Page 99 of Lady Gambit
Unable to settle, she retrieved the pistol from under her pillow and placed it on the nightstand. Lewd sounds emanated from the room next door. The earlier argument was now acatalogue of deep groans, incessant banging and the occasional high-pitched squeal.
“This place is the devil’s haunt,” she uttered.
“You should have stayed at the Pulteney,” came the ghostly whispers of a masculine voice from somewhere deep in the gloom. “They have a better clientele.”
Her heart stopped for a beat or more.
Someone was in her room.
Yet she had sat watching the door for hours.
“W-who’s there?”
“A faceless man has no name, Caterina.”
The pulse of fear in her throat became a pounding drum. She squinted, gazing into the far corner of the room. Perhaps her addled mind was playing tricks because it looked like the wall was opening up and a demon was climbing out of the eaves.
She might have darted for the door, but Gerald Bertram rose before her, wearing a wicked grin and brandishing a pistol.
She gulped, unable to move or form a word.
“It’s been many years since I hid in this room.” He prowled towards her, the dim candlelight casting ominous shadows over his face. “Your mother thought she had escaped me. Though I admit, I was convinced you were here with her.” He breathed a strange sigh. “She died because she refused to tell me where you were.”
Anger rose like a tempest inside her. “You would have killed my mother either way. Had I agreed to carry the basket onto the Queen’s barge, you would have killed us all when the deed was done.”
Mr Bertram came to a halt at the end of the bed. “I cannot argue with that. Once I’m done here, I shall have no choice but to dispose of the men you’ve trusted. Starting with a terrible fire at Fortune’s Den. When Flynn dies in a blaze at the Old Swan, London will mourn the loss of one of its oldest taverns.”
The thought of losing everyone she loved might have cleaved her soul in two. But this fiend thought he was clever. He was not, or he would know of Dorian’s Mile End abode.
Emboldened and keen to wipe the smirk from his face, she said, “Vengeance has been your constant companion all these years. It’s been mine, too, though I’ve been blissfully unaware of it until now. Still, you’ve underestimated my family. You won’t escape this place alive. And if you do, know I’ve written to Thomas Erskine of the King’s Counsel, informing him of your plot to kill the King’s mother during the Jubilee.”
Unperturbed by the threat, Mr Bertram laughed.
“Who am I?” he said. “No one.”
Those words had echoed in her mind many times over the years. No matter how hard she tried, the answer never came to her. Yet now, it was like a locked door in the corridor had creaked slowly open, inviting her to peer inside.
“I can disappear into the mist, and no one will ever find me.” He stroked his thick side whiskers. “You’d be surprised how different a man looks when he’s clean-shaven, not that you will need to concern yourself with that thought again. Once Meldrum knocks on that door, you’ll both meet your maker.”
Though the threat left every muscle in her body stiff, she had to edge closer to the nightstand and retrieve her pistol.
If only there was a way to unsettle Mr Bertram.
When your life’s on the line, you remember what I told you.
Mrs Haggert’s comment seemed pertinent now.
Oddly, she didn’t have to look beyond the door in the corridor to know what secrets lay inside the room.
“You’re Samuel Stern. You’re wanted in connection with other murders.” So many confusing names and facts filled her head, but she was compelled to reveal them. “You killed the Comte de Croze and his wife on British soil two years before the Jubilee. Their servant was hanged for the crime.”
All colour drained from the man’s face.
The slight tremor in his hand said she had hit the mark.
“It was thought Napoleon ordered their execution.” How she knew proved baffling, but the information poured from her mouth like water from a fountain. “They were killed with an unusual dagger you purchased from Mason & Sons on Ludgate Hill. Indeed, your sister lives in Warwick Square, a short distance from here.”
The man’s temper erupted. “So you were there that night, listening at the door like a filthy little mouse.”
