Tasha Alexander - A Crimson Warning

“It was diversionary,” he said, meeting my eyes for the first time since we’d accused him. “It took the attention off Dillman altogether. No one at Scotland Yard spent much time looking into his connections, not once my campaign got under way.”

“You have destroyed so many lives,” I said.

“I only exposed sins these people decided to commit,” he said. “Now they have to live like I do—trapped by their pasts. At least they chose theirs.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Colin said. “I’d always liked you, Barnes. I thought you were better than most of the louts in society. I never would have guessed someone like you—whom I held in such high esteem—could improve my opinion of them. I’m disappointed.”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Barnes said. “It was my only chance. I had to try.”

“No, you didn’t.” Colin crossed his arms. “I’ll take you to Scotland Yard and we’ll get the rest of this settled.”

“Please, I can’t face it,” Mr. Barnes said. “All the laughing, the mocking. I know what they’ll say—that this is what they expected from someone like me.” He looked Colin straight in the face. “Could you not give me a moment?”

“Absolutely not. You will stand like a gentleman and face what you have done.”

Mr. Barnes nodded. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “May I at least write my confession at my desk instead of in a cell?”

“That I can allow,” Colin said.

And then it was like a flash. Mr. Barnes opened a drawer, presumably to pull out paper. But instead of paper, he lifted out a small pistol and raised it to his head. Colin moved so quickly I could hardly see what was happening. He wrenched the gun out of Mr. Barnes’s hand, knocked him onto the ground facedown, and pinned his arms behind his back.

“Don’t be in such a hurry, Barnes,” he said. “You will die, but not like this. I’m not about to let you take the coward’s way out.”

I could hardly keep my knees from banging together, I was shaking so hard. Colin had sent me to summon help, and I felt lost in the halls of Westminster. Almost without thinking, I went to Mr. Foster’s office.

“Something terrible has happened,” I said. “Mr. Barnes has been behind this red-paint business. We need Scotland Yard at once.”

“No,” he said. “No. It can’t be Barnes.”

“Please, Mr. Foster, we must hurry.”

He scrawled a note and handed it to his assistant, then turned back to me. “Now let’s go,” Mr. Foster said. “I must speak to him.”

I filled in the details for him on the way to the office. Mr. Foster looked ill by the time we entered the room. Colin was still holding the gun. Mr. Barnes was back in a chair, but not behind his desk.

“Simon—” Mr. Foster stepped towards his friend. “I don’t know what to say. Why?”

“It was the only way forward,” Mr. Barnes said. “The only way to bring this country into a new age of enlightenment.”

“Not like this, Simon, not like this. You wouldn’t have had to blackmail me.”

“That was just insurance,” Mr. Barnes said.

“You should have trusted me. Trusted me to reach these heights on my own,” Mr. Foster said. “And trusted me to keep you as my closest adviser.”

Mr. Foster sank into a chair, and they both sat, silent, until Scotland Yard arrived. After the usual sorts of administrative detail, they formally arrested Mr. Barnes and took him away. As I watched him go, I almost wished I’d asked what secret about Colin he’d meant to expose. But I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know.

“Excellent work, Hargreaves,” Mr. Foster said, slapping my husband on the back. “Capital job.” There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

“Sorry the result wasn’t happier for you,” Colin said.

“Nothing to be done,” Mr. Foster said. “Difficult to see one’s friend stoop to such levels.”

“Yes.” Colin put the gun on top of Mr. Barnes’s desk. “But there is something we need to discuss. This match factory.”

“Let me assure you I knew nothing about it.”

“I never suspected otherwise,” Colin said. “But you are the registered owner of it.”

“Would be deeply grateful if you could make it all go away,” Mr. Foster said.

“Shouldn’t pose a problem,” Colin said. “I’ll personally see to fixing the records. The rest the government will have no objection to burying. Emily has already begun organizing a better situation for the people working in the factory.”

“Do let me know if you require anything from me. I’ve money, whatever you need. I can’t tell you how distressed I am to have had my name associated with something like that.”

“Barnes knew you’d feel that way,” Colin said. “Which is why he thought it would give him power over you.”

“There’s something else,” I said. “All the rest of the fraud. You claim you knew nothing about it. Yet you were so jumpy when I broached the subject in my library.”

Mr. Foster sighed. “Barnes came to me some weeks ago. He told me he’d learned that there had been tampering in my first election and was worried I might be exposed for it, even though there was no proof of any involvement on my part. I swear to you I knew nothing about it at the time.”

“That was the beginning of his setting into motion the final part of his plan,” Colin said. “He was getting ready to exert his control over you.”

Mr. Foster bounced on his toes. “Is this likely to haunt me in the future?”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t,” Colin said.

“I appreciate it more than you could ever know, Hargreaves,” he said. “Pity to have one’s career ruined for reasons beyond one’s control.”

“No one wants to see that happen,” Colin said.

“Thank you,” Mr. Foster said. “And Lady Emily, don’t be a stranger. I’ll soon be in a better position than ever to help forward your political agenda.”

Another smile, and he left us.

“Are you absolutely certain he knew nothing about what Barnes was doing?” I asked.

“As certain as I need to be,” Colin said.

“Shouldn’t his possible role in all of it be examined?”

“It would ruin him, even if in the end he was found innocent.”

“Don’t you want to know the truth?” I asked. “To be sure? This doesn’t seem right.”

“I understand how you feel, Emily, I do,” he said. “But there’s nothing more to be done. Take comfort in the fact he’s a decent man and will do good work for the empire. In the end, that’s all that matters.”

“I don’t agree, Colin.” I crossed my arms. “The means matter just as much.”

“In this case, we can’t have both,” Colin said. “And I’m willing to accept what’s best for England. You should be, too.”

“That’s all fine for the lot of you,” Jeremy said. “But I’m never showing my face in public again.” We’d gathered in the library, each of us still reeling from the events of the previous week. “It’s all over and I’ve got not a single drop of paint to show for it. Not a drop! Meanwhile, our darling Em— my darling Em—is the only one of us to have made the cut. She gets paint.”

“The paint was for Colin,” I said, centering on the table my favorite Greek vase, its black figures depicting the siege of Troy.

“Right,” Jeremy said. “Hargreaves, the model of everything good in England, has something to hide? You’ll never convince me it wasn’t meant for you.”

“This isn’t funny, you know,” Ivy said. “People are dead. And think of all those whose lives have been decimated.”

“I hate to agree with old Barnes, but you can’t say they didn’t deserve it,” Jeremy said. “It never pays to live badly unless you’re happy for others to know.” He puffed on his cigar and looked contemplative for a moment. “I say, that was a bloody good phrase. You think Oscar Wilde would want it?”