The Bride Wore Pearls (43 page)

After tugging out his pocket watch for one last, hopeful glance, Rance sighed. “Aye, you’re right, Sam,” he said. “Look, hurry on now. That’s the last train.”

“You do not need me?”

Rance managed a weak grin. “To manage a laudanum-addled old man?” he said. “God, I hope not.”

With a flash of his brilliant white teeth, Belkadi gave a curt bow and vanished into the terminal’s yawning entrance.

After finding the hotel with little difficulty, Rance ordered himself a rare beefsteak and a bottle of their best wine, then went promptly to bed in the hope of speeding the day’s arrival. Perhaps it was just the exquisite night spent in Anisha’s arms, or his newfound sense of hope propelling him forward ever faster, but he could not escape the sense that time was of the essence. And now this Hedge fellow was on his deathbed.

He rose at dawn having slept little, and spent the early morning strolling the long promenade that stretched between the King’s Road and the seafront. The air coming off the Channel was sharp, the skies a reflection of the watery gray-blue below, and filled with the cry of wheeling gulls. Rance drew the sea air deep into his lungs—the smell of freedom, it still seemed to him, for the sea was something an Englishman sorely missed when trapped in the gloom of a prison, or the grit and heat of the desert.

Attired as he was in a dark suit of finest worsted, along with his tall beaver hat and brass-knobbed walking stick, he apparently looked the part of a rich and respectable aristocrat taking the air, for here—unlike much of London—most of the gentlemen tipped their hats and bid him good morning, while a few of the ladies cut him lingering, sidelong looks as they promenaded past.

But none of it was sufficient to distract him from the press of time, and impatience had begun to bite at him when Rance tugged out his pocket watch for perhaps the third time in as many hours, only to hear the bells at St. Nicholas toll ten o’clock. It was as close to a respectable hour as he could manage. Turning on his heel, he retraced his steps past his hotel and into the maze of streets that lay east of it.

The address was easily found, the lodging house large and fronted with bow windows around which the paint had begun to peel; perhaps from proximity to the sea, or more likely from neglect. The steps, too, were unswept.

He rang the bell and was shown in by a gray-garbed maid who seemed not to care who he was. “Visitors from twelve ’til three only, sir,” said the girl. “Come back then, and we’ll have all the lodgers dressed and down.”

Gritting his teeth against the impatience, Rance nodded curtly and went back down the steps. The delay was understandable, he supposed. The house was obviously a place of business; one of those vile, pathetic lodgings just one step from the workhouse, and reserved for the last days of the reduced and dying; those with no family who would take them, but just enough money to get by. He envied neither them, nor Mrs. Ford, truth to tell.

At one o’clock, the girl was back, this time with a smut on her nose and an enquiring look on her face.

“Mr. Alfred Hedge?” he prompted.

“Ooh, right! ’E’s been put in the garden for the afternoon,” she said. “But another gent was here to see him before you. If you might just wait in the back parlor?”

Rance reluctantly agreed and handed the girl his stick.

He passed through the house to see something less than a dozen elderly men dotting the front reception rooms, most drowsing in chairs, but there were two fellows sitting at a chess board, and another being fussed over by a rotund lady in black; the proprietress, no doubt.

The back parlor was a shabby room dripping in chintz and overlooking a large, unkempt garden. Through the cloud of dust motes that danced in the morning sun, Rance could see a pale, hook-nosed man slumped in a sort of Bath chair, a blanket laid over his knees. On a stone bench beside him sat a white-haired fellow in a cleric’s collar and black coat. The latter was leaning forward, a black book clutched loosely between his hands.

Though Rance was too far from either to sense any sort of intent, the aim of the priest was clear. Their conversation became increasingly heated, if gestures could be depended upon—until at last the old man lifted his fist in the air and shook it in obvious threat.

The priest jerked at once to his feet and came striding up the garden path, letting himself in and slamming the door behind. Rance waited a full minute before deciding the maid did not mean to reappear, then went round the corner and let himself into the garden. The skies, he noticed, had suddenly darkened—portentously, perhaps.

The man ignored, or perhaps could not hear, his approach.

“Alfred Hedge?” Rance said, standing over him.

The old man crooked his head to look up. His profile was harsh, his eyes small and sharp like a crow’s, but one could still see shades of blonde in his hair and handsomeness in his face—the source of Ned Quartermaine’s golden good looks, perhaps.

“Are you Alfred Hedge?” Rance demanded.

“Who wants to know?” Hedge said disdainfully. “If you’re another prosy, do-good moralizer, you can just take yourself off with the last.”

“I believe I can safely attest those are adjectives never once applied to me,” said Rance. “But you might ask your son. I’m an acquaintance of Quartermaine’s.”

At that, the old man wheezed with laughter. “Little Ned, eh?” he chortled. “Surprised the bastard remembered where to find his dear old papa.”

“Oh, he remembered,” Rance bluffed. “And, with the right motivation, he was eager to tell me.”

For an instant, the old man hitched. “Well, give the lad my best, won’t you?” he croaked. “My best wishes, I mean to say, that he rots in hell. It must cost him all of—what, two shillings a quarter?—to keep me in such rarified luxury.”

Rance cut another glance at the sky, then sat down uninvited. “I daresay I can return his same kind regards to you,” he said, tossing aside his hat. “My name, you see, is Welham. I suspect that will ring a bell or two.”

At last there came a solid reaction, the old man flinching as if struck. But like any hardened gamester, he swiftly recovered himself. “Rance Welham, eh?” he sneered. “Still alive, then, you card-sharping upstart?”

“Oh, still very much alive.” Rance stretched one arm along the back of the bench. “And very much wishing to taste revenge, since, I’m reliably informed, it’s best when served up cold—and mine will be frigid indeed.”

The old man cackled, then dragged a hand beneath his nose. “Well, if that’s what you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place,” he said. “I can do nothing for you, Welham. And should you choose to put a bullet through me for it, I might say you’d done me a favor.”

Rance regarded him with unassailable calm; he had waited for this moment nearly half his life. “Killing would be far too merciful, sir,” he said coolly. “Besides, I am entirely unarmed—and quite deliberately, for I came here certain in the knowledge you would sorely tempt me.”

This time Hedge did not laugh. “Get out,” he snapped. “I’m an old man. I’ve nothing to say to you.”

“Have you not?” Rance regarded him calmly. “Perhaps you think, Hedge, that I will feel some sympathy for you—old, ill, and diminished as you are. But I can assure you that is not the case. I am quite as cruel and callous as I have been painted.”

“You ever were a cold-handed son of a bitch,” the old man retorted, settling back into his chair. “Go on, then. Rail to your heart’s content. I don’t give a damn for your censure.”

“I won’t waste my breath,” said Rance. “Tell me about the Black Horse syndicate.”

Hedge narrowed one eye, but his breath was roughening. “A fantasy, that,” he wheezed. “Who told you such a tale?”

“The Duke of Gravenel’s cousin,” said Rance, “George Kemble. I believe you may once have done business with him.”

“
Hmph
!” But Rance could see a shiver of fear go through him. “And why should I care what that vicious, light-footed little Lucifer has to say, eh? What’s he going to do to me now?”

Rance turned his hat round and round by its brim, carefully weighing his next words and hoping his assessment of Kemble had been accurate. “I couldn’t say; he seems a nasty piece of work,” he said lightly. “I heard he once ripped out a chap’s fingernails with a pair of rusty pliers.”

The old man shrugged. “Not this decade, for Kemble’s gone honest,” he said. “Had to, didn’t he, once his sister married up?”

“And what about little Ned?” asked Rance, forcing a bitter smile. “Is he capable of ripping out fingernails? Or turning his dear papa off entirely?”

“I’m not afraid of Ned,” the old man blustered. “But what’s it to me? I can tell you what you want to know, I reckon. It’s no skin off my nose. Nothing can be proven. Not now.”

“Excellent.” Rance relaxed against the bench and prepared to play his greatest bluff ever. “Begin at the beginning, won’t you? The syndicate. I want names.”

Hedge seemed to stiffen with pride. “There were eleven of us, and bloody enterprising chaps we were, too,” he said. “But all gone or dead now. And it wasn’t just gaming; we had nunneries, doss-houses—Billy Boyton once had a promise of some fine Herati opium. Wonder what the lads of London would have thought of that, eh?” Suddenly, his face fell. “Sank though, the whole bloody ship.”

“A leveling blow indeed,” said Rance dryly. “Now which of those eleven ordered me framed for killing Peveril? Or was it the lot of you?”

Here, the old man began to pick almost absently at the lint on his blanket.

“I think, sir, you waste your time,” said Rance. “You might better concern yourself with what Ned might do if you lie to me.”

“Ned hasn’t the bollocks to do a damned thing.” The old man curled his lip. “The better part of that boy ran down my leg when I fucked his mother.”

“He seems to have managed well enough.” Rance lifted a hand and waved it at the house and garden. “And you, sir, are insolvent—or something near it, else you would not be living on your son’s charity.”

Lamely, Hedge shrugged. “And so?”

“And so what if he should cast you off?” Rance threatened. “I’ll tell you what: eventually, if you live long enough, you’ll end up on the parish dole—”

The old man made a strained, choking sound.

“—assuming, of course, you don’t end your days in Coldbath Fields, picking oakum from your fine”—Rance paused to wave a hand at the Bath chair—“
wheeled
conveyance
.”

Here, Hedge began to wheeze in earnest. With a spotted, tremulous hand, he withdrew a blood-spattered handkerchief and began to cough violently into it. “Go bugger yourself, Welham,” he rasped.

Ignoring the remark, Rance leaned into Hedge’s face and propped his elbows on his knees. “Now I am, as you might recall, a dangerously fine card player,” he said very quietly. “And your son owns a gaming salon. The twain have met, as it happens, and Mr. Quartermaine has come away owing me—well, let’s just call it a near-tragic amount of money.”

“Fine.” Breath rasping now, Hedge stuffed away his handkerchief. “I hope he pays you.”

“Oh, we have struck a most equitable bargain,” said Rance. “Because we’re friends of a fashion, he has offered to trade me what I seek—revenge, in the form of some documents he retained upon leaving your employ. Mr. Kemble has explained to me, you see, just where Ned learned his incredible skill with numbers. And Ned—well, he wrote
everything
down . . .”

The old man’s hands clenched on the arms of the chair. “You’re a lying cheat,” he wheezed. “Ned set a fire and robbed me blind. The whole place burned.”

Rance pulled a sympathetic face. “I fear that last is not
quite
true,” he murmured. “Your son had the remarkable foresight to keep a few things—just on the off chance he might someday have need of them.”

The old man played a gambler’s game—bluster aplenty but no hand at all, the stench of fear rising from him like carrion beneath a hot sun. “I made him earn his keep, aye,” he said. “No law against it.”

“But there are laws against gaming,” said Rance. “And extortion. And prostitution. And murder. And framing innocent men for murder—”

“Oh, no,
that
was none of my doing!” Hedge exploded, but the words seemed to strangle him. “Had my wishes—wishes been—heeded—you would—w-would . . .”

“Would what?” Rance snarled.

“Would—would ha’ been—
shivved
.” He choked out the words, his skin gone gray now. “Left in an alley—t-to die—in your own bl-blood.”

“Thank you,” said Rance amidst the coughing, “for your candor. Nonetheless, Ned assures me there’s enough to convict you of
something
. He’s willing to sell you out to keep his club running, if he must—so I daresay you taught him something after all.”

But Hedge’s eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. He was looking decidedly unwell.

Unsympathetically, Rance set a hand on Hedge’s arm and leaned nearer still. “And if I can’t loosen your tongue, Hedge, prison surely will,” he continued. “I’ve only to bide my time. Hanging Nick Napier is in his grave, and no one at the Metropolitan Police is going to help you now. Besides, you haven’t the money to bribe them. Now
who
came after me—?”