The Traitor And The Tunnel Part 18

Mary wondered. Beaulieu-Buckworth may wel have been weak in every sense of the word, but a man in a drug-fuel ed rage could be superhumanly strong. There was a reason insane asylums kept burly warders to hand, and iron rings embedded in their wal s. She looked again at Lang's hands, which had fal en to his lap, palms upturned. What she saw made her gorge rise: a long, wide, dark gash that began mid-palm and extended across his first two fingers. It was a dark, suppurating mess a rank note in the fetid fragrance of this dank room and despite her long experience of filth and stench, she recoiled. When she could speak, she said, "When did you injure yourself?"

Lang blinked, looked blank. The shivering was beginning again and he said, in a half-pleading, half-scolding tone, "I need more."

"I haven't got any more."

"More."

"Answer my question, then: what happened to your hand?"

He was silent for a minute sulking. Then, "He had a knife."

Mary's scalp tingled. "The second young man attacked you with a knife. How did you get it away from him?"

He col apsed into himself, a sudden deflation. "He was weak. I took the knife."

She already knew the answer, but had to ask.

"And then-"

"I stabbed him. I stabbed him until he stopped flopping. Until he wasn't." He sighed, re-settled himself as though for sleep. "Laudanum."

She hadn't any more. What would he say when she told him? Would he fly into a rage, beat her to a pulp as he had Beaulieu-Buckworth? At this point, looking at the stinking, dishevel ed form of the father she'd so long worshipped, she almost didn't care.

A clomping of boots saved her. A moment later, the guard's long face appeared. "That's your quarter-hour and then some, miss."

"You've been very kind," said Mary. She looked down at the matted head. "Mr Lang, I shal cal again."

For answer, the skeleton on the bed lay down once more and pul ed the coa.r.s.e blanket over its head. It was neither more nor less than she expected.

"He needs a physician," she said to the turnkey as he locked the cel . "As quickly as possible."

The gaoler looked dubious. "I'l ask the warden."

"Have you seen that filthy cut on his hand?" asked Mary. "Tel the warden to take a look. It needs to be seen to, if you want the prisoner to survive his trial."

"I'l tel him," said the gaoler, without much conviction.

"If it's a question of money," said Mary, "our charity wil pay." Perhaps that offer was too far out of character, but the guard seemed not to notice.

"I'l tel him," he repeated, in a tone that bordered now on irritation.

There was nothing else to be said. Mary had found her father at last: Lascar. Drug addict.

Murderer. And as she fol owed the gaoler down the stairs and out of the Tower, she discovered that the opium's numbing effect seemed to have affected her, too.

For the better, she thought.

Twenty-one.

Mary walked back to the Palace at a brisk pace, deaf and blind to the world about her but feeling otherwise her usual self or perhaps merely frozen.

It was impossible to comprehend the ful import of what she'd just seen and heard. At some point, she would have to think it through. Perhaps. But for now, it was enough to know a few basic facts: Lang Jin Hai had admitted kil ing Ralph Beaulieu-Buckworth.

Lang Jin Hai had acted in a drug-induced frenzy, without conscious intent. Lang Jin Hai had not produced the knife.

No matter who might plead for him, it was a poor defence. Lang would stil pay for the murder of a young aristocrat. But a defence of temporary insanity was infinitely better than no defence at al . Mary wondered about Queen Victoria's devotion to truth and how far it might extend. Could she conceive of justice for a foreign-born opium addict? Or did her sense of fair play begin and end with respectable English subjects?

There was, too, the problem of Honoria Dalrymple. Her biases, at least, were perfectly clear.

She wanted to whiten the reputation of her ne'er-do-wel relation at any price even the sacrifice of an innocent parlour-maid. She would never tolerate any suggestion that Lang had not murdered Beaulieu-Buckworth in cold blood.

Final y, there was the difficulty of what would happen to Lang if, by some miracle, he failed to hang for the kil ing of Beaulieu-Buckworth. They no longer transported convicts to Australia. But for a man so old and frail, imprisonment on a prison hulk a ship permanently moored along the coast, packed tight with the most desperate convicts was stil tantamount to death. Mary thought of that festering wound in his palm: four days Lang had been imprisoned at the Tower, and he'd received no treatment. Such justice was no justice at al .

She was so deeply immersed in her thoughts that the gentleman might have been fol owing her for any amount of time. She realized this only when he final y presented himself before her and made a sarcastic bow. "My dear Miss Quinn."

"Mr Jones." She was too startled for disdain.

"How charming to meet you in the afternoon, when you must normal y be so very busy catering to Her Majesty's every whim."

The urge to slap him grew with every encounter.

"What is it you want, Mr Jones?"

"Why must you always a.s.sume I want something of you? How very vulgar." This was typical Jonesian nonsense, but there was something forced about his performance today.

She stopped in the street. "Out with it."

"Wouldn't you like to go somewhere more comfortable?" One look at her expression, however, and he sighed. "Fine. Er ... it's about Amy."

"I a.s.sumed that much."

"Oh. Wel , then. It's like this." As he spoke, Jones kept glancing over his shoulder in a hunted fashion.

"She, er, seems to have certain expectations of me.

Now that she's been sacked, she thinks the logical thing to do would be for me to, er, step in, as it were."

"That's rational enough: you are courting."

Jones's eyes bulged and he yelped, right there in the middle of the Strand. "No, no that's precisely where the confusion started! Why, d'you real y imagine I'd be courting a domestic servant?"

Mary tilted her head to one side. "Amy certainly believed it."

"d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n! Can't you see, Mary?"

"Miss Quinn."

"I beg your pardon: Miss Quinn." Jones took a few steadying breaths. "I realize that Amy may have been under the impression that my intentions were serious. But surely a lady like you an educated woman, a journalist, a woman of the world understands just how preposterous her expectations are. It could never be. It would be a an inappropriate mixing of entirely mismatched parties!"

"Not merely a personal disaster, but a social one,"

said Mary.

Jones seemed not to notice her tone. "Precisely!

Like the Prince of Wales eloping with a barmaid the mind boggles! You understand me!"

"Oh, I understand you perfectly, Mr Jones."

"Then you'l help me: only a woman could persuade Amy that her expectations are absurd."

"I thought you were the persuasive one."

"The stubborn little a.s.s won't listen!"

"But if her expectations are so absurd, why did you consummate the relationship?"

Jones hesitated. "Oh. That. Wel , she was just so d.a.m.n keen, y'know. It felt ungentlemanly to refuse."

"I don't believe that for a moment. I was the one who told you of the plan. That would have been the time to decline."

"You have me there." A sheepish grin crept onto his face and he did his best to look appealing.

"Come now, Miss Quinn I'm a healthy, vigorous man in his prime. D'you real y expect me to refuse such a brazen offer? I a.s.sure you, Amy enjoyed herself just as much as I did."

"That is entirely beside the point, Mr Jones. You consider yourself a man of the world. How could you not understand what such an invitation meant?"

He looked sulky. "I thought you understood me."

"I do; it doesn't mean I agree with you."

"So you won't help me." He made an angry, chopping gesture. "d.a.m.n it, I won't be caught this way. Look, if you can't persuade Amy that it was al in good fun but I'm not the man for her, you'l regret it."

Ah. The real Octavius Jones showed himself at last. "An impotent threat, Mr Jones. Are you real y so desperate?"

"I could tel the housekeeper what you're real y up to."

Mary pretended to consider. "You could, I suppose. a.s.suming she'd believe a word of it. And providing you could get to her before I did."

"What d'you mean?"

"Al I need do is go back to the Palace and explain to her why you pretended to court Amy. I'm sure she'd be fascinated to know that a scandal-seeking journalist was attempting to prise secrets out of a Palace domestic." She paused. "However clumsily it was attempted." Twin spots of colour appeared in Jones's cheeks, but she didn't relent. "As for the breach-of-promise suit, it would be easy to find witnesses. Al the female servants saw your Valentine, and I was party to your seduction of the sheltered, innocent Miss Tranter. I expect there's even the evidence of the bed-sheets... D'you know, Jones, I can't think of a jury who wouldn't sympathize with poor Amy."

With visible effort, he mastered his temper. It was a minute before he could speak, however, and when he did his voice was hoa.r.s.e. "You're a reasonable woman, Miss Quinn. D'you think I'd make a good husband?"

"Of course not. But that's hardly the point. Amy would get substantial damages from a breach-of-promise settlement. Certainly enough to live on until she found new work."

"Then I may as wel pay her off directly. Cut out the middle man, so to speak."

His attempt to sound jovial was utterly unconvincing. Mary smiled pleasantly. "Then why are you badgering me?"

"Oh, hang it al !" he cried. Again, it was a rare and unnerving example of real emotion cracking his polished facade. "I'm sick to b.l.o.o.d.y death of her! I never want to see her face again. Have some compa.s.sion, Miss Quinn, I beg of you."

Ah now they were getting somewhere. She folded her arms. "Then make me an offer."

He glared at her, al attempts at charm abandoned. "Five guineas."

She almost laughed. "For Amy, certainly. But I don't want your money."

"What, then?"

"Information, of course: what you hoped to learn from Amy." She daren't be more direct. The thefts had been so wel covered up that he'd be suspicious if she revealed knowledge of them.

"And in return, you'l cal off the b-"

"In return," interrupted Mary, "I'l do my best to persuade Amy that marrying you is not in her best interests and that she's better off accepting five guineas for her disappointment and suffering. I'l need a cheque, by the way."

"And if you fail, and she sues me for breach of promise?"

"She won't. But if she does, I won't testify on her behalf."

"That's al very wel , but I need a bit more rea.s.surance than that."

Mary shrugged. "I've never lied to you. That's more than you can say for yourself."

It was a measure of Jones's desperation that he held out for only half a minute; Amy must have been effective indeed, when she ran him to earth. "Fine.

It's not very juicy, anyway: there's some sort of scandal hanging about the Prince of Wales."

"Not those preposterous rumours about the death of Ralph Beaulieu-Buckworth, I hope," said Mary with feigned impatience.

"What d'you take me for?" snapped Jones. "Of course not. I've been working on Amy since early January much too long to be distracted by that sort of half-baked gossip. No, this is something much more likely: a royal romance." He caught Mary's look of disbelief. "He mayn't seem very appealing to you, but he's stil the heir to the throne. There've been a couple of sightings the Prince coming down to town at unusual times. A few letters sent. A morning ride in the park, after which the Prince disappears for an hour or so."

"Who's the lady?"

Jones shook his head. "Not quite certain. It's a family of four sisters, al between sixteen and twenty-two. Name of Hacken."

"What a peculiar name."

Jones's mouth twitched. "Wel , they're not haut ton, or whatever's left of it; otherwise it'd have a more euphonious p.r.o.nunciation. Hacken pere's a jewel er. Done rather wel for himself: big freehold pile in Mortlake, carriage and pair and al that. The older girls work in the shop. I expect that's how he met them. They're not exactly diamonds of the first water themselves " Jones smirked at his own pun "but I suppose they're fresh and just pretty enough.

And from what Amy says of the Prince, he's a foolish pup. Probably he thinks he's having a grand romantic adventure, thinking and doing things n.o.body's ever thought or done before."