Stoker opened his mouth to take more bread, but he snapped it shut. He looked at Sabine. “What sort of criminal evidence?”
“Well, I’ve always thoughtcriminalwas an aptgeneraldescription of my uncle, but—clever me—I believe I’ve stumbled upon actual proof. Legal proof of crimes punishable by law.”
“What crimes?” Stoker forgot the bread. Sir Dryden Noble was a tyrant and a sadist, and he’d thought he’d delivered her from ever tangling with him again.
“Crime enough to oust him from Park Lodge and allow me to return home,” she said. She began to collect the bread and spoon and tidy the tray. “The Boyds’ home is comfortable and London has been diverting, but I cannot remain here forever. My real home is Park Lodge, and I always meant to go back. My mother’s health grows worse every year. But I can’t return if I do not remove my uncle. How much more effective to have the authorities do it for me?”
Sabine reached to press a napkin to his lips, and he turned his face away. He summoned all his strength to wipe his own mouth with his sleeve. He said, “Sabine,what crimes?”
Sabine looked right and left as if they might be overheard. “I learned in the spring that he’s dismissed all my father’s students and put a stop to their work on his last folio of maps. He’s using the maps for some other purpose—that’s what I believe.”
“What purpose? What illegal thing could be done withmaps?”
“Well, the maps chart the landscape of the barrier islands that cluster around the shores of Great Britain. This had been my father’s last project. And...” now she lowered her voice “...I believe that Sir Dryden has taken some role in illegalsmuggling, using these barrier islands to bring contraband goods into England.”
“Smuggling?” Stoker choked. His mind leapt to every blackguard smuggler, every rotting boat, every danger he’d ever witnessed in his ten years as a sea captain.
“Yes, smuggling,” Sabine went on. She sounded triumphant. “There are more than a hundred barrier islands around Britain, and none of them had ever been properly mapped until my father’s last expedition. Intimate knowledge of these islands is a smuggler’s dream. Contraband can be unloaded, hidden among the rocks and caves, and rowed to shore in small lots. The islands have been used for this purpose for centuries, but I believe Sir Dryden is organizing afleetof smugglers to navigate the barrier islands on a grand scale.”
Stoker blinked at her; the wordsfleet of smugglersandgrand scalespun in his head. He said, “Sabine, who is helping you?”
She stopped in the process of hoisting the tray. “Helping me? Why would I need help?”
Because smugglers are deadly serious about their work, and you have no idea what you’re doing,he thought. But he said, “Because collaborations can be... useful.”
She shrugged and continued with the tray. “My mother’s nursemaid, May, writes me with any gossip she overhears from Dryden’s many meetings and dinner guests. Her letters to me could be considered a collaboration, I suppose.”
Stoker opened his mouth to contradict but Sabine had warmed to the topic. “According to May, one man returns repeatedly to Park Lodge. Mr. Walker Leaver. We know his name, but it’s been nearly impossible to learn his occupation. We have ferreted out the workplaces of every other Park Lodge guest, but I’ve found so few details on Mr. Leaver. Only a vague connection to shipping. Finally, at the end of last month, I overheard a conversation in Blackwall.”
“Blackwall?” Stoker repeated in a strangled voice.
Sabine nodded with enthusiasm. “The two men talking suggested that the illustrious Mr. Leaver is not so much ashipperas asmuggler.And that’s when I knew I had him. Dryden is consorting with known smugglers, and I need only learn how and why. When I discovered that sailors under the employ of Mr. Leaver could be found recuperating on theDreadnought, I knew my next step. Andthatis why I was on the hospital ship—well, that, and to discover your lifeless form, of course. Assuming one believes in fate. But now I shall return to the hospital ship to speak to the sailors about the nature of their work for Mr. Leaver.” She rattled it off like plans for the market. She was halfway to the door.
“Sabine,” Stoker called, trying to keep his voice level, “the men who work as smugglers would not think twice about taking a life to protect their profits.”
She did not miss a step. “Perhaps, but I am very careful. And I have the travel writing to disguise my investigation. No one knows I am snooping around, piecing together my uncle’s business.” She smiled and sailed from the room, her dog trotting after her.
For the first time since he’d awakened, Stoker forgot about the pain, the helplessness, or the mortification of being an invalid. He thought only of Sabine in her pretty dress and yellow ribbon moving through the underground network of pirates and smugglers on London’s docks. His mouth went dry. “Sabine?” he rasped.
There was a pause and she stuck her head back into the room. “Yes?”
“Do you mean to return to theDreadnought—now?”
“Of course.” She looked at him like true madness had finally set in. “Don’t worry. I won’t acquire any additional corpses. I went there to interview sailors who are still very much alive. Or at least they were four days ago,” she said, smiling vaguely and ducking away.
Stoker was left to stare at the empty doorway and realize a new level of helplessness. TheDreadnoughtwas likely the safest of the places Sabine would venture. Clearly, she’d been to Blackwall, and more than once. She was hounding the steps of a possible smuggler. God only knew the business of these other men or how it all tied together. Stoker allowed himself to think, perhaps for the first time, of all the places his wife had snooped before he’d washed up on England’s shores. He knew her well enough to acknowledge that she would not stop with scurvy sailors on theDreadnought.
No, he thought, helplessness was not being spoon-fed by his wife; helplessness was being too bloody infirm to protect her.
