“Something Lady Sarah Winthrop and Henry Ponsonbysaid before luncheon. Julia realized it was Peter. She dashed out of the dining room before the queen arrived and telegraphed Inspector Tennant.”
Lionel chuckled. “Did she, now?” His smile faded. “And the princess? How is she?”
“Julia says she’s ‘cautiously optimistic.’ I think it means Louise will recover. She’s young and strong.”
Lionel nodded. “All that vigorous walking and riding.”
“I’ll never again complain about her ‘forced marches’ through the park.”
“You realize she saved Prince Leopold,” Lionel said. “He would never have survived a gunshot wound.” He looked at her. “You know it’s not simply a matter of a little bleeding. His condition is far graver than that.”
“Yes,” Susan said. “The royals know, too. Louise included. But they don’t like to name it.”
“This may be treason, but Louise would make a better heir to the throne than her feckless brother.”
“She has twice Bertie’s spirit and three times his heart.”
Lionel grasped her hands, and they stood. He took her in his arms, and Susan felt his laughing breath tickle her ear. “It just occurred to me.”
She pulled away and looked at him curiously. “What?”
“John Brown, Louise’s ‘absurd man in a kilt,’ is the hero of the hour.” Lionel smiled his slow grin. “He’ll be utterly insufferable now.”
At ten at night at Charing Cross Station, a phalanx of constables transferred the shackled Peter FitzGerald from a railway car to a waiting police wagon for the short journey across central London. Tennant and O’Malley followed in a cab.
Despite the late hour, Newgate Prison’s front yard blazed. Workmen toiled by torchlight to finish the construction of a wooden platform. It lifted a scaffold high above the street togive the expected crowd a proper view of the public hanging scheduled two days hence.
News of the hunt for the queen’s equerry had made late editions of the evening papers, and rumors swirled. But the precise charges were not yet public. Somehow, a curious crowd had gotten word of the prisoner’s imminent arrival. They were rewarded when a handcuffed FitzGerald exited the police wagon just as the joiners fitted the gallows beam. The major looked away from the gibbet, shuddering. It was the first sign of emotion Tennant had glimpsed in FitzGerald since his arrest.
Two lines of grave-faced policemen flanked the prison entrance. Sir Richard Mayne and Mr. Gathorne-Hardy stood sentinel as well. The commissioner was there because he had vowed it. The home secretary attended to report to the prime minister on FitzGerald’s arrest and transfer to Newgate. The major passed them, his face as stony as the prison walls. He ascended four steps to a recessed iron door. It clanged behind him, metal bolts scraping and iron keys rattling in the lock.
Sir Richard held the carriage door as the home secretary climbed in. The commissioner turned to Tennant and O’Malley. “McGrath is dead. He killed a soldier and wounded Princess Louise. Doctor Lewis is treating her by the queen’s command and is hopeful of her full recovery.”
“Thank you for telling us, sir,” the inspector said.
The commissioner nodded. “Good work in a bad business.” He climbed in, and the carriage rolled away.
From their vantage on the corner of Old Bailey Street, Tennant and his sergeant looked up at St. Paul’s dome, ghostly in the moonlight.
O’Malley said, “’Tis only a few hundred yards from there to Trig Lane, where we found poor Brigid Dowling. Are the sisters resting easier this night, are we thinking?”
“I’d like to think so, Paddy.”
The following evening, Tennant and Lady Aldridge were the only guests at Dr. Lewis’s Wednesday dinner party. Julia’s grandfather and great-aunt had too many questions that couldn’t be answered in front of others. Julia was still away at the castle, attending Princess Louise.
They dined and settled into the library’s comfortable fireside chairs. Dr. Lewis looked into his glass. “A toast seems wrong after so much tragedy.”
“Perhaps we might drink to the truth’s discovery,” Lady Aldridge said. “And to justice for those whose lives ended so cruelly.”
“Just right, my dear.” Dr. Lewis raised his glass. “And to averting an unimaginable tragedy.”
Tennant said, “You’ll have to wait for Julia’s return to hear about that. I know only the broad outlines of the events at Windsor.”
Lady Aldridge asked, “Did Major FitzGerald know about the assassination plan?”
“No, according to McGrath’s testament. But to supply lethal weapons to a sworn enemy of the crown is enough to condemn him for high treason.”
She sighed. “And my old friend, Lady Middlebury. Why did she die?”
