Page 89 of A Ruse of Shadows
“Oh, how did Moriarty obtain the hydrochloric acid then? How did he even think to employ such a method?”
“He didn’t. The plan was of my design.”
“I had no idea you were an expert in industrial chemistry. One moment, did you happen to come across the article in the April issue ofCornhill Magazine?”
“How did you—” Lord Bancroft’s voice had turned sharp. And then his tone relaxed. “Of course, you read everything.”
“I must admit, I thought it an interesting article, but nothing else,” said Charlotte evenly, happy to play the role of a woman who was a little cleverer than the rest of her sex but posed no threat to the cerebral powerhouse that was Lord Bancroft Ashburton.
She felt no need to let him know that the copy ofCornhillthat he had read was part of a minuscule print run carried out especially for his benefit, with the insertion of an article on hydrochloric acid that did not appear anywhere else. The laboratory mentioned in the article, located in the Berkshire countryside, had been supplied with the massively corrosive substance by none other than Miss Longstead, who had written Charlotte the moment two of the four bottles especially placed there had been pilfered.
“I still maintain, however,” continued Charlotte, “that I could have helped you better, had you been able to see that.”
“No, Charlotte Holmes. You were never any help to anyone. You make people’s lives more dangerous, more complicated. I would be doing everyone a favor—”
He pointed the revolver in his left hand at her.
“I won’t let you hurt her!” cried Lord Ingram.
But he could not move closer to Charlotte. His brother raised the revolver in his right hand, too, aimed at him. In the clearing beforethe ruined abbey, there was nothing to hide behind. The sun, minutes from rising, provided enough illumination for an expert marksman such as Lord Bancroft.
“And how will you protect her?” he scoffed. “With your broad, manly chest against the firepower of two revolvers? Don’t be a fool, Ash. Stay where you are.”
Instinctively Charlotte reached into her pocket, but her derringer had already been confiscated by Lord Bancroft outside the walls of Ravensmere. She swallowed. “You may hold overwhelming firepower, but you’re still outnumbered, my lord.”
“By those standing too far to tackle me in any significant manner before I fill them with lead? Pathetic.”
She reasoned with him. “But who else will help you get to where you want to go?”
“Your horse and carriage are still here—I can drive myself. Then again, I need not shoot everyone. I can kill you and still retain compliance from the rest, unless you forget that your sister is still in the hands of my men.”
She had never considered him a good enough man not to use her sister against her. All the same, she had hoped that Bernadine would be left alone.
The suffering of others meant nothing to him.
“Right, my sister,” she said, her voice turning cold. “Let’s set aside your most recent pronouncement that I could not coordinate something as intricate as your unauthorized release from Ravensmere. Instead, let’s go back to an earlier moment, when you accused me of having obstructed Mr. de Lacey’s arrival by nefarious means. Why would you think, my lord, that someone who can throw de Lacey’s night into disarray would find it particularly difficult to liberate a house guarded by all of four mercenaries?”
Aix-en-Provence, France
More than anything else, Konstantin Meier wished to impress Mr. Baxter.
Tonight was to be his chance. He’d got rid of the stupid Frenchman who had been appointed to oversee things in Aix—nobody would know that the mandidn’tdie in a drunken brawl. Nothing else stood in the way of Konstantin Meier taking all the credit for the success of the operation.
After all, the entire thing was as simple as could be.
He had a man in the house on the Cours Mirabeau, and there were those who wished to rescue this man. They moved into the house diagonally across weeks ago and had been busy as ants, making preparations.
And counting down.
They’d lobbed pinecones at the house, one fewer pinecone each day. They’d run small notices in the papers, both local and Parisian, the coded number featured in the adverts decreasing likewise. And this morning—yesterday morning, given that it was now well past midnight—the small notice had simply said,Tonight.
So tonight Konstantin Meier had invited the localchef policierand a half dozen of his men. For them, he had laid out an enormous spread of cheese, sausage, bread, and fruits, along with five whole tarts from a nearby bakery.
But with almost all the food gone, and the flow of wine stopped after each man had had a few glasses, the Provençal policemen had grown impatient.
“Are you sure that there are criminals intending to steal from you?”
Konstantin Meier smiled carefully. “Would I be wasting your time and my money if that isn’t the case?”
