CHAPTER 16
After seeing von Münch out, Charlotte resolved to set aside the mysteries of the manuscript until Wrexford returned.
However, the house was quiet—too quiet to offer the usual familial distractions.
The Weasels and Peregrine had retreated to their eyrie looking a little green around the gills after having eaten too many sweets during their supper with Alison.
McClellan had gone out—she had not said to where—and Tyler was ensconced in the earl’s laboratory preparing chemicals for a new experiment.
And so she found herself drawn back to the manuscript’s cryptic pages.
“Damnation,” she muttered after carrying it up to her workroom. “This has to hold a clue as to why Greeley was killed.” One by one, she turned through the pages yet again, trying to keep an open mind on which of the bizarre images might be a key piece to the puzzle.
And once again, she felt utterly flummoxed.
Disappointed in herself, Charlotte looked up to give her eyes a rest. The lamplight flickered across her worktable, illuminating all the familiar elements of her daily life—her paints and brushes, the stack of watercolor paper, the sketchbooks.
She could make them do her bidding with ease, creating words and images to provoke the public to think about complex ideas. ...
Her gaze suddenly came to rest on the portfolio case that Wrexford had brought back from the Merton College Library.
The pile of papers and scribbled notes from Greeley’s desk.
What with all the other distractions, she had yet to have a look at them.
Charlotte hesitated, half afraid of taking on another challenge that would defeat her. The trepidation wasn’t out of mere hubris. Wrexford was a man of tightly controlled emotions, and yet she had never seen him appear so rattled.
So vulnerable.
Greeley’s death had opened up an old wound, one that had never fully healed.
“And perhaps it never will,” Charlotte whispered. No amount of logic seemed able to banish the unreasonable sense of guilt her husband felt at not being able to keep his brother safe. She also sensed that there were deeper, darker conflicts troubling him.
But for now, solving the murder must take precedence.
“Perhaps finding justice for Greeley will expiate some of the pain.”
Grabbing a handful of the papers, she spread them out on her blotter. After opening a notebook and taking up her magnifying glass, she set to work trying to coax some meaning out of the scribbles.
The next time Charlotte looked up, she saw that the shadows of early evening had turned to a more impenetrable darkness.
After flexing her shoulders, she put down her pencil and made a face.
She had precious little to show for her hours of effort.
Greeley’s cryptic jottings and notations had defied her efforts to decipher what he had been thinking.
One symbol—a strange squiggle with two finlike appendages—appeared with maddening frequency.
But she couldn’t begin to fathom what it meant.
“Perhaps in the morning, things will look clearer,” Charlotte murmured, trying to boost her flagging spirits. Her muscles were cramping, her eyes were burning, but it was the ache in her heart that hurt the most. She wanted so badly to help Wrexford—
“What are you working on, m’lady?” Clad in a nightshirt, his sleep-tousled hair sticking up in spiky tufts, Hawk padded into the room.
“A puzzle,” she answered. “It’s very late. You should be in bed.”
“I was,” he replied. “I woke up and was thirsty, so I went to the kitchen for a mug of milk . . . and one or two ginger biscuits.” He took a tentative step closer. “May I have a look?”
“Yes, by all means, sweeting.” She sighed. “A fresh set of eyes may see whatever it is that I am missing.”
Hawk came and stood close to her chair—close enough that the sugary heat from his skinny body warmed some of the uncertainty from her bones. She put her arms around him and brushed a kiss to his tangled curls.
Brow furrowed in concentration, he studied the scraps of paper spread out across her blotter for several long moments.
“Why does an eel appear so often?”
“An eel?” said Charlotte blankly.
“Yes, an eel,” said Hawk. A budding naturalist, he was particularly interested in creatures that crawled or wiggled through the muck.
“You can tell by these two pectoral fins just behind the head and gills.” He tapped a finger to one of the sketches.
“And the way the body looks taller toward its tail because of the long fluttery fin that wraps its top and bottom.”
Charlotte shook her head in confusion. “I can’t for the life of me think of how an eel relates to a compendium of technological inventions from the Italian Renaissance.”
“Perhaps it’s a symbol,” suggested Hawk. His expression sharpened. “Or a name. Our friend Smoke, who works down at the dockyards, knows several sailors called “Eel.” He made a wry face. “Though it’s not meant very nicely.”
Charlotte considered the suggestion. There was something to be said for the suggestion.
Or was she simply grasping at straws?
“It’s a very interesting idea,” she said. “I shall ask whether Mr. Greeley knew anyone called Eel.”
Seeing Hawk stifle a yawn, Charlotte ruffled his hair. “But for now, I think we both ought to get some rest.”
However, once the boy had padded off to the stairs, she made no move to retire.
Wrexford had left no word as to his evening activities, and the fact that he had not yet returned was making her jumpy.
She was impatient to tell him about the discovery of the manuscript and show him the arcane drawings.
Picking up her pen, she tried to force her attention back to Greeley’s cryptic notes.
After several useless minutes, she conceded defeat.
Sleep was out of the question, and so she decided to wait in her husband’s workroom, where the familiar scents of leather, paper, ink, and Wrexford’s bay rum shaving soap might help settle her nerves.
The night’s chill hung heavy in the deserted space. After taking a moment to light an oil lamp, Charlotte chose a random book from the shelves and took a seat in one of the leather armchairs.
Where she soon slipped into a fitful doze.
* * *
It was way past dark before Wrexford was too weary in both body and spirit to continue his aimless wandering through the park and the adjoining Kensington Gardens. Turning his steps for home, he exited through the Grosvenor Gate and made his way to Berkeley Square.
“Milord.”
He whirled around to see a familiar figure step out from the shadows of the wrought-iron fence surrounding the center garden.
“Griffin!” The earl’s pulse kicked up a notch. “What are you doing back in London? Have you discovered something?”
“Let us go somewhere where we can talk more comfortably,” said Griffin. He hesitated and shot a glance at the earl’s nearby townhouse before adding, “I know a tavern near here, by the burying ground off South Audley Street.”
“Where I will have the privilege of buying you a midnight supper?” replied Wrexford, using the retort to compose himself. “Or is it time for breakfast?”
“Actually, I’m not hungry, milord.”
“Ye gods, are you ill?”
Griffin didn’t smile. Shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, he stood in silence, waiting for the earl to make a decision.
From the look on the Runner’s face, Wrexford guessed that the news was bad. Indeed, a sense of foreboding had gripped his heart from the moment he had first touched Greeley’s letter begging him to come to Oxford. Still, he couldn’t begin to imagine what sort of revelations he was about to hear.
But if he was about to receive an emotional punch to the gut, perhaps it was best to do so away from Charlotte and the rest of his household. His self-control was already a little shaky, and he would rather have some time in which to compose himself.
“Well, then it seems I shall get off cheaply tonight.” He gestured for Griffin to lead the way, then fell in step beside him as the Runner picked a path through a tangle of alleyways that led away from Berkeley Square. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I stopped at your townhouse earlier, and Tyler told me you were out. So I decided to wait.”
Another sign that the news was not good.
As they emerged onto a narrow side street, Griffin headed for a stucco and timber building squeezed in between two brick warehouses. A gleam of mellow lamplight lit the night as he tugged open the door to the tavern and led the way to a table nestled in a far corner of the room.
Griffin signaled for the barmaid to bring over two tankards of ale and then clasped his hands together and placed them on the tabletop.
“Whatever you have to say,” muttered Wrexford, “you might as well spit it out.”
A shadow suddenly fell over the table as the barmaid returned. Two tankards thumped down, foam sliding down the dark pewter to pool on the sticky wood.
Griffin took a swallow of his ale before clearing his throat. “I’ve made no progress on identifying a suspect in Mr. Greeley’s murder. Your brother’s friend lived a very quiet and solitary life.”
“I doubt you traveled here from Oxford just to tell me that.”
“Correct, milord,” responded the Runner. “I received an urgent note from one of my fellow Runners that convinced me to return to Town.” A pause. “I’m aware that coincidences make you highly suspicious. They have the same effect on me.”
“Stop talking in circles,” growled Wrexford, perplexed as to where the Runner was headed. “Just give me the facts.”
“A man has been arrested for starting the fire that burned down Henry Maudslay’s laboratory.”
The reply caught him completely off-guard. “I’m aware of that, but what the devil does it have to do with Greeley?”
“I’m about to explain, milord,” said Griffin, looking as though he would rather eat nails than go on.
Wrexford sat back and folded his arms across his chest.