Downtime (37 page)

The policemen exchanged a dubious look, but Botting and Wilton bought the story and stared at Derry in dismay. “America?” Botting repeated. “For how long?”

Derry blew out a considering breath and looked at Kathleen. “How long did he say? A year?”

Kathleen was at her most impassive. “I believe so.”

Botting smoothed his overcoat lapels with poorly disguised irritation. “We were not warned of this possibility….”

I heard the door open behind me, and my heart stilled. Suspicion lit Botting’s eyes, and I jumped in before Ezra could make the fatal error of introducing himself.

“Ah, Professor Meisterburger.” I hailed him with a bow. “Guten Morgen. Sie füehlen sich gut, hoffe ich?”

Ezra had taken in our audience, but if he was frightened, he didn’t show it. “Guten Morgen, Herr Nash.” Reaching my side, he clapped me encouragingly on the shoulder. “We are still going out for that late supper, yes?”

“As promised,” I said, turning him back toward the door.

“Ja, gut. Auf Wiedersehen,” Ezra said with a bright wave as I hustled him past the policemen.

We made it to the door, which opened abruptly to admit Henry, who had sent his regrets to Adelaide and gone to supper with a friend instead. “In trouble again, are we?” he inquired facetiously as he shrugged off his coat. “Or forming a vigilante committee now? Never mind, I don’t think I care to know. Ezra….” He pulled a letter out of his coat pocket and, oblivious to the color draining from Ezra’s face, handed it to him. “This came for you just after you left.” He seemed to finally take notice of how deadly quiet everyone had become. “Perhaps I do care to know?”

“These gentlemen are from Northampton, I believe.” Ezra addressed Botting, who inclined his head even as his gaze narrowed on Ez. “Of course. Only the best madhouse will do. And you have the signatures you need?”

Botting patted his coat pocket, indicating he did. “You are Ezra Glacenbie?”

“I’m surprised Father didn’t provide you a likeness. If we are to go straightaway, will you leave off the restraints? I don’t wish to cause alarm among the Neilans’ neighbors.”

I heard it then, the fear he’d kept a lid on, barely breaching the surface of his calm. I plucked at Derry’s sleeve and meeting anguished brown eyes, whispered, “Take him out through the kitchen and tell him to meet me at Verrey’s.” It was the only restaurant I could recall off-hand. Derry didn’t even hesitate, but jerked his head in vehement agreement.

Botting was rambling on about St. Andrews’ nonrestraint policy in what he probably thought was a reassuring way. I stepped casually in between him and Ezra and gave him a friendly smile. “I do have a question for you, Mr. Botting, if you don’t mind,” I said in the mildest way. “What sort of place are you running, where the doctors agree to commit a man without having met him, let alone having performed any examination of him?”

Botting probably had a snappy answer for that, but I wasn’t waiting to hear it. Derry had grabbed Ezra and they were on the fast track to the back door. The startled cops scrambled to stop them, and I lunged into their path, braced to be knocked off my feet. What I wasn’t braced for was the billy club that slammed against my skull and sent me down flat on my face. Whether Ezra called my name or I imagined it, I couldn’t say for sure. The darkness hit too fast and hard.

When
I woke, I was lying face up with my head in a vise. At least, that’s what it felt like. I knew I hadn’t been out long, unless Kathleen had been crying a while. I looked at the hovering faces and tried to sit up, only to be immediately pushed back by Dr. Gilbride. “I saw the policeman strike you, Mr. Nash. You must have one very hard head, to be conscious so quickly. Nevertheless, I would suggest you lie still.”

A nap was the last thing that interested me. “Derry?”

As he leaned toward me, I could see the answer to my unasked question in his eyes. “He thought they’d killed you.” Derry’s breath hitched. “They had to drag him out, him begging for a minute to make sure you weren’t—” He turned away and Kathleen put an arm around him, her head close to his.

Henry looked stricken, himself—for Henry. “I didn’t know. You must believe I didn’t know. I would never have given him away, no matter what has gone between us.”

I was not up for dealing with Henry’s guilty conscience. Ignoring Dr. Gilbride’s protests, I sat and tried to pull myself together to think clearly. “They’d take him straight to St. Andrews?”

“If the admission papers were in order, yes.” Dr. Gilbride said.

I cradled my aching head in one hand. “So how the hell do we get him out?”

“You will have to go to the court tomorrow,” Kathleen said quietly. “I don’t know that they will hear you or any of us. We haven’t the influence Sir William has.”

I snorted, then winced as pain flared in my head. Sitting back, I switched to rubbing my neck instead. Maybe a little chat with Glacenbie Sr. was in order. “We may have something even better than influence.” I looked up at Kathleen. “Where does Sir William live, do you know?”

She looked to her brother, but Derry appeared as clueless. “Ezra mentioned Mayfair, but I’ve no real notion. Even so, how could we convince him that St. Andrews is no place for Ezra?”

“The Carlton,” Henry interrupted. “Sir William’s club. I’ve been there in the company of Mr. Brooke. He may still be at supper.”

“You can get me in?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Get you in? I’m not a member, Mr. Nash.”

“Fine. Give me the address. I’ll get in on my own.”

Henry’s brows rose another quarter of an inch. “Do you intend to storm the place?”

Derry took the opportunity to stop an argument in the making. “I’ll go with Morgan. The worst they can do is throw us out.”

“The worst they can do is throw Mr. Brooke out,” Henry said. “And both Ezra and I will be out of a job.”

I stood up, gently waving away the three pairs of hands reaching out to help me, and fixed Henry with all the patience in my possession, which wasn’t much. “Apart from your bullshit, Henry, I want you to think about what Ezra puts up with every day. All the requests and demands for help from spirits of people he’s never known and maybe a few he has. All shapes and sizes and conditions of ghosts, depressed, angry, terrified. Ezra deals with them all, day and night. Now I want you to think about the sort of spirit that’s going to be hanging around an insane asylum and multiply it by the number of people who’ve lived and died there, and just try to imagine what Ezra’s going to be facing from the minute they drag him through the door.”

I paused to take a breath and close my eyes against the throbbing in my head. I damned well didn’t want to picture Ezra in that place, myself, but I’d make Henry see it if it was the last thing I did. “Just think about it. And then ask yourself how much of a good goddamn Ezra’s going to give about losing a job, any job, when he’s facing the prospect of losing his mind.”

Maybe he’d only seen one ghost in his entire life, but Henry had enough imagination to understand what I was saying. “I’ll find a cab.”

The Carlton Club was everything I expected; burnished wood gleaming in the gaslight, leather sofas and card tables, and enough tobacco smoke to bring down a herd of elephants. It didn’t improve my headache or my mood in the slightest. Pushing his luck was a humorless steward who refused to let us past the foyer. He finally agreed to take a calling card in to Sir William. Since Derry had no cards and Henry refused to give me one of his, I wrote up one of my own, designed to convince Glacenbie Sr. that an audience with me was in his best interest.

Henry decided he’d gone as far as he dared and left me and Derry to “bully a respectable member of parliament” on our own. Derry, for his part, didn’t look particularly eager at the prospect. But I had a feeling he’d promised Ezra he would look after me. And even if he hadn’t promised, he’d do it anyway.

“Let me talk to him, Derry. You don’t have to say a word. Just stand there and look intimidating.”

His grimace didn’t mask the humor in his eyes. “When the police come, I cannot expect they’ll distinguish which of us was giving the man a dressing-down and which was only glowering from the back of the room.”

I grinned. “You can take a swing at him, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“That it might. But it will do Ezra little good.”

“We’re going to get him out. And Sir William’s going to help us do it.” Maybe Ezra hadn’t given me all the juicy details of his dad’s less-than-aboveboard business practices, but I could make do. All I needed was five minutes with the guy. And it looked like I was going to get it.

“This way, if you please.” The steward, having gotten our attention from the doorway, went back inside and we followed. He took us into a cavernous library that was cozy despite its size, thanks to sofas ranged strategically around the room, and the crackling fire in the fireplace. A door off the library led into a small, smoky room looking out onto a garden lushly green and shadowed in the glow of stone lanterns. The remains of a card game lay on a table and I wondered if the room had been cleared expressly for us.

We were left again to wait, and I paced the room, unable to sit. The headache powder Kathleen had insisted I take hadn’t had much effect, but at least I was no longer flinching at every sound above a whisper. But it wasn’t the headache that made me restless. Derry had explained that St. Andrews was a little distance outside of London, but Ezra would be facing that hellhole soon enough. The thought made me want to put a fist through something—or someone. Sir William was going to be that someone if he kept us waiting one minute longer.

Just after our arrival, the door opened and a cool, blue gaze sharpened with recognition as it settled on the two of us. William Glacenbie tossed my calling card on the table. “You’re the one who came uninvited to Ezra’s engagement party. I had the most revolting feeling I would be seeing you again.”

“Did you? I guess it must run in the family.”

“If you are referring to Ezra’s assertion that he can speak to the dead, that is a madness restricted to his mother’s side. His other perversions, I assume, originate from a mind already diseased.”

“Ezra’s as sane as you or I,” Derry protested, and I wondered if I’d shortly be holding him back, instead of the other way around.

Sir William’s pinched features took on an even greater disdain. “Are you a doctor, sir?”

“No—”

“Then what entitles you to make that determination?”

“Your doctors made that determination without even meeting Ezra,” I countered. “Or maybe you made that determination after hearing all the stories of your son communicating with the dead—and you began to have visions, yourself, of front-page stories mixing your name up with the Ripper case. Not the most dignified turn of events for a man who’s working his way to the top of the pile in parliament. But really, when you think about it, would it be any worse than the Times blowing up your accounting practices into a nasty business scandal?”

His mouth curved without the least trace of warmth or humor. “You picked up this tale from Ezra.”

“Yeah, you know. Pillow talk,” I said, getting a perverse satisfaction out of rubbing his nose in it.

The hint of smile vanished, along with every particle of expression beyond that hard stare. “One of the more savvy blackmailers, are you, Mr. Nash?” He took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it. “Ezra has made this mess and it appears I am obliged to clean it up.” He let an annoyed sigh escape with the cloud of smoke. “How much will keep you quiet?”

Beside me, Derry moaned softly. He was hating this, but he’d let me play it all the way to the end, for Ezra’s sake. I’d suspected there was more to Sir William’s business dealings than a few questionable audits; whatever it was, it had to be enough to rescue Ez. “There’s only one thing I want from you. Ezra’s freedom. You didn’t lock him up for his own good. You locked him up for yours. Give me whatever paperwork I’ll need to spring him out of St. Andrew’s and I won’t have to talk to the newspapers.”

Through a veil of smoke, his gaze narrowed. “You realize, I hope, that he will never receive another penny from me, not even upon my death?”

I’d seen some fucking mercenaries in my time, but this guy took the cake. “All we need from you is train fare to Northampton and back. I figure since this is your doing, you should cover the out-of-pocket expenses.”

“Third class,” Derry added, clearly afraid he wouldn’t even give us that. But I was getting too much satisfaction out of playing hardball with this guy.

“First class,” I said. “And the funds to cover cab fare from the station to the asylum and back.”

Sir William didn’t bat an eye. “Did you know, Mr. Nash, that Ezra’s mother died in St. Andrews? She quite doted on him. She was, in fact, the one who named him. A biblical name. Perhaps not the most suitable one.” He crushed his cigarette in a brass bowl on the card table, then moved past me to the door. “The steward will bring the papers down to you, along with your train fare.” He glanced back from the doorway, no emotion betraying him. He was surely one hell of a politician. “I shall expect to hear no more from you after this. Nor from Ezra.”

The retort on my lips wasn’t worth the effort. If Sir William was that intent on cutting Ezra out of his life, Ezra was better off without him. I let him walk out without another word. The moment the door closed, Derry dropped into a chair with a gasp. “Blessed Mary. How did we come through without coming to blows? Let us hope he can be quick with the papers.”

Sir William had no reason to be quick on our account and he wasn’t. Hours crept past while we waited at first in the foyer and then when the smoke got too much, outside in the cool evening. It was another hour when, papers in hand, we reached Euston Square and caught a train to Northampton. I knew Ezra had probably been admitted, and no matter how I tried to reassure myself that he was holding his own, dread twisted my insides into one God-awful knot. Even if all the ugly tales of nineteenth-century asylums weren’t true, the horrors I’d detailed to elicit Henry’s cooperation might be. Not even the thought that we would be there in a couple of hours to pull him out made me feel any better.