The Tavistock Plot

by Tracy Grant

  Carfax continued to watch her.

  "Surely you realize I understand the benefits of collaborating with an opponent," Mélanie said.

  Carfax gave a faint smile and lifted his glass to her again. "As I said, for a number of reasons, it's probably as well I got to speak with you rather than Malcolm."

  The door opened on the silence that followed this exchange. The subject of their conversation walked into the library with timing worthy of a stage play. "Carfax." Malcolm paused briefly, then moved to Mélanie's chair and put a hand on her shoulder. "I was expecting to see you tonight."

  "I believe Mélanie has filled me in on a number of the details. But I understand you and Roth have been to Thornsby's lodgings."

  "Yes. Though we arrived after Billy. He asked me to tell you that he didn't discover anything, by the way."

  Carfax, at least, knew better than to attempt denials. "As I told Mélanie, it shouldn't surprise either of you that I have agents watching the Tavistock. When I heard Thornsby's body had been found, naturally I wanted to see what might be among his papers. Not that you don't have better instincts searching for evidence than Billy does, but Billy would hand over everything with none of your sifting and considering. Not to mention protecting your friends. It was a worth a try. I assume you and Roth searched Thornsby's rooms after you sent Billy packing?"

  "And you'd like to hear about what we discovered? No, it's all right." Malcolm's hand tightened on Mélanie's shoulder, part warning that he had the situation in hand, part reassurance, perhaps of himself as much as her. "As it happens, I was going to call on you if I didn't find you here. Does 19 Rosemary Lane mean anything to you?"

  "Should it?"

  "Thornsby's valet saw a letter with that direction on it among Thornsby's things. Thornsby didn't seem to want him to see it and apparently later burned the letter."

  "Interesting. I assume you'll pay a call there."

  "Roth and I will tomorrow." Malcolm drew a paper from his pocket and walked over to Carfax's chair. "We also found this. Do you recognize it?"

  Carfax stared at the drawing. From her seat across from him, Mélanie could see the lines of the rifle trajectory.

  "Where did you find this?" Carfax asked.

  "On Thornsby's body. One of my questions is if you put it there."

  "Why the devil would I—"

  "Oh, for God's sake, sir. Don't pretend you don't know I know you have agents provocateurs in just about every Radical organization in the country."

  Carfax took the drawing from Malcolm, walked to the library table, and held it under the light of an Argand lamp. "'Every' is a bit of an exaggeration. Are you accusing me of employing Thornsby to foment such a plot in the hopes of discrediting the Levellers? Or of planting the paper on him after he was dead?"

  "Potentially either one."

  "Both seem a bit heavy handed." Carfax pushed his spectacles up on his nose. "I suppose it's occurred to you Thornsby might really be involved in a plot to shoot someone in the royal box?"

  "That's why I'm telling you about it. That and the fact that Simon insisted I tell you."

  Carfax looked down at the drawing again. "Yes, I don't think Tanner would actually try to murder a member of the royal family. The risk he represents to Britain is much more cerebral. And more complicated. I was discussing that with Mélanie before you came in."

  Malcolm crossed to Carfax and took the paper from him. "If Thornsby was involved in an assassination plot, he was killed by someone who either didn't know about the plot or who wanted this paper found."

  "My dear Malcolm." Carfax returned to his chair and took a sip of whisky. "Are you accusing me of having Thornsby killed?"

  Malcolm returned the sketch to his coat. "As you yourself said, it seems a bit heavy handed. You'd have to have known Mélanie and I would end up investigating and that we'd ask the obvious questions about the paper. On the other hand, if Thornsby was working for you and caused trouble, he wouldn't be the first inconvenient agent you've got rid of."

  Carfax rested his glass on his chair arm. "Thornsby wasn't working for me. I don't expect you to believe me, but I thought I should at least make the point. His sort of romanticized undergraduate Radicalism can be distinctly dangerous. And it wouldn't make for a good agent. Not unless he was a far better actor than most of the Tavistock's excellent company." He frowned at the spot where Malcolm had stowed the sketch. "I'm going to have to investigate this."

  "I trust you will," Malcolm said. "None of us wants an assassination."

  "I've been telling Lord Carfax we can share information with him if he shares it with us," Mélanie said.

  Malcolm shot a look at her. "Within reason," she said.

  "It seems a reasonable arrangement," Carfax said.

  Malcolm sat on the arm of Mélanie's chair. "So why did you send Billy to search Thornsby's rooms?"

  "I told you. Thornsby was a Leveller. Thornsby met a violent death. It seemed not unlikely the two were connected."

  Malcolm folded his arms across his chest. "How did you know Thornsby was a Leveller?"

  "My dear Malcolm. I may not have the network I once did, but I am not entirely without resources. I have sources at the Tavistock, as I admitted to both of you."

  "You have a source among the Levellers."

  "No comment."

  "I thought we were sharing information."

  "Within reason, as Mélanie said." Carfax took another drink of whisky. "In the spirit of cooperation, I'll admit to having an agent among the Levellers."

  "A great concession, considering, as I'm sure you know, we knew that already. What would really shock me is if you shared the agent's name."

  "Would you share the name of one of your agents with me?"

  "Fair enough." Malcolm picked up Mélanie's glass and took a drink from it. "Why are you so afraid of the Levellers?"

  "Have you read the sort of things they advocate?"

  "Yes, they sound very like the sort of things David, Simon, Oliver, and I were writing and speaking about a decade ago. And you were afraid of us. Which surely seems rather silly now."

  "Does it? Look in the mirror, Malcolm. Turn round and look at your wife, who is watching you with the sort of pride most men would give a fortune to see on their wife's face. You're a lot of things, but above all, you're a force to be reckoned with. God help us."

  "I'd say you're a flatterer, sir. Save that you wouldn't flatter without a reason."

  "Well-born young men with delusions that they know how to set the world straight are more likely to upend our world than northern machine breakers or displaced farmers. They're the sort that have all too much time on their hands. And all too much power and all too many resources."

  "Are you saying you think the sketch represents a real plot?"

  "I'm saying I think it could. I'm sorry, Mélanie. I don't mean to have your premiere disrupted."

  "Are you saying you think we should call the play off?"

  "On the contrary. If the plot falls apart, we'll never learn who is behind it. With all of us working on the problem, I don't doubt we can get to the truth of the matter in five days." He looked between her and Malcolm. "You're in the midst of an investigation. No sense in wasting your time or mine with an argument neither of us can win. As Mélanie said, there are things we can agree about. Like stopping this plot, whoever is behind it. Like fighting the League."

  "There's no reason to think the League have anything to do with Thornsby's death," Malcolm said.

  "None that you've discovered? None that I have so far either. But the League are wrapped up in a great deal. They were trying to kill that young woman Kit Montagu's fiancée smuggled into the country last month. And Montagu is one of the Levellers' leaders."

  Mélanie glanced at Malcolm. They'd never been quite clear how much Carfax knew about Nerezza Russo and the night they and their friends had saved her from assassination by the League and smuggled her to safety. Mélanie wasn't going to be drawn into questions about
Nerezza's present whereabouts.

  "You also tried to have the Levellers arrested that night," she said.

  "And you warned them."

  "No sense in denying that now," Mélanie said. "But Thornsby wasn't in the meeting that night. There's no reason to think he has anything to do with Nerezza or the League."

  "No, but the League have a tendency to be in the middle of everything. I'm sure you'll explore the connections." Carfax swallowed the last of his whisky and set down his glass. "And I'm sure you have a number of things to discuss that you can't say in front of me. Or at least don't feel you can. I'll make my goodnights. This has been a very edifying evening."

  Chapter 5

  Sofia Vincenzo looked at Kit Montagu in his mother's lamplit drawing room. Lady Thurston was asleep upstairs. But her shock at Sofia's entertaining a young man alone late at night would be tempered by the fact that Kit was in his mother's own house. And Lady Thurston, despite Kit and his sisters' saying she was a high stickler, had shown herself surprisingly easy-tempered when it came to Sofia and Kit. Perhaps she realized her son, for all his Radical thoughts, was far too much a conventional gentleman in some ways to do anything before they were married. Which rather disappointed Sofia, who would have been ready to go further months ago.

  Now Sofia was sitting beside Kit on the sofa, holding his hands, and Kit was too agitated to cavil at their behavior. She could feel the tension thrumming through him. He spoke quickly, as though he needed to spill the story out.

  "It's horrible," Sofia said. "Why, I saw poor Lewis only this afternoon when I stopped by the theatre. I was thinking how he was in over his head with Letty, and though I like both of them, they'd never be happy together. Oh, poison, I know that sounds like an odd thing to say, but I can't quite take it in—"

  "Nor can I." Kit squeezed her hands. "It must bring back memories."

  "Of my father?" Sofia hunched her shoulders. The memory of her father's body on the edge of Lake Como, blood pooling round him, was as vivid as if it had been yesterday, rather than over a year ago. "Not really. I mean, that was so different. It was my father, so nothing can compare. But I knew Father was involved in things that were dangerous. Lewis—"

  "Lewis was a Leveller."

  She shook her head. "Still."

  Kit watched her for a moment. "Are you saying we're all boys playing at being Radicals?"

  "Hardly. Caro, you know I don't think that. I met you because the Carbonari wanted to work with you. But Lewis seemed to be playing at being a Radical, perhaps. I thought he was drawn to the idea of adventure more than to the idea of change."

  "Which may have got him killed." Kit's fingers tightened over her own. "You hadn't heard anything about a plot involving the royal box?"

  "Good God, Kit. I'd have told you."

  Kit scraped a hand over his hair. "It doesn't seem like Lewis. And yet, he was drawn to adventure, as you say. He was too young to really understand consequences, I think. He might have fallen prey to someone who was trying to foment a plot. Or a pretend plot."

  "An agent provocateur? There are so many of them in Radical groups, it would be folly to think we hadn't been infiltrated."

  "Or he was framed."

  "Because either the killer didn't know the paper was there or wanted the paper found." Sofia scanned her fiancé's face. "You hadn't heard any rumblings about anything like this?"

  "Beyond the search for the mole in the Levellers? No." Kit drew her closer. "It's going to bring Carfax down on us more than ever. But at least Malcolm and Mélanie are looking into it as well. We'll know more when we get a report from them in the morning. I just wanted—needed—to tell you tonight."

  "Of course." Sofia slid her arm round him and pressed her face against his shoulder. She and Kit had been allies before they were lovers. He was a good agent, but she could read him well.

  And she was quite sure her betrothed, her colleague, her friend, the man she loved, was keeping something from her.

  Colin looked between his parents. "I don't suppose you've learned anything you can tell us?"

  Malcolm grinned and knelt down beside their son. "Not yet, old chap. We haven't learned much at all."

  "Is Uncle Simon all right?"

  Mélanie saw the instinctive fear that ran through Malcolm. But he said, "Uncle Simon's fine. He's very upset about Mr. Thornsby, and concerned like the rest of us. He went home to talk to Uncle David."

  "It's very sad." Blanca, Mélanie's companion, looked from Malcolm to Mélanie and then at her husband Addison, Malcolm's valet. "Mr. Thornsby was a kind man."

  "Anything we can do?" Addison asked. In addition to being Malcolm's valet, he, like Blanca, was a skilled agent.

  "There'll be leads for of all us to investigate," Malcolm said. "We'll know more tomorrow."

  Jessica looked up from the floor where she was playing blocks with Pedro, Blanca and Addison's fourteen-month-old son. For a heart-stopping moment Mélanie was reminded of Colin playing with baby Jessica. "Will we go to the theatre tomorrow?"

  "Perhaps later in the day," Mélanie said. "Not first thing in the morning. There's nothing to be afraid of there."

  Jessica inched across the floor and climbed into Mélanie's lap. "I'm not afraid when I'm with you."

  Half an hour later, when they had tucked Colin and Jessica into bed and read them stories, and Blanca and Addison had taken Pedro to their own apartments in the mews, Mélanie and Malcolm returned downstairs. Malcolm leaned against the newel post in the hall and gave a lopsided smile. "Not the day I anticipated when I got up this morning. I'm sorry, sweetheart."

  "I'm all right." Mélanie bent down to pick up a small figure of a lady in a red gown and another of a knight with a Plantagenet crest on his shield that had somehow ended up under the console table. They were favorites of Colin's. "Oh, you mean the play?"

  Malcolm crossed to her side and reached out to push her hair behind her ear. "It's rather important to you."

  "We'll manage." She leaned her cheek against his hand for a moment, then took his hand and drew him back into the library. "I keep thinking about Thornsby. He looked so young lying there. He'd been so alive a few hours before. And it seems he'd just asked Letty to marry him." She told Malcolm about her talk with Letty.

  "Do you believe Letty?" Malcolm asked when she had done. They were back in the Queen Anne chair, the two of them wedged into it together, with her legs draped over Malcolm's lap.

  "You mean, do I think she could have been lying about Lewis's leaving her at her lodgings, and that she came back to the Tavistock with him and killed him?" Mélanie asked. "Like you, I know better than to discount anything. But her shock and grief seemed very genuine. I don't think she told me everything she knows, though. When I asked her about Lewis's enemies, I'd swear she bit something back."

  "Do you think she'd have married him?" Malcolm asked.

  "I don't know." Mélanie lifted her head to look at her husband. "She was seriously considering it, I think. But she was aware of what she'd be giving up. Not just the chance to fall in love, but the chance perhaps to forge her own life. Still, it was, or seemed to be, a guarantee of a secure life. Letty comes from a background where that means a lot."

  Malcolm nodded. "Thornsby was very young. But my impression was that he was sincerely attached to her."

  "Enough so to offer marriage. And not, I think, just because he couldn't get her into bed any other way. It's not as though Letty was holding out for marriage. She seems to have been genuinely surprised by the offer." Mélanie hesitated. "I was concerned, hearing her talk, about what might have happened if they'd married. But they might have been happy. She might even have grown to love him. People can, even when they go into marriage for less than ideal reasons. As we know."

  Malcolm smoothed a loose strand of hair back from her face. "Finding a way to forge your own life has helped."

  "I've been forging my own life from the moment I married you, dearest. I've just been putting together different pieces of
it." And yet, all of those pieces had been focused on him. Even as an agent, she'd been working against him. So he had remained her focus. She'd supported him as a diplomatic and political wife. She'd hosted his parties and helped write his speeches. They raised their children together. They worked together as agents and investigated crimes together. The theatre was something different, something that he supported and embraced, but that was hers. Which mattered to her in ways she could scarcely begin to put into words. But she wanted to make sure it didn't bother Malcolm. Because Malcolm had a generosity that would drive him to do anything for her. And he wouldn't admit, even to himself, if it bothered him.

  Malcolm kissed her nose. "Have I mentioned how proud I am of you?"

  "Once or twice." She reached up to kiss him. "I love you, Malcolm."

  He held her to him for a moment, then made a typical Malcolm transition back to the investigation. "A good reminder that there could be motives for Thornsby's death that have nothing to do with that drawing."

  "Though the drawing still came from somewhere."

  "So it did." Malcolm's voice was hard.

  Mélanie drew her knees up and linked her arms round them. "A crude attempt to make a personal crime look like something political?"

  "Interesting possibility." Malcolm's brows knotted. "But if Letty is to be believed, Thornsby was involved in something secret, whether or not it relates to the sketch."

  "And there's the question of what brought him back to the theatre tonight." She twisted her pendant—a garnet pendant Malcolm had given her in another life, before their exile—on its chain. "Of course, he might have had an appointment at the Tavistock simply because it seemed a quiet place to talk. He could have arranged to meet a friend or a family member there. But it does seem more likely he came back to see someone in the company. Or one of the Levellers, since so many of them are connected to the company and they tend to treat the theatre as their base."

  Malcolm nodded. "Thornsby always struck me as well liked. Carfax called him a hothead, but he didn't seem to be so in the way that makes enemies."