A Spark Unseen (30 page)

Henri remained silent.

“I know I am right,” he continued, “because those were the instructions I followed for over a year. Until the day I arranged my meeting, and Wickersham didn’t come. My information could not wait. It was so important, in fact, that I boxed up a silver service and took it to the embassy, said it was to be an imperial gift, that the order was late and that I’d been instructed to put it directly into Mr. Wickersham’s hands. In short, I made such a nuisance of myself that they showed me to Wickersham’s office. Only the office didn’t belong to Wickersham.” Lane spoke directly into Henri’s gaze. “It was Ambassador Cowley’s office. Wickersham was his secretary, unexpectedly sent to London for a few days. And the man Johnson, our contact? Always taking down Wickersham’s notes? Wickersham’s valet.”

He paused, letting the words sink in. I shook my head in confusion, and he reached up to find one of my hands, absently rubbing a thumb across the back of it. Henri stared.

“It explained a good deal,” Lane said. “Like why we were not allowed to take Ben Aldridge, only watch, even when I told Wickersham what he was buying and what I was sure he was building. And why the British government didn’t just come and take Mr. Tully in the first place. And why, the very next day after Wickersham returned from London, I began an annoying routine of having bullets whizz past my ears.”

I tightened my grip on Lane’s hand.

“My trip to the embassy was unappreciated. A new residence seemed wise. And why would that be, do you think, if all of these doings had the blessing of the ambassador? Wickersham is making a play for power, or position, or both. Or he’s working for someone else. Russia, maybe … Who knows who he’s dealing with, or who he might be double-dealing with? Anyone who wants the weapon for themselves or wants to keep someone else from getting it. I found Wickersham’s rooms. I searched them, and Johnson’s. I even watched him meet with you. …”

That surprised Henri, I saw.

“But he is careful, and in the end all I knew was the one government he was not working for, and that was the British. He played us all for fools. I don’t enjoy being played for a fool. Do you?”

A heavy silence filled the attic, the sound of truth settling in. I thought of Wickersham’s brash behavior in my morning room, his ungentlemanly overconfidence. I’d never once thought to question his credentials. I realized that Lane and Henri were now staring at each other, like two dogs circling, Lane’s thumb very deliberately tracing the veins of my hand.

“Oh, stop it,” I said, jerking my hand away. “Both of you.” I saw Henri’s brows go up at that. “I don’t care who Mr. Wickersham is at the moment. How do we get Uncle Tully back?”

Instead of answering, Henri asked suddenly, “What is the weapon?”

Lane and I glanced at each other before his gaze slid back to Henri.

“Listen to me.” Henri’s voice was grave. “I do not know this man, this Mr. Tulman, except for what Wickersham has said, that he was a lunatic caged and badly treated by his niece. I can see this lie, and I can see that you are not lying to me now,
mon ami
.” This last had been to Lane. “And as for the so-called emperor of France, I think we can find agreement, there, yes?”

Lane did not answer, but the gray eyes held Henri’s brown for some time.

“What is the weapon?” Henri asked again.

Lane glanced at Joseph and Jean-Baptiste, still standing ready, and then again looked at me. I gave him one tiny tilt of my head. He turned back to Henri. “It will sink an ironclad ship.”

“You are certain of this?”

“Quite certain,” I said. I saw him eyeing the discarded brass wheel I had snatched from him earlier, now sitting on the righted workbench beside us. I didn’t need to explain the importance of such a weapon to him.

“Your uncle,” Henri said, “he made the bells ring?”

I saw Lane’s brows go up. “Yes,” I replied.

“And he can make this weapon, to sink an iron ship?”

“Yes.”

Henri turned to Lane. “Then I have three questions, my friend.”

Lane smiled. Henri was, after all, tied to a chair. “Ask your questions.”

“Why did you not leave Paris when your life was attempted? Where have you been these past days, and what was so urgent to tell Wickersham?”

I watched Lane, to see if he would answer. These were all things I wanted to know, too. Lane shrugged, much as Henri had against his ropes. “I don’t mind telling you. I did not leave Paris because Ben Aldridge and I have unfinished business between us, business that has nothing to do with Wickersham. Even more so now. And as for where I’ve been, I was underground. Beneath a crypt in what I think was a wine cellar.”

“Ben must have been keeping you for Uncle Tully,” I said, suddenly putting this together, “to have you there, so Uncle Tully would work.” Which meant Ben would have never traded Lane for my uncle. “How did …”

I paused. Lane had straightened, his lazy stance in the chair gone. Jean-Baptiste slid up the wall to his feet. “You said Ben Aldridge was at Stranwyne, trying to take Mr. Tully. You mean he came himself? Into the house?”

“Yes. But they went to the wrong door. It’s been so long, he must have forgotten which was the —”

“Which wrong door?” Now Lane had gone absolutely still. “Was he in your bedroom?” I reached down and took his hand back in mine. He let me, but his eyes did not move from my face. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the scar on my neck.

“I am not hurt,” I said. “I —”

“This is most interesting,” said Henri, breaking into our conversation, “but perhaps you can continue your little quarrel at another time? I would like the answer to my last question.”

The gray eyes were back on Henri now, and there was a storm in them.

“What was your information that could not wait?” Henri insisted.

“I think I know what you went to tell Wickersham,” I said, pulling Lane’s gaze back to me. “You went to tell him that Ben Aldridge is the son of Napoléon the Third.”

Lane waited a moment before he nodded.

“Ah,” Henri said. “Then I am sorry for him. That is an unfortunate dealing of the cards.” He glanced very deliberately at my hand, pale in Lane’s tan one, the impertinent grin lurking once again at the corners of his mouth. “Would you not agree,
chérie
?”

I only just kept from rolling my eyes as Lane’s grip strengthened, his thumb beginning another slow trace of the veins in my hand.

“Yes,” Lane said. “That is very unlucky. For him.” These words had nothing to do with Ben Aldridge’s origins. Lane smiled, the wicked one I remembered of old, and Henri smiled back. Two knowing smiles that might have erupted into a fight if one of them had not been tied to a chair.

“Just stop it!” I snapped, pulling away my hand. “I don’t care what you two think of each other, or who Ben’s father is, any more than I care about Mr. Wickersham at the moment. We have to get Uncle Tully back! Lane, where were you when you got out of the cellar?”

Henri cut off Lane’s answer. “It was the Saint-Merri, was it not?”

Lane tilted his head in agreement.

“So I thought. You must take me there with you.”

Lane smiled again. “And why should I do that?”

“Because I know where the man you call Aldridge goes underground. I know where he had you. And … I know the back way in.”

The skepticism in the room could have been cut with the knife of Jean-Baptiste. Henri tried to lean forward, straining against his bonds.

“You must listen. It is where he has taken him. There is nowhere else. And they will be watching the Saint-Merri now that you are gone,
mon ami
.”

Lane stared hard at Henri.

“You will need the back way in.”

Lane sought my face and I saw the question there. He did not want to trust Henri, but he was afraid we might have to.

“Why?” I asked Henri. “Why help us bring him back?”

There was no tease in his voice when he replied, “Because if all that you say is so, Miss Tulman, I would not give this weapon to a Bonaparte. We may disagree on many things, but I do not think we disagree on that.” He gave an upward glance to the window. “You will have to decide soon. We must leave before the light or wait for the evening.”

Lane put his elbows on the back of the chair. “I don’t know that I believe there is a back way. But if we go to see, are we clear on who is in charge?”

“Oh, I have always been certain of that,
mon ami
.”

Lane’s brows came down, but Henri again stopped his teasing, his face going serious. “I have no wish to see the old man harmed, but I swear to you, I would not put this weapon in the hands of the emperor.”

The room was quiet, only the ticking of Uncle Tully’s clocks marking the silence. “Untie him,” Lane said to Joseph.

All the impudence I was used to seeing on Henri Marchand’s face returned full force. Before Joseph or his brother could even move he had sighed with relief and slipped his arms from their bonds, wriggling out of the loops around his wrists, stretching happily before reaching down to untie his own legs. He stood, slicking back his hair, and grinned at me.

“It is easy to be fooled by a magician,
chérie
. Do not forget that I like tricks of all sorts.”

“Call her that again and I will hit you twice,” Lane said, matter-of-fact. We all believed him.

Henri smiled as he straightened his sleeves. “What an amusing time we shall have.”

I
met Mary as I was hurrying down the stairs, she having just rid us of two thoroughly confused policemen. Mary and Lane had already renewed their acquaintance while fighting flames in the kitchen, but I watched her large eyes go a bit larger when he came stepping down behind me. I had not realized just how dead she’d thought he was. After a quick explanation of where we were going and the request that she find Lane something to eat, I dashed back up to Marianna’s room to wash the blood off my face, stuff my hair into the red cap, and put on Mr. Babcock’s pants.

When I came down again, Henri had surrounded himself with a new cloud of cigarette smoke in the already sooty foyer, watched carefully by a slouching Joseph, who had his jacket on, his pants tucked into his boots, apparently coming with us. Lane was silently finishing two pieces of bread with some sort of meat in between, his hair dripping. He must have dunked his head in a bucket. He caught sight of me on the stairs, and his expression so mimicked Mary’s first reaction to seeing me in my ridiculous clothing that the comparison might have been comic had the whole situation not been my worst nightmare. I saw Henri’s eyes sparkle.

“Miss Tulman has her own sense of fashion,
mon ami
. Were you not aware?”

I ignored him. I had watched Lane’s face change from incredulous to dubious, and now I was observing the stubborn line of his mouth. That he would think I wasn’t coming had never crossed my mind. I hastened across the foyer to set him straight.

“I’ve no time to argue with you,” I said. “If they’ve given Uncle Tully the contents of that bottle, he is going to wake badly.”

Lane’s scowl deepened. “How badly?”

“The worst I’ve seen. He hurt himself and, Lane, he hasn’t had a glimpse of you in eighteen months.” I could have told him it had been five hundred and sixty-three days. “Uncle Tully is going to need me. You’re going to need me if you want to get him out, and if we’re going to crawl about underground I’ll be of no use to you in petticoats.”

An expression I couldn’t quite fathom passed over his face, and I thought we were about to quarrel the point when a key rattled in the front door. The latch clicked, and then Mrs. DuPont stood looking in at us, swathed in an enormous cloak that was blacker than the paling night behind her. But before I could move or react, both Lane and Mrs. DuPont erupted into a storm of angry French.

I looked to Henri and Joseph, who both seemed as confused as I was, but at one of Lane’s last words, something about money, I suddenly understood. I couldn’t believe the answer had not come to me sooner. I took a step toward Mrs. DuPont. “You sold him! Didn’t you?”

The room went quiet, Mrs. DuPont glancing over the soot stains on the wall before deigning to land her gaze on me. I was so livid I was shaking. How else could Ben have known about the attic room?

“How much did they pay you?” I yelled. “How much?”

Lane took my arm. “That’s not what she’s selling, Katharine,” he said. “Come on.”

Mrs. DuPont’s bone-white mask looked just a bit aggrieved as she nodded once at Lane, carefully closed the front door, and began to move, bat-like, through the smoky foyer, the two of us following close behind. Lane paused to look over his shoulder.

“Not you,” he said, the low voice forceful.

Henri stopped mid-stride, throwing up both hands as if in self-defense, Joseph right behind him with the gun in his hand. We chased after the billowing cloak of Mrs. DuPont, walking fast down the back corridor, the smell of burnt plaster going deep into my nose.

Mrs. DuPont slowed before the door to the kitchen, running her eyes over the charred, wet mess around the stove, then put a key to her door and disappeared inside, leaving it open behind her. I followed Lane into Mrs. DuPont’s lair.

It was a plain room, unadorned, two comfortable chairs and a smaller stool arranged around an iron stove, an open door showing a bed neatly spread in the chamber beyond. But the room was also full of crates and boxes in perfect stacks, some reaching to the ceiling, piles of gunnysacks, and a table that was completely covered in exacting rows of brown and white paper parcels. The place looked like an apothecary, or the storeroom of a dry-goods shop. Lane put out a hand, stilling my questions, his gray gaze on Mrs. DuPont.

“Our agreement?” he said.

Mrs. DuPont turned from the table with the packages and silently held out two folded white parcels. He took them, gingerly prying open one corner to peer inside.