Fatal Enquiry

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

There was an assault upon the knocker that night, shortly after half past ten. Barker and I were disturbed in our separate rooms, both reading with our dressing gowns thrown over our clothes. I was reading one of Mr. Verne’s fantasies, certain if I tried to sleep without finishing it, I should dream of projectiles shooting me to the moon. When the knocker sounded, I wondered, What now? I put a marker in my book and stepped into the hallway, listening to the murmurs at the door. Actually, they were only murmurs on Mac’s part.

“I don’t care what time it is,” a voice brayed in the corridor. “Wake him. Wake both of them, or they can rot in jail this very night.”

“He does not receive visitors in his private home, gentlemen. If you wish, you may speak to him at his offices in the morning.”

I’ve got to say this about Mac: as far as his duties are concerned, he’s got all the brass a man could want. The entire Black Watch could be standing outside and he’d have denied them admittance.

Barker came up beside me and leaned over the rail to hear what was happening, as I was.

“Who is downstairs?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. Someone official, I think. We’ve been threatened with a night in jail already.”

The Guv proceeded down the steps, with me behind him. Two men stood in the hall. The first was Commissioner Warren. I knew him from images I had seen published in the Gazette. He was of medium build, with a brown mustache and an aggressive manner. He looked every bit the retired military man. Beside him was a man a little taller, with a lantern jaw almost gray with stubble. I speculated he must have to shave twice a day.

“Gentlemen, may I help you?” my employer asked with more politeness than the occasion deserved.

“Barker,” Warren said. “Where is Sebastian Nightwine?”

“I’m sorry, he’s not in this house. When we saw him last, he was in the company of a young woman. What was her name, Mr. Llewelyn?”

“Sofia Ilyanova, sir,” I supplied.

“Were you responsible for the burning of some maps this afternoon in a grate in the Albemarle Hotel?” the other man demanded.

“I’m sorry, but I do not feel the need to answer questions from guests in my home who haven’t had the manners to offer their names.”

“I am Hoskins of the Foreign Office.”

“Well, Mr. Hoskins, what sort of maps are you talking about?”

“They were maps of Lhasa, which you no doubt already know. They were of national importance to the British Empire.”

“Did I miss something?” I asked. “Are we about to be invaded by Tibet?”

“My sources tell me, Barker, that you were just released from the Priory of St. John. What was the nature of your injury?” Warren demanded.

“An injury to my shoulder.”

“How did you acquire this injury?”

“In a duel in Hampstead Heath with Sebastian Nightwine,” Barker responded.

“Who won the duel?” asked Hoskins.

“Obviously he did. I am the injured party. I should have known better than to challenge a superior swordsman.”

“When did you last see Mr. Nightwine?” Hoskins continued.

“I passed out at the scene and did not see him leave.”

“Where could he have gone, then?”

“I believe he said he and his daughter had a ship leaving at noon.”

“A ship?” Hoskins snapped.

“Aye. I hope you gentlemen have not lent him any money. He never was responsible with money.”

“That’s a lie,” Warren thundered, as if by slandering one military man, he’d slandered them all.

“I’m making no accusations against him,” said my employer. “Just offering personal advice.”

“Perhaps you’ve got him tied up or locked away somewhere. We will have this house searched from cellar to attic.”

“As you wish,” Barker said, as if the matter of his own house being searched didn’t concern him in the least. “You may start there if you wish.”

“There” was actually Mac’s room, the closest to the entranceway. Hoskins turned the handle and pushed the door open. Immediately, Harm burst forward and froze upon his ankle. The Foreign Office man gave a cry of pain and surprise and began to hop about. I could have told him no amount of leg-shaking was going to dislodge the dog’s little arsenal of teeth. Once locked in, I knew from personal experience, he was like a nutcracker with a fresh walnut.

Warren pulled a small pistol from his pocket and dared to aim it at Barker’s prized possession, given him personally by the Dowager Empress of China herself. The Guv twisted his wrist and took the gun away from him, as one takes a slingshot from an incorrigible six-year-old. Warren turned red and began to sputter, choking on his own anger.

“Mac!” Cyrus Barker called, almost leisurely, as if for tea.

Jacob Maccabee appeared and separated the dog’s jaws from Hoskins’s limb.

“My apologies, gentlemen,” the Guv said, returning the pistol. “I forgot our guard dog was in that room. Why don’t you begin with the library?”

Hoskins had seated himself on the hall floor and was examining the bite marks on his ankle. “What’s behind that door? A tiger?”

I tried to control myself, but his aggrieved look was too funny. I laughed, which under the circumstances was not the right thing to do.

“Oh, you think this is funny, do you, Mr. Llewelyn?” Warren snarled. “Do you know what I think is funny? Six months in Holloway Prison, for a start.”

“For what?” I asked. I’d already been released for assaulting an officer.

“I’m sure we can come up with all sorts of new charges. Resisting arrest, causing an affray, aiding a known fugitive. In fact, I can keep you for months simply on suspicion. Your file says you are trained in the use of explosives. How do we know you are not an Irish sympathizer?”

“Give him to me,” Hoskins put in. “I’ll see that he disappears permanently.”

“Gentlemen!” Barker growled, silencing everyone. “I do not believe Mr. Llewelyn or I are going anywhere tonight.”

“What makes you so sure?” Hoskins demanded.

Cyrus Barker turned to me and put out a hand. “Mr. Llewelyn, the watch.”

I stood for a moment, confused. Was he going to perform some sort of magic trick? I pulled the ticking engine from my pocket, removed it from its gold and platinum chain, and handed it to him. Immediately, he thrust it into Hoskins’s hand. The man looked at it, as perplexed as I, then his brows rose and he handed it to Warren without a word. I had forgotten the inscription.

To Cyrus Barker, from HRH the Prince of Wales for services rendered to the Crown

Barker knew that the prince bestowed these upon his guests like party favors, and I knew it, but these gentlemen did not. If they did, they still couldn’t tell what the service had been. It could have been anything from being a good baccarat partner to saving his life. In this case, it just happened to be the latter.

Without a word, Warren gave me back my watch, which I reclasped and put in my waistcoat pocket with all due reverence.

“You’re sure Nightwine said he was leaving on a ship, and not a train?” Hoskins asked.

“Definitely a ship. Did you catch the name, lad?”

“I don’t think he threw it, sir,” I answered.

“There you are, then.”

“You were still seen going into the Albemarle this afternoon,” Hoskins said.

“We haven’t denied being there,” Barker answered. “We were as curious as you as to whether they had gone. One might assume Nightwine burned the maps himself, before he left.”

Hoskins looked at Warren and Warren looked back. It wasn’t that they wanted to believe the Guv. They didn’t, but he had pulled a trump card from my pocket and they didn’t know him well enough to know if he was bluffing.

Warren raised a finger. “If we learn you’ve been lying to us, you won’t be able to tell the difference between my wrath and a ton of brickbats falling about your head.”

“I shall certainly remember that, Commissioner,” Cyrus Barker assured him. “I wish you luck with your hunt. You know there is no love wasted between Mr. Nightwine and myself.”

“Mr. Barker,” Hoskins said, now cordial enough to add the word “mister” to his name. “Can you offer an explanation as to why Nightwine would bring maps all the way to England merely to burn them?”

“I believe I can,” he said. “He has had the maps for a while, the only maps that show the entrance and fortifications of Lhasa. By memorizing and then destroying them, he is assured that he alone has the knowledge of how to get in and out of Tibet. He may still intend to take the country, only for himself, with your money to finance it. You may recall I sent the lad to your office with just that suggestion over a week ago. Were I you, I would stop payment on that bank draft immediately.”

If I ever felt at any time that my employer lacked imagination, it was disproven that day. While Nightwine lay in the grave somewhere, or in a coffin crated up and bound for the East on some steamer, Barker spun a tale of a mythical Nightwine attempting to bilk the government of its money and making it sound plausible enough to be true. There was enough truth to it that Warren and Hoskins were unable to punch holes in his logic.

“Sebastian would not do such a thing,” Warren maintained, but I could sense a hesitancy in his voice.

“Believe what you will, sir. That is only my theory of what he plans to do, but I have known him more than twenty years and you not even twenty days.”

“We’d need to stop the cheque, anyway,” Hoskins pointed out.

“We should get to the Bank of England the moment it opens in the morning,” Warren agreed. “I pray it’s not too late. Come, Hoskins.”

“Good luck,” the Guv offered them again, and even shook their hands. I wondered whether I would ever be canny enough to start a conversation with imminent arrest and end with a handshake.

Hats were adjusted, gloves pulled on, and eventually our guests left. Barker stood with his hand on the knob, listening for sounds of the two men walking away. Then his knees began to sag, and he toppled over like a pile of books stacked too high. I jumped forward and caught him by the elbows and cried out for Mac.

I’d hoped to prop him up, but instead he pulled me down to the floor with him. When Mac opened his door, I was pinned under our employer with the odd limb sticking out, waving feebly. He helped pull Barker up and each of us, holding an elbow, dragged him to the parlor sofa. There we opened his collar and I put my ear to his chest. His heart was beating, at least, but his face was ashen gray. The conversation and his appearing to be hale and hearty had taken every last ounce of his energy.

“Water, Mac. Bring some water,” I said, waving a cushion to cool the Guv’s face. I chided myself for allowing him to go downstairs in the first place. A good assistant would have said he was resting and “You’ll have to go through me to see him.” Of course, that discounted the Guv’s iron will.

Mac brought a tumbler of water and I poured a little down his throat. Barker raised his head and took the glass, drinking it down, some spilling over his open collar.

“He’s not going upstairs tonight,” Mac ordered. “Let’s bed him down here on the sofa. I’ll get a pillow and a blanket. You get his boots off.”

I unlaced his boots and pulled them off, then unbuttoned his waistcoat and braces. It would do for the present. Mac returned with the pillow and a sheet and blanket. Together, we bedded him down for the night.

Harm came in from Mac’s room and sniffed at Barker on the sofa. We had gone and changed things, and he didn’t like change. As far as he was concerned, the house was his and we were all his servants, the prerogative of a royal dog, and all this changing things about was irksome. Didn’t we know he had a schedule? Mac’s bed from eleven to one, mine from one to three, and Barker’s from three until he rose shortly after five. This was going to upset the apple cart dreadfully, I thought, as the little black Peke regarded us dourly.

“It’s only for one night,” I told him.

“If I had my way,” Mac said, “he’d be chained to a stake outside, no matter what the weather.”

The animal continued to glower at us disapprovingly.

“He probably thinks the same thing about us,” I said.