“This is ridiculous,” Arthur said, groaning. He shook his fistful of cards at Brown, who wished he could knock them out of the boy’s hand and give him a good thrashing. “Have we not sufficient guardsmen to protect the royal entourage? Order up a hundred Beefeaters if necessary. A thousand! Add as many from the army as you require. A handful of anarchists won’t stand in the way of the will of the British Empire.” Anarchists . . . Irish, the boy didn’t seem to know the difference.
“It’s my bloody job to see your mother’s safe,” Brown bellowed. You pompous little ass.
“Children, Mr. Brown . . . please, you are giving me a headache.” Victoria touched both her hands to her temples, as if to demonstrate. “Louise, do you agree with Mr. Brown? Must I surrender to these ruffians and give up my day of celebration?”
Brown looked hopefully to the princess, who had settled down so well after her troubled youth. Perhaps he could count on her as an ally?
“Mother,” Louise said, her voice a cheerless shadow of its usual spirit, “we all wish you safe, of course.”
Victoria leaned across the card table toward her daughter, forcing their eyes to meet. “And you, my girl, what would you do in my place, if you were queen? Would you let criminals frighten you into hiding? Would you let your own men, who claim to care for your security, worry you to death with their warnings and bully you into staying away from your subjects?”
Brown got a sinking feeling in his gut. Something was going on between these two—mother and daughter—and there was no way he was going to insert himself.
“What I would do,” Louise began, her eyes flashing with anger, body rigid in her seat, “and what you should do are two different—”
“Are they?” Victoria cut her off. “Are we really that different, Louise Caroline Alberta? You who brazenly refused to listen to your parents, your governesses, or anyone else who stood in the way of your pursuit of whatever whim struck you. You who still ignore your duties as a princess to pursue your private passions?”
A hidden message passed through the air, one Brown could not hope to interpret. Arthur and Beatrice exchanged glances, looking no less confused than he was.
Victoria continued. “Tell me, Louise, were you in my position—would you take orders from these men?”
Louise hesitated, glancing at Brown with an apologetic look. “No,” she whispered. “I suppose not.”
“Speak up, girl.”
“No!” Louise shouted, grit in her voice that made him think of ground glass. “No, Mama, I would not. I would go out to my people and let them see I was not afraid.”
There was an eruption of objections from Arthur and, remarkably, from meek little Beatrice. But Brown knew the damage had been done. He shook his head at Louise, but rather than turn away she rose to stand in front of him.
“The note’s from Mr. Byrne, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s found out something more.”
“Aye, and you should be ashamed of yourself, encouraging her like that.”
“Should I?” She looked toward her mother, busy fending off objections from her other two children. She was a small woman, plump in her later years. But what Brown saw now was a woman whose course had always been set, whose will was iron and destiny had never been determined by any of the men in her life. Not even by him.
“I think she’s already made up her mind, Mr. Brown,” Louise said. “Nothing you or I can say will change it. You know that as well as I.”
He closed his eyes. “Then God help us come Accession Day.”
Forty-six
Byrne whistled up another hansom cab and rode directly to the address Prime Minister Gladstone had given him. He could have taken one of Buckingham’s carriages when he’d set out earlier, but he didn’t want to mark himself as coming from the palace.
Philip Rhodes lived in Bloomsbury, a respectable area of professional families. The town house appeared to have been divided into three ample flats. He knocked at the door and an aged man promptly answered. A quick conversation established that he was the landlord/owner who let out the two upper floors while he lived on the ground level.
“Is Mr. Rhodes in?” Byrne asked.
“He is expecting you, sir?”
“Actually, I’d rather hoped to surprise him.” Byrne showed off his most winsome smile and hoped for the best.
“Well, you can knock if you like. He’s right above me. But I’ve neither seen nor heard from him in three days, which is odd I have to say. He is a man of impeccable routine, he is, Mr. Rhodes. In and out of the house like clockwork.” He chuckled. “Private secretary to his honor the PM. Did you know that?”
“So I’ve heard. I’ll give it a go then, just in case,” Byrne said pleasantly.
He climbed to the next floor. Instead of knocking, he pressed an ear to the door and listened. Nothing. The rooms had the feel of a vacuum. No living sound from within, not even the buzz of a fly.
“You may have to knock rather louder,” the landlord shouted up the stairs. “He sometimes gets involved in his little hobbies and takes no note of the outside world.”
“Thank you,” Byrne called back to him. “But I think I hear someone stirring inside.” Although he did not.
He snapped open the blade of his knife and ran it along the crack between door panel and jamb. Its tip stopped at what felt like a latch. He manipulated the blade cautiously. Heard it give. But he did not swing the door open. Ever so gently, Byrne eased the door less than half an inch. Although the light in the hallway was limited by the single window at its end, he could just make out a slender wire as delicate as a spider’s web.
Clark’s handiwork, no doubt, on behalf of his boss.
He remembered seeing such an arrangement once before. That time his sergeant had beat him to the door. Before Byrne could warn him, the older man shouldered his way into the booby-trapped shed. The explosion had killed him instantly.
Now Byrne gently angled the knife blade and then two fingers through the crack and slowly sawed at the wire, supporting it with his fingers to avoid putting pressure on whatever it was attached to. He held his breath. Sweat dribbled beneath his shirt, pooling at the base of his spine, chilling the flesh in a spot the size of a silver dollar.
At first he worried the knife might only be sliding over the wire, doing no real work. But at last the strand divided. Standing back in the hallway, as far away from the door as possible, Byrne lifted one boot and eased open the door with his toe.
The hinge creaked but made no louder complaint. He breathed again.
When he walked in he left the door ajar behind him. The single window in the combined sitting and bedroom was closed but unlatched—Clark’s means of escape after setting the booby trap.
The room was not what he’d expected of a highly organized man. No clothing remained in the freestanding cupboard, but two flannel shirts and several pairs of socks in need of darning lay on the floor. The mattress had been slit open and sagged in a deflated lump off the bed frame. A mirror that had hung on the wall, as evidenced by the less faded rectangle of wallpaper, rested with its reverse side to the room, its brown paper backing torn off and hanging in shreds. Books were stacked against one wall on the floor and on top of the dresser. It was as if all that had been deemed important in the room had been hastily removed and all else abandoned.
The landlord would not be pleased.