Стефани Баррон - A Flaw in the Blood

The police shrugged, but declined to throw him into Newgate. They conducted him instead to Bedford Square. Fitzgerald's house had been thoroughly searched before—for what, Gibbon was never sure. They left the valet in possession of their mess, with a warning that he was not under any circumstances to flee London. If his master returned, he was to inform them immediately—on pain of conspiracy charges.

He settled in, as they expected, to wait. Fitzgerald would undoubtedly come back; and it was Gibbon's job to make sure he ran well clear of the Law. He had identified three of the men who watched his days by the end of the first thirty-six hours; loiterers near a flaming ash can, who took the job in shifts. They hovered near the gated entrance to Bedford Square. The mews behind the house had only one watcher: a gent in a greatcoat, who lounged aimlessly near the neighbour's coach house, blowing on his fingers in the bitter January cold.

Gibbon developed a routine to pass the time. Fires in the principal hearths at seven A.M., so the damp did not penetrate the deserted rooms. Tidying of the kitchen and scullery by eight. Slicing and ironing of the newspaper, as though Fitzgerald might require it. General housework and thorough cleaning, such as he rarely found the time to do when Fitzgerald was in residence. An hour with the newspaper over his dinner, which he took at two o'clock when left to his own devices; and the luxury of a pipe to follow. Silver polishing in the afternoon, and assessment of his master's wardrobe—what could be mended, what must be brushed and pressed, what given away to the rag-and-bone men who loitered in the mews. Supper he took in a local pub: a simple affair of bubble and squeak, or bangers and mash, washed down with the publican's porter. A watchful stroll around the square—if Fitzgerald made contact, it would probably be at night—and the throwing of the bolts before an early bed.

He managed the household accounts carefully from the strongbox he stored under his floorboards. They had left London near the end of the previous month, and Fitzgerald's January wages and domestic cash were sorely lacking. Gibbon had a bit put by, however—the steady savings for his old age—and he was not beyond tapping it if Fitzgerald's absence was prolonged. Tradesmen's bills were a nagging worry: If demands proved exorbitant, he would have to consider shutting up the house by the end of the month, and lodging with his sister near the Elephant and Castle. This weighed on Gibbon's mind; how would Fitzgerald find him if he vanished from Bedford Square?

On the morning of January second, however, a new interest appeared to divert his mind.

He had taken to scanning the Personal column in the London Times while he dined. Quite often the notices were perfunctory, but sometimes they were amusing.

MISS KILDARE'S RESPECTS TO MR. TIMMONS, WITH HER REQUEST THAT HE RETURN, PRIOR TO HIS WEDDING DAY, THE CORRESPONDENCE SHE SO FAITHFULLY CONDUCTED OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST FIVE YEARS; ALL REPLIES TO BE SENT 25, GRACECHURCH STREET, LONDON. . . .

A WALLET OF MONEY, AND THE DOCUMENTS CONTAINED THEREIN, SUBSCRIBED MR. A—— PR——, MISLAID WHILE THE OWNER WAS ENGAGED UPSTAIRS AT THE SIGN OF THE LUCKY PENNY: REPLIES TO MRS. BARNACLE, PROPRIETRESS. . . .

He could perfectly envision Mrs. Barnacle, who undoubtedly kept a bawdy house, and would make the discomfitted Arthur Protheroe pay for the return of his property—if she did not blackmail him for the remainder of his useless existence; and Miss Kildare, who had hoped in vain for an offer from her young man, only to read the announcement of his engagement in that selfsame Times . . .

He never expected to read the name of someone he knew.

PRIVATE COMMUNICATION TO DR. ARMISTEAD . . .

A brief notice, without the slightest hint of its author's identity. Replies must be sent to the postal office, Cowes, to be left until called for.

It worried Gibbon that this plea—so oblique, but potentially so important—should go unanswered. Worry nipped at his heels all day, as he shook carpets in the area and ignored the gaze of the local Bobby.

That evening, after his stroll around the square, he sat down at Fitzgerald's desk—and composed his careful letter.

At first she kept her eyes tightly shut, as if she might not feel the rape if she could not see it. But Heinrich's chest was a lead weight on her own and his hands pressed down on her wrists, forcing her arms painfully into the horsehair mattress; he braced one knee against her thigh. She felt the shaming panic rise—the animal instinct for flight, all her muscles contracting away from him—and her eyes flew open.

She looked straight into his face.

He hesitated under the glare of her gaze; his grip eased. Her accusing look had disconcerted him; he was sweating slightly, his colour mounting. To avoid her eyes he buried his face in her shoulder and thrust his pelvis against hers.

Without thinking, she turned her head and sank her teeth into his neck.

He yelled in shock and reared away from her, his skin torn and bleeding: a thickset man, crouched like a wrestler, his hand raised to strike.

Von Stühlen was laughing—a guttural noise entirely without mirth—and Heinrich turned slightly to stare at him, his frame buckling like a whipped dog's. Von Stühlen clapped his gloved hands in a studied way, as though applauding a new star of the comic opera from his private box.

“Highly diverting. A vixen's jaws snap, when she's brought to bay—”

He tore at his cravat, unwinding the linen and running it through his hands; it made a length of rope nearly two yards long. More than enough for a gag.

Georgiana kept her teeth bared and her eyes fixed on his. These were her only weapons.

Fitzgerald might have missed von Stühlen entirely. There were any number of places on the road to Mainz where a traveling coach could halt for the night. At every toll gate that spanned the neatly-tended country roads, he asked for the coach-and-four that had traveled ahead of him. Just past Rodau, on the Darmstadt road, he drew a blank.

He backtracked to the town. There were three principal inns; only two of them provided a change of post-horses. Hand gestures and a few words of German among the ostlers revealed that no coach, and no gentleman of von Stühlen's description, had stopped at either.

He bought a tankard of ale and downed it to steady his nerves. Frustration welled in his fingers, making them twitch on the reins. Though it was barely half-past four, the early winter dark of central Europe was falling. Had the Count pushed on, driving his horses to the limit, and reached a different town—one not on the direct road to Mainz?

Remounting, Fitzgerald urged his tired horse back along the way they'd come. A crossroad bisected the turnpike just before Rodau, running north and south off the main westerly route; the signpost read Bensheim. It was possible von Stühlen had deliberately tried to throw off pursuit. But he would be unwilling to lose much time tomorrow in regaining the main road. Would he dodge north, therefore, or south? Fitzgerald had no idea; he was a stranger in a strange country, without even a rudimentary map.

As his horse pawed the tarmacadam uncertainly in the centre of the crossroad, a train whistle sounded mournfully in the distance. Fitzgerald's head swung north, listening.

The railway ran to Mainz. Von Stühlen would lose the least time the closer he kept to it.

He took the whistle as a sign in the gathering dark, and turned north.

The inn was a small one sitting close to the road: a local affair for farmers and their beer, in a village of a dozen houses. It boasted no stable yard and no ostlers; but von Stühlen did not require a change of horses—he intended to rest his team overnight. Fitzgerald could see the looming bulk of the traveling coach pulled up behind the inn, beside the publican's waggon.