Gossamer Wing (23 page)

With Herculean effort Dexter focused on the present, on the task at hand. He’d expected that finding the plans intact would be the end of Charlotte’s mission, and Murcheson confirmed that her work in France was officially done, but it seemed the documents had only raised a host of new questions. Or rather, old questions that Reginald’s truncated tour of duty had left unanswered. While it wasn’t Charlotte’s job to answer them, Murcheson was willing to listen to her perspective on the possible chain of custody of the packet she’d recovered. Even with the notes recovered, the question of how the documents wound up in Dubois’s hands to begin with was still critical. Only by knowing who’d held the notes, and when, could Murcheson be certain none of the parties had obtained a copy at any point along that chain.

“You’ve said the French claimed that Martin went rogue
after
the treaty, so you assumed he was really still working for the Égalité, retrieving the documents from Dubois, when he tangled with Reginald,” Dexter said, breaking several minutes’ silence. “But I wonder, what if he was really working for Dubois and the post-royalists all along? Perhaps Martin was just then bringing the documents
to
Dubois’s office, when Reginald encountered him. That would still leave the question of where Martin obtained the packet, of course.”

Murcheson’s usually implacable demeanor slipped as Dexter’s suggestion registered. Dexter could almost see the thoughts working themselves out on the man’s face, as a spark of possibility caught, took hold, lit him with excitement. “We never put it together that way before, but then I don’t think anyone really considered the importance of Couer de Fer’s history in all this until Charlotte saw him in the Palais Garnier. The fellows who identified Jacques Martin, Dubois’s security expert, as a former Égalité agent, only saw the connection Martin once had with the French and knew he’d left their service under something of a cloud. They still assumed he was aligned with the Agency in some way in his new capacity, and lumped him together with the other known agents in Dubois’s employ.”

Charlotte sat up straighter. “But if Martin was a post-royalist all along, wouldn’t that mean Dubois still is as well? The French would have to have known that. What if the agents at his company aren’t there to liaise with the government, but to keep an eye on Dubois and possibly on Martin as well?”

Murcheson tapped his nose. “But at the time, seven years ago, they didn’t suspect Martin was working for the other side. It all falls into place then. He could have taken those documents directly from Égalité’s HQ. From his colleague Simone Vernier, the French agent who acquired them from the laboratory in Cambridge.”

“Simone Vernier? The same agent who pretended to be Dubois’s mistress?” Charlotte asked.

Murcheson nodded. “The same. It was hardly a pretense, however. The French take a much more liberal line with these things than we do, and he wouldn’t have kept her as a mistress if she hadn’t, well . . . played the part with conviction. She died in his bed, after all. Vernier made many a noble sacrifice for her country.”

“Like his current secretary,” Dexter offered, stifling a grin when Charlotte glared at him. “Another woman who positively drips with nobility and patriotism.”

“Here now,” Murcheson huffed.

“Apologies. Especially as this new information suggests the young woman in question may indeed be using her wiles to spy on Dubois for her country, just as Vernier did, rather than using them to ensure she keeps an easy job as liaison between Dubois and the Égalité. It seems they still trust him about as well as we do. Charlotte, may I see those notes?” Dexter gestured, and Charlotte shuffled together the sheaf of papers, handing the stack to him as Murcheson cleared his throat ostentatiously and continued talking.

“This could narrow things down considerably. If Martin acquired the notes directly from Vernier, and hadn’t yet delivered them to Dubois when Reginald intercepted them, that means Dubois couldn’t have made a copy. And we’re already fairly certain the French government never had time to do so. By the time Reginald was sent to Paris, the French were already beginning to panic and the government here was in turmoil. They’d got wind of the invention that this team at Cambridge were allegedly perfecting—not an invention, really, but a formula for an explosive. One so powerful that a lump no larger than your fist could have wiped a city the size of Paris off the map.”

Dexter’s mouth dropped open. “It really is a doomsday device! See, I told you, Charlotte.”

“I’m sure that’s an overstatement.”

“Not much of one,” Dexter said quietly, staring at the pages in front of him in disbelief now that he had enough context to know what he was seeing. Even though chemistry wasn’t his area of expertise, Dexter knew enough to tell that if the substance described in the notes were actually concocted, and one could keep it stable enough to transport it, it might indeed flatten a city with a single explosion. He could feel the blood drain from his face as he envisioned the scenario. A fist-sized lump wouldn’t do it, but a steam car full of the stuff most certainly could. “It’s one of those formulas that’s frighteningly simple. I have no idea why this hasn’t been done already. You’re right to worry that the French might have a copy of these papers. It’s a terrifying prospect.”

“It was a lucky bluff, in the end. As far as I know, our chaps never could stabilize the substance in large enough quantities to use it in any meaningful way,” Murcheson explained. “We assumed that the French had been working with these notes for years but had experienced the same difficulty, hence their continued willingness to abide by the treaty. It seemed as though they thought
we’d
deduced the secret of how to use the stuff without blowing ourselves to kingdom come, but they still hadn’t. That was a source of great relief, of course, as after these notes were stolen we’d feared the worst. And once we heard that Gendreau was being courted by a former arms manufacturer who was once a prominent post-royalist sympathizer, well . . . it seemed certain there was a plan to revive this research. That, my friend, would have been a terrifying prospect indeed. With help from Dubois’s network of factories and freight transport, the post-royalists could have blown us all to smithereens with that information, French and English alike.

“But if these notes truly went straight from a French agent’s hands up to the top of the Opéra and stayed there for seven years, this can’t have been what Gendreau was called in to work on. Begs the question of what he and Dubois are really up to, if it isn’t this. Good heavens, and I suppose the French still think we really do have a dooms . . . well, an ultimate weapon.”

Charlotte rested her chin on her clasped hands, staring across the table at the far wall, for long enough that Dexter grew uncomfortable waiting for her to say something.

“
Doomsday substance
doesn’t have quite the same ring to it,” he remarked.

“My chemistry knowledge is sketchy,” Charlotte admitted, “but from the looks of those notes it’s more a sort of doomsday putty. If they’re not working on that, though, perhaps Dubois and Gendreau haven’t been writing in code at all.”

Murcheson frowned. “Either way, you’ve done your part well, Lady Hardison. And if Martin isn’t reporting to the French, he hasn’t told them about
Gossamer Wing
. So perhaps the dirigible program has a future in the Agency after all. Something for you to look forward to working on, after you return to the Dominions.”

* * *

CHARLOTTE TRAILED HER
fingers over the demilune console that stood by the door of their suite, tapping the gilded wood with a sense of unease.

“Dexter, did you move the pouch the documents were in?”

He peeked around the frame of the bedroom door. “I don’t even want to touch the pouch the documents were in, my sweet. Perhaps the maid moved it. Or took it to the incinerator, if we’re lucky. Are you sure you left it there?”

Charlotte was struck by the cheerful domesticity of Dexter’s response, of the whole moment: the fretful wife who knows she wasn’t the one to move a thing, the indulgent husband who knows the odds are he’ll have to apologize later when it transpires the wife was correct after all about whatever it was. For some reason she didn’t want to examine too closely, a surge of joyful tears pricked at her eyes and clenched her throat.

The happiness faded as Charlotte cast her mind back to that morning, when they had left the suite not planning to return until after the debriefing with Murcheson.

“That’s right, you wouldn’t touch it. Remember, I asked if we should bring it, or just take the papers? We were standing right here by the door, you had just picked up your room key from this table.”

“I said if you brought that thing you could sit at a separate table with it.” Dexter crossed the room to stand next to her, rolling his shirtsleeves up to his elbows as he walked. “You’re right, it was right there when we left.”

Charlotte struggled to focus on the problem of the missing pouch. Dexter had shed his cravat, jacket and waistcoat in the bedroom, and his white linen shirt clung to his chest and shoulders in a highly flattering way.

“If we don’t find it this afternoon,” she suggested, “we can ask the concierge about it when we go to dinner.”

“We should let Murcheson know. I’ll also rig something at the door to let us know from now on if anyone’s been into the room.” He headed for the bedroom again, doubtless to begin creating a device for that purpose from spare parts in his trunk.

Charlotte sighed and decided to put the issue aside. She thought it more urgent to loosen her corset, put her feet up and enjoy a cup of tea while she read the Paris newspaper she’d picked up in the lobby downstairs. She was still recovering from the strain of her long flight, and her body demanded more rest than she’d given it.

The newspaper, sadly, had other plans for her.

“Bloody hell!”

Dexter dashed in from the other room. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“Yes! No. Damn. Look at this!” She held up the paper to let him see the headline below the fold on the front page. Not a top story, but not exactly buried either.

“I only know about half those words,” Dexter admitted. His French had never been strong, and he’d been sticking to the English papers.

“Mysterious floating black object in the night sky,” Charlotte explained, skimming down the column then flipping a few pages into the paper to read the continuation. “Seen in multiple places by ‘anonymous witnesses.’ In Nancy, Paris and three villages in between, only one of which I think I actually flew over. This is a plant. Somebody wanted to ground the
Gossamer Wing
for good. Oh, that’s just spiteful!”

“Do you think Murcheson will really call the whole dirigible program off?”

“In a heartbeat,” Charlotte confirmed. “Not worth the risk. Damn!” She threw the paper down on the floor and sat on the divan, frustrated that her corset kept her from flinging herself down in a more dramatic way. “Can you get this bloody straightjacket off me? I can’t rail and moan properly with it on.”

“Language, darling.” Dexter smirked as he slid into place next to her and turned her shoulders so he could get at the fastenings to her gown. “If you wanted me to undress you, you had only to ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she assured him, heaving a sigh of relief as Dexter finished with the dress and began loosening her corset strings.

“You don’t need these things.”

“I like pretty clothes,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “Corsets are part of the price one pays for that. It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. My mother used to require two maids every morning to help her tight-lace. At least I can dress myself.”

“Not in this dress,” he pointed out. “I had to fasten it for you.”

“I ordered it without thinking,” she admitted. “I just liked the style. Usually I’m more careful about my choices, but this time I was blinded by fashion.”

“Lucky for you I was here to serve as ladies’ maid. Otherwise you’d have had to roam the streets of Paris in your undergarments. Not that I’d have objected, as long as nobody else looked at you.”

Charlotte shivered as Dexter tugged her chemise up past her shoulders then ran his fingers down her back, one on each long muscle framing her spine. “Most of my corsets are designed in the new style, they fasten in the front. I have other dresses. You’re hardly indispensable to my toilette.”

He laughed, the sound like a warm velvet touch against her skin. “Careful, sugar plum, or I’ll get in a snit and refuse to tighten you back up. You’ll be left naked.”

“Nonsense. I’ll just ring the concierge and have a maid sent up once I’ve woken from my nap.”

“These marks won’t have faded by then, I suspect.” He traced the impressions left by the formfitting garment, pulling a contented hum from Charlotte. “I prefer your skin in the morning, when the only lines are the ones the sheets have left there in the night.”

“You’re assuming I’ve slept without a nightgown, I take it.”

Dexter pressed a kiss to her shoulder, letting his lips linger there as his hands began to wander. “In my imagination, you
always
sleep without a nightgown.”

After dinner later that evening the concierge assured them that the housekeeping staff had not moved, or indeed seen, a leather pouch of any sort in the suite.

Seventeen

PARIS, FRANCE

CHARLOTTE HESITATED A
long few moments at the curb when the taxi deposited her and Dexter in front of the brilliantly lit Palais Garnier.

It was their first night back in Paris, after an uneventful few more days spent in Nancy for the sake of their cover. Murcheson had secured tickets, and Charlotte wanted very much to see the spectacle of the famous opera in action, all lights and music and glamorous crowd. She was very tired of the building that housed it, however. Looking at it, she was struck with a pang of homesickness for New York City, its familiar theater district, the soaring façade of Trinity Church.

Paris had its own beauty, but it didn’t feel quite real to Charlotte somehow. She felt unreal in general, stranded in a limbo of inactivity, caught in the same haze of sunlit faux-honeymoon days and sex-crazed nights that had characterized the voyage to France. She still couldn’t quite believe her mission was over. None of it had sunk in yet. Although she knew she would have to work it out at some point, she had no idea what came next. The future was even more daunting than the prospect of entering the opera house again.

“Did you know they wanted to turn the Palais Garnier into a museum, decades ago?” she asked Dexter, halting just outside the periphery of the gathering crowd. “Somebody proposed a new building for the opera, more modern. Instead they renovated this one. I’m glad they did. It’s a beautiful structure.”

Dexter waited at her side, seeming sensitive to her reluctance. “What happened to the new building?”

“They couldn’t raise the funds,” Charlotte murmured, lifting her gaze to the roofline where the golden statues seemed to shine with a light of their own in the brilliant electric illumination. “There was a war on, after all.”

“We could return to the hotel,” Dexter offered. “Leave a message for Murcheson and go back? The Ritz is almost like a second home to me now.”

She smiled. “We’ll stay for at least the first half. I don’t know why I’m being so silly. I did get away.”

“By the skin of your teeth, from what you said.”

“I suppose I’m just still wary. I keep telling myself my work in France is done, and yours doesn’t put us in nearly as much danger. But some part of me is still on alert. Perhaps by the time I’m back home, my nerves will have finally settled down.”

He pulled her hand more firmly over his arm and led her into the glittering gilded foyer.

Charlotte relaxed within a few minutes. It was different with people crowding the rooms, movement on the stairs, lights everywhere sparkling over gowns and headdresses and jewels. Merely standing in the midst of it all provided a rich and heady visual feast, the people and paintings all so ornate and colorful the eye could scarcely find a spot to rest.

The grand box in which Murcheson was already seated was a respite from the crowd and noise, allowing an overview of it all without the overwhelming business. Such, mused Charlotte, was the privilege of the privileged—to have access to every luxury, but suffer only as much excess as one cared to tolerate.

“Sit and have a drink,” Murcheson advised them as soon as they entered. He snapped at a page who stood by with a tray of champagne, then shooed the lad out once Charlotte and Dexter had each taken a glass.

“I have my industrialist hat on tonight, I’m afraid. What do you know about the French steamrail project?” he asked bluntly once they were alone.

Charlotte shrugged, at a loss, but Dexter leaned forward with a frown. “I know they want to expand it vastly over the next several years. I also know you’re most likely bidding for it, and I wish I were in a position to compete. The contract will mean years of steady revenue.”

“Yes, the sweet low-interest milk of the government teat,” Murcheson confirmed. “Of course, as France is only late to the game of large manufacture—excepting war machines, naturally—most of their people are at a disadvantage. Their late entry into the global steam-car market hasn’t profited them enough to retool for anything larger and more lucrative. So the contract will almost certainly go to a foreign bidder . . .”

“Except?” Dexter supplied.

“Precisely,” Murcheson nodded. “Except . . . our friend Dubois. I just found out he’s preparing a bid that would undercut me substantially if my information is correct. However, his bid is almost completely unrealistic because it’s based on equipment and facilities he does not yet possess. Even that could be remedied, if he could afford them, but it seems he can’t. Not remotely.”

“How badly off is he?”

“All but bankrupt. If it weren’t for his political connections he’d be in debtor’s prison right now, I suspect. He
must
win this bid to survive.”

The house lights dimmed and the crowd rustled to a hush. The orchestra finished tuning up and swung into the overture.

“Perhaps that’s why he’s bold enough to meet with Gendreau at his own office in the middle of the day,” Charlotte whispered as the curtains drew back.
Norma
had never been her favorite opera, and she was far more interested in what Murcheson had to say. “Desperation. Maybe that’s what Gendreau is really doing back here; he has some secret new invention Dubois thinks will make him money. But if I may, I had a question about something we discussed yesterday?”

Dexter agreeably sat back, letting the two of them whisper in front of him. Charlotte almost jumped as his hand skimmed over her back, which was bare in the sweeping plum-colored satin gown she’d chosen.

It was another husbandly gesture, that delicate touch—proprietary and deliberately flouting propriety just because he could. Charlotte willed herself to ignore it.

“I’m not a huge fan of Bellini myself,” Murcheson confessed. “What was your question?”

“Well, I thought perhaps by focusing on Dubois and Gendreau and Coeur de Fer, we’re coming at things from the wrong angle. Tell me more about Simone Vernier.”

“That could be a long story. First let me remind you that officially, there is no ‘we’ here, Lady Hardison. But in an informal capacity, let’s see . . . as far as we know, Vernier slipped into Dubois’s confidence by pretending to be a double agent. She made no secret of the fact she was a spy, but had convinced him she was secretly working for the post-royalists against the ruling Égalité faction. He’d been working both sides himself, courting the current regime but still making money selling weapons to the ousted party on the side.”

“That was why the Égalité were watching him?”

“We can only assume so. But shortly before the treaty was signed, Vernier traveled to Cambridge in the guise of a well-known Swiss chemist. While she was there, she managed to purloin the formula for the explosive. The researchers were all quite charmed by her, from what I hear. Never suspected a thing. Apparently before she became a spy, she’d been a chemical engineer, which was probably why the French sent her after the documents. She knew their language.”

“Would you like to change seats with me, sugarplum?”

Charlotte glanced at Dexter, startled. “Oh! Oh, that’s very kind. Yes, thank you, I believe I would.”

She was surprised that Dexter was so interested in the opera, but quickly forgot in her curiosity about the documents and the conversation with Murcheson.

“You said Vernier hadn’t shared the notes with anyone in the French government. How can you be sure of that?”

Murcheson shrugged. “She wouldn’t have had time. By the time she returned to France, it seems Dubois had found her out. He killed her within a few hours of her return, if the reports are accurate. Drugged her, then stuffed a pillow over her face. Ignominious way to go. Dubois was charged, but evidently managed to buy his way out of a guilty verdict.”

“That’s monstrous. Especially if—was she really Dubois’s mistress in . . . in practice?” Charlotte asked, glad for the dark that hid her blush.

“Oh, yes. He wasn’t quite as revolting in those days, of course. Since the war he’s degenerated. His appearance finally starting to reflect his habits, I suppose.”

“Now he’s monstrous inside and out,” Charlotte concurred. “Vernier must have been fanatically devoted to her country, to make such a sacrifice. It hardly seems right that she died for it. Even if it was the French she was loyal to.”

“Even then?” Murcheson teased. “Are you growing fond of the French, Baroness?”

“I’ve grown exceedingly fond of their food and wine, sir.”

“Ah, understandable.”

“I confess I’m disappointed. I thought perhaps I’d come up with a new direction of enquiry, but apparently—”

Dexter tapped Charlotte’s arm, getting her attention and handing her the opera glasses he’d been using for the duration of her conversation. He pointed not to the stage, however, but to the first box just above it on the opposite side of the theater.

“Look who’s here.”

She looked through the device, puzzled, and fiddled with the focus knobs until the image popped up, sharp and clear, and she saw the man’s face: it was Roland Dubois.

* * *

THE CRUSH AT
the interval wasn’t any bother to Dexter, but he could tell it was no joy for Charlotte. She nearly disappeared in the crowd several times before he latched onto her hand firmly and instructed her to walk behind him.

Thus aligned, they beat a path to the other side of the lobby where special opera programs and books of historical interest about the Palais Garnier were sold.

Charlotte excused herself and dashed for the doors that led to the necessary—after making a quip about it being lucky she already knew where they were—while Dexter and Murcheson kept a wary eye on the crowd.

“Monsieur Murcheson,” an oily voice intruded.

Just as Murcheson had suggested he might, Dubois had found them. Murcheson believed he would push for a meeting with Dexter, ostensibly in hopes of luring his business interest away from Murcheson. The real reason, Murcheson predicted, could be far more sinister. As Coeur de Fer had been working for Dubois and had clearly identified Charlotte as a person of interest, Dubois must know Dexter and Charlotte were in possession of the recovered plans. He might even suspect that Dexter’s role was in some way related to the doomsday substance. Dexter and Charlotte would both be at risk as long as Dubois thought they knew something about the explosive, and the increased scrutiny from Dubois might impede Dexter’s ability to accomplish all he still needed to in Le Havre.

“Dubois,” Murcheson deigned to answer, his tone suddenly dripping with aristocratic hauteur. Dexter was quite impressed with the transformation. “Allow me to introduce Baron Hardison. Lord Hardison, Roland Dubois. M’sieur Dubois makes steam cars and so forth.”

Dexter accepted the handshake Dubois offered, suppressing a grimace at the soft clamminess of that hand.

“The Makesmith Baron,” Dubois drawled. He said it like it was an insult, a title of shame, but Dexter only nodded. “Here to strike a deal with my adversary?”

“I’m on my honeymoon, actually,” Dexter corrected him, unable to resist adopting a hint of Murcheson’s disdain.

“So I’ve heard. Congratulations. When will you be returning to the American Dominions, then?”

Another insult, with the clear implication that Dubois hoped it was soon. Dexter ignored the hand Murcheson placed on his arm in warning. He was a businessman, after all. He had dealt with men like Dubois too many times before, and he wouldn’t let himself be drawn.

“We’re fortunate enough to be at our leisure here, with no particular deadline for our return. The climate is quite pleasant, and I gather Lady Hardison has a great deal of shopping still to do. Apparently there are substantial qualitative differences between the shopping opportunities in Paris and those in New York.”

Dubois’s smarmy smile made Dexter glad for Murcheson’s restraining hand. Something about the man made him want to cuff him sharply on the side of the head.

“We must meet then, during your long stay. Discuss business? I believe we may have some mutual acquaintances. Other than Monsieur Murcheson, of course.”

“Ah. Well, no promises, old chap. My schedule is already rather full and after all, it is my honeymoon.” Dexter tried as hard as he could to inject the suggestion that even to ask had been wildly inappropriate of Dubois; he suspected he didn’t do it nearly as well as Murcheson could have, however. Perhaps he had just spent too long working to shed that aristocratic demeanor. Or perhaps he just wasn’t cut out for spying.

Charlotte, however, obviously was. Her headache-inducing persona was firmly back in place as she reattached herself to his arm like a limpet. Murcheson had advised her to appear as harmless and as brainless as she possibly could to divert any suspicion Dubois might have about her real purpose for visiting France, on the off chance Coeur de Fer hadn’t already spoiled that angle for her.

“Dexter,” she pouted, “you’re not talking
business
at the
opera
, are you? Oh, hello there.”

“My wife, Lady Hardison. Monsieur Dubois,” said Dexter.

“
Enchanté
, madame.”

Instead of taking Charlotte’s hand in the polite lady’s version of a handshake she was obviously offering, Dubois pulled her gloved fingers to his lips and kissed them as though he relished the act.