Page 3 of A Fearless Heart
A young woman stood there, with ash-blonde hair pulled up in a careless bun. Rather than a high-waisted gown popular at the time, she wore a white shirtwaist and a black wool skirt that was so long it brushed the wooden floors. She regarded him with a critical eye, then said, “Well. If we’d known you had to dig your way out of a grave to get here, we could have delayed the meeting.”
“Do I look that terrible, Miss Chattan?”
“Frankly, yes.” She stepped aside and gestured for him to enter, then locked the door behind him. This business did not care for uninvited guests. “Aries is in his office. Go on in.”
Gabe nodded. As far as he could tell, Aries was always in his office, for Circle Imports was the front for an organization of spies known as the Zodiac. The group was under the jurisdiction of the British government (an obscure branch, to be sure—so obscure that Gabe didn’t know which branch it was, or whether the other people working there even knew that the Zodiac existed).
At any one time, there were twelve active agents, headed by Aries—Aries being the first sign of the Zodiac. Aries reported to the Astronomer, who was the true head of the organization. What he or she did with all the information the agents gathered Gabe could only guess. He’d never met the Astronomer, and he never would. Clandestine agencies thrived on mystery. In fact, Gabe had only met three other Signs in the course of his whole career.
One of those Signs was Julian Neville, the man codenamed Aries. He worked at all hours, like a spider at the center of a web, pulling this string and that string, gathering signals and weaving a complex pattern to discern what the spies of Europe were plotting next.
When Gabe pulled out a chair and sat down with a little huff of relief, Aries smiled at him briefly. “Capricorn, you’re alive. Well, that’s something.”
“That last assignment was a little difficult,” Gabe admitted. “I’d hoped for a bit of a breather.”
“I wish I could oblige you. However.” Julian slid a sheet of paper across the desk.
Gabe picked it up, reading a list of names:
Sir Michael Montgomery
John Worthham
Wilfred Cawson, Baron Murol
Charles Tompsett
Lewelleyn Parrish
He frowned, matching the names to vague memories of reading news reports over the last few months. “Some of these men are dead.”
“All of them are dead,” Julian clarified. “The most recent died this week, which is why you probably didn’t hear about it. News takes a while to get over to the Continent. And you have been busy.”
“What’s the connection?” Gabe asked, still processing the names.
“That is what I’d kill to find out. They’re all men in positions of importance, whether in government or business or merely by the fact of their lineage. All believed to be very healthy, and with no hint of any physical problems that might turn serious. Yet they have all died. And not by accident or misadventure. They go to sleep…and they never wake up.”
Gabe shook his head. “Impossible.”
“Precisely. This isn’t a coincidence. They were killed.”
At that moment, Chattan stepped up to the desk, placing a cup of strong, hot tea at Gabe’s right hand.
“Bless you,” he murmured, taking the cup and immediately drinking it down. Chattan nodded and sat down on a chair at the side of the desk, halfway between the men.
When he finished (Chattan made excellent tea), Gabe tapped the paper on the desk, picking up his line of thought. “There must have been inquests to determine the cause of death, especially if the men were important figures, and the deaths so unexpected.”
“Naturally, there were inquests, and in most cases a doctor examined the body. Not all, of course. Sometimes the families wouldn’t permit it, and these are not families you’d want to cross.”
“Of the bodies that were examined, what were the conclusions?”
“In each case, death was swift. No signs of struggle, and no one who was nearby the victims recalls a cry for help. As far as the doctors could tell, the victim’s heart just…stopped.”
“Poison?” Gabe asked.
“It would seem,” Julian agreed. “However, most poisons leave traces. Doctors can perform tests to detect chemicals left behind in a drinking glass, or find out what food was eaten. The bodies usually reveal the presence of poison by a peculiar smell, or discoloration in the skin. But in these cases, there’s been nothing. We have a doctor working to develop another test, but it will take time.”
Gabe frowned. “If there’s nothing to find, then how do we know they’re all connected?”
