“I don’t know where my husband is,” replied Alexia, guessing at the nature of the plea in those eyes. “Of all the times for him to be off in a huff!”
The Tunstells were well loved by their troupe, so this misfortune threw all the other actors into sympathetic paroxysms of distress. The ladies fainted or had hysterics, whichever better suited their natures. Some of the gentlemen did the same. One ran out into the night with a fake sword, determined to track down the dastardly culprits. Mr. Tumtrinkle began stuffing his face with those little honey pastries and blubbering into his mustache. Percival was busy screaming his head off, only pausing to spit up all over anyone who came near.
Lady Maccon really could have used her husband’s booming voice at that juncture. However, knowing the onus fell on her, and relieved her own daughter was accounted for, she took charge. Alexia was quite worried for Primrose’s safety, but she was also clear on two fronts. Either the baby had been kidnapped in order to extract a ransom, in which case they could expect contact relatively soon, or they had the wrong baby, in which case they could expect her return momentarily. After all, why would anyone want the daughter of an actress? No matter how popular said actress was in Egypt.
Alexia cast a desperate look about for the only other person who might still have as level a head as she under such circumstances, but Madame Lefoux was nowhere to be found. She inquired of the hotel clerk, interposing herself in front of the poor man as he attempted to control the bedlam in his reception chamber.
“My good man”—Lady Maccon pulled him away from one of the hysterical actresses—“have you seen Madame Lefoux? One of our fellow travelers, the Frenchwoman inventor who dresses as a man. She might be useful at this juncture.”
“No, madam.” The man bowed hurriedly. “She’s gone, madam.”
“What do you mean gone?” Alexia did not like this turn of events. Now two ladies were missing! Well, Primrose was barely half a lady and Madame Lefoux dressed as a man, so Alexia supposed together they made up only one whole lady, but—Alexia shook herself out of spiraling thoughts and returned to the clerk.
“Left the hotel, madam, not one hour ago. Moving rather quickly, I must say.”
Lady Maccon turned back to the pandemonium, a little floored. Gone, Genevieve, but why? Had she perhaps sent the kidnappers? Or was she on their trail? Or could it be that she was the kidnapper herself? No, not Genevieve. The Frenchwoman might build a massive octopus and terrorize a city, but that had been because someone kidnapped her own child. She would hardly put another mother through such an ordeal. I suppose it could be coincidence?
Still puzzling over the matter, Alexia stopped dead in the center of the room and took stock of her situation. “You—fetch smelling salts, and you—get cold compresses and wet towels. Everyone else—do be quiet!”
In very short order, she had the staff trotting to her bidding. She ordered them not to touch the nursery, as the offenders could have left clues behind. She had them set up the still-hysterical nursemaid in a new room, one with very secure windows and better locks. She left her there with Prudence, Percy, Ivy, Mr. Tumtrinkle, and several other actors now restored to sense and ready to do battle. She gave Mr. Tumtrinkle her gun, as he assured her he had pointed many a prop firearm at many a hero in his day and shooting a real one could hardly be much different. Alexia assured him that she would be back as soon as possible and to please make certain he ascertained the truth of any enemy attack before shooting Ethel at anyone, particularly a hero.
She sent Tunstell to alert the local constabulary, the other actors and actresses back to their rooms, and the now-rather-worried-looking collective of Tunstell Troupe admirers off about their business. She had to use gesticulations, shushing sounds, and, eventually, a broom in order to accomplish this last.
The sky was beginning to pink and things were finally calm at Hotel des Voyageurs, when a dark shadow loomed in the doorway and Lord Maccon, wearing only a cloak and a sour expression, entered the room.
Alexia hurried up to him. “I know you are still angry with me, and you have a perfect right to be. It was beastly of me to keep the information from you, but we have a far more serious problem that needs your attention now.”
The frown deepened. “Go on.”
“Primrose appears to have been baby-napped. She was taken from her room several hours ago while the Tunstells were engaged in a performance. I was with them. Madame Lefoux has also vanished. Apparently, the nursemaid was asleep and when she awoke, she found both Primrose and Prudence had disappeared.”
“Prudence is gone, too?!” Lord Maccon roared.
The clerk, dozing fitfully behind his desk, snapped to attention with the expression of a man near to his breaking point.
Alexia put a hand on her husband’s arm. “No, dear, do calm down. It turned out ours had taken refuge under a bed.”
“That’s my girl!”
“Yes, very sensible of her, although she seems to be having some difficulty describing the kidnappers to us.”
“Well, she is only two.”
“Yes, but as she really must learn coherent phrasing and syntax eventually, now would be an excellent time to complete the process. And she has let forth a complete sentence lately. I was hoping… never mind that now. The fact is, Primrose is gone and so is Genevieve.”
“You believe Madame Lefoux took the baby?” The earl was frowning and chewing on his bottom lip in that darling way Alexia loved so much.
“No, I don’t. But I think Madame Lefoux may be chasing the kidnappers. She was around the hotel at the time, and the clerk said she left in a great hurry. Perhaps she spotted something out her window. Her room is near the nursery.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“I’ve sent Tunstell to the local authorities. I haven’t let anyone into the room. I thought you might be able to smell something.”
Lord Maccon nodded crisply, almost a salute. “I’m still angry with you, wife. But I can’t help but admire your efficiency in a crisis.”
“Thank you. Shall we go check the scents?”
“Lead on.”
Unfortunately, up the stairs and in the nursery, the earl smelled nothing of significance. He did say he thought he caught a whiff of Madame Lefoux and that it was possible she had grappled with the assailants or perhaps simply stuck her head in to see what had happened. It was also possible that it was a lingering remnant from the previous evening. He said he smelled a trace of the Egyptian streets about the place, but nothing more than that. Whoever had taken Primrose had hired ruffians to do it. He traipsed back out into the hallway, still sniffing.
“Ah,” he said, “there is Madame Lefoux again—machine oil and vanilla. And here.” He began walking back down the steps. “You know, wife, I do believe I have a fresh trail. I’m going after her.” He dropped his cloak, revealing an impressive bare chest matted with hair, and shifted form. Luckily the lobby was deserted but for the extremely harried clerk who watched, openmouthed, as his esteemed guest, a real British earl, changed into a wolf right there in front of him.
The poor man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he followed in the path of many a young lady that evening and fainted dead away behind the desk.
Alexia watched him fall, too dazed to make any effort to help him, and then turned back to her husband, now a wolf, carefully picking up his discarded cloak with his mouth.
“Conall, really, the sun is almost up. Do you think you’ll have time…?”
But he was already gone, dashing out the door, nose lowered before him like a scent hound after a fox.
Lord Conall Maccon returned well after sunup. Alexia was coping with an utterly distraught Mrs. Tunstell. She had finally convinced Ivy to take a dram of poppy to quiet her nerves. At which point both Ivy and her nerves became rather floppy and confused.
Ivy managed to raise her head from where it bent low over Percy, asleep in her lap, when Lord Maccon tapped quietly at the door.
Mr. Tumtrinkle, seated
facing the door with Alexia’s gun in his lap, started violently and fired Ethel at the earl. Lord Maccon, slower than usual after a long evening’s run and a good few hours dashing about as a human under the scorching heat of an Egyptian sun, ducked too late, but the bullet missed him.
Alexia tsked at the actor and put out her hand for the return of her pistol. The man handed it over, apologized profusely to Lord Maccon, and resumed his chair in embarrassed silence. Lady Maccon noted, however, that he did take one of the rapiers, tipped for use in stage fights and thus rather useless, and placed it to hand. Alexia supposed he could ferociously poke someone if he tried hard enough.
“Osh, Lord Maccon!” cried out Ivy, head lolling back and eyes rolling slightly. “Ish that you? Hash you any… indigestion… no… information?”
The earl gave his wife a pained look.
“Laudanum,” explained Alexia succinctly.
“Not as such, Mrs. Tunstell. I am very sorry. Wife, if you could spare me a moment?”
“Aleshia!”
“Yes, Ivy dear?”
“We should go dancing!”
“But, Ivy, we’re in Egypt and your daughter is missing.”
“But I can’t see myself from here!”
Alexia stood up from where she was seated next to her nonsensical friend, experienced some difficulty in convincing Ivy to let go of her hand, and followed her husband out the door.
He spoke in a hushed voice. “I traced Madame Lefoux to the dahabiya docks. A peculiar sort of place. Lost the scent there. I’m afraid she may have boarded a ship. I’m going to go ascertain how Tunstell is getting on with the local authorities. Then I think we might need to notify the consular general. Bad publicity, very bad, a missing British baby on his watch.”
Alexia nodded. “I’ll go back to the docks, shall I? See if I can work my womanly charm and discover who accepted Madame Lefoux’s fare and where she might be headed.”
“You have womanly charm?” The earl was genuinely surprised. “I thought you simply harangued a blighter until he gave in.”
Alexia gave him a look.
Lord Maccon snorted. “Only one direction to head if one is going by dahabiya.”
“Up the Nile to Cairo?”
“Indeed.”
“Well, they might at least tell a female if a passenger had a baby. They might even be convinced to say if she was chasing after someone.”
“Very well, Alexia, but be careful, and take your parasol.”
“Of course, Conall. I shall require a parasol, as the sun is up. Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yes, very amusing, wife.”
Neither of them mentioned sleep, although Alexia was feeling the strain of having been awake since four the previous afternoon. Bed would have to wait; they had a baby to catch and a Frenchwoman to trace.
Biffy awoke before sunset and, after struggling with his hair for a quarter of an hour, returned to the maps he’d laid out of Egypt and the expansion of the God-Breaker Plague. He’d awakened with a certain feeling that he was missing something. He went back to the circles he’d drawn and reviewed notes on times indicating the plague’s expansion and general location. He began to extrapolate inward, trying to determine its course. What if the plague had always been expanding, very slowly? What if there was a starting point?
He got so distracted he very nearly missed his appointment with Lady Maccon and the aethographor. He took the maps with him to the receiving chamber to await any missive, studying them carefully.
It was while he was waiting alone in that tiny attic room that he came upon the missing piece of the puzzle. All signs pointed to the fact that the epicenter for the God-Breaker Plague was near Luxor, at one prominent bend in the Nile River close to the Valley of the Kings. His books said very little on the archaeology of the area, but one report indicated that the bend housed the funerary temple of the expunged and vilified Pharaoh Hatshepsut. He had no idea how this might tie into the plague, but he resolved to send Lady Maccon the information, should she contact him that evening.
He was about to creep out and gather together some acid and a metal slate when the receiving chamber activated, the metal particles between the receiver panes shifted about, and a message appeared.
“Ruffled Parasol. Conall upset. Primrose kidnapped. Uproar.”
Biffy recoiled. What interest could Egyptian kidnappers possibly have in Mr. and Mrs. Tunstell’s daughter? The child of thespians. How odd. He awaited further information but nothing more came through. He moved next door, dialed in the appropriate frequensor codes, and sent his message back.
“GBP center is Hatshepsut’s temple, Nile River, Luxor. Wingtip Spectator.”
Silence met that and after a quarter of an hour, Biffy supposed his message had been received and there was nothing else to relate. He shut down the aethographor, made certain his own missive was tucked securely away, and ate the scrap of paper on which he’d scribbled Lady Maccon’s. He’d witnessed Lyall do so in the past with delicate information and figured it was a werewolf tradition he’d better uphold. Then he went to find his Beta, not certain he was authorized to relay either bits of information.
It was in thinking about this, and wondering who might kidnap Primrose and how Lady Maccon might be coping with this new crisis—violently, he suspected—that Biffy came upon another realization. Following that realization to its inevitable, horrible conclusion, he detoured toward the servants’ quarters.
Floote was sitting alone at the massive table in the kitchen, polishing the brass candlesticks, a sturdy apron tied about his waist. His jacket was off and draped over the back of a nearby chair. The moment he saw Biffy, he made a move toward it, but Biffy said hastily, “No, Floote, please don’t trouble yourself. I simply had a question.”
“Sir?”
“When Mr. Tarabotti traveled in Egypt, did he visit Luxor?” Biffy came casually over to Floote’s shoulder, standing a little too close, pretending to inspect the polishing. He bent down as though particularly interested in one of the candlesticks and with one hand behind his back, quick as any vampire, snaked the tiny little gun out of the inside pocket of Floote’s jacket.
Biffy tucked the gun up his own sleeve, wondering that there weren’t more werewolf and vampire conjurers; sleight of hand was easy when one had supernatural abilities.
Floote answered him, “Yes, sir,” without looking up from his polishing.
“Well, ahem, yes. Thank you, Floote, carry on.”
“Very good, sir.”
Biffy escaped to his own room where he locked the door and immediately took out the gun.
It was one of the smallest he had ever seen, beautifully made with a delicate pearl handle. It was of the single-shot variety popular some thirty years ago or more, outdated in this age of revolvers. It must be sentiment that urged Floote to keep it, for it wasn’t the most useful of weapons. Difficult to hit anything at more than five paces and it probably shot crooked. Biffy swallowed, hoping against hope he wasn’t about to find what he predicted. With a twist, he opened and checked the chamber. It was loaded. He tipped the bullet out into his hand. Such a small thing to damn a man so utterly. For that bullet was made of hardwood, capped in metal to take the heat and caged in silver. It was not quite the same as the modern ones, of course, but still undoubtedly a sundowner bullet.
At first Biffy didn’t want to believe it, but Floote had been at liberty the night that Dubh was shot—with all his employers out of the house. Floote had access to Lord Akeldama’s dirigible, for no drone would comment on Lady Maccon’s butler coming and going from Lord Akeldama’s house. Floote owned a gun that was loaded with sundowner bullets of exactly the kind with which Dubh was shot. Then later, when Lady Maccon rushed in with the injured man, Floote had been left alone with Dubh, and Dubh had died. Floote certainly had the opportunity. But why? Would the butler really kill to protect his dead master’s secrets?
Biffy sat for a long time, rolling the bullet about in his hand an
d thinking.
A polite knock disturbed his reverie. He stood to open the door.
Floote walked quietly in, his jacket back on.
“Mr. Rabiffano.”
“Floote.” Biffy felt strangely guilty, standing there holding Floote’s gun, which was obviously very precious to him, the damning bullet in his other hand.
Biffy looked at Floote.
Floote looked at Biffy.
Biffy knew, and he knew that Floote knew he knew—so to speak. He handed the butler his gun but kept the bullet as evidence, tucking it into his waistcoat pocket.
“Why, Floote?”
“Because he left his orders first, sir.”
“But to kill a werewolf on a dead man’s orders?”
Floote smiled the tiniest of half smiles. “You forget what Alessandro Tarabotti was, sir. What the Templars trained him for. What he trained me to help him do.”
Biffy blanched, horrified. “You have killed werewolves before Dubh?”
“Not all werewolves, Mr. Rabiffano, are like you, or Professor Lyall, or Lord Maccon. Some of them are like Lord Woolsey—pests to be exterminated.”
“And that’s why you killed Dubh?”
Floote ignored the direct question. “Mr. Tarabotti gave his orders, sir,” the butler repeated himself, “long before anyone else. I was to see it through to the end. That was my promise. And I’ve kept it.”
“What else, Floote? What else have you been keeping in motion? Was Mr. Tarabotti responsible for the God-Breaker Plague expanding? Is that what he was doing over there?”
Floote only moved toward the door.
Biffy went after him, hand to his arm. He didn’t want to use his werewolf strength and was horrified by the idea that he might have to, on a member of Lady Maccon’s domestic staff! A longtime family retainer, no less—the very idea!
Floote paused and stared at the floor of the hallway, rather than at Biffy. “I really must see that carpet cleaned. It’s disgraceful.”
Biffy firmed up his grip.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 143