Page 98 of A Ruse of Shadows
“So you didn’t know about the wine cellar until then?” Livia posed her first question.
“No. But ever since I learned of the dungeon, I’d mulled over digging a tunnel underneath to free Mr. Marbleton. De Lacey still looked in on the cells daily, which made the wine cellar a better spot than anywhere else in the subbasement—even better that a part of it was already under a tarp.
“But that would have been the plan that did the least. We would have put in significant time and treasure, and Moriarty would lose a few prisoners. A few important prisoners, yes, but Moriarty would have been in essentially the same position as before, stung a bit but not materially weakened.”
Charlotte glanced at Livia. “I was willing to expend significant time and treasure for Mr. Marbleton. But how best to achieve maximum yield while subjecting everyone on our side to as few dangers as possible?
“By mid-April we’d confirmed Mr. Marbleton’s location, and that of the existence of the cellar. A week later came intelligence that Moriarty had moved Mr. Marbleton to a house he owned in Aix-en-Provence. After we double-checked with Lady Ingram and made sure that Mr. Marbleton was still in London, in the subbasement of De Lacey Industries’ headquarters, it became obvious that Moriarty was setting a trap for someone, likely me, even though at the time I had not surfaced yet.”
Livia’s heart thudded, remembering the lovely house she had passed by so many times on the Cours Mirabeau, always peering up with hope.
No effort had been spared in the pretense that they’d pinned all their hope and energy there—the house hired by Lieutenant Atwoodand his crew, the excavation equipment, the pinecones and the small notices, Miss Redmayne’s visit, and last but not least, Livia’s daily walks up and down that thoroughfare.
Mrs. Watson harrumphed. “Instead of dirtying his own hands, Moriarty wanted us to commit the crime of breaking and entering, and for French law enforcement to mete out punishment. What he didn’t know was that the same idea also occurred to us.”
“Quite right,” said Charlotte. “Early in April, Lord Ingram brought me an offer from Lord Remington—the reason I was on the RMSProvence. If I succeeded in retrieving a particular dossier, Lord Remington would offer me his protection. But by that time, I was beginning to have an idea of the scale of the operations required to achieve everything I wanted from Mr. Marbleton’s rescue. What I needed was more personnel. So I bargained for that in addition.
“Also, once I tallied up everything I planned to do, it became apparent that I could not finance it on my own. I could borrow from Lord Ingram, but what would be the fun in that? There was, however, a source of funding sitting right there if only I could get to it: Lord Bancroft’s ill-begotten gains.”
Livia sucked in a breath. Charlotte’s audacity was making her light-headed.
“Lord Bancroft, though confined, remained a piece on the board. It was a certainty he wanted out of Ravensmere. It was another certainty that Moriarty would have already contacted him, hoping to make him a minion. The only uncertainty was when they would strike that agreement, which I needed to know if I was to properly account for Lord Bancroft’s part in the game.
“I performed an experiment. I asked Miss Longstead to write an article about hydrochloric acid. Then I had a special print run done of a magazine Lord Ingram had seen in Lord Bancroft’s rooms at Ravensmere, with the insertion of the article.
“This would help Lord Bancroft formulate a straightforward plan that required relatively little assistance from Moriarty, which would give him a stronger bargaining position. And, of course, to give himselfan even stronger bargaining position, he would likely propose to help Moriarty get rid of me.”
Miss Redmayne’s jaw fell. “So everything Lord Bancroft did was what you wanted him to do?”
Mrs. Watson shook her head. “Miss Charlotte simply made it easier for him to do whathewanted to do.”
Either way, Livia’s head spun.
Charlotte used her bread to mop up the remainder of her soup, which Miss Redmayne had told them was perfectly acceptable in France. “But at this point things didn’t go as I’d hoped. I’d thought that once Moriarty failed to catch me in Aix-en-Provenceandsaw that Mr. Marbleton had been freed,thenhe’d retaliate by having Lord Bancroft spring another trap for me. But once I received Lord Bancroft’s first note, I realized that Moriarty meant to deploy Lord Bancroft at thesame time, probably because if his plans for Aix-en-Provence succeeded, I would be in a French jail, rather than dead. And also, with me out of the way in England, he might catch more of the people who worked with me.
“This presented problems. It was challenging enough coordinating activities around De Lacey Industries’ headquarters and the house in Aix-en-Provence. It would be even more strenuous if I had to do a song and dance for Lord Bancroft at the same time.
“We had to make things happen at our pace, rather than his. That’s why we decided that Lord Ingram would pretend to break his limb, so that I would be back in England at a time of my choosing. Then came something else I didn’t anticipate: I hadthoughtof the possibility someone would take Bernadine hostage, but I hadn’tpreparedfor it as I ought to have.
“Yet in the end, the mercenaries in this house did not complicate things too much. In fact, their presence allowed me to dictate the timing of Lord Bancroft’s jailbreaking. Miss Redmayne knows all about it.”
“That’s right.” Miss Redmayne beamed. “I smuggled in some chickenblood. Mademoiselle Robineau smeared it on Bernadine and made it seem like she was vomiting blood and suffering from a health crisis. There was a hullabaloo. The mercenaries panicked. They kicked young Fontainebleu out and refused to let me in the next time I came—which gave me a reason to send an urgent telegram to London.”
“And which gavemea reason to leave London,” said Charlotte. “Which, if you’re Lord Bancroft, you would not want me to do because to his thinking, I might learn while I was in France that a great many of my cohorts had been arrested in Aix-en-Provence, which would make me unlikely to return to England to do his bidding, which would make his bargain with Moriarty more difficult.”
“IthinkI understand most everything,” said Livia slowly. “You schemed for everything to happen on the same night, so that Moriarty and Lord Bancroft would not know, until it was too late, that any single piece of their combined plan had suffered a fatal setback. The deliriants Fontainebleu delivered here helped to get rid of the mercenaries. In Aix-en-Provence we made it seem that we had designs on the counterfeit Mr. Marbleton, to keep Moriarty’s minions’ attention focused squarely there, when everything significant would instead take place in or around London.”
“That’s more or less what happened,” said Charlotte. “You understand everything.”
Mrs. Watson adjusted the stems of brilliant sunflowers in a blue vase near her. “Come to think of it, I’m still not quite sure why the counterfeit Mrs. Claiborne died—or why she was going to Mumble’s and Jessie’s places of employment and all that.”
Charlotte served herself some gratinéed leek. “The poor woman. I learned from Inspector Treadles later that all the items inside her recovered valise had been marked with either the real Mrs. Claiborne’s name or her initials. She was probably going to leave everything behind in that farmhouse and ‘disappear,’ not realizing that Lord Bancroft intended to toss a body my way because too much smoke and mirrors would have made me suspicious. And her killerhad sunk the valise in a fishpond on the property, because had Mrs. Claiborne truly been on the run, she would not have taken so many things that betrayed her identity.
“As for why she did what she did to call attention to Mumble and Jessie, that was remarkably good strategy on Lord Bancroft’s part. Mrs. Farr might not know who had killed her sister, but Lord Bancroft knew very well that I did. He trusted that I would discover the connection between the boxers and Mrs. Farr and suspect Mrs. Farr for Mr. Underwood’s disappearance—which, again, would have legitimized Lord Bancroft’s ‘problem.’ ”
Miss Redmayne raised her hand. “I want to know about Fontainebleu. Is he one of Lord Remington’s agents?”
Livia was also curious—she’d heard a good bit about young Fontainebleu, not only from Miss Redmayne but also from the staff.
