Fielding’s voice had gone very soft. “What, precisely, was said?”
Baines drew a breath, and when he resumed he did so with less relish and more care.
“They were deciding,” he said, “when the Cabinet might be most vulnerable. There was talk of ministers dining together;and talk of routes, servants, watches, guards. Thistlewood believes the whole Cabinet may be taken at one stroke if assembled in the right place at the right hour.”
Arch stared at him. “Taken?”
Stuart said, “Murdered, I infer.”
Baines inclined his head. “Yes.”
No one spoke for some moments after that. The fire shifted in the grate with a dry sigh. Somewhere, in the passage beyond the room, one of the boards gave a small familiar creak. The ordinary noises of a house did not cease merely because treason had entered the conversation, but their very ordinariness made the thing more terrible.
Murdered ministers, planned over ale and bad tobacco on Edgware Road; Arch felt nauseous. It was Fielding who broke the silence. “What did Kendall do?”
Baines’s expression altered. “That,” he said, “is the difficulty. He did not lead the meeting. not openly, but neither did he leave.”
“Did he encourage it?” asked Arch.
“No.”
“Then whatdidhe do?”
Baines considered a moment. “He asked questions.”
Renforth interjected, “What sort of questions?”
“The useful sort,” Baines said grimly. “How many men? Which servants might be bribed? Whether the room where these Cabinet fellows meet had more than one entrance. Whether confusion in the street might delay intervention. Whether men in livery could gain admittance where men in rough coats could not.”
Arch felt something cold and clean settle in his mind. “He was refining the plot,” he said.
Baines pointed at him. “Exactly. His was not the loudest voice in the room—that was Thistlewood’s by a mile—butKendall was the fellow making the thing less like a siege and more like a plan.”
Stuart swore under his breath.
Renforth said, “Did he commit himself?”
“Not directly,” said Baines. “He spoke always as a practical man. If this happened, then how—? If that failed, then what—? It was all couched in hypothetical terms. Nevertheless, the room listened when he spoke, and Thistlewood did not like it.”
Fielding looked up at that. “Did not like it?”
“No,” Baines said, with a flash of satisfaction. “There was pride there. Thistlewood wants to be the Devil’s own general, and he does not care to have another man waging his battle. Yet he also wants what Kendall has—cleverness, and perhaps money.”
Arch rose and crossed to the mantel, less because he intended to move than because sitting still had become impossible. He braced one hand against the shelf and stared into the fire as if the coals might arrange themselves into a clearer picture.
Miss Vale and her ledgers—what did she know? What could she suspect? Had Kendall ever spoken to her with such open extremity, or had he reserved his full passion for rooms where men already half desired the spilling of blood?
“Did they mention funds?” Arch asked without turning.
Baines gave a short laugh devoid of humour. “Repeatedly.”
Arch turned back. “In what sense?”
“Enough to arm, enough to travel, enough to keep certain men idle while they wait for an opportunity. Kendall did not put a figure on it, but they spoke as though money might soon be had.”
Stuart was the one to say what all of them were thinking. “It is your belief, is it not, that Kendall intends to use Miss Vale’s pocket-book?”
Fielding set down his glass at last. “Maybe not just hers.”
