The Cogspeare Conspiracy (The Cogspeare Chronicles Book 1) (30 page)

Chapter 70:

It was nigh impossible to get a hansom at that hour and place, but somehow there was one waiting nervously outside the pub as Magnus and Erasmus emerged, holding Lily between them.

              “At least Mr. Mister had the decency to call us some transport,” Magnus grumbled as they bundled into the cab.

              “Decency had nothing to do with it, Magnus. The sooner we got out of his hair the better.” Magnus couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of Mr. Mister’s deadlocks and what might lurk within them.

              “Tungsten Square,” Erasmus shouted, and off the antiquated cab went, puffing black smoke as it emerged from the depths of the East End and made its back to the relative calm of Mayfair.

              Steamins was waiting at the door when they finally pulled up. As they got Lily out of the cab quickly came to help them.

              “I’ll put her away in the servants’ quarters, sirs.”

              “No, Steamins,” Magnus said quickly, “bring her up to Miss McFlynt’s room. I’m sure they have much to speak about.”

              They both instinctively went to the study, in serious need of libation. Magnus opened the door, Erasmus on his heels.

              Quintus was still there, sprawled out on the settee, engrossed in a book on advanced mathematics, though it was a wonder he could see through the cloud of smoke surrounding him.

              “What the hell are you doing back so son? I thought I made it clear that you were to stay out late?” He pulled out the dart gun from behind a pillow.

              “Don’t shoot that thing!” Magnus held up his hands. “We’ve already had enough excitement for one night.”

              “You mean he finished that quickly?” Quintus asked Erasmus. The latter chuckled and merely went to the elaborate sideboard and began pouring drinks for both his brothers.

              “Shut up, Quintus,” Magnus threw himself into an armchair and huffed. “Actually, we found Lily.”

              “Lily?”

              “Our missing servant.” Quintus merely raised an eyebrow.

              “The one with blond curls,” Erasmus added as he handed out the drinks and sat in the facing armchair.

              “Oh, of course. How is she?”

              “Half-beaten to death and upstairs with Minerva.”

              “Minerva’s not here, Erasmus. She’s out with Mr. Dolt”

              “Dolt?” asked Erasmus, already more than half-finished with his drink.

              “The opposing council representing the miners,” Magnus explained.

              “You don’t sound terribly surprised that she’s consorting with the enemy, so to speak,” Quintus noted. Magnus shook his head.

              “I knew she had to be involved when I heard the sources he cited in court. Only she would have known about them,” he observed, almost with a tinge of pride. “When she said earlier that she would go meet him, it just confirmed my suspicions.”

              “So what are you going to do about it?”

              He was quiet for a moment, then tightened his lips.

              “Nothing. Absolutely bloody nothing.” He finished his drink in one bracing swallow and held his glass out to Erasmus for a refill.

Chapter 71:

The milk train slowly inched its way through London, the thousands of bottles rattling on the antiquated rails, a STEAMer being too costly for the milk distributors. But amongst the glass bricks filled with the cream of the countryside, there was an assailant with revenge on the brain.

A dangerously armed assassin with an assignation.

Chapter 72:

It had been an almost endless night for Minerva. Between keeping Dolt awake and somewhat focused, preparing Jepsum for his testimony, and trying to keep Twym from badgering him, by dawn she was ready to collapse in a frustrated heap.

              Just as they were sitting around the Gray, Grey and Black office in various states of dozing, Big Ben began to chime out eight o’clock. They all jerked awake and looked around, startled.

              “Alright, gentlemen,” Minerva stood and stretched. “I do believe it’s time. Now, Mr. Dolt, I prepared a few words for you.” She handed him a sheaf of paper that read almost like a play, the dialogue that he and Jepsum were supposed to follow to the word in the trial, and his concluding statements. Dolt took the papers gratefully, and although she was gratified that these men were taking her seriously enough that she was their director and boss in all but name, it all felt a bit anticlimactic.
As though they were giving in to her too easily. What if I’m leading them astray and they just don’t know any better?
She thought.
At least with Magnus, I always know where I stand.

              But at the thought of him she quickly gave herself a mental shake, telling herself that he was on the wrong side of the courtroom, and for all intents and purposes, the enemy.

              “I’ll hurry back to the Cogspeare mansion to change clothes and I’ll see you in the courtroom in two hours.” She didn’t wait for the befuddled men to answer, but instead quickly escaped the dusty confines of the offices and emerged into the gloom of Monday morning.

              During the hackney ride, Minerva went over and over what she would say to Magnus when she saw him at the house. But she needn’t have prepared a speech, for when she arrived Steamins informed her that Magnus had left at dawn for his offices. From Erasmus she heard that he was starched to within an inch of his life and that he might just have a hangover. He also had left her a present.

              Minerva ran up the stairs and threw open the door to her room, only to be greeted by a battered and bruised maid.

              “Lily?” The young maid was sitting in a heavy armchair by the window but turned and looked up blearily through swollen eyelids and tried to twist her cracked lips into a smile.

              “Yes, ma’am. Master Magnus and Erasmus rescued me from the Brass Balls last night after Clinton’s men tried to kill me.”

              “Clinton? Lord Edgar Clinton?” Lily nodded and began to twist her handkerchief.

              “I was working for him, y’see, and he had me spying on the Cogspeares so as to know how Magnus was getting on with the case. But when it got out of hand, what with him trying to kill him and killing the miner instead, I didn’t want to be a part of that anymore.”

              Just then Mrs. Bunsen appeared at the door.

              “Now then, dearies, that’s enough of that. Mrs. Cogspeare is willing to give you another chance, Lily, as long as you behave and do no more of this spying nonsense. And you’d best get ready, Miss Minerva, as the family is about ready to leave.”

              “Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Bunsen. It’s Lily who we need to get on the witness stand. Jepsum will be a great help of course, but you just might be able to win the case.”

Chapter 73:

Behind a series of doors and hallways, Addison was tugged Magnus’s wig into place. They were in the barrister’s antechamber, and yet they could hear the clamour of the audience even through the walls that separated them.

              “Now there’s no need to fret, sir,” said the acne-blighted adolescent.  Magnus stayed still.

              “This will be a glorious day for you, sir. Yes, indeed. And you will win this case, no doubt, and then be promoted. And then we shall move into that large suite of offices across the corridor.”

              “Is a suite of offices all you care about, Addison?” Magnus demanded, regretting it immediately. Addison looked hurt.

              “No, sir. But you look so calm, so morose. It isn’t like you’re usual pre-trial pep, sir.” Magnus sighed and pushed away his fussing assistant.

              “It’s just that…” his voice trailed off as he looked out the bullet-paned window, gazing down as the swarms of people trying to enter the Courts. He knew that he would win today: it wasn’t hubris that led him to know this, it was simply that he had more precedent. Indeed, he had even tried to build the case as if he were the prosecutor, not the defendant. But it was no use. Without physical evidence or witnesses to testify against Clinton’s actions, or lack thereof…

              “Sir?” Magnus turned back to the room, the burnished, sparse and yet comfortable room.

              “A hypothetical question for you, Addison.”

              “Sir?” he repeated, a touch more wearily now. Magnus hooked his thumbs into his waistband and wandered around.

              “If I were to, say…impugn the validity of the client’s case, or perhaps cause a slight mistrial…”

              The look of horror on Addison’s pale, spotty face was enough to disabuse Magnus of his chivalrous thoughts. In fact, he let his words wander off into oblivion, wishing that he could follow them too.

              “After
you win
this trial, sir, perhaps a small vacation in the country might be in order. A small sojourn to the Scottish Highlands?” Addison suggested as he followed his mentor to the door, brushing off invisible lint from the barrister’s immaculate silks. “A stay at the seaside? A remove to the Riviera.”

              “Addison, your abominable attempts at alliteration aside, that is not a terrible idea.” He nodded once, and then was away, striding down the corridors with purposeful strides. Addison felt pride blooming in his adolescent heart and scurried away to join the other Quills in the walls of the courtroom. Though he was the only Quill that day whose barrister was in the court, the tiny bolt hole was stuffed with young assistants desperate to watch the trial of the year. Dolt was unrepresented in the dark and dusty bolt-hole.

              Magnus took a breath and tried not to contemplate what he was about to do. He could hear the crowd of people long before he reached the door to the court room, but when he entered through it, it was as though a swarm of giant seagulls were scratching at the top of their lungs, making his metal ear ring with the din. Suddenly, someone switched off the noise. It was him.

              Or rather, his appearance in the room. And as he made his way over to the defendant’s table, the decibels slowly increase again. The entire Cogspeare clan, even his father, were in attendance, front and centre, though they would have been noticeable anywhere with the six gleaming ginger heads and his mother’s outrageous millinery concoction. Minerva looked like she had just rushed in, her breath coming in short gasps, her dark hair curling and askew.

              Magnus took a deep breath, for at that moment he would gladly have forfeited the trial for her. He wanted to be her hero. He also wanted to throw up.

              Instead, he let his feet walk him to his table, where Clinton and Grimsby didn’t even bother to rise to greet him, a very visible public reprimand for letting the trial progress this far. But Magnus held out his hand, first to his client and then to his boss, forcing them to return his handshake and steely gaze.

              “I take it all is in order, Cogspeare,” Grimsby didn’t ask, but rather assumed.

              “Indeed, sir, as ready as it can be.” Clinton harrumphed.

              “I paid for better than that, Grimsby. You, young man, had better deliver as promised.” Magnus flushed with anger, but instead of replying, he ordered his papers, at perfect right angles to the table’s edge.

              Dolt, meanwhile, looked too exhausted and rumpled to sweat, let alone to care. He had a few papers crushed in a fist, but other than that, he flopped in his chair, a fatalistic look about him.

              Twym looked equally as dishevelled, though unlike in the previous venue, he was now sequestered with other members of the press, noticeable for the incessant scratching of their metal quills and for keeping their leather hats on in the courtroom, so that they were ready at any minute to dash out and get their articles to print as fast as their legs might carry them. Alis was tucked away in the upper balcony of the courtroom. 

              At an imperceptible signal, a dull man at the front of the court stood and bellowed