“And miss hearing you talk about me?” Harold poked at the beef with his fork, then sipped more wine.
Stella mashed a portion of potato, spooned a little water on it to make a paste, and raised a portion of it to her husband’s lips. After it sat on his tongue for a brief time, he swallowed.
“Extraordinary,” De Quincey said.
“Dr. Wainwright says that certain movements are automatic, such as breathing. In my husband’s case, swallowing appears to be automatic also. Otherwise, I don’t know how I would ever have been able to keep him alive.”
“It would have been better if he’d died,” Harold said.
“What a terrible thing to say about your father,” Stella told him.
“Well, look at him. He’s as good as dead. He can’t think. He can’t speak. He can’t hear.”
“We don’t know any of that,” Stella objected. The candelabra on the table shimmered over her delicate features and fair hair. Her green eyes had the depth of an ocean. “What if he can hear?” She turned to De Quincey and Emily. “I read to him for an hour every morning.”
“You could read to him in Sanskrit for all the difference it would make—”
“Harold, allow me to take this opportunity to tell you I’m sorry about your brother,” De Quincey interrupted.
“My brother?”
“Your older one, I believe. Carolyn told me. I gather he died a few years ago, but I know from experience that grief is difficult to shed. My condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“If what I heard was correct, the cause of death was typhoid fever. Bad water, I presume.”
“In one of the German States. Given the location, I suppose it was to be expected,” Harold said. “It’s a miracle I didn’t become ill also.”
“I’ve always wanted to travel to Germany,” De Quincey told him. “There’s a mountain I’d like to visit. It’s called the Brocken. People have seen monstrous apparitions there, but it turns out these are only the shadows that observers cast on the mist, begging the question of whether our minds create reality or whether it exists outside us.”
Harold looked confused. “The Brocken? Never heard of it. My brother and I were visiting Homburg.”
“Yes, there’s a casino and a spa there, I’ve heard.”
Harold opened his snuffbox. “There is indeed a casino.”
“Does the name Daniel Harcourt mean anything to you?” De Quincey asked.
“Only because a constable came here yesterday asking about him. The constable wouldn’t tell me why the man was important.”
“Daniel Harcourt was the victim who was murdered on the train Thursday night,” De Quincey explained.
“No thanks to the constable, I needed to wait until I read this morning’s newspaper to discover his identity. A horrid business. Soon we won’t be safe anywhere.”
“The police believe that Harcourt was coming to Sedwick Hill with important documents that he intended to deliver to someone,” De Quincey persisted. “Were you expecting any visitors?”
“The constable asked me that also. No, I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“Perhaps you’re familiar with a man named John Saltram,” De Quincey said.
“Why are you asking these questions? You sound like the constable who came here.”
“Thomas is fascinated by murder,” Carolyn explained. “In fact, he’s an expert in it.”
“Really?” Harold studied him. “Well, I suppose I’m not surprised.”
“Oh?” De Quincey asked. “Why is that?”
“Given the amount of laudanum you drink, most of the time you probably don’t know what you’re doing. If it’s not indelicate for me to ask, how many people have you killed?”
The railway tracks receded into the darkness. As a cold rain pelted the guard, he continued his inspection. Two hours earlier, a train had left him here, a few miles outside London, and then moved onward to drop off other guards at other sections of the tracks. Back then, the guard had been primed with the excitement of a hunter and the thought of what he’d do with the two-sovereign reward promised to anyone who found something amiss, but now all he cared about was how much longer he’d be forced to suffer in this terrible weather before his replacement arrived. Staying between the rails, he tried not to trip on the crossties while shifting his lantern back and forth and scanning the darkness. He searched for a bomb or a rail that had been pulled away—anything that might cause another catastrophe.
A trestle appeared in the gloom. As he stepped onto it, something scraped against a wooden beam below him.
The guard’s chill now had nothing to do with the rain trickling under his coat collar.
Again something scraped. In a rush, he knelt and lowered his lantern over the side.
A shadow moved below him.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Who’s there?”
He heard someone climbing hurriedly downward.
“Stop!”
The shadow descended faster.
The guard rushed to the slope next to the trestle and began to scurry down it, but the mud was so slippery that he lost his balance and fell onto his back. Desperately holding the lantern above him, he dug his heels into the mud and tried to keep from sliding out of control. The cold mud surged up his trouser legs and under his coat.
He struck a rock. Groaning, he jolted to a stop at the bottom.
A match flashed under the trestle.
Then something else flashed—a fuse.
“No!”
His lantern wavering, the guard struggled to stand as a figure ran away, splashing through a stream.
The guard raced toward the bottom of the trestle. He reached the fuse, yanked it with all his strength, and felt it break free from something above him.
The fuse hissed when he tossed it into the stream.
The guard hurried in the direction that the figure had taken. The sound of boots on mud led him from the stream toward an embankment. He charged up through tall, dead grass. Aiming his lantern, he reached the top, and suddenly his lantern shattered, glass flying.
The light died. But he’d seen the blur of a man swinging a club at him. As the guard dropped, he heard the club coming at him a second time, then whistling past him.
Sprawled in the wet grass, he kicked with both boots and felt them collide with the legs of the figure looming over him. He heard a groan and kicked again. He rolled to the side, screaming, “Help! Help!” as the club struck the mud next to him.
“Mother of God, save me!” he wailed.
Another voice suddenly yelled, “Who’s down there!” It came from the top of the trestle, from another guard. “Joe? Is that you?”
“He’s trying to kill me!”
“Joe?”
The guard kicked again. “For God’s sake, stop him!” He struggled to squirm away from the blow that would break his skull. “Hurry!”
“Keep fighting, Joe! I’m coming!”
Again the guard kicked and rolled, and suddenly the figure was gone, racing away into the darkness.
Lying on his back, the guard felt the cold rain on his face. He struggled to stop trembling. He kept seeing the figure rush at him, swinging the club that had smashed his lantern.
“Joe, where are you?”
“Here! Over here!”
He felt hands pulling him to his feet.
“Are you hurt? What in blazes happened?”
“There’s a bomb on the trestle.”
“What?”
Fear dried his mouth. “He lit the fuse. I grabbed it.” His tongue didn’t want to work. “I threw it into the stream.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone. That way.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“Just a glimpse before he smashed my lantern. But I don’t think I was seeing properly.”
“What do you mean?”
“His clothes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was dressed like a soldie
r.”
“A soldier tried to blow up the trestle?”
“Not exactly a soldier. I saw him only for an instant. Maybe I imagined it. But I’m certain he was wearing rags.”
“Rags?”
“His uniform was in rags, like the kind those beggars wear at the train stations, the ones that just came back from the war.”
“A beggar tried to blow up a railway trestle?”
Lord Palmerston paced as Commissioner Mayne and the home secretary reported to him in the hastily arranged meeting at his Downing Street office.
“Prime Minister, he was a particular kind of beggar,” the commissioner said. “He wore the tattered uniform of a Crimean War veteran.”
“You’re telling me that the Russians aren’t the ones behind these railway incidents, that it’s somebody who’s bitter about having fought in the war? Then how do you explain that the man who entered Daniel Harcourt’s train compartment was dressed like a gentleman, not a soldier?”
“The tattered uniform might be another disguise,” Mayne suggested.
“In that case, what he wore tonight is useless in helping you find him! He’ll just keep changing his appearance.”
“Perhaps not, Prime Minister. This particular disguise might be too perfect to abandon.”
“Too perfect?”
“London has thousands of war veterans begging in the streets. They come and go as they please. No one questions them. In fact, most people ignore them. And any of those invisible beggars could be a spy.”
Leaving his Downing Street office, Lord Palmerston saw a small red chalk mark on a streetlamp.
“You’re dismissed for the evening,” he told his escort.
“But—”
Before the man could finish objecting, Lord Palmerston climbed into the cab that waited for him.
“To your house, Prime Minister?” the driver asked.
“No. Take me to Rotten Row.”
“This late, Your Lordship? In this weather?”
“Do it.”
Located on the south side of Hyde Park, Rotten Row was a bridle path where London society came to see and be seen, showing off their magnificent mounts and their fashionable riding costumes.
“Stop at the entrance,” Lord Palmerston called up to the driver.
In the rain, traffic was sparse. They waited in the dark. A minute later, a carriage approached and stopped next to Lord Palmerston’s cab.
“Remain here,” he told the driver.
The carriage was covered, its interior dark. When its door opened, Lord Palmerston stepped from the cab, took three steps through the rain, and climbed into the carriage. As he shut the door, the vehicle moved forward.
Sandalwood perfume hovered around him. “I saw the chalk mark. What the devil happened?” he demanded.
The voice that answered belonged to the woman he’d met at Wyld’s Monster Globe only a night previously. The stark difference in her tone was disturbing. “Do you know a detective inspector named Ryan?”
“Yes.”
“And a detective sergeant named Becker?”
“Tell me.”
“They’re at Sedwick Hill.”
“What?”
“They intend to question everyone at the clinic.”
“God damn them.”
“Are you certain this is the place?” the man with a Russian accent demanded.
He was in the back of a canvas-covered wagon. Rain pelted it as he held a flap open, staring toward three large buildings at the end of a white gravel lane. Most of the windows had lamplight.
Behind him, a voice murmured in pain, “On my mother’s soul, this is where I brought him.”
The Russian turned toward his trembling captive. “If you’re lying, my associate will cut off your remaining fingers. To which building did you deliver Dr. Mandt?”
“The middle.”
The Russian tapped a knife against the blood-soaked bandage on the captive’s right hand. “Which entrance?”
The captive inhaled in agony, making a stark whistling sound through his clenched teeth. “A side door on the right.”
“And you have no idea where Mandt might be hiding in there?”
“I’ve never been inside the place.” The captive nearly wept from his pain.
The Russian studied the middle building.
A new light appeared, this one in a window beneath the pitched roof of the topmost floor. The light was dim, filtered by an attic curtain.
The Russian kept watching.
Crouched behind boxes, Mandt felt his chest cramp while he listened to knuckles rap on the door, completing the code.
Even then, he still didn’t feel reassured. As he groped through the darkness, faint lantern light glowed through cracks in the door.
He pushed the hatch to the side and saw Dr. Wainwright’s face. But his relief lasted only for a moment. Mandt had treated too many patients for too many years not to notice that the pupils of Wainwright’s eyes were larger than usual, a sign of stress.
“Unbolt the door,” Wainwright said in German.
“The phrase,” Mandt replied nervously, speaking German also. “I need to hear you say it.”
“Sorry. ‘The water of life.’”
Trembling, Mandt pawed at the bolt and freed it.
Wainwright hurried inside. “I don’t have much time. Two Scotland Yard detectives are here.”
“What?”
“They have nothing to do with you,” Wainwright said hastily. “There was a murder on a train Thursday night—a lawyer coming to Sedwick Hill from London. The police think he intended to deliver documents to someone here at the clinic.”
“A murder on a train? But all you told me about were a collision and a fire!”
“I promise, none of it involves you.”
Mandt wanted desperately to believe that.
“The police intend to talk to everyone,” Wainwright continued. “They’ll wonder where I went if I’m away too long. Here’s more food and water. Is there anything else you need?”
“My chamber pot is—”
“That’s a job for a maid. I can’t stay.” Wainwright stepped back into the stairway. “If I don’t visit you tomorrow morning, it will mean that the police are still here.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry. You’ll soon be on your way to Liverpool.”
“Liverpool? Not Bristol? The situation is so unsafe that I’ll definitely be taking the unexpected long route?”
Instead of answering, Wainwright quickly closed the door, returning Mandt to darkness.
Don’t worry? Mandt thought, hurriedly bolting the door. He might have been convinced if Wainwright’s pupils hadn’t remained so dilated.
Outside, in the canvas-covered wagon, the Russian kept studying the attic window. After less than a minute, the light disappeared.
He wondered why anyone would visit an attic for so short a time at so late an hour.
NINE
NIGHT TERRORS
From the Journal of Emily De Quincey
A scream woke me. At first, I thought it was part of a nightmare I was having in which the sound of the rain pelting at my window belonged to fingers tapping, tapping, tapping.
The scream became fiercer.
It belonged to a woman—Stella.
“He’s dead!”
The house was so cold, its gloom so oppressive that I hadn’t changed into the nightclothes I’d brought. Still dressed in what I’d worn when I’d arrived at the house, I yanked away the curtains on my bed and ran to the door.
“Robert’s dead!” Stella shrieked.
When I charged into the corridor, I saw Father—he, too, still wearing his travel clothes—hurrying from his room. Carolyn, wearing a dressing gown, was already there.
“Dead!”
The screams came from the level below us. As we rushed toward the wavering lamplight, Stella must have heard us. The moment we veered from the staircase, she ran along the hallway to us. Her f
eatures were pale in the light from the lamp she held, her eyes gleaming with panic.
“I couldn’t sleep. I went to check on Robert. I…something’s wrong. He isn’t…”
We quickly followed her. An open door gaped before what looked like an abyss.
Harold stepped from a room farther along the corridor. Fastening his robe, he took long strides toward us.
“What the deuce is wrong? What’s all the screaming about?”
“It’s Robert! He’s…”
“He’s what?” Harold demanded. “For God’s sake, make sense!”
“I saw you,” Stella told him.
“Saw me?”
“Coming from Robert’s room.”
“What in blazes are you talking about?”
“A minute ago, I saw you!” Stella insisted.
“This is insane.”
While they argued, I took the lamp from Stella and hurried into the room—a man’s bedroom, as I expected, with dark, masculine appointments.
The wind howled at the window, rain striking it with the sound of pebbles. The bed curtains were parted. Approaching, I saw Lord Cavendale lying beneath a blanket.
“Stella, did you say he was—”
“I could tell right away that something was wrong!”
The others followed me into the room. I brought the lamp closer, dispelling the shadows. I’d never seen Lord Cavendale move his body, so it wasn’t surprising that the commotion of Stella’s outburst and our sudden appearance in his room received no reaction.
“Dead? No, he can’t be,” Harold said. “He showed no distress at dinner. He swallowed food. He breathed without difficulty.”
“I saw you coming out of here,” Stella repeated.
Carolyn approached me. “Emily, you said you’d received medical training from Dr. Snow. Is it too much to ask for you to…”
“Please, hold this lamp for me.”
“Of course. Whatever I can do to help,” Carolyn said.
“Hold it higher, please.”
Servants gathered at the entrance to the bedroom, their candles providing more illumination.
Ruler of the Night Page 20
