“I should rather fetch pistols,” Arch said.
Renforth lifted his glass. “That sounds more like you.”
The teasing was not cruel. It never was, among them. They had all endured too much together for malice to survive where affection could do the same work with greater efficiency. Yet Arch was not entirely sorry when it began to thin, for Baines’ look of triumph had by now become almost indecent.
Indeed, if vanity could have illuminated a room, Baines would have rendered the lamps unnecessary. Arch set down his glass and looked at him properly. “Very well, Baines,” he said. “What have you done? You look fit to burst like a small boy who has just caught his first fish.”
Baines straightened with delighted offence. “First fish? I will have you know I have landed a great many things in my life—most of them more dangerous than pike.”
“A shark, more likely,” said Fielding.
Renforth made a minute gesture. “Begin before your pleasure in the telling spoils the substance.”
Baines grinned at them all, folded one ankle over his knee, and said, “I am glad you asked, Manners. It so happens that I followed our Mr. Kendall tonight.”
Arch’s attention sharpened instantly. “Yes, he was at the theatre. We saw him there.”
“Aye, he was,” Baines said, “for a while. He remained long enough to look proper and thoughtful and watch your Miss Vale, but then he took himself off to a little tavern in Edgware Road.”
Renforth sat forward at that—not much, just enough to reveal that what had been conversation was now intelligence.
“She is not my Miss Vale,” Arch protested.
“Continue,” prompted Fielding.
“Indeed,” Baines replied. “It so happens that he and some other known revolutionaries are hatching a plot against Cabinet members.”
The room’s atmosphere altered at once. Fielding lowered the paper in his hand. Stuart’s relaxed posture became one of intense attention. Renforth’s face lost the last traces of amusement and settled into extraordinary stillness.
Arch’s voice, when he spoke, was even. “Define ‘plot’, if you will.”
Baines enjoyed suspense too much not to savour the word for a moment, but even he knew when not to delay.
“I mean,” he said, “that Kendall sat in an upstairs room at a tavern with about a dozen men of the known reforming sort and listened while they discussed the Cabinet as one might discuss arow of ducks on a pond—namely, in terms of how and when best to bring them down.”
Fielding asked quietly, “Names?”
Baines lifted a finger. “Thomas Spence for one—though you know he is a corpse now and no use to anybody.”
Stuart frowned faintly. “Then not Spence?”
“Not the live man, no,” Baines said, “but the society and disciples of him. Spenceans—the sort who support his ideals.”
Renforth nodded once. “Go on.”
“Arthur Thistlewood,” said Baines, and that name was enough by itself to sour the air. “He was there, as were Tidd, Ings, Davidson, and Brunt. I did not get every Christian name, but I did not need them. Thistlewood does enough speaking for six men, and the others have the faces of fellows who would cut throats merely to make themselves useful.”
Arch’s fingers tightened once against the arm of his chair. “You are certain?”
Baines gave him a look. “I did not stumble into a convivial supper of clergymen, if that is what you mean.”
Stuart leaned forward. “Describe the room.”
“It was a private parlour above the tap-room,” Baines said at once. “Kendall sat at the far end of the table. Thistlewood paced about more than he sat. Ings drank. Brunt watched the door. Davidson spoke less than the others and looked as though he wished to stab something simply to improve the evening.”
“And Tidd?” said Renforth.
“He was nervous,” said Baines.
