For a living man.
Conan Doyle rattled the ice chunk melting in his brandy. He looked up to thank the waiter, but Cranford had vanished, leaving only a stir in the air currents. He and Wilde lounged in a bubble of thoughtful silence as his thoughts boomeranged back, for the thousandth time, to Jean Leckie. Quite unconsciously, he fingered his breast pocket for her calling card, withdrew it from his pocket, and gave it a casual glance.
Only to stiffen with shock. Instead of the feminine script and the address in Blackheath, he held a rectangle of card scribbled with a cryptic message: Stay sharp! The young lady is a distraction. Cypher.
Wilde noticed his reaction. “Is something amiss?”
Flummoxed, Conan Doyle grappled for an answer. He had carefully secured Jean’s calling card in his breast pocket. But then he remembered Cypher’s bowler-hatted bruisers outside the theater. The “accidental” collision. The sharp punch in the kidney. Suddenly the truth broke upon him — they had picked his pocket. He felt a gull, a fool, a dupe. The brazen impudence of the man raised Conan Doyle’s dander. Immediately, he scorned his half promise to keep the matter secret. Leaning forward in his chair, he snatched the poker from the fire stand and rammed it into the logs, lifting and heaving until the fire roared up, popping and crackling and spitting hot sparks onto the hearth rug. He only settled back into his chair when the press of heat against his face forced him to retreat.
“You certainly gave the fire a damned good thrashing, Arthur. I take it something has greatly perturbed you.”
“I have something to confess.”
“We are hardly in a confessional box, but at least we now have the purgatorial flames dancing before us.”
“I had hoped to keep you out of this, but the world is out-of-kilter more than you know. Or could begin to guess.”
“Do not kill me with suspense, Arthur. Ennui is the only death appropriate for a poet.”
“This morning I had the most extraordinary meeting…”
And then Conan Doyle spent twenty minutes relating his abduction from Waterloo Station, his meeting with Cypher, and finally his audience with Victoria herself. When he had finished, Wilde sat staring at the fire through the refracting lens of his brandy glass before tossing back the dregs and wryly remarking, “After a tale such as that, I will not regale you with the story of my morning, which began with a rather amusing incident concerning a misplaced egg cup.” He leaned forward and set his glass down on the rug. “So our assassin is involved in these anarchist plots that threaten to bring down England, the Commonwealth, and the Empire?”
“Assassin or assassins.”
“And who do you think is likely to be the next victim?”
“I am not sure. I cannot help but speculate there is some link to the members of an organization you and I are already familiar with.”
Wilde asked the question by raising his extravagant eyebrows.
“Yes, Oscar, the so-called Fog Committee.”
The bedroom was large and expensively furnished. An enormous four-poster hung with heavy curtains occupied one half of the room. Seated in a leather tub chair before the throbbing coal fire, his heels resting upon the emaciated form of a tiger-skin rug, was a man who was the living antonym of emaciated: Tarquin Hogg, banker. Aptly named, for with his porcine girth, piggy eyes, pug nose, and dimply assemblage of chins, the banker could have easily ribboned as best of breed in any county fair. As he gripped the newspaper spread across his generous lap with one hand, the other fleshy trotter groped a plate stacked with mince pies. He crammed one into his salivating mouth and chewed juicily. The large man had draped his bulk in a quilted silk dressing gown of peacock blue; a red fez capped his silvery hair. But despite the comfort of his dress and the luxury of his surroundings, Hogg looked decidedly ill at ease. For once, he was griped with more than just gas pains. He gave the paper a vexed rattle and glared at a front-page headline that screamed: “Lord Howell Assassinated” while below an equally menacing subtitle muttered ominously: “Another public figure murdered.” The fleshy pillows of his brow knitted in consternation. He snatched the pince-nez from his nose. Chewed his lower lip. A gentle knock at the bedroom door dragged him from his brooding reverie. He crumpled the newspaper double, hiding the story, and called out thickly around a mouthful of masticated pastry, “Come.”
A maid slid quickly into the room. Young. White. Starched. Comely. She bobbed a curtsey and said, “Sir, there’s someone at the door.”
Hogg glared at her with bemusement. No honest person would venture abroad on such a vile night.
“Who the devil is it?”
The young maid shook her head helplessly. “A gentleman. I don’t know who, sir.” And then she held out something in her hand. “He sends you his card.”
The fat banker levered himself up from the chair, tightened the sash of his dressing gown, and snatched the card from the maid’s hand.
When he read the name on the calling card, the color drained from his face. “Where…?”
“Waiting outside, sir.”
“Very good,” he said, handing the card back. He made to leave the room but then paused a moment. “Myrtle, I want you to turn down my bed and close the bed curtains. Then fetch a warming pan.” He caressed a downy cheek with the back of his chubby hand. “When I return I shall have you warm my bed.”
The young woman dropped her eyes. Her lips quivered as she answered meekly, “Very good, sir.”
When Tarquin Hogg stepped out of his front door, a strange vision waited at the curbside. Whooshing and hissing, it sat vibrating on its hard rubber tires, a pall of steam wreathing about it: one of the new horseless carriages. A human form skulked in the shadows beneath the fabric hood: a figure indistinguishable apart from a tall top hat. The glass window let down and a hand beckoned from the gloomy interior. With a grunt of umbrage, Hogg cinched tight the belt of his robe against the bitter chill of the night and waddled down the marble steps in his slippered feet.
“You!” he said, addressing the shadowy figure inside the carriage. “What do you want from me? Why are you here?”
“You read about Lord Howell?”
Hogg went rigid at the name. “Of course. But he was murdered by his valet—”
“Don’t bloody believe it. A lie for the newspapers.”
“What are you saying?”
“You are in great danger.”
“Danger? Me? What… what do you mean?”
“The Fog Committee knows that you are Cypher’s man.”
“They… they…” Hogg trailed off. Swallowed hard. “Oh, God, no!” he moaned. His eyes grew crazed, his jowls quivered with distress. “What am I to do? I could go to the authorities. Cypher must help me—”
“You are on your own. We all are. Even Cypher cannot protect you now.”
“Y-you, m-must help me,” the big man blubbered. “Your brother and his mad friends will murder us all.”
A hand extended from the steamer, a pistol clutched in its grip. “Take this. Keep it near you at all times. Do not go abroad alone.”
Hogg’s eyes bulged at the sight of the weapon. “A pistol? No, I cannot—”
“Take it, you daft bugger! And God be with you.”
The banker squeamishly took the pistol. Before he could say anything further, there was a grinding of gears, and the steamer chugged away into the fog.