“I prefer it when killers show a little murder on their countenance,” Hawker said.
Doyle said, “It’s there. You see it in what’s missing.”
Galba put a glove on, finger by finger, stiff and emphatic about it. “I know this man.”
Doyle touched the corner of the paper. “You met him in France?”
“At Cambridge. Bring it in here.”
The downstairs study was empty, all the traffic of the early morning having run itself off to another part of the house or out to Soho. A dozen agents left a certain disorder behind.
In the study, Hawker laid the picture flat on the desk. Galba turned up the flame in the lamp, and they all looked at it.
Hawker said, “Cambridge?”
Galba narrowed his eyes, studying feature by feature. “This is Peter Styles.”
“Styles . . . Styles.” Doyle visibly shuffled through his memory. “The Honorable Peter Styles, who turned out to be somewhat less than honorable after all. That Foreign Office theft . . . it must be twenty-five years ago. He was the second—maybe third—son of one of the earls up north.”
“The Earl of Cardinham. I believe this Peter is now the heir. He took a First at Cambridge.”
“Before my time,” Doyle said. “Hawk, if you’re standing around idle . . .”
“I am never idle, Mr. Doyle. I am always preparing for the next stroke of brilliance.”
“Right. Do that while you put these in the dumbwaiter.” Doyle passed over coffee cups and hooked up a pair of ale tankards deftly in one hand, betraying some experience in that activity.
“I don’t know why everyone is determined to make me a waiter.” Hawker was not silent with the plates and cups. “So the Merchant is an Englishman.”
“This man is.” Galba picked up the sketch.
“I am casting my mind back a good ways now. Styles made a great noise at Cambridge.” Doyle rubbed the back of his neck. “I heard about it even in my day. He was leading around a band of noble radicals who were going to reform the world. A brilliant mind, but something wrong with him even then. Hawk, get that last cup on the windowsill, will you.”
“We would not wish to leave it behind, all forlorn without its fellows.”
“We would not wish someone to break it up and use the edges to attack,” Doyle said. “I don’t remember much more about Styles. He left behind nasty rumors and unpaid bills when he shook the dust of Cambridge off his boots. They say he crippled a man in a duel. They say he seduced his landlady’s daughter, age fourteen.”
“A charming fellow,” Hawker said.
“And a credit to the Foreign Office, which is where he went next. A year later he went through the offices and helped himself to every secret that wasn’t nailed down and a pile of money intended for bribes in the German states and took the packet from Dover.”
Hawker brushed his hands. “I have frequently asked myself why I don’t do the same. If you don’t have any more menial work for me, I will depart. I’m supposed to be following Pax.”
“Follow him,” Galba said. “Stay close. The Merchant knows his face.”
“And that she-wolf may cut his throat in a fit of pique. Maybe I can eliminate one or the other of those threats.”
“Don’t kill anybody,” Doyle said.
“You are tying my hands as an effective agent. You do know that.” The rest of Hawker’s commentary disappeared down the hall with him.
When Hawker was gone, Galba and Doyle stood in silence for few minutes.
Galba said, “Do you see it?”
“What?” Doyle said.
“Look closely.” Galba was doing just that. “Forget who it is. See it as if it were hanging on the wall in a country house.”
Doyle took the sketch. “I’d think it was good. I’d wonder who the artist was. I’d think the man looks familiar. I never saw Peter Styles, so I can’t—” Doyle stopped. Stared for another moment. Whispered, “Frogs and little dancing fishes. I don’t believe it.”
Galba said, “The resemblance is unmistakable.”
Twenty-six
Family is everything.
Some activities are unsuited to Gunter’s. Negotiating with criminals was one. Any reference to the Baldoni, root and branch, was another.
Cami said, “Let’s leave,” to the criminal who sat across from her. “I don’t want to talk about this here.”
“Now, why is that?” the man said softly.
She stood. “We can be overheard, and I’m cautious.”
“Happens I’m cautious myself. Why don’t we continue our discussion elsewhere?”
Pax dropped coins on the table and picked her cloak off the back of the chair and pulled it around her shoulders. He said, “She’s protected.”
“You’re not doing a notably good job of it, Mr. Paxton, if she’s face-to-face with me.”
“That’s her choice,” Pax said calmly. “It’s all her choice.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
She led two very dangerous men out of Gunter’s, greatly reducing the level of lethality within. Pax followed last, keeping an eye on things.
Sunlight struck bright after she’d been inside. There were more thugs on the street than she was comfortable with. She walked a dozen feet down the pavement to put some space between herself and the door of Gunter’s, observing which people noted the movement and which ignored it. Separating the sheep from the goats.
She selected a spot twelve feet down because it seemed more promising than the rest. A staid, self-important stone house on her right, every window closed. No one stirring. On her left, a black coach she’d seen drive up, curtains drawn, horses and driver profoundly uninterested in the passing scene.
A nice, tight, defensible space where no one could sneak up on her. “We’ll talk here.”
“As you wish.” Her criminal beckoned one of his attendant thugs, but it was just to send him to take charge of the ice cream when it was packed and ready. That chore completed, he gave his attention back to her. He was as frightening in the open air as he’d been sitting across a table.
She was something of a judge of brutality. The Baldoni had never entirely renounced the practical, everyday side of criminality. She could appreciate graded and careful intimidation.
Pax stood a pace behind her, at her left shoulder, probably thinking along similar lines. She didn’t have to turn around to look at him. She could feel him there, the way she’d feel a fire burning in a cold room.
There were a number of large, roughly dressed men on the street.
She said, “You’ve brought an audience. I don’t like that,” to the man she must parley with, seeing whether he’d make a concession.
He did. He made some signal, negligently, with his right hand and the three ratlike children who’d followed her since Covent Garden disappeared into the greenery of Berkeley Square. They would doubtless run about, playing children’s games unconvincingly. Dangerous-looking men up and down the street revealed their allegiance by strolling off to loiter in a more distant place. The visible menace faded away, except for a large black man who’d exchanged the wall beside Gunter’s door for the closest lamppost. That one leaned against the iron pole, arms crossed, face blank.
Behind her, Pax spoke softly. “The Service will be deeply annoyed if anything happens to her.”
“I have no quarrel with the Service,” the man said. “She came to me. I didn’t go hunting her.”
Pax, having made his point, went back to being enigmatic. He didn’t mention that the Service interest involved interrogating her and locking her up indefinitely. Or hanging her if that seemed most useful.
She’d come to London prepared to negotiate with villains from the rookeries of London. This held a certain danger, but, as the Baldoni so wisely say, the safest place is in the grave.
She folded her hands. “I’ve come to buy a service. I’m told anyone who does this is given safe passage.”