“How does murdering Madame Aurore fit into your scheme?” I asked.
He did not flinch. “A necessary casualty and not a particularly regrettable one. Any further questions?”
“I can think of a few dozen,” Stoker said amiably. “To begin with, how did de Clare find you?”
“I found him,” Archibond said. “He very nearly died the last time he encountered the pair of you, but he dragged himself out of the Thames and his henchmen spirited him back to Ireland to recover and to brood on his losses. When I learnt of Miss Speedwell’s true identity, it was an easy enough matter to track him down.”
“How did you discover my birth?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “The files at Special Branch hold all sorts of secrets and Sir Hugo is often too busy to notice where I have been wandering. I studied the files in hopes of discovering something, anything, I could use to leverage myself into a better position. Those file drawers are full of nasty little scandals—adultery and profiteering and cheating at cards and gambling. But imagine my delight when I learnt your secret, Miss Speedwell. It cast all the others into gloom, I assure you.”
“And de Clare was only too happy to have someone new to recruit to his cause,” Stoker guessed.
“My dear fellow, the matter was settled over a bottle of good Irish whisky and a handshake.”
“He is an unrepentant lunatic,” I said succinctly.
“What a very hurtful thing to say about one’s blood relation,” he said thoughtfully. “I prefer to think of him as dogged in his pursuits.” He paused. “He rails quite a lot—gets into these dark moods where he sits up all night, nursing a bottle of rather fine, peaty whisky and saying decidedly unkind things about you. He has spent the last months in a fever of frustration because he had no idea where you were. He had a dozen plots to kidnap this one and torture him into talking,” he said with a jerk of hishead towards Stoker, “and you can thank me for putting him off that idea.” He paused, but when no sign of gratitude was forthcoming from Stoker, he shrugged and went on. “He was ripe as a plum when I found him, ready to fall in with my plans at the first approach.”
He rose then, rubbing his hands together briskly. “Now then, I merely wanted to look in and make certain our charges were of good cheer. I will return later.”
He edged towards the door, and that was when they made their mistake. Quiet Dan and his companion withdrew first, leaving Archibond exposed.
Stoker surged up from the bed in a single, fluid motion, taking up one of the chairs and smashing it in a single blow so that he held a piece in each hand, brandishing them like a lion tamer. He started forwards, making straight for Archibond. The inspector stepped back swiftly, letting Quiet Dan move to the fore. The Irishman raised his gun but Archibond gave a shout of alarm.
“Don’t shoot, you cretin! If you miss it will ricochet,” he protested. Quiet Dan resorted to his fists, swinging wildly, but Stoker never paused in his implacable advance. He dropped to his knees, slashing with the spindles at the Irishman’s knees, bringing him down hard. Quiet Dan howled, but the noise was cut off as Stoker slammed one spindle into his solar plexus. The fellow pitched forward, and Stoker cut up sharply, putting all of his strength into a blow that snapped the fellow’s head back so hard, I could feel the crack of it in my bones.
From the doorway, Archibond raised his own revolver, aiming carefully at me and stopping Stoker squarely in his tracks. “On your knees, Templeton-Vane,” he said through gritted teeth.
Stoker hesitated and Archibond cocked the pistol. “I am not de Clare,” he said, his voice cold as a winter wind. “Believe me when I tell you that you care far more than I do if she dies. On your knees.”
Stoker complied this time, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“Now on your face,” Archibond instructed.
Stoker lay facedown and gave me a long look of resignation. I gave him a nod in return to show that I understood, and before he could respond, Archibond circled around and lifted his boot to aim a careful kick at Stoker’s jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head but Archibond kicked him once more for good measure. Thoroughly and obviously shaken, Archibond signaled angrily to a staggering Quiet Dan and his companion. Together they scooped Stoker up under the armpits and dragged him from the room.
“Where are you taking him?” I demanded.
Archibond gave a thin smile as he left, banging the door behind him.
I slid back down to the bed as the key turned in the lock.
Eddy made a sympathetic noise. “Poor brave fellow. God only knows what they will do to him. He oughtn’t to have gone for them. It was a foolish thing to do.”
I turned to him, torn between pride in Stoker and scorn for Eddy’s lack of perception. “Foolish? He has just got himself out of this room without picking a lock. While he is gone, he will assess the conditions outside and will know the best course of action when he returns. To my way of thinking, we have just doubled our odds of escaping,” I informed him.
His expression was pitying. “He mayn’t even survive. We don’t know them, Veronica.”
I twisted my hands into fists, stubbornly clinging to my optimism. “You don’t know Stoker.”
•••
Without Stoker’s reassuring presence the next few hours dragged. Eddy and I did our best to pass the time, but I was preoccupied with the nuances of Archibond’s visit and what they implied. He hadnot answered when Stoker inquired about the finer points of the plot, but it was not difficult to imagine the broad strokes. Archibond, with his mission to burn down the world he knew, had searched long for just the right match to put to the tinder. In me, he had found it, knowing the scandal that erupted from my story would sweep the Empire. Using my uncle’s scheme as a starting point, he could disgrace the current royal family and set off a crisis of confidence in the monarchy, to expose them as disreputable and amoral, the antithesis of the virtuous and Christian model of propriety they had so often claimed to be.
Then, when the Empire was still reeling from the shock, he would allow de Clare to present me with my credentials to the world, proclaiming me queen. That would plunge Ireland into chaos, with the Roman Church and its thousands of adherents across the globe taking the position that I was the legitimate queen. The Empire would fracture, and other lands would seize the chance to shape their own destinies, breaking with London in order to strike out for independence.
As soon as that happened, stronger nations like Germany and America would involve themselves, swooping like birds of prey to pluck the vulnerable and promising pickings, quarrelling amongst themselves to divide the spoils. In the end, Archibond would get what he wanted: anarchy. A world on fire where a man’s birth meant nothing compared to what he could do.
