I sighed and put away my collection of Banded Peacocks. Stoker was in no fit state to traipse about the city, particularly not in a mood of effervescent rage. I reached for my hat and pinned it securely to my head.
“Very well, I will come. It has turned chill again, but we can hail a hackney at the corner,” I said.
“We are taking one of his lordship’s carts,” he said, raking his hands through his tumbled hair. “If Pennybaker does not appreciate my work, I will take the quagga back.”
“I will not be accomplice to stealing an ass,” I warned him.
“Never say ‘never,’ Veronica.”
CHAPTER
23
It took us the better part of an hour to reach the Pennybaker home, and I resigned myself to the possibility of participating in a felonious theft as Stoker’s accomplice. It would, if I am honest, not be the worst thing I had done. Stoker sat in a tense and silent fury—nothing kindled his ire so much as a perceived insult to his work—and so I set myself instead to reciting the butterfly genus Papilio in order of discovery.
As we drove, a storm began to brew, blotting out the lovely autumnal sunlight, dimming its gold to pewter. A brisk breeze whipped up across the heath, bending the late grasses and causing the cow parsnip seed heads to nod heavily as the last of the hawthorn fruits shimmered like jewels against their leafy cloaks of dark green.
I had just reached Papilio laglaizei—a relatively new specimen, identified in only 1877—when at last we came to the address. The driver gave a light tug to the reins and the horse eased to a crawl. Stoker and I alighted before it even stopped, vaulting through the narrow gate and through the overgrown shrubbery. I opened my mouth to suggest a measured and conciliatory approach, but Stoker was already lifting the great brass door knocker, rapping sharply.
“Mr. Pennybaker!” he called, pressing his ear to the stout door. “Mr. Pennybaker, are you there?”
The door swung open on its ancient hinges and the quizzical face of Mr. Pennybaker peered out through his round lenses.
“Is that you, Mr. Templeton-Vane?” I was not surprised to see his expression was one of acute distress. The little man was obviously attached to his trophies, and to have a failure in the mounting of the quagga so soon after its delivery was an aggrieving development.
“It is,” Stoker said in a tone of arctic hauteur. “I received your note and have come as requested to investigate the quagga.”
“That is not necessary,” Mr. Pennybaker said with unexpected firmness. “In fact, I would like you to leave at once. I have decided I want nothing whatsoever to do with such shoddy work. You are a charlatan, sir,” he said, his brows trembling with emotion as he gave us an imploring look.
Stoker drew himself up, towering over the little fellow as he moved past. “I will accept no criticism of my work until I can inspect it for myself,” he replied over his shoulder. “I am entirely certain there is no fault in the glue . . .” He continued on in this vein as Mr. Pennybaker tottered in his wake towards the gallery.
“Sir,” Pennybaker said, tugging at his coat, “I really must insist—”
“Calm yourself, man,” Stoker directed. “Whatever is wrong with the quagga, I will put right, you have my word upon it.” His mood was softening at Pennybaker’s obvious anguish, but he would not be deterred. The integrity of his work had been called into question, and that was a situation not to be borne.
“Best to let him get on with it, Mr. Pennybaker,” I soothed as we came to the gallery.
He attempted once to bodily position himself between Stoker and the door, but Stoker picked him up gently by the shoulders and set him aside. He opened the door and stopped dead in his tracks as Pennybaker gave a low moan of protest.
“What is it?” I demanded, wondering what sort of damage the quagga could possibly have sustained, when I saw them.
Archibond stood in front of the painted ass.
“I am sorry,” murmured Mr. Pennybaker. “I did try to warn you.”
“What the devil—” Stoker stared at Archibond in frank astonishment.
I gave our erstwhile abductor a look of frankest loathing. “Mr. Pennybaker, I can only presume that this man prevailed upon you to send that note through some threat of bodily injury?”
“Worse,” the kindly fellow said miserably, “he threatened to burn the quagga.”
He gestured towards the painted ass, which stood in splendid and perfect condition.
“I knew there was nothing wrong with my mount,” Stoker said in satisfaction.
“I thought you would never come,” said Archibond pleasantly as he leveled his revolver.
It took a moment for Mr. Pennybaker to understand the implications. “Is that a revolver?”
“It is,” I told him.
“Why is that chap pointing it at us?”
“Because he wants us to do exactly as he says, which is rather a good idea,” Stoker told him.
I gave Archibond my most severe look. “Do stop waving that around,” I ordered. “You will frighten poor Mr. Pennybaker.”
“On the contrary, it was the waiting that proved distressing. Now that things are happening, I find it rather thrilling,” said the gentleman in question, blinking rapidly.
Archibond’s smile was thin. “Thank you for your prompt arrival. I have trespassed upon our host’s hospitality for a far shorter time than I would have expected.”
The curtains had not been drawn and the bushes outside the window rustled. It would have been a cozy room with the draperies closed and the fire burning merrily, but under the present circumstances it seemed unwelcoming. Trophies stood in every corner, their eyes glowing in the shadows, giving the atmosphere an otherworldly air. A superstitious soul might have felt we were being watched.
But such fancies were of little practical use, and I realized the longer we could keep Archibond talking, the greater the chance one of us could disarm him. Of course, it also increased the risk that dear Mr. Pennybaker might be injured. We must tread with exquisite care, I decided.
“You anticipated that Stoker would respond to any suggestion of his work being inferior,” I said, drawing Archibond’s attention.
“Naturally. Of course, it would have been easier to take the pair of you from Bishop’s Folly, but abducting you from under the nose of Lady Wellie’s hired surveillance is no easy matter. It seemed far simpler to lure you here and finish the business well out from under prying eyes,” he explained.
“But how did you even know about Mr. Pennybaker?” Stoker asked, shifting almost imperceptibly to the side, widening the possible arc of fire should Archibond attempt to shoot one or all of us.
Archibond’s smile was thin and humorless. “A few careful inquiries in the right quarters about your latest commissions were an easy matter.”
“Where is my uncle? And those ruffians he employs?” I inched away from Stoker, broadening the arc further still.
“Gone,” was the tight reply. “Fled, either back to Ireland or some other benighted place. You will appreciate it is rather difficult to trace him without the resources usually at my disposal.”
“Leaving the responsibility of the crimes you committed together to fall squarely on your shoulders,” Stoker pointed out. “You would have done better to have run with him.”
A muscle in Archibond’s jaw twitched. “There is no proof of any crime,” he said evenly. “There is no body.”
“Body?” came Pennybaker’s squeak of a reply.
“Never mind,” I consoled him. “And the inspector is quite wrong. There is a body and therefore evidence of a crime, but he has misplaced it.”
“I did not misplace it,” Archibond said sternly. “It was stolen.”
“From under your nose,” I pointed out. “Careless of you.”
He swung the gun towards me. “Enough, Miss Speedwell. Y
our commentary is not required.”
“But it was careless,” Stoker said, drawing Archibond’s attention back to himself. “I mean, you went to all the trouble to have Madame Aurore murdered and yet you failed to keep account of what became of her. I call that careless.”
Archibond steadied his weapon. “I think we are quite finished here,” he said in a tone of forbidding finality.
I took a deliberate step in front of Stoker. “Do not even think of shooting him.”
I felt the warmth of Stoker at my back, his calm presence so relaxed as to be almost unnerving in such a heightened atmosphere. Really, did nothing disturb his sangfroid?
Archibond gave me a frankly incredulous look. “I have a revolver, Miss Speedwell. I rather think that puts me in charge of what happens here.”
“Do you indeed?” came a voice from the long casement windows, the accent a familiar Irish burr. My uncle shoved the casement fully open, careful to let his henchman precede him into the room, weapon at the ready. He came to stand, braced by his walking stick, glowering at Archibond. “Do you think you are the man pulling the strings, my good lad?”
Archibond sighed. “I thought you were gone, de Clare.”
“Not without seeing this business through to the end,” my uncle told him, glowering.
“In that case, go back to the warehouse and wait for me,” Archibond directed.
“Oh, you’d like that, I suppose, with the police sniffing around, ready to arrest whoever sets foot on that property,” de Clare snarled.
Archibond pricked like a pointer. “What the devil do you mean?”
“I mean, the police have been there. You think I don’t know a fellow in plainclothes even when he has the stink of Scotland Yard about him? I know what I saw. And I had one of my lads keeping watch on you. As soon as he told me you were bound for Hampstead Heath, I knew what you were about. You meant to get your hands on these two and cut me right out of the plot,” he accused.
“I thought you had fled,” Archibond pointed out calmly. “And if you had not, taking these two back into my own custody assures I am not circumvented.”
“Circumvented! And what put that thought into your head?” jeered de Clare.
“Perhaps the fact that you took Madame Aurore’s body off the premises,” Archibond returned.
De Clare flushed, a deep mottled red. “Do not play games with me, you English prick. I know you took her, and I know why. You mean to frame me for her murder and keep the girl under your control,” he said, jerking his chin at me.
Archibond’s tone was arctic. “I would hardly need to frame you for murdering Aurore since your man slashed her throat on your orders. And as for playing games, you are scarcely in a position to talk after what you did with the body.”
They had squared off, each man’s temper flaring, Archibond’s cold and de Clare’s blazing. It made for an interesting study. I glanced back at Stoker and he shrugged. I knew him well enough to interpret the gesture. He would do nothing so long as the two of them were at loggerheads. If the quarrel played out and they did violence to each other, so much the better for us. We might well escape in the confusion. Along with poor Mr. Pennybaker, I thought. But the gentleman was staring at the pair of combatants, eyes wide with interest as he took in their contretemps with all the avid interest of a spectator who has wagered his last guinea at a horse race. Stoker moved, angling his body in front of Pennybaker so the man would be shielded from any possible violence.
De Clare was fairly leaping at Archibond’s accusation. “I tell you, I did nothing with the body! It was you who spirited her off to God knows where.”
Archibond rolled his eyes heavenwards. “And when, precisely, would I have had an opportunity to do that? I was with you, or have you—in your paranoiac fantasies—forgot that? It is perfectly apparent that you must know where the body is.”
“I do not!” De Clare was fairly vibrating with rage at this point. He raised his pistol to Archibond, who countered by leveling his own revolver at de Clare, and there were quite enough guns in that room for my taste. I decided to step in, holding my hands up.
“Stop this brangling at once,” I instructed. “I know where the body is. So I suggest you both calm down and discuss this rationally before gunfire breaks out.”
Archibond gave me a suspicious look. “You know where the body is?”
“Yes, someone left her for us to find,” I told him. “We rather thought it was the pair of you, intending to notify the police and have us arrested on suspicion of murder.”
Archibond’s tone was one of chilled scorn. “Why the devil would we want you accused of murder when you are the linchpin of this whole endeavor?”
I shrugged. “You might have intended to catch Stoker in your little trap,” I pointed out. “It is one way of eliminating him from the equation.”
“There are other ways,” he said.
And before I understood what he meant to do, he shifted his stance, turned to Stoker, and pulled the trigger.
Time stood still as the scarlet bloomed across Stoker’s shirtfront and he slid to his knees. He looked up to me, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Not again,” he said, half laughing. “I don’t bloody well believe this.”
And then he collapsed onto the carpet at my feet.
CHAPTER
24
The instant Stoker fell, several things happened. De Clare, believing Archibond had shot at me, immediately fired at Archibond. His aim was not as true and he merely caught the inspector in the arm. Archibond lifted his other arm to return fire, but before he could, a form vaulted through the window.
“Mornaday!” I cried as our old acquaintance entered, his own revolver drawn.
“Inspector, surrender yourself,” he instructed. “The rest of you are under arrest, except for Miss Speedwell.”
Archibond did not lower his weapon. “I don’t know what you think you are playing at, Mornaday, but that is enough. As your superior, I order you to lower your weapon and take these people into custody.”
“I am afraid not, sir,” Mornaday said evenly. “I have my own orders and they come from higher than you.”
Archibond’s features twisted into a snarl, but before he could pull the trigger, a shot rang out. He pitched forward, surprise registering on his face. De Clare and Mornaday had not moved, and neither had Quiet Dan. But behind Archibond, his wide eyes as stunned as the rest of us, a smoking musket of some antiquity in his hand, stood Mr. Pennybaker.
“Oh dear,” he said, dropping the musket to the ground. “I seem to have hit him in the posterior vena cava. I do believe that will be a fatal wound.”
“Christ in chains,” Mornaday muttered. He swung his revolver to de Clare. “You and your man. Drop your weapons and against the wall.”
De Clare grinned. “I think not, lad. There’s one of you and two of us.”
The little clock on the mantel began to chime, but I could not make sense of it, for time had frozen. We were a tableau: Pennybaker, horrified at his own actions, standing in rigid disbelief; De Clare and Quiet Dan opposite Mornaday, alone and outnumbered and attempting to hold them off.
And most significant of all, Stoker, lying on the hearthrug, his life’s blood pooling beneath him.
It was easy to see what would happen next. De Clare and his minion would open fire on Mornaday first, then Pennybaker. They would finish off Stoker and take me prisoner and that would be the end—the end of my life as I had known it, the end of my love.
I bent as if to look at Stoker, but I came up almost immediately. The gesture was simply a way to shield my movements as I slipped the knife from my boot. Once before, Stoker had lain bleeding from a bullet and I had thrown a knife straight into the heart of his attacker. This time, I did not throw it. I surged forward, blade in hand, and my aim was true. I buried the knife where I intended, in my uncle’s
torso, pulling it up and sharply to the left as he stared at me, his expression one of complete disbelief. For a long moment we were locked together, his arms coming up to grip mine, almost in an embrace. And then he eased his hold on me, slipping from my grasp with a little shudder that gave way to perfect and final stillness.
Quiet Dan fired once, hitting Mornaday in the shoulder, dropping him to the floor. Beyond where Mornaday had stood, framed in the windows, was my dance partner, the female liveried and masked porter from Madame Aurore’s, the deerhound Vespertine at her heels, a rifle hefted to her shoulder. Without breaking stride, she fired twice in quick succession, taking out Quiet Dan. Mornaday slumped on the carpet, grasping his bleeding shoulder.
He gazed in disbelief at the porter, who surveyed the room, rifle still at the ready.
“I told you to wait in the carriage,” Mornaday sputtered.
“And I told you this was my story,” said the porter, removing the powdered wig and her mask. She bowed in my direction. “Miss Speedwell, how nice to make your acquaintance once more,” said J. J. Butterworth. She peered at Stoker. “Mr. Templeton-Vane does not look at all well.”
“He must have a doctor,” I said, falling to my knees.
Mr. Pennybaker roused himself. “Let me see.”
He pushed me gently aside and began to probe the wound. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?” I demanded. “He needs a doctor.”
His gaze was placid as a millpond as he began to order J. J. Butterworth about, fetching instruments and implements. I continued to stare at him, my hands streaked with Stoker’s blood. After a moment, he glanced up at me. “Did I not tell you, my dear? I am a retired professor of surgery from Edinburgh University. I learnt my trade on the battlefields of Crimea. I am rather familiar with this sort of thing.”
A Murderous Relation Page 26
