“Wherever did you find them?” I asked sweetly. “Judging from their noses and ears, they are all former boxers. And, judging from their aroma, they are also unfamiliar with soap.”
Archibond gave me a rueful shrug. “They belong to your uncle, my dear.”
“I cannot believe you have thrown in your lot with such a madman,” I told him. “I never much cared for you, but I at least thought you were of sound intelligence. I see I was mistaken.”
Eddy spoke up. “I must insist that you release us at once, Inspector,” he said. I marveled at how he managed to give the impression of looking down his nose at a man who was on eye level with us, but it was bravely done.
Archibond shook his head. “I am afraid that is simply not possible, sir. Not at present.”
“Have you sent the ransom note to my family?” Eddy demanded.
Archibond’s expression was inscrutable. “No.”
“Well, get on with it, man!” Eddy exploded. “You cannot expect us to stay here forever.”
“I assure you, that is not at all my expectation,” Archibond said evenly.
“What exactlyisyour expectation?” I inquired politely. “Please do tell us if this is a personal kidnapping or if your motives are political in nature. You have attached yourself to my uncle’s plan, so I can only assume you are in sympathy with the Irish cause.”
Archibond shuddered visibly. “Heaven forbid.”
“Then you are simply anti-monarchist,” I guessed. “Casting your lot with the Irish to topple the throne entirely and let us reinvent ourselves in England as a republic?”
Archibond smiled. “Not even close, I’m afraid. But you are correct in that the present incumbent has entirely overstayed her welcome. We, all right-thinking Englishmen—and Irishmen,” he added at a low grumble from one of his ruffians, “are quite finished with being ruled over by a German hausfrau and her band of inbred ne’er-do-wells. It is high time that they were replaced. It is high time all of you,” he said with a significant glance at Stoker and Eddy, “were replaced.”
“I told you,” Eddy muttered. “Anarchists.”
“Near enough,” Archibond allowed. “Our current systems make a show of serving men of merit, but they are a lie. Without the proper connections, without the proper name, the proper schools, a man cannot make his way in the world according to his abilities. It is time for that to change.”
“You ought to try America,” I suggested. “They are quite enthusiastic about self-made men there.”
Archibond gave me a thin smile. “I would far rather reshape my own country, thank you.”
I shook my head. “You complain you are not making your way in the world, yet your ascent through the ranks at the Yard has been meteoric, I am told.”
“Not through my own merit,” he said in real bitterness. “I was given advancement upon the recommendation of my godfather, who was Home Secretary at the time.”
I remembered hearing something of the sort when we had first made Archibond’s acquaintance. Something else niggled at the corner of my memory, a bit of scandal from the English newspapers when I had been abroad in Madeira.
“The Home Secretary? The one who was forced to resign after his wife sued for divorce claiming he had another family tucked away in—where was it?”
“Barnstaple,” he supplied. His expression was grim. “His fallaffected all of us. My sister’s fiancé broke off the engagement and she has been forced to come and keep house for me instead. My own career at the Yard has been effectively ruined. I will never climb higher because I have no patron to smooth the way. Sir Hugo has made it perfectly apparent that I have achieved all I may ever hope for under his aegis.”
“Still, to be second at Special Branch is no mean feat. Why is that not enough for you?”
“Because everything I have worked for has been ruined by the peccadilloes of another!” he protested. “And what of the thousands of others, trammeled under the boot of tyranny, without prospect or hope of improvement? You could step one foot outside this door and meet dozens, nay,hundredsof men who will live and die in the station to which they were born, never knowing what they might have been with the proper education, with training and opportunity.”
I gave him a pitying look. “You cast yourself as a benefactor and yet I suspect your largesse will begin and end with you, Inspector.”
“I would see this country refashioned for the good of all,” he countered coldly.
“It is the dream of an adolescent,” I told him. “I have met one or two anarchists on my travels, and without fail they are exceedingly childish. Anarchy is the sort of idea one may embrace at university, but one would be very ill-advised to take it home and marry it. Their plots have frequently been catastrophic failures,” I added. “No one yet has brought down civilization as we know it to remake the world.”
“It is only a matter of time before someone succeeds,” he insisted. “And I intend to be that man.”
“So you have abducted the future king and entered into a conspiracy with an unrepentant Irish radical who would install a puppet queen? Hardly a marriage of like minds,” Stoker pointed out.
Archibond’s gaze slid away and he did not answer.
