Tales of the Wold Newton Universe (44 page)

“But—”

“Enough!” the Colonel said. “Kramm, take him to his rooms and keep him there. We cannot afford a misstep now.”

Gribardsun watched Kramm march off with the reluctant Gerolstein in tow. He elected to stay with Bozzo-Corona, Lecoq, and Countess Carody, and his decision was rewarded a moment later.

“Do you suppose Sir Percy and the others suspect us of these murders, my father?” Lecoq asked.

Gribardsun watched carefully as the supposedly feeble old man, the patriarch of the Brothers of Mercy, answered: “They’d be fools not to, my son.”

“Perhaps,” Countess Carody said, “they are dimly beginning to realize that you were behind Baron de Musard all along.”

“And that through setting Blakeney and de Musard against each other,” the Colonel said, “I manipulated Blakeney into convening this so-called ‘conclave’ of his? As I said, Sir Percy is no fool, but I doubt he is that perceptive.”

“Perhaps not, my father, but if you’ll forgive me, his friend Holmes may be,” Lecoq said. “And Blakeney’s friend. Fogg. There is something... something not quite right about him. I beg you leave to spy upon them further.”

The sinister old man regarded his lieutenant, then said: “Very well, my son, you may go. But remember your longer-term mission. Ingratiate yourself with Delagardie. He will need another coachman once Lupin moves on. You will be our man inside once Sir Percy’s conclave disbands—if we can manage this unforeseen situation of murder and death, and can all part as trusted allies.”

“Or at least part leaving them thinking we are all trusted allies,” Countess Carody amended.

Lecoq nodded his thanks to the Colonel and returned to the house, followed by the silent Gribardsun, who took a circuitous route through the shadows and yet kept his quarry in sight.

Lecoq soon discovered, however, that his targets had retired for the evening, and took himself to his own quarters.

And Gribardsun... John Gribardsun kept the silent night watch over Blakeney Hall.

The dreadful clangings, and death, summoned them the next morning. Sir Percy, Siger Holmes, and Gribardsun arrived first.

Miss Caroline Bingley lay in her bed, blue of face, limbs bloated and distended. The body had been discovered by her chambermaid.

Holmes examined her fingernails, peeled back her eyelids, and sniffed at the corpse’s face. He pulled a sheet up over the gruesome discovery. “A fast-acting poison. Body’s still warm. I’d say she’s been dead ten minutes, maybe fifteen.”

“Which coincides with those demmed bells,” Sir Percy said. He turned to the others. “Did anyone see anything? You, Sir John—” he gestured to Gribardsun “—you were up, prowling these halls early this morning. Did you notice anything?”

Gribardsun shook his head, expressionless. Inside, he burned. Another killing, and he had failed to prevent it. Each slaying heralded by the ominous tolling, as of funeral bells, but funeral bells which pierced the brain as if one were standing directly under them.

And that maddeningly familiar scent...

“Miss Caroline Bingley,” Sir Percy said, bringing Gribardsun’s attention back to the cadaver. “Demmed wretched woman. Darcy will have a deuced time composing a letter of condolence to her brother.”

“And I’m having a deuced time explaining all this and keeping the local constabulary at bay,” William de Winter declared as he entered the death chamber. “I saw the value of this assembly of yours when you first described it to me, Sir Percy, but I declare that any benefit which may result from this meeting is being quickly diminished by these abominable murders.”

“I agree, de Winter—”

“I’ve already lost my best man, Iain Bond,” de Winter continued, “and His Majesty is rapidly losing patience with this conclave. We must have results, and soon, or I’ll order this assembly adjourned.” He turned to the two footmen who stood quietly in the hallway. “Meantime, store this body with the others. I’ll be in my rooms, concocting some story or other about Miss Bingley’s untimely demise. Apoplexy, or some such, I suppose.” He stalked out.

* * *

The sun sank toward the horizon, washing Blakeney Hall in a blazing orange-red burn, as Gribardsun stalked the grounds searching for a clue, for the slightest scrap or hint of information. It could not be said that he stalked his prey, for he couldn’t even scent his target.

That morning, in Miss Bingley’s chambers, he had caught that scent again. He sifted through millennia of memories both ancient and recent, and still could not place it.

He had left the estate and spent the day patrolling the outskirts, haunting the surrounding woods and gardens, hoping to pick up the spoor again.

It was all to no avail, but his head was clear and he felt energized by the outdoor air. He thought of ages past and the unspoiled, savage world he had sought out, found, and which he was slowly losing once again. Civilization was slowly, but inexorably, closing in upon him as the centuries passed.

The day had seen the denizens of Blakeney Hall keep to their rooms, a growing sense of dread and anxiety hanging over the entire estate. Very few felt safe enough to venture out, and the pregnant women—a few of them, at least—fretted over themselves and their unborn. Some of the others, Gribardsun knew, such as Lady Blakeney and her friend Alice, were not given to fretting under any circumstances.

The sun disappeared and twilight encroached, bringing the first hint of starlight. The waxing crescent moon, soon to rise, would provide little light, which suited him, for he intended to resume his watch over Colonel Bozzo-Corona’s man Albert Lecoq this night.

Gribardsun found the supposed coachman with one of his peers at the stables. Swinging to the roof, nimbly and silently, he crept in an upper window, and swung between the rafters until he reached a spot where he could observe and listen to the two men, Lecoq and Louis Lupin, ostensibly coachmen to Honoré Delagardie. Of the other coachmen, Arthur Blake and Etienne Austin—Sir Percy had rescued the latter from Madame la Guillotine several years ago—there was no sign.

Lecoq and Lupin sat on short wooden stools, a dark lantern on a barrel casting a sliver of luminescence as they played
vingt-et-un
and spoke in harsh whispers.

“So they suspect the Colonel set up Sir Percy in that de Musard matter, only to then come to the heroic rescue by supplying the Heart of Ahriman?” Lupin asked.

“We don’t believe so, not yet anyway,” came Lecoq’s reply. “Dr. Holmes may be perceptive enough to land on the truth, but I’ve been keeping my ears open, and they don’t seem to have put it together yet.

“But we do believe they suspect us in these bizarre murders,” Lecoq continued. “Sir Percy, and Greystoke, and the rest have become singularly close-mouthed in our presence. As a result, the talks have stalled. The Colonel grows impatient, and speaks of departing within the next few days.”

“Then is all lost?” Lupin implored. “Will we not all agree to give Napoleon the signal, and put an end to this madness in France?”

“Your half-brother has been perfectly positioned, and the time is ripe, it is true, for action,” Lecoq replied. “He can impose stability in France, and on the Continent. The Colonel and the Brothers of Mercy had hoped to protect their flanks by bringing the British in on the plan, and indeed, making them think it was their own idea. But these inexplicable killings...”

“And if the Colonel decides that we are to leave, that the British will not join us?” Lupin asked.

“I imagine he will act anyway, giving your sibling the go-ahead,” Lecoq said. “But it would be better to have the British on our side.”

Gribardsun heard a scrape, so slight that the two Frenchmen would not have been able to detect it. He shifted stealthily in the rafters and identified the source: Arthur Blake, covertly observing Lupin and Lecoq from the main entrance to the stables, and not realizing that he, in turn, was being observed.

This was getting interesting. Gribardsun was sure that Blake had only just arrived; otherwise, he would have detected the coachman earlier.

“Then perhaps we should try to solve the mystery of these ‘ringing bell murders’ ourselves,” Lupin said, “and put a stop to them before any more damage is done.”

“And just how do you propose to do that?” Lecoq asked, skepticism painting his rough features.

“Well...” Lupin turned over his cards.

“Vingt-et-un,”
Lecoq declared, revealing his cards with a triumphant grin.

* * *

Arthur Blake left his place of concealment at the main stable door and made for the estate.

Gribardsun decided there was more profit in hearing what the coachman would report to his master. He decamped from the stable rafters, as soundlessly as he had entered, leapt to the ground with the sleek grace of a black panther, and trailed Blake at a discreet distance.

The coachman entered the main house, and Gribardsun took a chance that Blake would seek out Sir Percy in his private study. He scaled the stone walls and once again traversed the roof as easily as if it were the upper levels of the jungle forest he knew so well.

He came to the spot above Blakeney’s private chambers, found a grip, and as he had several other times in the past few days, hung upside down from the gable, with his ear close to the study windows.

Gribardsun’s gamble paid off. He heard Blake knock and his master bid him enter.

As the latter did so, however, it was not Sir Percy who spoke first but Sir Hezekiah Fogg. “Well, Blake, what is your report?”

There was a long pause, and Sir Hezekiah spoke again. “Go ahead, we’ve swept the room for listening devices.”

“Very well, Sir Hezekiah, I’ve just come from the stables,” Blake replied.

“Ah, and what do our French ‘coachmen’ have to say for themselves, cousin?” Sir Percy drawled. Gribardsun heard Blakeney take a snort of snuff.

“Well, as you say, Sir Percy, they’re no more coachmen than I am. But as to what I heard, they’re of a mind to solve these murders themselves. They seem to think if they can do so, it will mitigate some damage, although I missed the beginnings of their conversation and can’t tell exactly what they meant by that.”

“If these Frenchies start meddling,” Sir Hezekiah interjected, “it could ruin everything.”

“Well,” Sir Percy replied, “at least we can be pretty well assured they’re not Capelleans. They don’t seem to recognize that the clangings are caused by a distorter.”

“Or distorters,” Blake said.

“But they wouldn’t admit knowing the sounds if they did,” Sir Hezekiah said.

“True, sir,” Blake said, “but Lecoq and Lupin didn’t know they were being observed, and spoke as if they didn’t know what the tolling was. My opinion is they’re not Capellean.”

“Well,” Sir Percy said,
“somebody
around here is a Capellean. I’ve never seen or held an actual distorter, but I know the meaning of these clamorous sounds.”

“Aye,” Sir Hezekiah said. “Someone must know you are an Eridanean agent, and that I am an Old Eridanean. For whatever reason, they mean to disrupt the assembly you’ve brought together here.”

“Is it really in the Capelleans’ interest to foment further discord, or rather prevent us from quelling the discord, in France?” Sir Percy asked. “I’m not so sure.”

“What else could it be?” Sir Hezekiah said. “We have the tolling which signals the use of a distorter; murders in which no sign of the culprit can be found, and thus which can only be explained by someone transmitting in and out using a distorter; and the consequent disruption of your secret meeting. The Eridaneans prefer that your conclave succeed. The only logical conclusion is Capellean sabotage.”

“Yes, it makes sense when you put it that way...” Sir Percy said. “Y’know, Fogg, you could give Dr. Holmes some lessons in logic.”

“A brilliant man,” Sir Hezekiah conceded. “Perhaps we should recruit him to the Eridanean cause.”

“Perhaps, someday,” Sir Percy said. “Here and now, we need to prepare for tomorrow. A murder a day. We have to suppose there’ll be another, or at least an attempt, tomorrow.”

“What do you have in mind, Sir Percy?” Blake asked.

“We need to keep everyone together, for the whole day. Everyone within view of everyone else. No demmed transmitting in and out, sight unseen.”

“And...?” Sir Hezekiah asked.

Gribardsun listened to Sir Percy take another snort of snuff.

“I think,” the man who had also been known as the Scarlet Pimpernel said, “that we should get away from Blakeney Hall for a bit. I do believe a carriage ride is in order.”

* * *

Gribardsun’s ebony hair hung in his face, covering his piercing gray eyes, as he sat alone in his room, staring at the floor, brooding.

He reflected back on the other occasions he’d heard the strange clanging, and went over again in his head the conversation he’d just heard. The information he’d gleaned from Blakeney, Fogg, and Blake—these “Eridaneans”—answered many questions and raised as many new ones.

Eridaneans and Capelleans. Some sort of competing secret societies, so-called because their membership, rituals, and purpose were clandestine?

Perhaps related to the Illuminati? The Rosicrucians? These groups were supposedly interested in gathering secret knowledge from all over the world. Listening devices (unknown in 1795) and “distorters” which “transmitted” people or things (unknown even in his own time—although he supposed that his ship, the
H.
G. Wells
I,
was, after all, a sort of teleportation device) certainly could be characterized as “secret knowledge.”

He had also heard rumblings, through the ages, whispered in the darkness when the fire fell to crackling embers, of a society, truly secret, in that no one, or almost no one, knew of its very existence. The Nine.

The nine bell tolls that signaled each murder.

His brain raced now, unbidden, and another part of his mind, compartmentalized, knew he was making stream-of-consciousness connections, stitching seemingly unrelated items together into a grand tapestry.

He thought of the importance of the number nine in Khokarsan culture, and of the nine-sided temple of Kho. The Door of the Nine, which gave unto the temple. And the nine primary aspects of Kho.