The Hanged Man (37 page)

She instantly launched against them, kicking out as Master Shan had taught. Her skirts were a hindrance, but she caught one with a heel and he released his grip, cursing. Alex ducked and drove for a knuckle strike to paralyze the other man's arm, but he twisted and dodged, still hanging on. Two more men grabbed her, and she was suddenly smothering as they whipped a serving towel around her head. Blinded and short of breath from the damned corset, they easily pressed her face-first to the floor and tied her hands behind her. She kicked until they tied her legs as well.

“There now,” said a not unkindly voice she did not know. “Ye've been rumbled. Take it like a lady.”

Alex heard the sounds of the others struggling, but Fingate and Benedict had no chance against such numbers.

“Up with 'em,” said the man in charge, and she found herself carried ignominiously along like a roll of carpet. “Those to the cupboard, 'er to the meetin'.”

The trip was short, with few turnings and no stairs, so they were still far below the street. Though the drumming had stopped, the carousing continued. Drunken voices and laughter echoed unevenly in this brick-lined antechamber to hell.

Then a heavy door slammed and most of the noise ceased. In the comparative quiet Alex heard murmuring voices, all male, and shuffling as they moved around. She was pushed down on a chair.

“No need to be uncivilized,” said a man. “Untie the lady. She can do us no harm.”

“Beg pardon, your lordship, but you don't know 'er.”

“As it happens, I do. See to it.”

Her bonds were removed, and she tore the towel away herself. Her eyes adjusted to the brighter environs of a room crowded with men in evening dress all wearing full masks, all focused on her, and all silent. Along the edge of the crowd were a number of other mask-wearing men swathed in hooded cloaks.

She rejected their collective intimidation. After facing and killing another of those hideous beasts, mere men were nothing.

“The Order of the Black Sun, I presume,” she said in the clearest voice she could muster.

No one moved. She picked up a thread of unease. Perhaps they expected her to weep with terror. They could wait till doomsday. She was far too incensed.

Her gaze fell on the one standing directly in front. “I'm deeply disappointed in you, sir. Deeply disappointed. What would Lady Lindsey say?”

The eyes behind the mask flickered, giving Alex the understanding that her ladyship was ignorant of her husband's activities.

Lord Hollifield slowly removed his mask and put it on the long table that took up the middle of the chamber.

Alex continued, “I took you to be a friend.”

“I am grateful for that friendship, Alex.”

“How can
you
be a part of this indecent flummery?”

“I've no need for flummery. Everyone knows everyone else, and I always thought that this lacked dignity. Gentlemen?”

Some hesitated and remained incognito, but a few followed his example. She recognized several faces, matching them to sketches and engravings that had appeared in newspapers. These were indeed men of power, both in politics and business. One didn't have to be a Reader to interpret what lay behind their cold eyes. She was to suffer the same fate as her father.

“Gentlemen, our cause is just, so we need have no fear. If you quail before a young woman such as this, how can you expect to prevail against more desperate foes?”

“Who might those be?” Alex asked in a reasonable tone.

His lordship responded in kind. “The misguided, the beguiled, the ignorant. You'll learn all about it once you're settled.”

“Settled?”

“Out of respect for your station and service to the realm, you'll be taken to a quiet place in the country for a well-deserved rest. When matters are resolved elsewhere, you'll be released to live life in a much better, freer England.”

“England for the English?”

“We're taking back our sacred realm.”

A rumble of agreement went around the room. She looked for, but did not see Fingate or Benedict, and God knew what had happened to Brook. “Where are my friends?”

“Don't worry about them, they'll be treated well enough for their station.”

Apparently no one had recognized Benedict. “You plan to use air guns and those revolting beasts to aid in your treason?”

“It is not treason. We're all loyal to our good queen, God save her, but it has become necessary to remove undesirables from our shores. Anyone who is not a true Englishman is to be transported out.”

“What's a true Englishman? We're all descended from invaders. Where do you start? The Norman Conquest? If so, then we're mostly French.”

“Don't be a silly girl. We're getting rid of the riffraff and vermin. Send them back to their own countries or they can go to America. Let
them
worry about foreign revolutionaries trying to usurp the lawful government.”

“You are yourself betraying it.”

“No, this is the deepest loyalty. There will be initial opposition, hence the need for armed men and certain special allies—I'd like to know how you know about those. But once the scum are removed, there will be work again for our own people and they'll be grateful to have it.”

“Have you
ever
read history?”

“Dear girl, my family makes it.” This brought forth a ripple of chuckles from the others.

There was no point arguing. He and the rest were fully convinced of the rightness of their cause; logic and historical precedent wouldn't shift them. She'd met their sort before, but never so many together.

“Tell me one thing,” she said. “Why did you order the murder of my father?”

Hollifield's eyes flickered again. “Lord Pendlebury's dead?”

“As of early this morning. In my function as a Reader I was called to the scene of a questionable death by Scotland Yard.”

“But he's been out of the country for years. How—”

“You knew him as Dr. Kemp.”

“I've never met anyone called Kemp. I know your father, a change of name wouldn't change his face.”

She'd opened enough to Read him. He was truthful. “Then someone in your group is ordering murders. I wonder who that could be?” Alex couldn't hope to pick out any single reaction, but a few exuded uncertainty. “Which of you sent one of those trained beasts to break into Dr. Kemp's home in Harley Street? Which of you told it to overwhelm him with ether and then hang him to make it look like suicide?”

“Alex, you're mistaken—”

“Then why else am I here? One of you murdered Lord Gerard Pendlebury. One of you, perhaps more, has acted out of turn. There is dissention in your ranks, Lord Hollifield. Have you a policy for traitors within?”

“We are men of honor. None here would do such a thing.”

“You're certain of that? On your life are you absolutely certain? Everyone lies, sir. Whether telling one's wife that a hat suits her face or denying the worst of crimes, everyone lies. You are lying every day to your own brother and to our queen.” She raised her voice. “Which of you cowards murdered my father?”

“There are no cowards or murderers here.”

“Prove it. Let me do my work and Read them one by one. You can hide your faces, but no one can hide their guilt from a Reader. I've already Read
you
—you had no part in it, you're at least innocent of
that
crime. But as for the rest—can your ‘honorable' group endure a lying murderer in their midst? Your lives and fortunes depend on trusting one another, trusting that the man next to you won't arrange to sink a knife in your back should you become inconvenient.”

She felt a shift in the emotional air. Doubt and suspicion—never far from such minds as these—quickly spread through their ranks.

Hollifield hesitated, then cast his eye over the crowd. “It would seem that we must face yet another evil necessity. The girl has raised doubts and those must be removed. We cannot be divided in our purpose. The innocent have nothing to fear.”

“How will we know
she
will be truthful?” asked a man still anonymous behind his mask.

“Trust, gentlemen,” she said, “trust that more than anything I want to look my father's killer in the eye and demand
why
. Who of you would do less?”

None replied.

She broke the thick silence. “While we're asking difficult questions, which of you ordered the assassination of Lord Richard Desmond?”

Lord Hollifield was clearly shocked. “What are you talking about?”

“He's dead, too. Just hours after my father. I was there when a pack of your hooded swine cut him down with air guns. He was unarmed. Who gave them those orders? Which of you will be next?”

“Don't be ridiculous.”

Alex pressed forward. “Who of you ordered the attack on the Psychic Service? Bullets flying within steps of Downing Street? But you lost a dozen soldiers in that assault. Lord Hollifield will confirm I brought a captured air gun to him to ask if he knew who had made it. I assumed his shock was from seeing something new. But then with a smiling face he sent me and a companion straight into a death trap.”

“I did not!” he snapped. “My orders were for you to be captured unharmed.”

“Obviously that did not happen. To whom did you give those orders? That apish brute that murdered Father? I think not. Someone else arranged that, using the beast as a tool. Make no mistake, the traitor is here. Did he present a report on his crimes? Or is he keeping secrets? From you of all people, is he keeping secrets?”

These were men practiced at holding their thoughts and feelings hidden while looking for weaknesses in others, but she could sense her shots were hitting true. Hollifield's bluff features were grim.

“I am a Reader in Her Majesty's Psychic Service,” she stated. “No one can lie to
me
. Have these ‘honorable' gentlemen present themselves one at a time and I'll tell you who is exceeding his authority—but you already know him, sir.”

“That he does.” A man standing by the closed door spoke. In one quick sweep he removed his mask and smiled. “My dear cousin, I had no idea you had such a turn for the dramatic.”

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

In Which Family Again Proves to Be Inconvenient

“You should have chosen the stage,” Teddy added. “Mother would have had seven kinds of fits, but that wouldn't have bothered you.”

Alex felt ill and angry, but maintained her control. Showing her temper would blast what she'd so carefully built to flinders.

Hollifield was ready to explode, though. He'd gone red and rounded on young Pendlebury. “You dare?”

“Someone had to act. Allow me to explain and all will be forgiven.”

Hollifield's glare could have scorched iron, but he'd not reached his place in the world without knowing when to listen. With visible effort he pulled himself in. “Explain, then,” he said after a moment.

Teddy's gaze was steady. This man was a stranger to Alex. This was someone accustomed to walking in the corridors of power. He looked older and extremely self-assured. “It was all on Lord Richard Desmond. Using the Ætherics as a frivolous diversion was no longer working, and quite frankly, most of you are not as careful as you should be. A careless word dropped, a little postprandial chat over the port—the man's no fool. You've seen more of him than all of us together, Hollifield. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd taken some clue from you.”

“Have a care, boy.”

“I did precisely that. I expected him to send spies. They wouldn't be hoodwinked by Ætheric table-tippers or shocked by those drunken hedonists. Desmond's spies were removed.”

“You killed
Englishmen
?”

“Spies, Lord Daniel. Spies who would have ruined everything. But it didn't put off Desmond. He approached my father in the Home Office about opening an inquiry, a series of inquiries, on most of
you
.”

The men had been restive but now went still.

“Caught your attention at last? You're all damned lucky I happened to see a paper my dear old sire left on his desk. It was a list of names, every one of them in the Order. That was
yesterday,
gentlemen. Just yesterday. Father would have launched an investigation tomorrow. They would have brought in Readers just like my cousin here, and none of you would have evaded discovery.”

Alex disbelieved that; Uncle Leo was never careless with important papers, but it was a plausible lie. This wasn't the time to point the flaw out to this lot, not with Teddy in full flow.

“Action was required. I gathered a few trusty lads to sort things out. With Lord Richard removed, the investigation would be delayed. We set a watch for the next time he went out. Soldiers of the Order executed Lord Richard Desmond early this morning.”

Alex listened with her internal senses wide. Their wave of shock was genuine.

“How could you?” someone demanded.

“Unavoidable. We'd have had to do it sooner or later.”

“Executed,” whispered Hollifield.

“You and all of us here know his dogged devotion to the crown. He'd have been an implacable enemy to our cause. Possibly the one man who could stop us.”

“He'd have come around,” said a man in the back.

“No.” Hollifield shook his head. “I knew him. He'd never…”

“Exactly,” said Teddy. “The next necessary evil was to take the teeth out of the Psychic Service. I anticipated his death would put them in disarray. They panicked and called in everyone. Every true psychical talent in London was together in one spot and we could have gotten rid of the lot, but their damned Seer somehow got wind of it and ruined things. I take responsibility for the attack, but not its defeat; that was out of my control.”