by Nita Abrams
“Your father received Emmanuel Mendes daCosta in this very study, I believe,” the other observed mildly. “And the name Meyer is not unknown in zoological circles. One of my cousins has published a monograph on Baltic eels. In Latin.”
“That is nothing to the purpose,” growled the earl. “I had assumed Barrett and White had in mind some sort of gentleman scientist, someone who would not be out of place as a houseguest.”
Meyer raised his brows slightly, but made no remark. Scowling, the earl looked away—first across at the windows, curtained now against the late afternoon darkness, then into the fire, and finally down again to the surface of the desk. He studied White’s letter. It had been dropped partially unfolded against the side of the inkwell, with the result that it resembled a paper model of one of the butterflies which filled the mahogany cabinets in the closet upstairs.
“You are telling yourself,” said Meyer, reading his thoughts, “that if I had any notions of genteel behavior, I would take a hint and bow myself out. That my inability to understand the insult you have just put upon me is proof of the truth of that insult. That I know nothing about the charge of the Special Commission, about your present dilemma, or, for that matter, about butterflies.”
Taken aback, Bassington looked up. But Meyer was no longer standing by the desk. Moving with a speed and silence that seemed at odds with his initial, awkward bearing, he had vanished into a door at the back of the room, which led to a servants’ staircase. A few moments later he reappeared, carrying a long, shallow wooden drawer with a glass cover and brass handles.
“You seem very familiar with the layout of my home, Mr. Meyer,” said the earl angrily.
“It is my job to know such things.” Meyer set the tray down on the desk with a small thud. “Top left,” he said, indicating the first of the neatly pinned insects in the tray. There were no labels. “Siproeta epaphus. Notable for the orange-brown markings on the edge of the wings. Extremely rare; this is one of the prizes of your father’s collection. Next to the right: a male Colobura dirce. Found also in the West Indies, although this particular specimen was taken in Venezuela. To the right of that: a female Menander. Remarkable for its attraction to agrimony; natives will follow it to attempt to locate the plant, which is sought after for the medicinal properties of its leaves. Top right—” He broke off, with an impatient gesture. “I assure you that I know far more about this collection than anyone in this house, than anyone in the entire county. I have been studying the Aurelian Club’s inventory of your father’s collection for the last four days. And I have been studying the art of swallowing insults for far longer than that.” He gave the earl a hard stare. “In other words, I have no intention of leaving. If you insist, then I rather suspect you will be asked to resign your post as chair of the commission.”
There was stunned silence for a moment, and then the earl turned bright red. “This is extortion,” he hissed furiously.
“This is war,” corrected Meyer. “You asked to head the commission. You believe in Castlereagh’s scheme for a separate alliance with the Russians. You want to make the strongest case you can to the Minister, do you not? How can you make that case if you yourself are under investigation for mishandling documents? If you are harboring, in your own house, a French exile who may well be a spy?”
“What French exile?” Bassington was bewildered.
Meyer gestured impatiently. “This Mr. Clermont.”
The earl frowned. “He is French?”
“Not only French—suspicious enough in itself, given your current activities—but someone who speaks perfect, unaccented English and who has not revealed his nationality.”
Bassington tried to remember if Philip Derring had made any mention of Clermont’s French birth in his letter of introduction. Probably not; he would certainly have noted it.
“He is an old friend of our neighbors’ son, and he came with a personal recommendation,” he said stiffly.
“Is that so? You will stake the success of England’s negotiations—now at a very delicate stage, I will remind you—on your belief that his visit has no connection to the other recent events: the missing memoranda, the intruder in the park”—Bassington started to interrupt, but thought better of it—“the man-trap? You asked Barrett to help you handle these other matters discreetly. He came to me and expressed grave concerns about Mr. Clermont’s presence here. I assure you that I am no more eager to be here than you are to have me. I have made arrangements to stay elsewhere; it is not unusual for foreign scholars working in private libraries to lodge in the neighborhood and visit only during the day.”
At this the earl looked slightly relieved, and then, embarrassed at his own reaction, he coughed and lowered his eyes. There was an awkward silence. “It might be more convenient if you were here in the house,” he said grudgingly at last.
“For the moment I believe I will be quite comfortable where I am, but I thank your lordship for the kind offer,” said Meyer in a hesitant voice very different from the cold, precise tones he had used a moment before. Only then did the earl became aware that a footman had appeared at the door. The man bowed apologetically.
“My lord, her ladyship has been expecting you in the small drawing room.”
“Yes, yes, I have been engaged with this gentleman,” said the earl, flustered. “Hubert, show Mr. Meyer out. Did you travel post?” he asked, turning back to Meyer.
“I did, but I was conveyed to my lodgings, and procured a gig there.”
“Excellent,” said the earl, attempting a genial expression. “I look forward to receiving you tomorrow, Mr. Meyer. Shall we say ten o’clock? I will arrange for a tour of the house and grounds; I understand that your primary interest is in my father’s collection, but there are various curiosities from his travels scattered all through the place, and you must take advantage of your visit here. It would not do to spend all your time peering at insects.”
A dry smile flickered at the corners of Meyer’s mouth. “No, indeed.” He bowed and followed the manservant, who was holding the study door ostentatiously open. One last glance at his host—part challenge, part acknowledgment—and he was gone.
As the door closed, the earl realized that he had been holding his breath. It whistled out between his teeth, accompanied by a muttered oath. Then he took the letter, meticulously smoothed out the wing-like folds, and tucked it under the blotter with one edge peeking out. If he left it there, Clara would certainly read it, and the entire household would know all about Mr. Meyer and his researches within hours. That would spare him at least some of the awkward introductions and explanations he was dreading. With a grimace, he tugged his waistcoat down over his bulky midsection and lumbered off towards the front of the house. His wife would accept the letter at face value. Simon was unlikely to have much interest in a shabby, graying scientist. And his sharp-witted niece Serena would be too busy to notice any oddities in Meyer’s behavior. She was wholly occupied with their other unwanted guest. The earl was not sure what worried him more: the possibility that Clermont was not, as he claimed, a naturalist friend of the Derrings, or the possibility that the attack which had nearly killed him had in fact been intended for the earl himself.
There was a furtive tap at Serena’s door later that afternoon, and before she could respond or drag herself out of her very comfortable seat by the fire, Simon peered around the edge of the door. He came in, turned the key in the lock, and said theatrically, “Are we alone?”
“I believe so,” said Serena, setting down her book. “Unless you have a secret confederate hiding in the wall of my room. Which, I might add, I believe to be impossible, since the fireplace here is of recent date and not equipped with one of those little iron doors.”
“Well, I did try once to squeeze through from the room next door, but the space is too narrow,” Simon admitted. Then he remembered why he had come. “Serena, you won’t believe what I’ve learned! I tried to find you right away, but Royce spotted me first and hauled me off t
o make up the lesson I missed earlier. I was wrong! The old man we saw isn’t a butterfly-man at all!” He paused impressively, and Serena obligingly took her cue.
“What is he, then?”
“Some sort of military policeman,” he said with horrified fascination. “Sent down from London to investigate Mr. Clermont! Don’t you think I ought to warn him? Of all the shabby tricks, to pretend to be a scientist in order to spy on someone! That man, that Mr. Meyer, isn’t really old and stooped; he straightened up when he thought they were alone. And when he was angry with my father he even used a different voice than his scientist voice, all cold and stiff.”
She suddenly felt very cold and stiff herself. “And why is he investigating Mr. Clermont?” she managed to ask.
“Sir Charles thinks he is a French spy. Although I’m not quite certain of that bit, because I couldn’t hear all of it. It depended on whether they were facing the fireplace when they spoke. But Clermont is French, I did hear that, and Sir Charles and my father are writing to the Russians, and the French want to stop it, and Sir Charles is worried because Clermont speaks perfect English and hasn’t told us where he is from.”
Only now did it occur to her to wonder how Simon had obtained this alarming piece of news. Or not to wonder.
“You unspeakable little monster!” said Serena, standing up and advancing on him. “When I asked if you were planning to hide under your father’s desk that was a rhetorical question! How could you?”
“Well, no one saw me,” Simon pointed out, defiantly holding his ground. “And I wasn’t under his desk. That would be a ridiculous place to hide; I was behind the fireplace. You haven’t answered my question: ought I to tell Mr. Clermont what I heard?”
Serena groaned. “I wish you hadn’t told me what you heard. If I were a patriotic Englishwoman, I would go to my uncle right now and inform him that you should be shipped off immediately to the first school he can persuade to take you. Preferably one located in the Antipodes.”
“But don’t you see? Oh, I don’t know how to say it!” He brooded for a moment. “It’s not sporting,” he pronounced at last. “Clermont doesn’t know he’s being spied on.”
“Clermont may be a spy himself, if what you heard is correct,” she pointed out. Simon’s news was an entirely plausible confirmation of her own suspicions, and yet her reaction was a violent impulse to deny the report entirely.
Evidently that was Simon’s reaction as well. “He isn’t!” he insisted. “I know he isn’t!”
“Just as you knew Mr. Meyer was a genuine butterfly-man?”
“That’s different.” His jaw set stubbornly. “I had never even spoken with him, and I’ve spent hours with Mr. Clermont.”
“Why didn’t he tell us he was French?”
“Did you ask him?” he retorted, with a child’s letter-of-the-law view of justice.
She glanced at the clock. “I have to dress for dinner. Swear to me you will say nothing of this to anyone, especially Mr. Clermont, until I come upstairs later tonight.” He was silent, and she touched his shoulder. “Simon, this is a very serious matter. I must have your promise.”
“I promise,” he said grudgingly. But there was a fevered light in his eyes, which was disquieting. Simon throve on illicit excitement. She rang for her maid with a gloomy sense that it could be a very long evening. Clermont was to dine downstairs tonight for the first time since his accident, and she was not sure she would be able to conceal her new knowledge from him. If she survived dinner, she then had the unenviable task of persuading Simon to keep quiet about one of the juiciest secrets he had ever discovered. And on top of it all, she was beginning to realize that Simon was not the only one who wanted to warn Clermont.
11
Insomnia is a frequent complaint among females, for nature demands this penalty in return for our greater sensibility. n.b. Tincture of Valerian is an effective remedy for this complaint.
—Miss Cowell’s Moral Reflections for Young Ladies
Meyer was hunched over the table in the parlor room he had hired at the Burford Arms. It was late; he had been reading for many hours now. The fire was nearly out, and the two tapers at his elbow had only an inch or so left. A puddle of candle drips was slowly collecting at the edge of the volume he was studying. With a preoccupied frown he took a knife from a half-eaten plate of cheese and pushed the liquid wax away from the buckram binding of the book. The title page read, Papers presented to the fourth Earl of Bassington upon the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday by divers Gentlemen. At the Aurelian Society. London, March MDCCCI.
Satisfied that the book was safe, he resumed his scrutiny, leafing through pages and occasionally jotting notes on a small tablet. When the door opened behind him a moment later, he did not turn his head, but only asked quietly in Spanish, “Did anyone see you?”
“No, señor. I don’t think so.” A thin, dark-haired man with a weather-beaten face had slipped into the room and was peeling off a damp overcoat. With a suppressed sigh, the newcomer sat down on the other side of the table and began to tug at his boots, which were covered with mud.
At the sigh, Meyer turned and considered his servant’s appearance with a frown. “You’re wet,” he said, surprised. “I thought it had stopped raining. Shall I ring for someone to make up the fire again?”
The Spaniard shook his head and smiled briefly. “After all my pains to climb that path unseen, you want to bring some servant in to stare at my wet things and ask where I have been this evening? I can make up the fire myself. And come to think of it, I had better clean my boots myself as well.” He surveyed them with disgust. “Anyone who knows the area will recognize this loathsome yellow mud from the hill behind Boulton Park.”
Meyer was already out of his chair, bending over the fire and blowing it back to life. He tossed on a fat piece of wood and sat back on his haunches, apparently intent on the blue flickers underneath the logs. “Take yourself a glass of wine,” he said, poking at the flames with a stick. He had learned from long experience that it was unwise to badger Rodrigo for a report until he was ready to deliver it. In an emergency his valet could move like lightning. But normally he was a deliberate and taciturn man whose silences might be considered provoking by a less tolerant master.
Keeping a weather eye on the fire, Meyer settled back into his chair. “Cheese?” he asked, pushing the plate across to where his servant was sitting, sipping wine.
“I ate in the taproom.” Rodrigo took a larger gulp. “The food was quite tolerable.”
“Yes, my supper was excellent,” said Meyer absently. He pulled the notebook over and began to read again. There was silence for several minutes, save for the scratching of the pen and occasional gusty swallows from Rodrigo. At last Meyer looked up and saw a grin on the leathery face.
“Your son would have throttled me by now,” commented his servant.
“James is not known for his patience,” observed Meyer placidly. “I take it you have brought me something significant? That is what these very long silences usually mean.”
In response, Rodrigo reached into the outside pocket of the overcoat and pulled out a small coil of thin brown rope.
“Where did you find that?” demanded Meyer, abandoning the notebook and reaching for the bedraggled mass.
“At the top of that infernal hill. I found the place where the trap was set easily enough—the path was not difficult to follow, and one tree still has the line knotted around the trunk. And then I wandered about for a little with the lantern, looking for anything which might prove helpful, and spotted a place further down the path where a horse had relieved itself some days ago. That”—he gestured at the rope—“was lying under a shrub a few feet away. It matches the bit on the tree.”
“Odd place to leave it,” observed Meyer, frowning at the evidence. “I suppose one of the men who went up the hill to investigate afterwards might have cut some away from the tree and dropped it. Anything else?”
“Taproom gossip confirms our
earlier report that the trap was set by someone on horseback. There were apparently hoofprints beneath both trees. The locals believe the culprit to be a tenant of Bassington. Evidently he has been feuding with the earl’s gamekeeper. But the knots in the rope were not the work of an amateur, and the rope is rather unusual—expensive stuff, I would guess. Probably from a ship chandler’s stock. Now that we have our own sample, I shall make some inquiries.”
Meyer studied it, then got up and put it away in a small leather case lying open on a sideboard. Returning to the table, he asked, “Did you learn anything about the Frenchman? I gather he was staying here until the accident; do the servants remember him?”
Rodrigo snorted. “Remember him? Señor, I would swear two of the barmaids are in love with him. So friendly, so charming”—Rodrigo imitated the voice and expression of a besotted tavern girl—“so handsome, so generous with his pourboires.” He dropped his pose and added, “The ostler, for his part, was quite shocked at the initial report that he had taken a fall. The boy claims Clermont can ride anything on four legs. Evidently he mastered the most difficult horse in the county within a few hours, and hired it for the rest of his stay.”
“How long did he stay here?” asked Meyer, leaning forward intently.
“A week, at least.”
“Then he was here when the first memorandum went astray,” muttered Meyer. “What did he claim he was doing here?”
“Butterflies,” said Rodrigo. “He obtained permission to examine the collection at Boulton Park.”
“So Barrett said.” Meyer looked skeptical. “Any evidence that his interests extended beyond lepidoptera?”
“Well,” said Rodrigo, “his servant asked a lot of questions about the earl’s household.” Meyer grunted; no surprise there. “As did Clermont. He seemed particularly interested in the niece—a Miss Allen. Our hostess, Mrs. Budge, thinks he is her lover. She swore me to strictest secrecy and then told me that it was the most romantic thing she’d ever seen, how he would ride out in the morning just when Miss Allen was accustomed to take her daily walk.”