Rendezvous (36 page)

Augusta straightened slowly, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Yes, my lord.” She turned and went toward the door.

It was all Harry could do not to go after her, take her into his arms, and relent. He forced himself to remain where he was. He had to be firm. “By the way, Augusta.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Do not forget to give me the schedule of your plans for tomorrow.”

“If I can think of anything sufficiently boring and therefore unobjectionable to your lordship, I will definitely put it down on the schedule.”

Harry winced as she slammed the door on her way out of the room.

He sat quietly for a long while contemplating the gardens outside his window. There was no way he could tell her the real reason he could not give her even a token role in the investigation.

It was bad enough that she was angry about being excluded. But he could deal with her anger better than he could the pain he knew would come if she were to get involved in this situation and thereby learn too much.

Once he had deciphered Richard Ballinger’s encoded poem, Harry had known that the rumors that had circulated at the time of the young man’s death were founded in
fact. The last male in the Northumberland Ballinger line had in all likelihood been a traitor.

Later that night Harry, accompanied by Peter, stepped down from the cab of a hired carriage and into the very heart of one of London’s grimiest stews. It had started raining an hour ago and the paving stones underfoot had become slick. Moonlight gleamed dully on the greasy surfaces.

“Do you know, Sheldrake, it concerns me somewhat that you know your way so well around this part of Town.” Harry saw a pair of beady red eyes glinting in the shadows and casually used his ebony walking stick to discourage the rat, which was the size of a large cat. The creature vanished into a vast pile of offal that marked the entrance to a narrow alley.

Peter chuckled softly. “In the old days your sensibilities were rarely offended by the notion of how and where I acquired my information.”

“You will have to learn to refrain from amusing yourself in places such as this now that you are about to become a married man. I cannot see Claudia Ballinger approving of this sort of outing.”

“True. But once I have married Miss Ballinger I expect to have far more interesting things to do in the evenings than dive into the stews.” Peter paused to get his bearings. “There’s the lane we want. The man we are seeking has arranged to meet us in the tavern at the end of this filthy little street.”

“You trust your information?”

Peter shrugged. “No, but ’tis a starting point. I was told this man Bleeker witnessed the fire the night the Saber Club burned down. We shall no doubt discover the truth of that claim soon enough.”

The lights of the dingy tavern shone with an evil yellow glow through the small windows. Harry and Peter pushed
their way inside and found the interior smoky and overheated by a fierce fire on the hearth. There was a sullen atmosphere about the place. A handful of patrons was sprinkled about the long wooden tables. Several of them glanced up as the door opened.

Each pair of ratlike eyes took note of the shabby cut of the coats and the worn boots Harry and Peter had donned for the occasion. Harry could almost hear the collective sigh of regret as the would-be predators decided the new prey did not look promising.

“There’s our man,” Peter said, leading the way toward the back of the tavern. “Near the door at the rear. I was told he would be wearing a red scarf around his neck.”

Bleeker had the look of a man who had downed far too many bottles of gin in his time. He had small, restless eyes that darted about constantly, never staying focused for more than a few seconds on any one object.

In addition to a red scarf, Bleeker was also wearing a filthy cap pulled down low over his sweating brow. His heavily veined nose was his most prominent feature. When Bleeker opened his mouth to growl a short greeting, Harry saw huge gaps between the man’s yellowed, rotten teeth.

“You be the coves what’s wantin’ to know about the fire at the old Saber Club?”

“You have the right of it,” Harry said, sliding down onto the wooden bench across from Bleeker. He was aware that Peter remained on his feet, his gaze moving with deceptive casualness around the stifling room. “What can you tell us about that night?”

“It’ll cost ye,” Bleeker warned with a foul grin.

“I’m prepared to pay. Assuming the information is good.”

“Good enough.” Bleeker leaned forward with a conspiratorial air. “I saw the cove what set that fire, I did. I was in the alley across the street from the club waitin’ for a likely cully to come along. Just mindin’ me own business, ye
know. Then I hears this sudden roarin’ noise. I looks up and there’s flames in all the windows of the club.”

“Go on,” Harry said calmly.

“How do I know ye’ll come across with the blunt?” Bleeker whined.

Harry put a few coins on the table. “You will get the rest if I find the information sufficiently interesting.”

“Bloody ’ell, you’re a mean ’un, ain’t ye?” Bleeker leaned closer, his poisonous breath wafting across the table. “All right, then, ’ere’s the rest of it. There was two men come runnin’ out the front door o’ the Saber that night. The first is clutchin’ his stomach and bleedin’ like a pig. ’E makes it across the street and falls down at the entrance o’ the alley where I was standin’.”

“Convenient,” Harry murmured.

Bleeker ignored the remark. He was growing increasingly enthusiastic about his own tale. “I stays in the shadows and the next thing I know, this second cove comes rushin’ out. Searches the street until ’e finds the poor bleedin’ cully, ’e does. Then he goes up to ’im and stands there lookin’ down. I could see ’e’s got a knife in ’is ’and.”

“Fascinating. Pray continue.”

“Then the poor dyin’ cully says to ’im,
You’ve killed me, Ballinger. You’ve killed me. Why’d ye do it? I’d never ’ave told a bloody soul who ye really was. I’d never ’ave said nothin’ about you bein’ no Spider
.” Bleeker sat back, satisfied. “Then the poor sod dies and the other ’un takes off. I got outta there, I can tell ye that.”

Harry was silent for a moment as Bleeker came to the end of his story and sat waiting expectantly. Then he got slowly to his feet. “Let us be off, friend,” he murmured to Peter. “We have wasted our time this night.”

Bleeker scowled in alarm. “’Ere, now, what about me blunt? You promised to pay me for tellin’ you what ’appened that night.”

Harry shrugged and tossed a few more coins on the table. “That will have to suffice. It is all your lies are worth.
Collect the rest of your pay from whoever told you to feed me that tale.”

“Lies? What lies?” Bleeker blustered furiously. “I was tellin’ ye the bloody damn truth.”

Harry ignored him, aware that there was a stir of interest occurring among the tavern patrons as they turned to eye the commotion at the back of the room.

“The back door, I think,” Harry said to Peter. “It suddenly looks like a very long way to the front door.”

“Excellent observation. I have always been a great believer in the virtue of a strategic retreat.” Peter flashed a brief grin and quickly opened the rear door. “After you, sir.” He waved Harry politely ahead of him.

Harry stepped out into the alley. Peter was right behind him, slamming the door shut on the angry shouts of Bleeker and the restless horde of tavern patrons.

“Damn,” said Harry as he saw the man with the knife looming up out of the reeking shadows.

Moonlight glinted on the blade as the man leaped for Harry’s throat.

H
arry
swept his ebony walking stick up in a slashing arc. The cane struck his assailant’s outstretched arm in a savage blow that sent the knife flying off into the shadows.

Harry rotated the stick’s handle a quarter turn with a practiced one-handed movement. The hidden blade inside the walking stick leaped out, pressing against the assailant’s neck.

“
Bloody ’ell
.” The man jumped back and promptly stumbled over a heap of garbage. He lost his footing on the greasy stones and fell to the pavement. He flailed wildly and began screaming curses.

“Best be on our way,” Peter said cheerfully with only a passing glance at Harry’s victim. “I expect our friends will be coming through that door any minute.”

“I had no intention of delaying our departure.” Harry flicked the walking stick handle back a quarter turn and the blade disappeared as silently as it had emerged.

Peter led the way out of the alley. Harry followed
quickly. They raced out into the lane where Peter unhesitatingly turned to the right.

“It occurs to me,” Peter growled as they dashed up the lane, “that I have found myself in this sort of situation more than once with you, Graystone. I am beginning to think these things come about because you never leave a decent tip.”

“Very likely.”

“Cheeseparing, that’s you, Graystone.”

“I, on the other hand,” Harry said as he pounded down the street beside his friend, “have noticed that I only seem to find myself in these circumstances when I have you along as a guide. One does tend to wonder if there is not some logical connection.”

“Nonsense. Simply your imagination.”

Thanks to Peter’s intimate knowledge of the underbelly of the city and the general reluctance of the denizens of the stews to get involved in what looked like trouble, both men soon found themselves standing in relative safety on a busy street.

Harry used his walking stick to hail a hackney carriage which had just set down a group of drunken young dandies. Apparently the hackney’s previous passengers intended to sample the darker side of London’s nightlife.

For his part, Harry had seen more than enough. He bounded up into the cab and dropped down on the seat across from Peter.

A thoughtful silence descended. Harry idly studied the dark streets outside the window as the hackney headed toward a better part of Town. Peter watched him from the shadows, saying nothing for several minutes. Then he spoke.

“An interesting story, was it not?” Peter finally asked.

“Yes.”

“What do you make of it?”

Harry went over Bleeker’s tale again in his mind, searching for possibilities. “I am not yet certain.”

“The timing fits,” Peter said slowly. “Ballinger was
killed the night after the fire at the Saber Club. He could have set the fire to muddy his own trail and killed that witness. And then gotten himself shot by that highwayman the next night.”

“Yes.”

“So far as we know, the Spider became inactive shortly before Napoléon abdicated in April of 1814. That would fit with the time of Ballinger’s death, too. He was shot in late March of that year. There was no sign of the Spider having resumed his work during the short time between Napoléon’s escape from Elba and the final defeat at Waterloo.”

“The Spider was too shrewd to have cast his lot with Napoléon a second time. The attempt to regain the throne of France in 1815 was a lost cause from the start and everyone but Napoléon knew it. Defeat was inevitable the second time and the Spider would have realized it. He would have stayed out of the affair.”

Peter’s mouth twisted wryly. “You may be correct. You always did have a talent for second-guessing the bastard. But the end result is the same. The Spider vanished from the scene in the spring of 1814. Perhaps the reason we never heard from him again was simply because he had the bad luck to fall victim to a highwayman’s bullet. Richard Ballinger could have been the Spider.”

“Hmmm.”

“Even brilliant spymasters must occasionally find themselves on the wrong road at the wrong time of night. They are no more immune to the odd highwayman than anyone else, I should imagine,” Peter said.

“Hmmmm.”

Peter groaned. “I detest it when you get into this mood, Graystone. You are not an entertaining conversationalist at such times.”

Harry finally turned his head and met his friend’s eyes. “I am certain there is no need to mention that I would not want any of these speculations of yours to get back to Augusta, Sheldrake.”

Peter grinned briefly. “Credit me with some sense, Graystone. I have every intention of living to see my wedding night. I am not about to overset Augusta and thereby risk your wrath.” His smile faded. “In any event, I count Augusta a good friend, as well as a member of my future wife’s family. I have no more wish to see her suffer because of her brother’s dishonorable actions than you do.”

“Precisely.”

Half an hour later, after the hackney had made its way through the clogged streets of the more fashionable part of town, Harry alighted at the door of his town house. He bid Peter a good night and went up the steps.

Craddock, stifling a yawn, opened the door and informed his master that everyone else, including Lady Graystone, had retired for the evening.

Harry nodded and went into the library. He poured himself a small glass of brandy and went to the window. He stood gazing out into the shadowed garden for a long while, mulling over the evening’s events.

When he had finished the brandy he crossed to the desk and frowned as he glanced down and saw a sheet of foolscap lying squarely in the center. It had obviously been placed where he could not fail to see it. The plump, curving handwriting was Augusta’s.