Henry snorted. “We’ve had this before, though. Renard delivers us someone that can give us information and they turn out to be spies themselves.”
“I can’t leave any stone overturned,” Hades said. He rubbed his eyes.
Bill kicked at the straw surrounding the horse’s body. “Renard’s due in two night’s time. You should say you are representative of the Viper. This man believes that he is going to negotiate with you for the list.”
“Where will I meet him?
Bill snorted. “As with all of Anglethorpe’s connections, we’ll bring him up here to the stables. Henry has one specially for those visiting… overnight.”
“I’ll just make sure Freddie stays away this time.” Henry scratched his head and frowned.
“And in the meantime I will go and find my expert in poisons,” Hades said grimly.
CHAPTER 22
Bones aching and tired beyond belief, Melissa arrived back in London. She had been away for a total of five days, only one of which had been spent outside of a coach. In fact she couldn’t work out where she had been less comfortable, the escape from London in the crowded post coach, the excruciating encounter with Hades and having to act as normal for a day, or the journey back with aching limbs and a satchel full of extremely poisonous henbane.
She had agreed with Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs that she would be away for two weeks. She would find no one at the house in Bayswater, apart from a possible welcoming committee from those dratted men from the Apothecary Society.
But she knew somewhere where no one would expect her to go.
The house in Hill Street in Mayfair was just as she remembered. Briskly, she rapped at the door. Carter opened the door and stared at her.
She stared back at him.
The butler stepped to one side and looked behind her.
“Are you going to let me in or not, Carter?” she said.
“The earl isn’t with you?” Carter frowned. “I’m afraid he is not at home, Miss Sumner.”
“Isn’t that lucky?” she said, taking a step forward and pushing Carter into the house. “My bags are on the path. I’ve come to stay for a few days. I believe I shall have my old room.”
Carter stumbled backwards in the hall. “What about the earl?”
“Oh he is still down in Brambridge,” she said airily. “He’ll be back shortly.”
“I don’t know about this…” But Carter was interrupted by the arrival of Arturo throwing himself down the stairs and jumping up at Melissa.
With a laugh Melissa carefully placed her satchel on the hall table and picked up the small dog, giving it a cuddle. “Look! Arturo knew I was coming back.”
“Is that Miss Sumner we hear?” Carlos and Charles appeared at the foot of the servants’ stairs. One held a whisk in his hand, the other a spoon. “She is back to stay? Oh happy days!” The cooks disappeared back down the stairs like rabbits down a hole. Carter stood back helplessly and let Melissa in to the hall.
“I shall have tea in the study, and then I shall retire to my room, Carter.” Melissa swept into the study and stopped.
It was as if time had stood still. Two chairs still sat in front of the fire. The green chair now showed wear and tear from where a heavy man had sat in it, day in day out. The leather chair was still at the angle she had pulled it whilst trying to maximize heat from the fire, and keep an eye on Hades. Even the last book that she had read was opened halfway on the small table.
“My lord was very particular that we not move anything,” Carter said, appearing silently at her shoulder. Your room has also not been touched since you stayed with us.”
Melissa had nothing she could say. The bravado and bluster that she had employed to enter the house left her in an instant. She crossed to the leather chair and sank into it. Carter nodded sharply.
“I will just fetch some coffee and biscuits, Miss Sumner.” He left the study quietly and gently closed the door.
Why had he done it? Why had Hades given the order that everything should be left the same? She had been without him for two weeks. He should have erased everything about her stay from his presence.
She swallowed. And to think that she had purposefully put him away from her.
Melissa settled more firmly into the chair. There was no time for maudlin thoughts. She had a plan to put in place, and that started with preparing the henbane so that she could use it.
Carter didn’t protest as Melissa slept in her customary room that night, nor when he served her breakfast the next morning.
“Carter.” She caught him by the sleeve as he passed her to take the last of the breakfast to the kitchen. “Why don’t you and Charles and Carlos have the day off?”
“We couldn’t possibly—”
“Of course you can. I can mind the house. When was the last time you all had the day off?”
“Well, a very long time but…”
“There you go then.”
In fact it was easy. Carlos and Charles needed no extra persuasion, but Carter elected to remain in the house in his rooms as they left. As soon as the doors closed to the empty kitchen, Melissa took her precious satchel down the stairs and pulled on her leather gloves once more.
She had tried her hardest not to crush the delicate plant. Turning the satchel inside out, she decanted the mangled henbane into a large copper pan and added some water.
The fire in the stove was still roaring. She opened up one of the stovetop rings and set the copper on top. She needed to bring the henbane to the boil in order to gain all of the juices from the plant.
After two hours of boiling, Melissa found a piece of kindling and fished out the now unrecognizable plant matter from the copper and threw it back in her satchel. She pushed the whole satchel into the stove fire and watched as it burned.
It took three hours and repeated warnings to Carter not to enter the kitchen before she had a thimble’s worth of liquid. She poured the powerful henbane into a tiny empty glass salt jar which she carried carefully back to the study. Ignoring Carter’s knocking on the door, she searched Hades’ desk rapidly, finding his wax and some long tapers sitting on top of some papers and a torn parcel of well bound books. Without stopping to examine the parcel, Melissa lit a taper in the fire place, softened the sealing wax and dripped it around the glass stopper on the small bottle. She tamped the soft wax into place with her finger and set the bottle on the desk for the wax to cool.
Hurrying past the flustered Carter, she ran back into the kitchen and carefully poked the remains of the fire to make sure nothing was left of the satchel. She threw more water and soap into the copper and meticulously boiled the pot until all traces of henbane had been cleaned away.
As she laid the copper boiling pot back into its customary place, she folded her arms. Now she just needed to send a message to the Viper, and see what happened. Her shoulders slumped; she hadn’t thought that far. She had fixated too much on the poison, the feeling of euphoria when the Viper was no longer around.
Melissa sat back in the leather chair and gazed at the study around her. After her initial flurry of activity, the next two days had passed slowly. Once again she was held in the house, but this time it was of her own choice, indecision. She had not wanted to be seen leaving the mansion house, nor be caught by the Society of Apothecaries men. Carlos and Charles had even sent her endless cakes and sandwiches, although it was noticeable that they fell short in the dinner department.
Worst of all, she had finished reading all the books on Hades’ small flora and fauna shelf. Melissa tapped her foot and toyed with her coffee cup. There were the other shelves of course; after all she had quite enjoyed the book by Cicero, and delving in and out of the strange little Chinese pamphlet. But none of it quite grabbed her. The only reason she had been interested in the books was because Hades had been interested in them.
Hmm. Books that Hades was specifically interested in—of course. Getting up from her chair, Melissa moved behind the desk and opened the deep bottom drawer
on the left hand chest. She carefully lifted out the papers which were doodled with pictures of snakes and pulled out the parcel of leather-bound books she had found when searching for the wax. Pulling deftly at the string on the parcel, she pulled off the torn paper and sat for a while in silence, staring at the books that fell from her hand.
They were water-stained and slightly moldy, but she had already known in her mind’s eye what they would have looked like beforehand. “Herbology” by Arthur Sumner, “Exotic Flowers of the Alpes” by Arthur Sumner, and “Common Garden Plants” by Arthur Sumner lay in front of her. The books, her father’s books that she had missed so terribly when they had gone. Why did Hades have them? Didn’t he realize that they could have been one of the books that the Viper was searching for? If only he had told her he had them.
Melissa stroked a finger down the engraving of one of the covers. She hadn’t told Hades that the books were missing; she had held it back because he had held back information himself. Oh gracious, just as she had held herself back and teased him when he had visited her in Bayswater. With a muffled sob, she leant forward and shook her head. Wiping a hand to her nose, she picked up the books and trudged back to her chair by the fire. There was no time to think about her relationship with Hades now. Somewhere in the books would be the clue to why the Viper kept menacing her.
She began with ‘Herbology’, reading every page, every piece of writing. Hours passed, and soon it was evening. She barely noticed as Carter tiptoed around her lighting candles so that she could see. He tutted as she moved closer to the fire when the candles blew out, but she just waved her hand at him. What was it about the books the Viper wanted?
As she read, the familiarity of the book came flooding back, the half remembered images and text dancing on the page. She had read them a thousand times, at first to help her through her father’s death, and in the later stages to help her study and further her passion for plants.
But there was nothing there.
Not in the first book, nor the second book, or even the third.
There was nothing there apart from that which she expected to see. In the early hours of the morning as the embers of the fire died, she tried turning the books upside down and reading them backwards, hoping to see something she had missed. She took off her glasses and squinted at the pages, hoping that something would jump out. She looked at the page numbers to see if there was a code buried in them, even read each plant description again to see if they matched now that she had her own extensive plant knowledge.
There was nothing. Nothing, apart from a small exclamation mark on a page that highlighted the attributes of the saxifraga longifolia. Tiredly Melissa rubbed her eyes. She was not surprised about the exclamation mark. It was the Corona del Rey plant that her father had been exploring for when he died. Blinking she traced a finger over the beautifully drawn leaves. Only then did her tired eyes catch on the note written in the most minute of writing below the hand drawn rendition of the alpine plant. She gasped and moved closer to the fire. The words leapt out of the page. ‘See diary’ was written in her father’s hand.
She had no diary. She had never seen a diary, nor heard of one that her father had written. He was more inclined to make small notes in books that he used.
Melisa scrabbled at the books on the desk, flipping through the pages. There were no more small notes, however, in any one of the books. They were as useless to her as the ones that she had used to weigh down her old press.
She swallowed, her throat dry, and a cold sweat broke out on her brow. There were three more books that completed the entire collection. The books she had used to weigh down her press. Books on animals that she had barely opened before, that her father had only kept because they had been authored by his colleagues.
Opening the bottom drawer again, Melissa knelt and pushed her head inside. She could easily see the rough wooden back of the drawer. There were no hidden depths.
It was the same with the rest of the drawers in the desk. Had Hades missed the books when he had collected them for reasons known only to himself? Had he already found the book that the Viper so readily wanted?
Please no.
That book was her only key to overthrowing the Viper.
CHAPTER 23
It was all a complete washout. Hades stared glumly out of the panes of glass that covered the small orangery to the side of Berale House. The rain fell in stair rods rat-a-tat tatting against the windows. The noise was thunderous. It suited his mood.
Nothing had gone to plan. He had re-entered the house to find Melissa had gone, and no one could find her. Once again she had run away. His feet itched to run after her but he had stayed, his mood somber. Not even Victoria and her bosom bow Agatha could raise a smile from him with their efforts to trip him up into revealing more about how he knew Miss Sumner.
Even the damn Dutch spy hadn’t showed. Bill had received a message from Renard to say that the man had disappeared from the boat as soon as it had rounded the point into Longman’s Cove. One of the crew hands had gone to rouse him from his cabin and found the small space empty.
Renard described the Dutch man as short, with a large red nose, and sandy-blond hair. He also hadn’t revealed much during the ship’s passage, nor seemed to be carrying any money with him.
Hades cursed. Renard didn’t normally lose people on his crossings. He was more famed for saving them, ferrying French émigrés across the channel for a new life in England. Hades picked up a pebble from the floor and threw it into one of the many flowerpots. It clanged as it fell to the bottom. He supposed Renard wouldn’t have been able to watch the man fully as he needed to keep up the pretense that he was working for France.
He picked up another stone and launched it at the pot. It hit the side with a crack and fell to the floor. Even his horse hadn’t been removed yet from the stables. He expected the knacker men that morning. They had sent word that they didn’t work on the weekend, and that they would arrive at Berale House on the Monday, today. The other horses in the stable were very unsettled. They didn’t like the smell of death, and even the stable hands were saying that the odor was becoming very pungent.
“Earl Harding?” Smythe, the Anglethorpe’s butler, peered his head around the door to the orangery.
Hades glanced up at him and scuffed his foot on the floor. “Yes Smythe?”
“There are some men at the door, sir.” Smythe’s face was more inscrutable than his own butler, Carter, but Hades could tell that something had created a bad smell under Smythe’s nose. “They are rather excited, sir, and ask that you join them.”
“And they are…?”
“Ah, sorry my lord. They say they are from William Knackers and sons.”
Hades nodded. So they had arrived. Good, then perhaps one of his tasks could be completed and he would return to London—when the rain had stopped.
Standing, he followed the butler to the front entrance hall of the house. Two men, their hats clasped in two hands in front of them, stood dripping on the oak floor.
“You be Earl Harding?” the elder man said, his face lined from exposure to sun, wind and rain. Hades nodded. “We’ve got something you should see.”
Hades sniffed. Suddenly his nose received a pungent whiff of what could only be described as glue. He coughed. Smythe gave him a sympathetic look. Now he knew what had caused the butler’s expression.
“It’s our work clothes,” the younger man said suddenly. “We can’t get the smell out. It ain’t worth trying to change clothes either. In one day they just get as smelly. The only way to get rid of the smell is to burn ’em.”
Hades nodded. The knacker’s job was a hard one, dealing with death, tanning and glue. All of these were long, hard, smelly, and thankless jobs.
“Now that we’ve addressed that, we’ve got something you should see, my lord.” The young man pushed his hat back on his head. The older man followed suit.
“I shall need…” Hades turned to address Smythe, but Smythe had
already pulled a greatcoat out from under the stairs, as well as a large hat.
“I believe it is still raining, sir,” Smythe said dryly.
Hades nodded and took the proffered coat and hat. The coat smelled of wax and wet socks. It wasn’t any worse than the smell from the men, though. He jammed the hat on his head for good measure and turned back to the front door. “After you gentlemen.”
The rain was insidious. It was a relief to reach the stables. The horses were noticeably more quiet now that poor Acorn had been lifted onto a cart which stood near the front gates to the Berale House Estate.
“I was just driving the cart out to go to Ottery, see,” the older man said. “At a slow pace, mind so John could catch up.” Ah. William Knacker and son.
Hades nodded. A small drop of rain slithered down and under the hat, causing him to shiver as it found a chink in his neck.
“He came running after me shouting to stop. I barely heard above the pounding of the rain.”
“What did you find?” Hades turned to John who waited silently.
“I think you had better come and see.” John led the way into the stables where Acorn had fallen. The floor was still covered in hay, and the smell from the dead horse was stronger.
“I’m not sure what I’m meant to observe?” Hades ducked down deeper into his coat, hoping that the wax and wet socks would overpower the stench of death.
Old William pushed open the stable door to allow the dull day’s light in. “Light the lamp, son,” he said, leaning against the door jamb.
John swiftly lit a small lamp that stood on the floor just at the entrance. He held it up with an outstretched arm and pointed into the hay. “You can go closer. We don’t think there is any danger now.”
Danger? Hades stepped further into the stable, taking care to make his shadow stay off the hay. His eyes searched carefully through the hay as William and John waited patiently.
It was a flicker of the lamp that allowed him to see what John was referring to. Coiled in the hay was a snake, grey in color with dark brown markings down its back. Its broad, triangular shaped head and upturned snout lay to one side, the jaws open, and tongue lying partially out.
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