Wet paper. That would be fragile. He didn’t touch. “That would be the papers she’s talking about. Somebody thinks the popular press is worth killing over.”
“Might be the Times. Might be the Observer. This had the bad luck to fall in an inch of water. We’ll dry it out and separate the sheets and see what we got.” Doyle refolded the handkerchief. “It’ll take a few hours.”
“She’ll tell us when she wakes up. Shouldn’t be long.”
Doyle nodded. He gave a last long look at Owl before he walked over to the window. He was dressed like a laborer today . . . a big, ugly, thuggish, barely respectable giant in sturdy clothes. His hair was wet and the gray streaks didn’t show. The scar that ran down his cheek was fake. The imperturbable strength wasn’t. “Still coming down like all the saints’ frogs. Hope the basement doesn’t flood.”
Good weather for killing. Nobody would have seen Justine or the shadow that stalked her. Back when he hunted men, he’d chosen this sort of day.
“I sent word to Sévie. She’ll want to be with her sister.” Doyle started to close the curtains.
“Leave the curtain. It’s still light out. She likes light.” Then he said, “She’s shivering.”
“The room’s warm enough. The chill’s coming from inside her.” But Doyle went to nudge at the fire basket with the toe of his boot. Sparks shot up the chimney and out onto the hearthrug.
Soft thuds on the stairs turned into clicks headed down the hall. Muffin had attached himself to one of the agents, keeping him company, making him conspicuous.
A minute later Pax came in, carrying a tray. Muffin, a dog the size of a small pony, his rough, gray, untidy coat glazed with drops of water, followed. “Broth. Luke says to spoon this into her, if she can swallow.”
“Set it down.” Doyle stripped down to shirt and waistcoat and slung his wet jacket over a straight-backed chair. He rolled up his sleeves, looking ready to hold off a few bruisers, barefisted.
Pax said, “Fletcher and his crew are working their way out from Braddy, asking questions, trying to pick up her trail. We think she may have come directly from her shop. Stillwater and a half dozen are searching the square. Everybody else is in the study, dripping on the rug, drinking tea.”
The men and women who belonged to him were gathering. They’d want to see how he was taking this. Want to lay down the words people said at times like this. They’d need orders. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Muffin came over, looking worried, and nosed in under an elbow to stick his big square head up to the pillow to sniff over Justine’s hair, memorizing her. He approved of the Justine smell. Didn’t like the blood and antiseptic of the bandage. A few more whuffles up and down the bedcovers and he was satisfied. He clicked across the room to assist Doyle.
Doyle was hunkered down to lay coal on the fire, piece by piece, acting like his hands didn’t feel flame. When he was through and stood up, Muffin took his place and thumped down in front of the fire, taking one end of the hearth to the other. The coal scuttle rattled. He stretched his chin on his paws and curled the great plumed tail to his side.
“I brought the knife.” Pax set bowl and spoon from the tray on the table beside the bed. “Luke says it fits the wound.” He looked at Justine soberly.
“Show him.” Doyle motioned.
Pax had brought it up on the tray. He passed it over, hilt first. “Fletcher found this under a ledge, thirty feet from the blood. Tossed in on purpose, looks like. Don’t touch the edge.”
The knife was a flat, matte-black, deadly curve, elegant as a crow’s wing.
He knew it, of course. “Another of my children has found its way home. What well-trained knives I have.” The weight of it, the balance of it, were completely familiar. He turned it over in his hand. “And look. Somebody’s engraved it for me. The letters A and H . . . for Adrian Hawkhurst. That does make a truly personal gift.”
“From someone who does not wish you well,” Pax said dryly.
“They’re not friendly to Justine, either.”
“It’s yours? You’re sure?” Doyle said.
“Mine. Without doubt. See this?” He ran his thumb on the shaping of the swage. “That was supposed to steady the turn in flight. It didn’t, so I only made an even dozen. I gave one to Justine.” A glance at Pax. “You got one. Fletcher got one. I gave Annique one and she immediately misplaced it, careless woman that she is. I lost two in France, sticking them into people. And I left three behind with my baggage when I fled in undignified haste from . . .” he had to think, “Socchieve, in Italy.”
“So they’re spread broadcast over Europe,” Doyle said.
“That’s nine.” Pax was never happy till the numbers added up. A shop clerk at heart.
“There’s three tossed in a drawer in the workshop downstairs.”
Doyle hooked a finger in his waistcoat pocket and curled out with a pocket lens. Typical of Doyle that he walked around with a magnifier. Wordlessly, he handed it over.
Under the glass . . . “No wear on the edge, for all it’s sixteen years old. A few nicks, probably where it fell today. We have lots of dried blood, just turning brown. That’s an hour old, at a guess. And . . .” There was a white film, as if somebody had drawn the blade through milk and let it dry. Nobody ever put friendly things on a knife. “The blade’s dirty. Poison.”
Pax said, “Luke thinks so. He doesn’t know which one.”
Damn and bloody codswallowing hell. Poison. He dropped the knife down. Took the three steps to the bed. Pulled the blanket off Owl. He’d reopen the wound. It wasn’t too late to—
“Hawk—” Pax caught his wrist. “Hawk. Leave it. It’s clean. You didn’t see. She left a trail of blood all the way back to Braddy Square. Anything that was in there washed out.” Slowly, Pax let go. “There can’t be much poison left in her.”
It doesn’t take much.
“The Borgia touches don’t work.” Doyle wasn’t looking at him. He was pulling the covers back over Owl, studying her face. “It’s been over an hour. Pupils are normal. No sweating. No swelling on that arm. Her mouth isn’t dried out. Her pulse is fast, but that’s from the pain.”
You could buy five hundred poisons in London if you knew where to go. Fast ones. Slow ones. Name of God, Owl, which one? What did they put inside you? “I never used poison. It encourages sloppiness.”
Pax said, “Even in the middle of the war, there weren’t many men who poisoned. That narrows the field.”
The war was three years over. Doves of peace were flapping every bloody where. But something from the bad old days had slithered out of the past to reach up and claw Justine.
“They used my damn knife.” He stooped and retrieved it. Holding the knife, he could remember the feel of making it. The first time he shaped the edge on a grindstone. It took hours to get it exactly right.
Some knives wake up. They get to be a little alive. Nobody’d ever been able to convince him otherwise. This was an angry knife, full of purpose. A killer.
But you didn’t kill her, did you? There was that much loyalty in you.
He flipped it in his hand, threw it into the doorframe. It thunked in solid, an inch deep. Muffin jerked up out of a doze and trotted over to hide behind a chair.
He worked it out of the wood and set it on the mantelpiece, cutting edge to the wall, where it wouldn’t hurt somebody accidental-like.
Doyle said, “They’re piled up like cordwood downstairs, without orders, losing daylight.” When there was no response, he said, “I won’t let her die while you’re gone.” And then, “Don’t waste what it cost her, coming here.”
Justine would be the first to kick his arse out the door. She’d send him out to do his job. He could almost hear her telling him to get to work.
He leaned down to her ear and whispered, “Stay alive for me, Owl. Remember. You promised to slit my throat while I slept. I’m going to hold you to that. We have unfinished business.”
She lay, unquiet, her forehead pi
nched in tight lines, her lips shaping words that didn’t get spoken. Still breathing. Still alive. The knife had missed her heart because she fought back like the she-devil she was.
He straightened up. “I’m going to kill the man who did this.”
Doyle said, “I know.”
PAX wasn’t fast enough, following Adrian out the door.
“Stay,” Doyle said.
“I have to—”
“It’ll wait five minutes.” Doyle crooked two fingers. “Get on the bed and lift her up. We’ll put some of this broth into her.” He took the bowl.
“I’ll send Felicity up.”
“Justine doesn’t know Felicity. She knows you. Even half out of your head, your body knows when it’s strangers touching you.”
“She doesn’t know me well enough to want me handling her, naked.” But he went around and lifted her carefully, trying not to joggle the arm with the bandage. He kept the sheet between them so he wasn’t touching her skin. “She’s Hawker’s.”
“She won’t mind. Hell, she won’t know unless you go bragging about it. And we won’t enlighten Hawker.” Doyle took broth in the spoon. His voice hardened as he spoke to Justine. “Drink this.”
She swallowed. She didn’t open her eyes, but she swallowed.
“You’re a man of many skills.” Pax shifted uncomfortably, holding a woman who belonged to Hawker with discretion and disinterest.
“Four kids, and Maggie taking in every stray in England.” Simple pride filled Doyle’s voice when he talked about his wife.
Another mouthful. Justine came a little awake and drank thirstily when the bowl was set to her lips. Then she lay her head back against Pax, falling into sleep. After a minute, Pax shifted away and gingerly settled her down to the bed.
“That’s good then.” Doyle picked up a straight-backed chair, one-handed, and brought it over to the bedside. He sat and propped his boots on the frame of the bed. “I’ll take it from here. Tell Felicity to send in some tea.”
“Should I put that knife away? Hawk’s knife.”
“Might as well leave it be. I think he has plans for it.”
“You see what it means, don’t you? Using one of his knives?”
Doyle nodded. “I see, all right.”
“I don’t think Hawk does. Not yet. He’s distracted.” Pax let his eyes touch Justine.
“It’ll come to him when he’s thinking clearly.”
“Men all over Europe know Adrian Hawkhurst’s knives. The Black Hawk’s knives. Somebody wants to make it look like he killed her.”
“That’s the general idea. Yes.”
Four
THERE WERE NOT MANY PLACES FOUR TRAITORS could meet. Their long association and their shared past were secrets held close as the fingers of their hands. At first, that caution was the order of the man who brought them to England so many years ago. After he died—after he was killed—it became their own wise and suspicious practice. Now it was habit.
The man dressed as an executioner said, “He’s almost six, isn’t he? And he’s big for his age.”
“He’s old enough to have his own pony, of course.” One of the women spoke. She wore the extravagant dress and blank, uncanny mask of the Carnevale of Venice. “I was hoping for a more . . . ponylike pony.”
Two men and two women stood in a curtained alcove outside the ballroom. They were a little patch of French bindweed planted in the garden of England. They committed treason by breathing. But it was old treason. They were a conspiracy with the juice long since dried up.
Till the blackmail. Till the murders.
Violins, flutes, and a cello played. Fairies and pirates, shepherdesses and English kings skipped and bobbed a Scotch reel up and down the ballroom.
The woman in the Carnevale mask said, “I spoil him. We always spoil the youngest.” She folded and unfolded her fan. “He looks so small up on that brute of a pony.”
The woman dressed as Cleopatra looked away, bored. She had no children.
“He’s named it Palisade. What kind of a name is Palisade for a pony? That’s a wall isn’t it?”
“The defensive wall of a fort. Good name. Strong.” The compact, heavily muscled man wore the tabard and armor of a medieval Knight Templar. Underneath, he looked like the soldier he had been.
The Humphreys’ masquerade ball was always held the first week of May. It was one of the traditions of the Season. But Sir George was only a baronet and Lady Humphrey’s father was in shipping. The Humphreys cast a wider net than they might have liked. The company was less exclusive, the dancing more boisterous, the manners a shade less refined. Young squires from Yorkshire, who’d somehow missed making a splash in the ton all Season, paraded the fringes of the ballroom and thought themselves devilish fine fellows. Mamas brought awkward daughters, who would not be officially out till next year, to commit their first, inevitable gaucheries in anonymity.
French spies met behind the potted plants.
Carnevale Mask said, “I don’t want a strong pony. I want a docile one. It’s eating its head off, trying to grow. I catch a very sneaky look in its eye sometimes.”
The four talked and waited, half hidden by a heavy expanse of blue curtain. They spoke of the weather, scandal, politics, of a pony eating its head off in a stable near Hampstead village. They sipped punch. When it was clear no one lingered to overhear, they fell silent.
The one dressed as Cleopatra spoke first. “The surgeon left at five. They sent a boy to the apothecary. She must still be alive.”
“That was damnable work.” A fierce whisper from Carnevale Mask.
“Damnably stupid too. We’re all lucky he wasn’t caught.” Cleopatra’s face was hidden by a mask of feathers and beaten gold. She wore a black wig. Her arms were heavy with wide gold bands. “Or she wasn’t caught.”
The Knight Templar said, “Stabbed in the middle of Braddy Square, for God’s sake. It can’t be one of us. None of us would take that chance.”
“And yet, he succeeded,” Cleopatra said. “It was genius, in its way. The rain hid everything. He struck on the doorstep of Meeks Street and escaped. I’d call that bold, not stupid.”
The executioner said, “He condemned all of us to disaster. The British Service won’t forgive this. They won’t forget.”
“Maybe it’s a damn coincidence,” the knight said gruffly.
“The town’s full of sneak thieves. It could be—”
Cleopatra cut in, “I received my letter. I was told to be in the bookstore in Hart Street, waiting for the magistrate’s men. Ready to give evidence.” She let that sink in. “We all gave the same description. We implicated the same man. We all followed orders.”
The executioner said, “One of us held the knife. When she dies, it’s our murder.”
“Only one of us is guilty. Only one.” The woman of the Carnevale mask gripped her fan like a weapon.
“One murderer.” Cleopatra’s jewelry, the gold and the gilt, chimed as she lifted her glass and drank. “But three of us willing to lie and send a man to the gallows. Is there a hotter hell reserved for the murderer?” A sly look. “Will you save me a seat by the fire, Amy?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You’d say that if you had the knife stuffed in your corset. Shall we take it in turns, protesting our innocence?”
“I swear, I didn’t—”
“We are all so very good at lying,” Cleopatra said. “Swear, if it makes you feel better.”
The Templar held his hand up, silencing. He wore a chain mail hood and mask the color of steel. His armor was rings of silvered tin, bright and mobile as fish scale. When he moved, metal clicked against metal like the gears of a clock. “What do we know?”
“Military Intelligence saw nothing.” Cleopatra rolled the wineglass back and forth between her hands, gazing down into it. She was the most discreet of expensive courtesans. One of her men held a position high in Military Intelligence. “Their man who watches Meeks Street didn’t like the ra
in and had taken himself off to a tavern. They have heard only rumor. No one’s made the connection between Meeks Street and the killings. Do you know the name of the man we’ve been accusing?”
“Don’t.” The Templar spoke sharply. “We know. All of us know.”
“It is the Head of the British Service. The Black Hawk.”
“And that is why we will fall.” The executioner leaned on his ax, head bowed, gripping the two-sided head. “Justine DuMotier and the Black Hawk were lovers once. When she dies, he’ll hunt us down like dogs.” He raised his eyes, going from one to the other. “Perhaps he should. Gravois and Patelin deserved what they got. DuMotier didn’t.”
“She was Police Secrète. Like them.” Cleopatra shrugged.
“Like us.” Under the mask, under the helm, the Templar’s mouth drew a grim line. “She was a soldier fighting for what she believed in. She shouldn’t die like this.”
“We tell ourselves we have no choice.” Carnevale Mask followed one bright figure through the pattern of the dance. Her oldest daughter. “They’ve won, you know. We’ve become the monsters they tried to make us. We—”
A man dressed as Henry VIII paused at the curtains to the alcove and peered in. Cleopatra wore thin folds of pleated linen. Her pale body with its gilded nipples was clearly displayed beneath. She had become wealthy selling that beauty. Henry VIII gave a long, appreciative, lip-licking smile.
The executioner lifted his ax and tested the edge. Henry VIII decided to stroll onward.
When he was gone, Cleopatra said, “It’s too late. It’s always been too late. What can we do?”
The executioner said softly, “We can stop.”
They held a long conversation with their eyes. Four French spies, pretending to be the grandson of an earl, the widow of a baron, the bluff military gentleman, the notorious courtesan.
“I will stop this. Here and now,” the executioner said. “For me, this is the end. When the next letter comes, I’ll ignore it.”
“The end.” Carnevale Mask still watched her daughter. “No more. Whatever it costs.”
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