“We are here to serve, Your Majesty,” Cypher said in an obsequious voice.
But then Conan Doyle caught a whiff of cigar smoke and heard a fruity voice announce, “Ah, there you are, Mother.” He turned to see the Prince of Wales saunter into the room. Edward was not alone, and it took a moment for Conan Doyle to register the slender shadow pacing at his shoulder.
Rufus DeVayne.
“I heard that cousin Rufie has been a naughty boy again,” the prince said. “This time I had to spring him from a madhouse in Latvia.”
Across the room, jaws dropped, eyes widened. The next few seconds of shocked disbelief were to prove fatal.
Before Cypher could scream for the palace guards to seize him. Before Conan Doyle could shout a warning. Before anyone could move, DeVayne snatched something from his cloak — the two-shot derringer he had once offered to Wilde — and aimed it point-blank at the prince’s head. Mistaking it for a prank, the Prince of Wales drew the cigar from his mouth and said, “See, here, Rufie, that’s taking the joke a bit too far—”
“SILENCE!” Rufus DeVayne screamed. The derringer trembled in his hand as he fixed the room with a look that dared anyone to test his resolve.
“Drop the pistol,” Cypher threatened. “Or be cut down where you stand.”
DeVayne merely smiled. “The revolution lives so long as I draw breath. Kill me and I will resurrect myself in three days. But by this act I shall live forever.” He took a step away from the prince and spun around, aiming the derringer straight at Victoria. “So dies a tyrant!” he screamed. The gun fired with a percussive BANG! The bullet struck Victoria in the forehead. She startled. Her head lolled slack and she slumped upon the throne, eyes dead and staring. Blood trickled from the small bullet hole in her forehead and ran down her face.
DeVayne shouted in triumph and then swung the gun back to point it at the Prince of Wales’ heart. His finger was tightening on the trigger when Detective Blenkinsop, who was standing the closest, lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the young aristocrat, smothering his arms. They staggered across the room, grappling. But then BANG! a second shot rang out. Detective Blenkinsop flinched, a sickening tremor shook his frame, and then he relaxed and slumped at DeVayne’s feet.
In the next instant, one of the Beefeaters rushed forward and thrust the point of his halberd into the marquess’s back, running him through so that the spear point burst through his chest. DeVayne’s eyes widened. He staggered forward and looked down in disbelief at the metal shaft skewering his chest. He coughed, shooting out a spray of blood, and slowly crumpled to his knees. His eyes sparkled with tears. His long lashes fluttered. A weird, tremulous smile chased about his lips. Blood, frothy and arterial, trickled from the corners of his mouth. And then, incredibly, he seemed to rally, and spoke in a gurgly voice: “In three days, I shall rise again…” But then the light went out of his eyes and with a prolonged and weary sigh, as if sick of life, he relaxed into death and slumped backward until the spear propped him up, his arms falling akimbo.
The room broke into chaos. Cypher screamed at the Beefeaters, “Make sure he’s dead!”
Conan Doyle and Wilde rushed to Detective Blenkinsop’s crumpled form. When they turned him over, the front of his best suit was soaked in blood. Conan Doyle fumbled for a pulse in his neck. Finding none, his head dropped resignedly.
“Dead?” Wilde asked softly, laying a hand on his shoulder.
Conan Doyle looked up with a stricken expression, but could not summon the words and merely nodded.
“How terrible,” Wilde breathed. “How terrible…”
Conan Doyle shook his head and croaked, “If it had not been for me, he would not be here today. And so I have caused his death.”
“Nonsense, Arthur. You acted from the very best of motives. You could not have known.”
“The queen!” The Prince of Wales wailed. “Fetch a doctor. The queen has been shot!”
Even through his shock, Conan Doyle realized he was the only doctor in the room. He rose to his feet and numbly approached the slumped form of Victoria. The bullet had struck her squarely in the forehead and a stream of sticky black blood runneled down her face. Her spaniel’s eyes were wide open and staring. But then Conan Doyle frowned at something and reaching out, touched his fingertips to the blood, and examined them, releasing an astonished gasp.
“What?” Wilde asked.
Conan Doyle turned to his friend. “This is not blood. It feels like… oil! Dark red oil.” Still not believing, he reached down and gently tilted the queen’s head. The back of the skull was missing, blown apart, and he expected to see brains and gore. Instead, he found that the shattered skull case contained brassy cogs and a speaking tube that emerged from a hole in the wall behind.
It was suddenly clear they had all been deceived.
“An automaton!” Wilde gasped.
“Yes, another ingenious mechanism.”
At that moment, a door hidden in the paneling opened and a short, stout figure stepped out:
Victoria Regina, this time in the flesh.
Following behind her was a man in a stovepipe hat, the engineer Ozymandius Arkwright.
“Mama!” the Prince of Wales cried out. He rushed over to her, wringing his hands. “I–I—I had no idea. I–I’m afraid I’ve been a fool again, ma’am.”
“A role you are familiar with,” Victoria noted sourly, “and play to perfection.”
She looked about the throne room disapprovingly. “Where is this would-be assassin?”
The Beefeater who had run the marquess through mutely pointed. As she stepped over to inspect DeVayne’s body, Cypher tried to prevent her. “Majesty, this is not a sight fit for royalty—” She silenced him with a wave. The aging queen threw a scowl of disapproval down at DeVayne’s astonished face. “My assassin now lies dead. Traitor to your queen. Your nation. Your class. Your family name. Little man, with your trumped up ambitions, it would take someone far greater than you to slay a queen.”
She looked up at the assembled courtiers and friends, her eyes blazing with self-righteous fury. Despite her tiny stature, despite her advanced age, she cut a formidably regal figure. She turned to the yeoman of the guard and commanded, “Your sword, sir.” The yeoman quickly slid the blade from its scabbard and presented it to her, pommel first. She hefted its steely mass and addressed the room. “We have much thanks to give today. To our loyal servants of the crown. To our fearless subjects who placed the life of their sovereign above their own.”
She focused her stern gaze upon Ozymandius Arkwright. “Step forward and kneel before your queen.” He dropped to one knee and removed his stovepipe hat. Victoria touched the blade to one shoulder, lifted it, and touched the other shoulder. The queen smiled mildly and said, “Arise, Sir Ozymandius Arkwright.”
Conan Doyle’s eyes met Wilde’s and both men wore an expression of deep vexation.
“What did Mister Ozymandius do that made him so deserving of a knighthood?” Wilde bellyached to his friend as they walked across the palace courtyard to his waiting carriage. “We were nearly torn apart by a monster. Drowned in the Thames. Shot. Stabbed. Poisoned by conspirators. All he did was build a giant doll. A mechanical puppet. A—”
“Decoy,” Conan Doyle interrupted. “A very clever decoy that fooled an assassin and saved the monarch’s life.” He looked sagely at his friend. “This whole adventure — all of it — has been about the true face of evil hiding behind a mask. But now a good man is dead and I bear the full weight of guilt.” He looked away into the far distance, despair crouched in the corner of his eyes.
“Mister Wilde, Doctor Doyle,” a fruity and fatuous voice called from behind. “I would speak with you a moment.”