The Great Game (Royal Sorceress)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “She will be in a much stronger position for making a good match,” Gwen assured Lady Bracknell, “if she chooses to marry. There are quite a few magicians who rank higher than your family, socially, and they would have a chance to meet her...”

  She had to smile at the woman’s expression. They weren’t that high up the social tree – but that would change, if they found a really good match for their daughter. Which raised the question of just why they’d agreed to allow her to marry Sir Travis... had someone told them that he was going to be further ennobled? Or was there something going on that she wasn’t seeing? She made a mental note to enquire of David – or Lord Mycroft – and then concentrated on Lady Bracknell.

  “I don’t blame you for being upset at how her engagement ended, but you should understand that it wasn’t her fault,” she added. “If you give her a hard time, she might simply decide not to come back to your home. I suggest that you give her some time to recover – and that you take the time to meditate on what is actually important.”

  Hypocrite, a voice in her head pointed out. Had she treated her own mother any better? And Lady Mary hadn’t been anything like as bad as Lady Bracknell. How could she blame Lady Elizabeth if she lived on her salary from the Royal College and never went back to Bracknell Hall?

  “Now” – she allowed Charm to slip into her voice – “you can wait here until after we’re gone, then you can leave the room and do whatever you see fit.”

  She stood up, took one look around the ornate bedroom – with only a small bed, suggesting that Lord and Lady Bracknell never slept together – and then strode out of the room without looking back. Lady Elizabeth had packed with commendable speed and was waiting in the lobby, a servant carrying a massive trunk standing next to her. Gwen made a show of picking it up with one hand – actually, she used her magic to hold it in the air – and carrying it out towards the carriage. It was easy enough to secure it to the roof.

  “I’ve made arrangements for you to be met when you reach Cavendish Hall,” she said, as she followed Lady Elizabeth into the carriage. “And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Lady Elizabeth blinked at her, nervously. “Where are you going?”

  “I just need to visit Mortimer Hall,” Gwen told her. She couldn’t blame Lady Elizabeth for being nervous. Gwen had been nervous when she’d gone to study under Master Thomas... and she’d always wanted to use her magic. “Don’t worry. I’ll find my own way back home.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Most of the reporters seemed to have decided that Mortimer Hall wasn’t going to give them anything more newsworthy and left, leaving only a handful of junior reporters to watch the gates. Gwen rolled her eyes as she jumped down from the carriage, said goodbye to Lady Elizabeth and walked up towards the policeman on duty outside the gates. He looked surprisingly pleased to see her.

  “Too many relatives have come to try to see the house,” he explained, as he opened the gates. “Several of them even wanted to argue with the Inspector when I refused to let them in.”

  Gwen had to smile as she walked up to Mortimer Hall. It might have been falling apart, but it was still in a very wealthy part of London. Whoever owned it could use it to boost their status – if, of course, they had the money to renovate it. They might discover, eventually, that they had inherited a white elephant. Gwen knew enough about household management, thanks to Lady Mary, to know that parts of the house would simply rot away without constant maintenance. A single servant could not have hoped to keep pace with everything that had to be done.

  “Lady Gwendolyn,” the Sergeant on duty at the door said. “The Inspector is in the reading room, studying the late owner’s papers.”

  “Thank you,” Gwen said, keeping her amusement hidden. She knew that Lestrade hated paperwork – and if the case wasn’t so political, he would have passed it down to someone lower in the department. But then, she felt the same way too. “I’ll see him in there.”

  The reading room was a small library in its own right, Gwen realised as she stepped through the door. Each of the walls were lined with bookshelves, mostly copies of history’s finest works of literature. The complete works of Cicero, Cato, Caesar and hundreds of other famous Romans dominated one wall, while another held more recent books from England, France and Russia. One section held a number of books written in Arabic; Sir Travis must have brought them back from Turkey. And there were even a couple of books on magic, one written by Benjamin Franklin in his final years. Franklin’s contribution would never be officially recognised, but he’d added greatly to humanity’s understanding of some of the talents.

  Lestrade was seated at a desk, a cup of tea beside him, reading through a stack of papers. He looked pleased to see Gwen too, if only because he had an excuse to put the papers to one side. Gwen couldn’t help wondering if Mycroft had sent some of his clerks to recover anything classified before Lestrade started his investigation, before deciding that it probably didn’t matter. Lestrade might have had only a very limited imagination, but he was one of the most trustworthy men in Scotland Yard.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, as he turned the chair around to face her. “There was a curious development earlier this morning.”

  Gwen sat down on a rickety sofa and smiled at him. “What happened?”

  Lestrade rang the bell for Polly. “Polly can probably explain it better than I can,” he said. “She was the one who took the message.”

  Gwen looked up as Polly entered the room. “More tea, Inspector?” She asked. “Or for Lady Gwen?”

  “Not right away,” Lestrade said. “Can you tell Lady Gwen what happened this morning?”

  Polly bobbled a short curtsey to Gwen. “I was responsible for settling bills with the tradesmen,” she said. “Even... even after the Master died, I was still responsible for it.”

  That was... odd, Gwen knew, but it did make sense. Sir Travis hadn’t had the wealth to set up permanent accounts with the businesses that handled food deliveries into the capital, so he would have had to pay tradesmen every week. Giving the money to Polly and allowing her to handle it might have seemed better to him than doing it himself. After all, what sort of nobleman allowed himself to be seen shaking hands with a businessman?

  My father, she thought, ruefully. Lord Rudolf had rebuilt the family fortune through business – which might have reflected badly on him in society, if his daughter hadn’t been a devil-child.

  “They’d heard about his death and come seeking payment before all of the money was locked away,” Polly continued. “I had to pay everyone... until the Turk arrived. He demanded four thousand pounds – again.”

  Gwen stared at her. Four thousand pounds was a minor fortune. A person with even a thousand pounds in the bank would be considered wealthy. He might not be able to afford a home in Central London, or even rent a flat in Pall Mall, but he could live comfortably for a very long time.

  “Again?” she asked.

  “He’d come a few times, always when the Master was out,” Polly said. “He just dismissed the debt when I passed on the message. But now...

  “I couldn’t pay,” she admitted. “The Mistress never gave me more than a hundred pounds every month to buy food. So I had to explain that he would have to ask you – and then he insisted on leaving a letter, explaining what Sir Travis owed.”

  “Here,” Lestrade said. He passed Gwen an opened envelope. “You’ll need to read it carefully.”

  Gwen took the paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. It was printed on cheap paper, topped with a faint series of Arabic letters. The rest of the paper, however, was in English – and devastatingly clear. Sir Travis had gambled at the Golden Turk, lost heavily – and owed the manager four thousand pounds. The note ended with a warning that if the funds were not provided within the week, the manager would begin legal proceedings against Sir Travis’s estate.

  “He was a Sensitive,” Gwen said, out loud. “How did he manage to lose?”

  But Sir Cha
rles had said that Sir Travis was a man of honour. If he’d been able to control his talent to the point where he could dampen it down, or even suppress it completely, he would have been playing on an equal level to the other gamblers. And without that talent, he might have managed to lose – and lose badly. Four thousand pounds wasn’t bad – it was disastrous.

  Lady Mary had told David, after her brother’s first fling with the tables, that gambling was dangerously addictive. She hadn’t known that Gwen was listening as she’d outlined horror stories of young men who got themselves so deep into debt that their families had to pay vast sums of money just to keep them out of debtor’s prison – or make the best marital arrangements they could, just to raise funds. One family had even had to sell its ancestral home. The message must have sunk in; David had rarely gambled since then, at least as far as Gwen knew.

  “That seems to be a major chunk of Sir Travis’s estate,” Lestrade said. “At least, the parts of it that actually belonged to him outright. A lawsuit, however, might have to be settled before it went to court, or the hall itself might be at risk.”

  Gwen nodded. A court wouldn’t care about the family’s heritage; if the debt was upheld, it would have to be paid in full. Sir Travis’s family would be better advised to find the money now, rather than risk losing the hall in court. What had Sir Travis been thinking? He’d been about to get married!

  “I’ll look into it,” she said, reluctantly. “He really must have been keeping his magic under control.”

  “More than that,” Lestrade said. “How much do you know about gambling halls?”

  “Nothing,” Gwen admitted. She’d never been in one; young ladies didn’t, although she knew that some gambled at home with their friends. “Why...”

  Lestrade gave her an odd smirk. “The average gambling hall doesn’t often allow such debts to be run up,” he explained. “When it does, they’re sure that the gambler can back his debts or that he has a backer, someone who will pay if he cannot.”

  Gwen nodded. Her father had once backed a bill for a friend – and grumbled for weeks after the bank served him with a writ for fifty-seven pounds.

  “But four thousand pounds would be beyond most backers,” Lestrade added. “Even the most devoted friend of a gambler would have objected to guaranteeing that much. I’d be surprised if anyone backed more than a couple of hundred pounds.”

  “That makes sense,” Gwen mused. The next question was obvious. “Who backed the debt?”

  “It doesn’t say,” Lestrade said. “Between you and me, Lady Gwen, the Golden Turk has a comfortable relationship with law enforcement. We cannot just demand answers from them...”

  “But I can,” Gwen interrupted. “I am the executor of the will, am I not?”

  “In that case, there are more letters for you,” Lestrade told her. “I was going to forward them to Mr. Norton.”

  “Please do,” Gwen said. Sir Charles had mentioned the Golden Turk too – and she would have to go there. Maybe she could ask him to escort her and question him on the way. “Legally, this debt would have to be settled before the estate was parcelled out?”

  “Probably,” Lestrade said. “Unless someone else paid the debt, cancelling it.”

  Gwen nodded. That seemed unlikely.

  “I’ll follow up on it,” she assured him. She nodded for Polly to leave the room, then continued. “But there’s been another matter.”

  She explained, briefly, about Lady Elizabeth – and Howell. “Why,” she finished, “don’t the police arrest him?”

  Lestrade sighed. “We’ve had our eye on him for a long time,” he admitted. “But he’s a cunning one, with too many friends in high places. Even if someone swore out a complaint, it would be hard to prove anything – and without proof we couldn’t search his house. Maybe we could get him a few months in jail, if someone stood up in court and provided evidence, but the witness would be ruined immediately afterwards.”

  Gwen gritted her teeth. She’d once had to give evidence in front of a jury, a month after she’d been confirmed as Royal Sorceress, and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. The defending attorney had torn into her, questioning everything from her competence to her impartiality. It was his job... but Gwen had found it hard to remember that afterwards.

  And she’d just been a witness. If someone had stood up and explained that she’d been blackmailed, the entire secret would have to be discussed in open court. It would have been around London before the session had finished and all over the Empire within a week. And even if Howell spent some time in jail, what would it matter to his victim? Her life would have been ruined beyond repair.

  “His reputation is terrifying,” Lestrade added. “Oh, he’s an honest man in his way; if someone pays, he stays bought. I’ve known some blackmailers to demand constant payments or else – but Howell just looks for one payment and never asks again.”

  That was cunning, Gwen had to admit. If Howell had kept demanding money, his victim might have snapped and fought back. A single payment would be far less dangerous – and his victim might even have seen it as a bargain. But what was to stop the victim demanding the return of all of the compromising letters?

  “He’ll keep something to ensure his own safety,” Lestrade said, when she asked. “But he won’t go after someone twice...”

  Gwen had never fainted, not in her entire life. Women might have a reputation for fainting when shocked, something that she suspected men believed because they thought it proved that they were superior to women, but she had never fainted. Yet she came as close to it as she ever had as the awful realisation finally crystallised in her mind. Why would Lady Mary have even heard of Howell, let alone have been so scared of him... unless she’d been one of his victims! Her own mother had been blackmailed.

  “Lady Gwen?” Lestrade said, alarmed. “Are you all right?”

  Gwen opened her eyes, silently relieved that she had been sitting down. If she’d been standing, her legs would have buckled and she would have collapsed. And if she’d fainted in front of Lestrade... he might have seen it as proof that she was nothing more than a weak and feeble woman. Angrily, she took control of her emotions and thrust them to the back of her mind. There would be time to think about what Howell had done to Lady Mary later.

  “I’m fine,” she growled. “Did you find any trace of Lady Elizabeth’s letters in his study?”

  “None,” Lestrade said. “We’ve been through everything in his drawers, the safe you opened and a neat little hidden compartment underneath a chair. There were some financial notes, a set of observations on various Indians and Turks he’d had to deal with... but nothing that might have been compromising letters. The only thing we found that was anyway dubious was a set of French playing cards.”

  Gwen sighed, inwardly. One of the students at Cavendish Hall had ended up in hot water after his tutor had discovered a set of French playing cards in his room. They were considered indecent, not entirely without reason, but that didn’t stop them being passed from hand to hand by young men. The pack the young man had owned had been incinerated by a Blazer... and he’d probably found a new one before the ashes had even cooled.

  “No letters,” she mused. “Do you think he burned them?”

  “It’s possible,” Lestrade said. “But we did check the fire to see what might have been burned and there were no traces of paper ash.”

  Gwen considered it, carefully. If Howell had taken the letters to Sir Travis, would Sir Travis have allowed him to take them away? Perhaps, perhaps not... and Howell hadn’t seemed like a physically strong man, even when he wasn’t ill. Could he have intimidated someone who had ridden all over India, getting into scrapes and then getting out of them? Somehow, Gwen doubted that Sir Travis would have allowed Howell to scare him. He couldn’t be as bad as a mad mullah from the North-West Frontier.

  But Howell had definitely walked away alive...

  “Nothing about this makes sense,” she muttered. Howell hadn’t destroyed Lady
Elizabeth’s reputation the following morning – and he could have done so, before he realised that Sir Travis was dead. That suggested that he’d had some reason to stay his hand, but what? Had Sir Travis promised him the money to buy his silence?

  She called for Polly, who had been standing on the other side of the door. “Polly,” she said, slowly, “how often did Mr. Howell visit Sir Travis?”

  “He came the morning before he died,” Polly said. “The Master was out, so he left a note promising that he would call in the evening. And then he left.”

  Gwen shook her head, tiredly. “Was that the first time he came?”

  “I think so,” Polly said. “Sir Travis might have met him outside the house.”

  Maybe, Gwen thought. Had Sir Travis been gambling to raise money to pay off Howell? It was possible, but if he desperately needed the money – and he did – why hadn’t he used his powers? Was there someone at the Golden Turk who would have sensed his magic, if he’d tried to use it? That was unlikely; unlike Talking, Sensitivity was a passive power. It was hard to notice unless one was a Talker.

  And the timing seemed odd too. Lady Elizabeth hadn’t been allowed to talk privately with her fiancé – and Lady Bracknell had known nothing about the blackmail. Gwen was sure of that. She would have paid if she’d known, before sending Lady Elizabeth to a convent or marrying her off to someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions. How could Sir Travis have known that she needed money, or started running up such a high debt in the handful of days he would have had before Howell came to see him?

  And just who had killed him?

  “I’m going to have to go to the Golden Turk,” she said, shortly. She needed to think carefully. Maybe if she slept on it the whole case would make more sense. “Did you locate any of the jewels?”