February 15, 1889 Afternoon
By the time Doctor Turpin came, Castel was mostly roused.
The doctor identified the symptoms as likely caused by a dose of morphia or laudanum and determined that there wasn’t much to be done other than wait for the effects to dissipate.
After sending Maureen in a carriage to stay with the Renaldis at Davenguard, Mira, Byron, and Castel left for the Royal Crescent.
Castel dozed for most of the trip, so they couldn’t get much out of him as far as what led up to Hoddle administering the drink.
Once they reached the house, it took both of their support to get him inside.
They brought him into the sitting room where Mrs. Sherard was sewing.
She looked up as they came in and immediately set her things aside, coming to meet them.
“What’s happened?” She placed the back of her hand to Castel’s forehead. “Is it a fever?”
“No, Mamma,” Byron said as they deposited his brother into a chair. “He’s all right, just had a bit of laudanum.”
“A bit? He can’t even support himself.”
Byron huffed and explained the situation. Mrs. Sherard went back to her seat by the fire, wide-eyed.
“Forgive me, but I wouldn’t think Hoddle capable of such a thing,” she said. “He’s always seemed so vapid.”
“He’s not an admiral,” Castel said, his words slurring as he came to for a moment of lucidity. “I checked the admiralty.”
“I suppose it all was an act,” Mira said.
“And we have no idea where he’s gone now, or why he thought it necessary to subdue Castel,” Byron said.
The latter grumbled in his sleep, shifting in the chair.
Mrs. Sherard smiled fondly at him before frowning and looking up at the two of them. “Where’s Mary?”
Byron blinked. “Mary?”
“Yes. A carriage came for her just over an hour ago. The driver said you sent him to fetch Mary for something.”
Mira’s stomach dropped. “We never sent a carriage.”
Byron stood. “Do you remember what the driver looked like? Was there anyone in the carriage already?”
“I-I’m afraid I don’t remember. I noticed he wore a muffler. There might have been someone in the carriage . . .”
Byron swore under his breath. “If it was Hoddle . . .”
“Why would he take her?” Mira said.
“I don’t know.” He paced away. “And that’s more frightening than knowing. It’s possible he received a message from Circe.” He shook his head. “No. There wouldn’t have been enough time between when he learned I was a detective and now for him to write his superiors and receive orders back.”
A knock sounded at the door and Greerson came in with a letter on a tray. He brought it to Mrs. Sherard.
“This just came, Madame.”
“Thank you. Would you fetch some tea for us and water for Castel?”
Greerson inclined his head and left the room. Mrs. Sherard slipped a letter opener through the top of the envelope and pulled out a card. After reading the first line, her hands began to shake.
“Byron,” she held the card up and her son took it, reading it aloud.
“It’s not signed,” Byron said, throwing the note on the table.
“What documents is it referring to?” Mrs. Sherard asked.
“Political documents regarding a treaty.” He rubbed his temples.
“Do you have them?”
“No, not exactly,” Byron pulled the folder of sheet music out of his bag and threw it on the table too. “It needs to be deciphered. But even once we have it, we can’t just hand it over.”
“We don’t know what it says,” Mira said. “Maybe once we decipher it, we’ll see that the message isn’t important after all.”
“It has to be important, otherwise Circe wouldn’t be after it.” He mussed up his hair, looking over at Castel. “If it was Hoddle, he left from Henrietta Street and then came here. Where would he go afterwards? Where would he take her?” He stared blankly out the window.
There were several tense minutes where no one said anything at all. Mira’s chest heaved. Castel teetered in his chair and Mrs. Sherard stared off into space. Byron had a hand over his eyes.
What was she meant to do? Everyone was reeling from the shock of it all. She moved over to Byron and set a hand on his arm.
“We’ll find her.”
“It’s my fault that my family is in this mess,” Byron whispered, his voice thick. “What if we can’t find where he took her?”
“We’ll take it one step at a time. But we need to start now.”
He looked down at her. “Yes. Yes. Goodness, what am I doing? We only have two days.” His voice cracked as he pulled away from her, beginning to pace again.
“We’ll need to talk to the postmaster and determine if anyone knows anything about Hoddle.
He had to have arranged for the PO box. We can’t be too obvious about our questions though. ” He whirled towards his brother.
“How are you feeling?”
Castel alternated shaking his head and nodding. “It’s all a bit fuzzy.”
“Let me know when you have your faculties back. I think I’ll need you for the search.”
“He needs to rest,” Mira said. “And you should work on decoding the documents, Byron. We’ll need them to fall back on.”
Byron grimaced. “I hate the idea of handing them over to Circe, regardless of what’s in it. We should be out searching for Mary.”
“We can’t make a decision one way or the other if we don’t know what the documents say. And Hoddle certainly won’t accept the sheet music on its own.”
“But we need to—”
“I can go to the post office,” Mira said. “And check with carriage drivers and messengers.”
“I can help too,” Mrs. Sherard said.
“Mamma . . .”
“No, I shan’t sit here waiting for all of you to do something.
You may be the detective, she may be your sister, but she is my daughter and we are going to get her back.
” Mrs. Sherard stood, holding her cane in front of her.
“Miss Blayse is right. We don’t have much time.
If we are to be successful, we need to divide and conquer.
You are the only one here who can decode whatever it is they are looking for.
The two of us can make inquiries ourselves.
And Castel . . .” She looked over at her other son who had drifted out of consciousness again. “Well, we had better get him to bed.”
***
After tucking Castel in and assuring Byron that they would be all right, Mrs. Sherard bundled herself and Mira up and led the charge out the door.
“The post office will be closing soon,” she said to Mira as they climbed into a carriage.
“If we’re to discover anything, we need to do it now.
I don’t want to make an after-hours call to the postmaster’s house.
His wife prattles on and we’d never get away.
” Mrs. Sherard adjusted her gloves. “What do we know about Hoddle? Perhaps we can think of a lead as we drive.”
“Well, we know he isn’t actually a friend of Mr. Harris or the family. And he isn’t an admiral.”
“That is who he isn’t. Which is useful in its own way. But who is he?”
“We don’t know much. Only that he is working with Circe to find those documents.”
Mrs. Sherard pursed her lips. “He strikes me as a rather desperate man. And desperate men don’t think things through.
Already, he’s made a mistake in showing his hand.
Why, I doubt that he realized you knew about his false identity, and yet he’s taken such drastic actions.
What might push him to go to these lengths? ”
Next to her, Mira sat open-mouthed. In the span of the last hour, Mrs. Sherard had shown an entirely different side of herself.
She really shouldn’t have been surprised, having only known the woman for not quite two weeks, but it was baffling nonetheless.
The stern, cold and calculating woman that Mira thought Mrs. Sherard to be was melting away.
Or rather, she was seeing those attributes in a different light.
She was stern because she was resolute and disciplined.
Cold because she was pragmatic and could set her feelings aside to get things done.
Calculating because she analyzed everything she came across.
She reminded Mira so much of Byron.
These thoughts rushed through her head in an instant and she pushed them to the side, focusing on the matter at hand.
“I imagine he was under quite a bit of stress,” Mira said. “If Circe is intent on getting these documents and has been searching for so long, they are likely pressuring him to finish the job.”
Mrs. Sherard tipped her head to the side in a familiar way.
“You said that he recently discovered my son’s occupation.
That could explain the change in approach.
Byron is a visible threat to his success, but also a possible chance for relief.
If the renowned detective is on the case, surely he will find the documents and save Hoddle from the wrath of Circe.
But only if he can find a way of convincing Byron to hand them over. ”
Mira frowned. She hadn’t told Mrs. Sherard about Circe or its aims, and she didn’t remember Byron mentioning it. And yet, his mother wasn’t asking any questions about it.
“Did Byron tell you about Circe?”
Mrs. Sherard shook her head. “I was the one who told him.”
Mira blinked, disoriented, as if the world had tilted on its side. “What . . . how?” Panic surfaced as the notion of the Sherards being part of Circe crossed through her mind.
Mrs. Sherard chuckled. “When I was a girl my father was a sea captain who traveled frequently to Jamaica. He’d tell me stories of pirates who sailed under the flag of Circe, the enchantress. Swashbuckling tales of adventure, of which he was always the hero.”
She sighed. “My father died when I was still young and it was many years later that I went through his trunks and papers. In his old journals I found that he had documented little things in the mercantile industry that didn’t make sense.
Cargo disappearing. Ships that could enter port without documentation.
Payments for goods that didn’t exist. Each and every one of them led back to an organization called Circe.
There was nothing I could do, so I tucked them away.