CHAPTER 25
Wrexford swore under his breath but felt compelled to oblige. Griffin was not one for histrionics. “Given the lateness of the hour and all that has happened, I suggest that you send word to Carrick and his friends and delay our meeting,” he said to Charlotte. “I have no idea when I might return.”
“Kit, you and Cordelia should go home and get some sleep,” she responded. “I shall summon you as soon as Wrex returns.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?” offered von Münch.
“Nein,” answered Wrexford. “You, too, should seek some rest. Schlafen Sie wohl.”
“I didn’t know you spoke German, milord.”
“There is a great deal that you don’t know about me,” replied the earl.
“Some men might interpret that as a threat,” murmured von Münch.
Wrexford opened his pistol case. “But only if they were up to no good.”
“Ah.” A smile. “Then I shall sleep with a clear conscience.” He stepped back, losing himself in the shadows of the workroom.
“I assume you’ll soon be serving breakfast . . .” Still slouched in his chair, Henning patted back a prodigious yawn. “So if you don’t mind, I shall trespass on your hospitality and spend the night here.”
“Suit yourself.” The earl was already reloading his weapon while Charlotte brushed the worst of the dust from his overcoat.
He caught her hand and brushed a quick kiss to her knuckles.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
Their eyes met. “Always.”
Wrexford broke away and hurried down to the entrance hall, where Griffin was pacing like a caged lion.
“What the devil is going on?” demanded the earl.
“You’ll see soon enough.” The Runner led the way out to the carriage and climbed in without further explanation.
The earl found Griffin’s silence unsettling. Their first encounter had been adversarial, but mutual suspicion had softened to a grudging partnership, and now, after working together on a number of investigations involving murder, he considered the Runner a friend.
“Given our cooperation in the past, I would have thought that I merited some sort of response to my question,” he said quietly.
“I could say the same to you, milord.” In the flicker of the carriage lamp, Wrexford saw an injured look flit over Griffin’s features.
“Please don’t insult my intelligence by claiming you didn’t see the letters written in blood by Kendall Garfield’s corpse.
And yet you said nothing to me about them when you arranged for me and my men to apprehend the supposed murderer of Jasper Milton earlier this evening at Vauxhall Gardens. ”
“You have good reason to be upset with me, but rest assured that my reticence was not due to lack of trust.” Wrexford decided to leave further explanations until later. “I don’t believe that Oliver Carrick is the culprit.”
“That is not for you to decide, milord. You are an earl, not the Almighty.”
Wrexford felt a stab of guilt, knowing that Griffin’s rebuke was absolutely correct. And yet . . . Carrick deserved a fair trial if arrested for the crime. And he had grave doubts as to whether the authorities would follow the letter of the law.
So yes, he thought, perhaps I am playing God. But my conscience can live with that, at least for the moment.
The clatter of the wheels took on a different sound as they turned off the cobbled street and made their way down a side road to a stone pier at the river’s edge.
A wherry was waiting for them.
“Are we returning to Vauxhall Gardens?” he asked.
Griffin shook his head in reply.
Wrexford lapsed back into a stoic silence as two grim-faced boatmen rowed them across to the south bank.
The tide was low, and the cloying smell of decay hung heavy in the air. A fitful breeze stirred through the dark trees lining the bank, setting off a brittle rustling of the autumn leaves, which would soon be falling to join the elemental cycle of birth and death.
The essence of Life was actually frightfully simple, mused the earl, despite all the myriad complexities that we mortals create for ourselves.
The wherry picked its way through the narrow channel in the oozing mud flats and bumped up against a crude stone landing.
“This way,” said Griffin, leading the way to a footpath that led into a glade of trees.
“Christ Almighty,” growled Wrexford when a man stepped out of the gloom and raised his lantern to illuminate his face.
“Don’t blaspheme, milord.”
“Forgive me if I prefer not to take any chiding on morality from you,” retorted the earl.
A humorless laugh. “Neither of us is as pure as the driven snow.”
“Perhaps not. But at least my intentions are always honorable.” Wrexford had encountered George Pierson, the top operative for the minister of state security, on several previous occasions and was of the opinion that the fellow had oil of vitriol running through his veins rather than blood.
“So you say.” Pierson gestured for Griffin to retreat and wait back at the wherry, then angled the light to a spot in the small clearing where a dark tarp was carelessly draped over three corpses.
“We’ve brought the victims of tonight’s shooting here to keep the public from getting wind of what happened.
” He moved to it and lifted up a corner of the covering to reveal a blood-smeared face.
“Do you recognize this man?”
Wrex considered lying but decided it would only be to spite Pierson—and that was not a worthy reason. “Yes. He’s a French radical.”
Pierson scowled. “Do you know why he’s here in London?”
“Ostensibly to foment unrest among our workers and make trouble for our government while the Peace Conference in Vienna is taking place,” answered the earl.
“But I believe his main reason was to convince Jasper Milton to give his bridge innovation to him and his cohorts, so that they could sell it to Russia and use the money to fund Napoleon’s escape from Elba. ”
A gleam of surprise—which quickly turned to ire—sparked in the operative’s eyes. “How in the name of Satan did you learn that?”
“Because, as you well know, my network of informants is a good deal more capable than yours.”
Pierson took a step closer to the earl. “Have a care, Wrexford. You are treading dangerously close to the line separating cleverness and treason.”
“Are you accusing me of treason?”
The air seemed to spark with unseen electricity. The earl was aware of a fire-sharp prickling against his cheeks.
Pierson stepped closer, then surrendered his pent-up breath in a brusque sigh.
“I would rather not,” he admitted. “The government is dealing with a grave threat to the security of our nation. So I would hope to have your voluntary cooperation without resorting to schoolboy threats and name-calling.”
“What threat demands indiscriminate slaughter?” asked the earl, pointing to the two other victims lying under the tarp.
“Why kill Wayland and Monsieur Montaigne of the French scientific society—I’m assuming it was your men who committed the murders—along with the French radical?
They merited arrest, but not execution without a trial. ”
“My men were there simply to apprehend the three conspirators. But one of them fired first, and my men had to defend themselves. Unfortunately, they are excellent shots.”
“And yet I saw no pistols around the bodies when I searched the three dead men for the papers,” said Wrexford.
“My men told me they were fired upon,” insisted Pierson. “And they understand that there are serious repercussions for lying to me.”
Which, noted Wrexford, was not at all an answer to his observation.
When he didn’t reply, Pierson added, “Regardless of your low opinion of my morals, I don’t kill for no reason.
” He looked down at the dead bodies, throwing his face into shadow.
“My men didn’t recognize you or Mr. Sheffield, so the fact that you were threatened with a knife was a mistake.
In their defense, they were told that retrieving the papers was of utmost importance. ”
“I would rather have a full explanation of the government’s interest in Jasper Milton’s papers than an apology.”
“You are welcome to ask Lord Grentham for one. Perhaps he will humor you,” replied Pierson.
“Ha!” The earl made a rude sound. “And perhaps pigs will sprout wings and fly.”
Pierson allowed himself a faint smile. “I’m not sure which is more likely.” He bent down to flick the tarp back over the dead man’s face. “Let us return to more pragmatic questions. Since you said that you searched the bodies for the papers, I assume it was you who took them away.”
“It was,” answered Wrexford.
“I must insist that you give them to me.”
“They are useless,” said the earl. “Wayland was desperate. His gaming debts were threatening to ruin him, and when he learned that the French radicals would pay a large sum for Milton’s work, he seized the opportunity to create a false set of work papers.”
Pierson contemplated the earl’s statement for several moments. “You are absolutely sure of this?”
“The papers are false,” repeated Wrexford.
“Damnation.” Pierson kicked at a clot of mud. “I need to get my hands on Oliver Carrick, who clearly lies at the heart of all this.” He looked up. “Given the skills of your spies, can you tell his present whereabouts?”
“I don’t possess that information.” It wasn’t precisely a lie. He didn’t know which house on Conduit Street had been rented by Mrs. Guppy.
“If you learn anything—anything—about this affair, send word to me through Griffin.” He clasped his gloved hands together with a muffled slap. “This is a highly sensitive government matter, milord, not a parlor game to keep you amused.”
Wrexford hesitated. A part of him longed to hand over the investigation to the official authorities and be done with murder and intrigue.
But he couldn’t bring himself to do so. The minister of state security and his minions would not hesitate to do whatever was necessary in order to protect the government—whether it be from actual threats or mere embarrassment.