by Лорен Уиллиг
“Believe what?” Alex’s voice was like granite.
Penelope was beginning to feel slightly sick to her stomach. She couldn’t have said quite why. It might have been the way Guignon was enthusiastically reducing his pastry to pulp. Or it might have been the half-eager, half-sheepish expression on Cleave’s face as he tried to explain why he had systematically set out to murder her husband. The incongruous boyishness of it made Penelope’s stomach turn.
“He had found out about — well, that I — you know.”
“No,” said Alex in a deadly tone, “I don’t know. Would you care to enlighten us?”
“That I was selling secrets,” Cleave blurted out. “Nothing dangerous,” he added defensively. “Just little things that wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
The Frenchman snorted.
Penelope entirely concurred.
“Little things,” repeated Alex flatly.
“What else was I to do?” demanded Cleave shrilly. “You know what the East India Company’s idea of pay is like.”
“The rest of us manage somehow. Without resorting to treason.” Alex’s voice was drier than dust.
Cleave bristled. “You don’t know what it is to have a sick mother to support.”
“No, only four siblings,” murmured Alex, but Cleave didn’t seem to hear him.
“Her medicines are so dear. And the doctor’s visits and the carriage — she can’t be expected to walk — and the paid companion. It just goes on and on and all of it costs money. Money! Do you know how much my father left me? Nothing. Just his sword and his name — and only one of those was salable,” he added bitterly. “He died a hero’s death, fighting for the Company, and what did the Company ever give us in return?”
“A job,” said Alex softly. “A livelihood.”
Cleave laughed bitterly, his pleasant features twisted. “Some livelihood. India broke my mother’s health and took my father’s life. I was owed something. She was owed something.”
“So you decided to take it,” prompted Alex.
In the corner, the Frenchman’s jaws opened in an earsplitting yawn. True confessions were evidently not his idea of entertainment.
“Fiske saw me.” Cleave looked anxiously from side to side as though expecting to find Fiske there, watching. “He saw me passing information to Wrothan, damn him. He started demanding payment in return for silence. Just little amounts at first, but it added up over time. I’d meant to get out, to stop doing it, but I had to get in deeper, just to keep making Fiske’s payments. And then — ” He drew a shuddering breath.
“Then they told me about the treasure of Berar. I had my way out. If I could only get my hands on the treasure, I would be free.”
“And the little matter of the planned rebellion?”
Cleave seemed to have forgotten the Frenchman’s presence. He spoke only to Alex, his mild face more animated than Penelope had ever seen it. “That was the genius of it! It never had to happen. Without the gold, the princes would never rise. And I — I would have the gold. I was even going to give the bulk of it over to the government and claim I’d found it,” he added with pathetic eagerness. “I would have been rewarded — a hero! Don’t you see? All I have to do is get my hands on the gold and it will all come about.”
Guignon looked up from trimming his fingernails with a pastry knife. “There is no gold.”
“Jewels, then. Treasure. What does it matter? It’s all the same thing.”
Simply, as though to a very slow student, Guignon said, “There is no treasure.”
Cleave’s face was a study in incomprehension. “No — what?”
“No treasure,” repeated Guignon, without the slightest bit of hesitation. “There never was any.” He gave a Gallic shrug. “Oh, there might well be a lost treasure of Berar, but we never had it. It was just a carrot, to dangle before the princes, like mules, you see? The mule trots faster for the promise of reward.”
Cleave’s face drained of all color. He swayed slightly, catching on to the back of a packing crate to steady himself. “You mean it was all for nothing. All of it. Nothing.”
“Not nothing,” said Guignon genially. “It was all for a very good cause.”
His words brought back the memory of a piece of paper found lying on the pavement above, a paper that Cleave must have crafted in his persona as Marigold. The French had been poor, but the revolutionary rhetoric had been remarkably fluent.
“‘And the tree of Liberty shall blossom again in the courtyards of the East ,’” Penelope quoted softly.
“Precisely,” said Guignon, with great satisfaction. “What is a little lie to a grand end?”
In substance, it wasn’t all that different from the rationalization for his own actions Cleave had expressed only moments before. But something pushed him over the edge. It might have been his own words quoted back at him. It might have been the Frenchman’s air of smug superiority. It might have been the brioche crumbs that landed square in one eye. Whatever it was, Cleave snapped.
“You thrice-damned, frog-eating bastard!” he breathed out through his teeth, and snatched up one of the muskets, barrel first.
A look of mild apprehension appeared on Guignon’s epicene face, but before it could ripple down his layers of fat into movement, it was too late. Cleave swung the musket like a mallet.
The stock connected with Guignon’s head with a sickening crunch that made Penelope jump back a step. Penelope went careening into Alex, who was attempting to make a grab for Cleave. Alex staggered sideways as Penelope stumbled against him, putting out a hand to keep them both from falling together off an inconveniently placed keg of ammunition. The rim of the keg hit Penelope in the waist with sickening force.
Dizzy, Penelope clutched at the side of the tub, feeling her gorge rise as the series of strange sounds in the background crystallized into meaning. Guignon was on the ground, but Cleave’s arms still rose and fell, the blood-stained stock of the musket rising and falling with them, spattering flecks of blood as he panted, “Bastard, bastard, bastard!”
Alex grabbed at him from behind, catching the other man’s arms high over head as Cleave struggled to be let free, panting and sobbing and babbling words that Penelope could hardly hear over the ringing of her ears and the labored sound of Alex’s breathing as he fought to hold Cleave steady.
With the strength of the mad, Cleave wrenched free, turning on his old friend with a frenzied look in his eye. The musket lifted.
The sound of a shot reverberated through the room.
Chapter Thirty-One
The shot had not come from Cleave’s musket.
Cleave’s bloody musket tumbled harmlessly to the ground, as they all stared in confusion at one another. Penelope glanced down at her own pistol, still in her hand, still cool.
As the sound of the report died away, one booted foot stepped down onto the top stair. It was a well-used boot, scuffed along the sides, and it posed — there was really no other word for it — on the stair as though its owner were well aware of the effect it would have.
From where she stood, Penelope could only see the side of the stairs, but Alex had a clear view upwards, and she could see his face change as the newcomer descended, step by well-calculated step. Unlike Guignon, this man’s frame was athletic, with the well-developed leg muscles of a man who spends a great deal of time in the saddle. His coat fell carelessly open over a travel-stained linen shirt.
He held a smoking pistol in one hand.
“That’s a hell of a way to say hello,” said Alex.
Visible nearly up to his neck, the other man tucked the spent pistol carelessly away in his belt.
“You looked like you needed the help,” he said, and came fully into Penelope’s view.
His reddish brown hair had been tousled into a careless style reminiscent of the current London mode, but Penelope would have been willing to wager it was less by design and more by exertion. He had high, clean-cut cheekbones, a square chin, and a quirk in one brow tha
t looked as though it were habitual.
Penelope knew exactly where she had seen him before. It had been in the marketplace in Hyderabad, smiling a rogue’s grin as he tossed his biryani to a beggar and sent them on a fool’s chase all the way to Raymond’s Tomb.
“I had hoped not to see you here,” said Alex pointedly.
“Warmest greetings to you, too, brother,” said Jack Reid.
He paused on the second-to-last step to survey the field below, grimacing as he looked down over the piles of munitions to the bloody mess that had once been Louis Guignon.
Jack made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Messy, Daniel, messy,” he said reprovingly. “I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?”
Against her better instincts, Penelope followed his gaze. There wasn’t much left of Louis Guignon, at least, not of his face. Cleave had done a very thorough job with the butt of the musket.
Cleave took a stumbling step backwards, staring in horror at his handiwork.
“I didn’t,” he babbled. “I didn’t mean — ”
“I doubt your intent means much to Guignon at this juncture,” said Jack, gracefully descending the stairs. “But I owe you a debt of gratitude, for all that. Major Guignon’s presence would have been a decided nuisance at this juncture.” He surveyed the gruesome scene with a critical eye. “Better you than me.”
Cleave backed away. “I didn’t mean — ”
“Yes, we heard that already.” Jack looked quizzically at Penelope.
“And this is?”
Alex didn’t waste time with introductions. His face was bleak as he looked at his brother, so full of naked pain that it hurt Penelope to look at it. “So you are involved in this.”
Jack’s smile was a masterpiece of mockery. Despite herself, Penelope couldn’t help but feel a certain kinship for Alex’s black sheep brother. She had smiled that way often enough herself. “Didn’t Daniel tell you? No? I thought not. We are colleagues, Daniel and I. Traitors in arms, as it were. Aren’t we, Daniel?”
Cleave’s sudden pallor provided all the answer they needed.
Contempt etched across Alex’s face like acid as he turned to Cleave. “And yet you condemned Jack for it. You would have thrown him to the noose to save yourself.”
“That was different,” stuttered Cleave, with a fluttery movement of his hands. “He actually believes in all this! I was only in it — ”
“For the money,” Jack filled in genially. “As it happens, so am I. But you are right. There is a difference. You see” — he paused, waiting until he was sure all their attention was upon him — “I am not being paid by the same people who are paying you.”
With a quirk of the eyebrows, he leaned back against the wall, patiently allowing them time to puzzle it out. Cleave stared at him, openmouthed. Alex’s face was a study of wonder and relief.
“You aren’t working for the French,” said Penelope flatly, since no one else seemed capable of doing it.
“Brilliantly well spotted,” drawled Jack. Penelope felt some of her sympathy for him begin to evaporate.
“Who?” Alex asked hoarsely. “Who are you working for?”
“I can’t name names of course. Not with him here.” Jack smiled genially at Daniel Cleave, who seemed to be intent on climbing backwards into a packing crate. “We wouldn’t want the information getting into the wrong hands now, would we?”
“I knew you couldn’t,” Alex said roughly. “Not treason.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Don’t go all sentimental on me, brother mine. Your side pays better than the other.”
“You lied to me,” said Cleave blankly.
“Don’t feel so special,” said Jack airily. “I lie to everyone. And a good thing, too, or my presumed allies would have my guts for tiffin.”
“Not just your allies,” said his brother darkly. “Does Father know about this?”
“I see no reason he should,” said Jack coolly. “I wouldn’t have told you if you hadn’t made such a bloody nuisance of yourself.”
“A nuisance.” Alex appeared to be having trouble getting the words out of his mouth. “I am the nuisance.”
“You have a remarkable facility for getting in the way.”
“I was trying to save your reputation,” said Alex through gritted teeth.
“My reputation, as you care to call it,” replied Jack, “is all that keeps me alive in this snake pit I’ve tumbled into.”
“Then climb out of it,” said Alex harshly. “No one asked you to play with snakes.”
“Didn’t they? Not everyone can walk the straight and narrow, cher frere . Especially when they’re not allowed onto the path.”
“Touching,” said Penelope rudely. She was still smarting from that “well spotted.” Not to mention that the man had no business beating up on Alex, who had been jumping through hoops of fire on his ungrateful behalf. “You poor, deprived man. You only have a brother willing to sacrifice his own future to save your sorry hide. My heart bleeds for you.”
“Brilliant,” said Jack, with a clipped diction that was painfully reminiscent of his brother’s. “Just what was needed. A Greek chorus. Or are you meant to be posing as my conscience?”
Penelope looked Alex’s brother straight in the eye. “I never take on thankless jobs.”
“Then why are you here?”
Before Penelope could answer, Alex interjected, in a very tired voice, “What was meant to happen here tonight, Jack?”
“If you hadn’t interfered, you mean?” Having gotten his little dig in, Jack went smoothly on. “There are plans afoot for coordinated ris ings across India. I, as you can imagine, am but a very small cog in this large wheel. Guignon, known in the business as the Gulmohar — ”
“A flower,” Alex explained, for Penelope’s benefit.
Penelope found herself leaning towards that small attention like a flower towards the sun and abruptly made herself look away.
The little byplay was not wasted on Alex’s odious brother, who looked very pointedly from one to the other before resuming.
“As I was saying,” Jack continued coolly, “Guignon was responsible for Hyderabad. The munitions stored here were to be used for a local rising against the English, with the connivance of several of the leading members of the durbar. As you might imagine, I have quite an interesting little list of names in my possession.”
“Including mine?” said Cleave dully.
Jack bared his teeth in a grin. “Your name is on a different list.” Turning to his brother, he elucidated. “Our Marigold over here was meant to coordinate between the various sectors, pushing some forward, urging patience on others, promising bribes all around. How does it feel, Daniel, old boy, to have been the pin in the grenade that could have set all India aflame?”
“I wouldn’t have done it,” said Cleave defensively. “It wouldn’t have happened without the gold. And I would have given the gold to the Governor General. So it would all have come out right in the end.”
“You just keep telling yourself that,” said Jack soothingly. “I’m sure it makes a lovely bedtime story. Puts you straight to sleep at night, doesn’t it?”
“It’s all true!” Cleave insisted. “Without the gold — ”
He broke off as the hideous reality of it all assailed him.
“They would have risen on the mere promise of gold,” said Jack softly. “Just as you did. A token here, a token there. That was all that it took. For them as for you. Pity for Guignon that he had to be the one to break it to you.”
Cleave swallowed hard, his eyes snaking over towards the two kegs that mercifully concealed Guignon’s fallen form from view. “I killed him. I — I’ve never killed anyone before. But I killed him.”
“Never killed anyone before?” asked Jack with all the exasperation of a professional dealing with an untalented amateur. “What did you think happened when you passed on those coded messages? Tea parties?”
“That was . . . different.”
&nb
sp; Jack’s lip curled. He regarded Cleave with undisguised contempt. “Just because you didn’t spatter their brains yourself?”
Cleave went an unpleasant shade of green, swaying slightly where he stood. Penelope could almost bring herself to feel sorry for him.
Almost.
How many men had he killed? Even leaving aside those shadowy figures who might or might not have been condemned to early graves by the intelligence Cleave had passed along to the other side, there was still Freddy, Freddy who would have been alive but for the misfortune of learning Cleave’s close-kept secret. Cleave had killed Freddy, and he would have killed her, too, had he believed her a threat.
When it came down to it, Penelope wasn’t entirely sure that cobra in her room hadn’t been meant for her, no matter how Cleave chose to recall it. Penelope tried to remember what they had discussed that night on the balcony, and couldn’t, other than that some of it had been about Alex. But if she had said anything that had triggered Cleave’s sense of self-preservation, he would have sent the groom to do his work for him and then murmured about tragic accidents afterwards. He would probably even have convinced himself that he had never meant it to happen.
“Did you hit Fiske over the head?” she asked coldly. “Or did the groom do that for you, too?”
“I think not,” said Jack Reid. “If Mehdi Yar had done it, Fiske would have been dead as planned. The Frangipani seldom misses his man.”
Cleave looked at him blankly. “The what?”
“You didn’t know that, did you? You thought you were simply slipping a bit of extra to a servant to do your dirty work for you.” Jack shook his head. “No. Mehdi Yar is an old hand at the game. That’s not his real name, of course. He’s been at this so long, I doubt even he remembers what his name once was. Frangipani suits him as well as any.”
Alex was looking decidedly grim around the lips. “In other words, Mehdi Yar is yet another spy.”
“Our superiors weren’t entirely sure that Daniel could be trusted to keep his nerve, so they sent Mehdi Yar to keep an eye on him. If you had showed any signs of weakening, an . . . accident would have been arranged.”