My Sweet Folly (62 page)

“What’s the meaning of this?” the doctor said loudly, but no one answered his bluster as a Bow Street Runner fastened handcuffs about his wrists. The two Indian officers did not say anything at all. The entire arrest proceeded in silence, as if everyone had been struck dumb.

“Is it done?”
the whispery woman’s voice asked.

“It’s done, ma’am,” Lander said firmly.

“Where are my girls?”
Her voice rose to a dreadful chilling note, reverberating all around the room.
 
“Find my girls! Are they hurt?’’

“I’d never hurt you, darling,” the old man said, lifting his face.

“Your daughters are safe, Lady Dingley.” Lander looked up from conferring with one of the guardsmen. “They have been located upstairs. Sound asleep.”

Sir Howard tilted his head back and released a long breath. He sank onto a chair, burying his face in his hands.

“Our thanks to you, m’lady,” Lander addressed the air. “You were superb.”

No one answered him. Folie pulled her hands free of their loose bonds and yanked off the stifling scarf. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Lady Dingley’s figure hurry past in the dim passageway outside.

As two guardsmen took the old man’s unresisting arms and escorted him toward the door, Robert stood still, watching. He said nothing. But his face was white and set. There was nothing of triumph or relief in his expression. He looked instead as if he were watching someone drown before his eyes.

TWENTY-SIX

“I don’t quite understand,” Folie said, as they waited in a carriage outside the Royal Academy’s premises in Somerset House. The streets held the first hint of dawn, a rain-soaked gray, with wisps of smoke from a few chimneys rising somberly into the clouds. “I rather thought— Lander wished for a confession? It seemed as if he was near to confessing. That little man.”

Robert and the conjurer sat opposite her. Robert gave her a stiff smile. “Lander will do whatever is required, I’m sure.”

Folie looked in bewilderment at the conjurer. He nodded reassuringly. “Once the subject’s will is broken, ma’am—it shouldn’t be difficult to discover the details of his crimes. I’ll wager that’s what Lander and his men are about at this moment.”

“Oh,” Folie said.

There was something she was not being told—something in Robert’s and the conjurer’s manner that caused all the rest of her questions to die in her throat. She understood that the elderly gentleman was Phillippa’s father—Robert’s own father-in-law. She understood that Robert would be shocked and grieved to discover who his enemy had been.

It must be as if one’s own family had turned traitor and foe.

“I really think that he is not quite sane, Robert,” she said. “Whatever he has done to you—I think it must have come from a sort of sickness in his mind.”

Robert gave her a look, a long, intent glance, as if he wished to see inside her head. Folie looked openly back at him, puzzled.

“To me?” he said. “What he did to me?”

“Well, yes,” Folie said, tilting her head. “The drug. And the prison hulk. Sometimes, you know, when people grow old, their minds become feeble. In general, it’s not a vicious change, but I think your father-in-law fell in with wicked men. Perhaps he became confused, and grew malevolent towards you.”

He studied her face. Then he smiled faintly, shaking his head a little. “Folly,” he said. He turned away to look out the window. “You do not know how much I need to know you are in this world.”

The carriage rocked as Lander climbed inside. He pulled the door closed, sitting next to Folie, and yanked the check-strap to signal the driver. The horses began to move, pulling away from the curb into a street that had to come to life with early morning traffic.

“The duke is not able to speak rationally,” he said without preamble, “but we’ve cobbled together quite a story from what we’ve got from the others.” He nodded toward the conjurer. “You were brilliant, man. How you discerned so quickly that Lady Dingley ought to play that daughter role instead of Mattie’s voice—” He shook his head. “It was a deep stroke. I could believe you’re a mind reader in truth. We could not have planned it.”

“The early play with that Balfour fellow,” the magician said. “Mr. Cambourne fed us his first name. Nicely done, sir—always deal out as much information as you can in passing. And the antagonism—” He shrugged. “Well, one may conjecture these things. I could see that there was considerable emotion about the name Phillippa. And again, Mr. Cambourne let us know just who she was.”

“But where were you?” Folie asked.

The conjurer smiled. “In the service passage,” he said. “While Mr. Cambourne kicked down the door, I took the opportunity to remove the handle to the service door. If you were to look, you would find a very elegant brass knob fallen on the floor just behind the podium where you sat, ma’am. With a little private science worked on the other side, the lock case made a nice sepulchral voice box.” He looked pleased with himself. “Also, we were blessed with a fortunate acoustic. We could even hear you whisper about the smoke, ma’am. So I suggested to Lady Dingley that she talk a bit about burning.”

“So what of the plot?” Robert asked abruptly. “You’ve found it out? And how the devil did you discover who was behind that big canvas?”

“Ah!” A slow grin broke across Lander’s face. “I’m not so slow at the small details myself. His cane!”

“Very sharp,” the conjurer said in an approving tone. He nodded. “Very sharp of you.”

Lander laughed. “Sharp indeed! I first saw that double dragon’s head when I was still in short coats. One of my brothers stole it for a lark, off a gentleman who was visiting at Hursley. Got a whaling for it, delivered by the very gentleman in person, with his dragon stick. I’ll tell you, for a week after, my brother had a pair of dragons’ heads tattooed on his—” He glanced at Folie and paused. In the growing light of day, Folie could see him redden. “Ah. Well. It was the Duke of Alcester, you see.”

“Your brother stole the Duke of Alcester’s cane?” she asked, her eyes widening. “My gracious, Lander—no wonder you’re so wretched at domestic service. You have not the family temperament for it.”

He looked at her as if she had spoken in some foreign language. To clarify her point, Folie added, “Perhaps next time you ought to impersonate an army officer, or something more suited to a bold and enterprising nature.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said solemnly. “I shall consider your advice.”

“Shall I buy you an officer’s commission, Lander?” Robert asked, grinning. “God knows I owe you that much.”

“Perhaps I’ll ask you for a different favor, sir,” Lander said, “at a more salutary time.”

“You’ll have it.” Robert sat back on the seat. “But you were about to tell us what you’ve learned.”

“One plot,” Lander said, “but several aims among the plotters, it would appear. This potion—or powder, rather— is some Indian brew used to induce religious visions, I gather. I’m not certain where the duke obtained his information about it—”

“He had a number of correspondents in India,” Robert said. “He and my father were great cronies, and I know he had other friends high up in the Company. He used to put his money in some Indian and Chinese ventures, when my father advised him.”

Lander nodded. “Yes, sir. Your father did well by him, it would seem. But after your father’s death, he seems to have gotten into some very bad investments.”

“He wrote me. Afterward. Kept commanding me to increase Phillippa’s allowance.” Robert frowned. “I just told the secretary to give her whatever she wanted without ruining me entirely. But I wonder...”

“Perhaps she sent funds to her father,” Lander said.

“Yes...” Robert rubbed the shadow of beard beginning to show on his chin. “I didn’t pay it much mind—but. .. ten thousand a year. Even she couldn’t have been spending so extravagantly on herself.”

“Ten thousand a year?” The conjurer made an overly dramatic face of astonishment. “You did not pay it much mind, sir?”

“I didn’t spend a great deal of time at home,” Robert said shortly.

“It makes sense,” Lander said. “Perhaps, sir, after your wife passed away, he could no longer appeal for money from that source.”

“Oh, he appealed,” Robert said dryly.

“Just so,” Lander said. “If you didn’t endear yourself to him by obliging with funds, he may not have felt much compunction toward you. He made some desperate financial moves—the details remain to be seen, but they must have been extreme, because his goal appeared to be the entire destruction of the East India Company.”

Robert swore softly. He nodded. “The charter.”

“The charter. Up for renewal before Parliament and Crown. By controlling the Prince Regent, he meant to see the monopoly broken. No renewed Company charter ever signed by the Crown—or, at least, delayed until the shareholders tore the Company apart.”

“So he
was
drugging the Prince! Just as Robert said!” Folie exclaimed.

“Yes, they’d infiltrated this Dr. Varley into Carlton House, and begun to administer their potion, just enough to cause the headaches that the excellent doctor knew precisely how to cure. They felt sure they knew how to measure their dosage—having tested it thoroughly on you, sir, before the first drop of the stuff ever left India. They knew how to induce visions and how to decrease the measure to relieve the hallucinations without the—subject—regaining his full acumen.”

Robert closed his eyes and laid his head back. “A test.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

He drew a deep breath. “I don’t even remember. I remember her funeral. Time after that...a long time of just...everyday sorts of things.” He opened his eyes and looked briefly at Folie. “Drifting, I suppose. As if I didn’t know what to do with myself. But I could not tell you when those visions began. Or how I ever got out of there.’’

“You simply vanished,” Lander said. “General St. Clair believes you had friends among the natives, who spirited you away.”

“Mr. Ramanu,” Folie murmured.

Robert nodded slowly. “Perhaps. Yes.”

“By that time, the duke had gotten Mr. Inman as an accomplice,” Lander said. “Which changed the color of things considerably. The duke’s intentions ended with blocking the charter, but Inman claims he wasn’t going to be satisfied with less than the whole ruin of the Government. He’s talking all sorts of mayhem—I think that clip on the head has dissolved whatever prudence he ever had. He despises the duke. But he couldn’t waive a chance to make the Prince Regent go mad as his father did—he’s even hinted that there may be another plot, still in motion if we can’t track it down, to assassinate the Prime Minister. Throw the Government into complete chaos.”

No one spoke for a moment, absorbing this alarming news. A stray dog ran alongside the carriage, barking fiercely until they outpaced it.

“I would not have believed it,” Robert said. “My God. There were times when I was certain I must be insane, that it could be nothing else.”

Lander nodded solemnly. “Aye, sir. And they meant to keep it that way. After you got away from them in Calcutta, they were intent upon tracking you, since they couldn’t be certain of what you knew, or might piece together. Once you made it to England, the duke insisted that you must be kept under the influence of the drug, to prevent anyone from taking you seriously if you did talk. You may thank General St. Clair for your life, because Mr. Inman thought that killing you would be much the simplest—they got into quite a dispute over it again just now. But at any rate, the general seems to have prevailed.” Lander scowled, an unhappy expression darkening his square face. “I don’t know quite how he became involved in this—he has a reputation as an excellent officer—but I suspect that he was in on some of the duke’s more—questionable—investments.”

“Blackmailed into it,” Robert said.

“Most likely. The prison hulk was his notion...Inman says even now that all three of you ought to have been ‘eliminated’ at Vauxhall.”

“Eliminated!” Folie said, sitting up and leaning forward. “And Sir Howard!” she said fiercely. “He did pass that note to Robert, to lure him there, but I cannot conceive—why did he help them, even a jot?”

Lander shook his head. “I can only conjecture at this point, ma’am. I think...perhaps...the maid, you know.” He gave her an embarrassed look. “Mr. Inman went to Solinger searching for someone he could coerce. I think—uh—that Sir Howard did not wish for his wife to, um, discover his—mistake.”