”
“I’m truly sorry, Mathis; it shouldn’t take more than a minute, and you won’t even have to park; if you’ll just pick me up at the front door, I’ll ride around the block with you.”
“I’ll be there shortly, then.”
On her way out the door, Doyle left her mobile on the sofa table, double-checked her ankle holster, and then grabbed Emile’s jacket from the closet, wincing because she’d moved too fast, and she must have tweaked her back, somehow. Once down in the lobby, she smiled at the concierge, and then watched out the revolving doors for Mathis, hoping the girl wouldn’t be long.
When Mathis pulled up, Doyle allowed the doorman to open the passenger door, and then settled in
, as Mathis pulled away. “Thanks a million, Mathis. I’m truly grateful.”
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Murder in Misdirection: A Doyle & Acton Mystery (The Doyle and Acton Scotland Yard series Book 7) Page 22
