CHAPTER SIX THE FEAST OF HERMES #2
Carrow looked delighted. Gabriel wanted him elsewhere.
A club officer approached before the conversation could deepen.
Unlike the servant at the entrance, this man wore a mask of polished bronze and a chain bearing three Mercury coins.
Gabriel recognised Sir Alistair Crane, a former diplomat whose official service had ended after letters involving a married archduchess appeared in the wrong embassy.
Crane now managed the Mercury Club’s private exchanges and treated suspicion as a social accomplishment.
“Ashcombe,” he said. “You have neglected us.”
“I was attempting virtue.”
“Did it take?”
“Temporarily. I developed a rash.”
Crane’s gaze moved toward Eleanor.
“And where did you acquire Persephone?”
Gabriel felt her body become alert beneath his hand.
“Florence,” he said.
“Everything interesting appears to come from Florence.”
“Usually after leaving England under unfortunate circumstances.”
Crane looked at Eleanor. “You met Lord Ashcombe abroad?”
She sipped her wine.
“At a damaged statue.”
The officer paused. Gabriel nearly did the same.
Eleanor continued smoothly. “My late husband owned a small collection near the Piazza della Signoria. One evening, a marble Apollo was found without its hand.”
Crane turned toward Gabriel. “You stole a statue’s hand?”
“Stole is an ungenerous word.”
“He had lost a wager,” Eleanor said.
“To whom?” Crane asked.
“A sculptor’s widow.”
“What were the terms?”
Gabriel understood the invitation.
He leaned nearer Eleanor. “Mrs. Grey insisted Apollo’s hand was anatomically inaccurate.”
“The wrist,” Eleanor said.
“Of course.”
“She wagered that I could not remove it without waking the caretaker.”
“And could you?” Crane asked.
Gabriel looked at Eleanor. Her eyes gleamed behind the silver mask.
“I removed the hand.”
“While partially dressed,” she added.
Crane laughed. Gabriel did not. The imagined scene became absurdly vivid: Eleanor in a Florentine courtyard, Gabriel half dressed, both of them sharing a history that had never occurred and yet felt more real with every detail.
“Why partially?” Crane asked.
Eleanor opened her fan. “The sculptor’s widow retained his coat as security.”
Gabriel smiled. “She distrusted my honesty.”
“Wisely.”
“And what did you retain, Mrs. Grey?” Crane asked.
Eleanor turned her face toward Gabriel.
“His attention.”
The answer landed with devastating precision.
Crane’s laughter grew louder. Gabriel’s did not arrive at all.
For a dangerous moment, he could almost remember Florence.
He could almost remember Eleanor standing beside broken marble beneath a warm Italian moon, wearing some dark gown while he offered his coat, his attention and considerably more.
The false past pressed against the true present until he no longer knew which one tempted him more. Crane looked between them.
“You have rehearsed the story.”
“No,” Eleanor said.
The honesty made the lie convincing.
Crane bowed. “Enjoy the Feast.”
He moved away. Gabriel waited until the noise of the salon covered his voice.
“Partially dressed?”
“You said specific details create credibility.”
“I was not informed the details would concern my clothes.”
“You contributed effectively.”
“Did I?”
“You looked offended. It suggested intimacy.”
Gabriel’s hand remained at her waist.
“It suggested surprise.”
“Only because you underestimate me.”
He looked down at her.
“That mistake is becoming impossible.”
The second bell rang. Across the room, masked officers moved toward the staircase leading to the upper gallery.
Guests produced coins and invitations, passing them discreetly into gloved hands.
Gabriel felt Eleanor’s posture change. The amusement vanished.
The scholar returned beneath the widow’s mask.
“Ready?” he asked.
“No.”
He appreciated the honesty more than a declaration of confidence.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Fear noticed is easier to manage.”
Eleanor looked at him. The reminder of their rules steadied them both.
Gabriel drew the coin stolen from Vauclair and concealed it inside his palm.
They crossed the salon together. At the staircase, a servant held out a silver bowl.
Gabriel dropped the coin inside. Another servant lifted it, inspected the winged staff and turned it to read the inscription.
For one alarming second, Gabriel wondered whether Vauclair had already reported it missing. The servant returned the coin.
“One companion,” he said.
Gabriel placed his hand at Eleanor’s back and guided her upward.
The upper gallery overlooked the main salon through carved screens.
Its corridors were narrower, its lamps dimmer and its decorations less theatrical.
Numbered cabinets lined the walls. Each cabinet bore a classical quotation and a small keyhole.
Guests moved between them in pairs or alone, exchanging sealed packets, examining documents and conducting conversations beneath the cover of music drifting from below. No one raised a voice.
No one laughed without calculation. The true business of the Mercury Club began here. Eleanor took Gabriel’s arm more firmly. He leaned close enough to brush his mouth against her temple, preserving the appearance of a lover’s whisper.
“What do you see?”
“The quotations correspond to cabinet numbers.”
“Which cabinet?”
“I need time.”
“You have until the third bell.”
“That is not time. That is a threat expressed musically.”
Gabriel almost smiled. They moved slowly along the gallery.
Eleanor appeared to admire the paintings while reading every line printed beside the cabinets.
Gabriel greeted acquaintances, accepted a glass of brandy he did not drink and listened to fragments of conversation.
A printer complained that payment had been delayed.
A newspaper proprietor asked whether the “Wellington letters” were originals or copies.
An elderly lord negotiated the purchase of his son’s gaming debt from a man wearing a mask shaped like Janus. At cabinet twelve, Eleanor’s fingers tightened upon Gabriel’s sleeve.
“Payment,” she whispered.
The quotation above the door referred to Apollo rewarding a poet with gold. Two words had been altered. Gabriel guided her toward a display case opposite the cabinet.
“What does it contain?”
“Stipends. Possibly gifts to scholars.”
“Can you open it?”
“The number is part of the key, but I need the sequence.”
A club member approached. Gabriel turned before the man could see Eleanor studying the inscription.
“Rivington,” he said warmly.
The masked gentleman hesitated.
Gabriel continued before he could deny the identity. “Your wife sends her admiration.”
Rivington’s alarm confirmed the guess.
“My wife is in Bath.”
“So she claimed.”
Gabriel drew the man several feet away and began an entirely fictitious account involving Lady Rivington, a French riding instructor and a misdelivered box of gloves.
While Rivington protested, Eleanor shifted toward the cabinet.
Gabriel watched her reflection in the glass.
She removed a hairpin, inserted it into the narrow keyhole and worked with precise, almost invisible movements.
Frances’s lessons in lock manipulation had evidently continued.
The cabinet opened. Eleanor slipped a folded packet from inside, scanned the contents and replaced it before Rivington realised Gabriel’s story contained no useful information.
When the man fled, Gabriel returned to her.
“Well?”
“Payments to two printers, one academic society and a newspaper editor. The names are coded, but the amounts correspond to dates in the programmes.”
“Anything connected to Finch?”
“Not yet.”
Her voice remained calm. Her hand did not. Gabriel closed his fingers around it briefly. The contact was hidden between their bodies.
“Breathe.”
She did. They continued. Cabinet nineteen contained deeds to property purchased through intermediaries.
Cabinet twenty-four held family letters tied with black ribbon.
At cabinet thirty-one, Eleanor found a list of debts purchased from aristocratic families, including initials Gabriel recognised from earlier Vesper correspondence.
W.R.
B.S.
C.A.
Some names had been crossed through. Others carried the evening-star symbol beside them.
“Blackmail victims,” Eleanor whispered.
“Or recruits.”
She copied the initials onto the inside of her fan using a pencil concealed in its handle. At cabinet forty-two, they found a catalogue of texts used to conceal messages. The list included:
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes.
A privately printed commentary upon Callimachus.
Two editions of Ovid.
A legal history of inherited debt.
Dr. Finch’s forthcoming translation of the western fragment.
Beside several titles appeared the designation:
THE TRANSLATOR
Eleanor stared at it. Gabriel positioned himself between her and the corridor.
“Copy the list.”
She did. The third bell had not yet rung, but time tightened around them. At the gallery’s far end, a masked officer unlocked a larger cabinet. Several members gathered around it, speaking in voices too low to carry. Eleanor glanced at the quotation above the door. Her eyes sharpened.
“That is it.”
“What?”
“The message from the coin. The daughter, the father and the voice. It identifies the final cabinet.”
“Which number?”
“Forty-seven.”
Gabriel looked toward the far end. Cabinet forty-seven stood beyond the gathered members, half concealed by a curtain and a marble alcove.
“Too exposed.”
“It may contain the payment list.”
“It may also contain someone waiting for the stolen coin.”
Eleanor faced him.
“If we leave without knowing, we may not have another opportunity.”
Gabriel knew she was right. He despised that fact.
“Stay behind me.”