I whirled on him. “How on earth can you think him innocent?”
“Because I had a delightful little chat with Ginger Tom.”
“Ginger Tom?”
“The cabman. He used to be a draftsman, driving wagons for the circus. He took his brother’s hackney when he died and moved his family to London. Our paths occasionally cross,” he told me. “I knew this was his favorite shelter, so I thought I would look in on the chance he might be here.”
“You were supposed to be keeping watch outside the club,” I reminded him coldly.
“Empires have fallen in the time it took you,” he replied. “I meant only to ask him a question or two about the night Alice’s rope and badge were stolen from the club.”
“And?”
He shook his head. “I know you would dearly love for him to have driven the guilty party to their breaking and entering and provide us with a solid description, but I am afraid he was not here that night.”
I swore fluently, bringing a smile to Stoker’s lips.
“However,” he said, holding up a hand, “no chambermaid ever gossiped as much as a cabman. One of his mates was bringing a fare back late that night and saw two people on the pavement. There is nothing to indicate they had anything to do with the theft of Alice’s things, but they were behaving quite furtively, the fellow said.”
“Two people?” I considered this. “I suppose it might have been Norton working with someone. Maximilian? Captain Durand?”
Stoker shook his head. “I am afraid not. The man was wearing his collar turned up to his cheekbones, he told me. Impossible to describe him at all. But the second . . .” He paused to heighten my interest. “The second was a woman.”
We discussed this development at length as we made our way back to Bishop’s Folly courtesy of Ginger Tom. He dropped us at the gate, neatly catching the coin Stoker flipped and saluting us with his whip as he whistled softly to the horse to walk on. We entered the grounds just as the clock above the stables was chiming the hour.
I gave a broad yawn. “Heavens, that’s half the night gone,” I murmured.
Stoker’s reply was a few words of Keats nuzzled into my temple as he walked me to the door of my chapel. He left me there, saluting with the hand still wrapped in his handkerchief, and I stared after him, conscious of a rush of emotion the likes of which I could never remember feeling before.
You are all that I want and more than I deserve, and I will go to my grave thanking a god in whom I do not believe for bringing me to you.
I was still smiling when I fell asleep.
* * *
• • •
The next day I slept rather later than was my custom—not unusual given our nocturnal adventures. The morning was well advanced and bitterly cold by the time I had washed and dressed and applied an ointment of arnica to my bruised chin. Stoker was already in the Belvedere surrounded by the bevy of dogs looking hopefully at the heap of bacon on his plate. He was reading the Daily Harbinger and breaking off bits of rind to throw to them. His finger was neatly bandaged and only a little swollen, I saw with relief.
“Good morning,” I said brightly. “Anything of interest?”
Amusement twitched the corners of his mouth. “Only this.” He lifted the newspaper to show me the front page—princess attacked by prankster outside opera house, trumpeted the headline. It was accompanied by a few lurid sketches of the pandemonium outside the opera house and an official portrait of Gisela complete with crown and royal orders.
“Prankster!” I exclaimed as I leant forward to read the article. It was a breathless account of the entire evening from the triumph of Mademoiselle Fribourg in her début as Atalanta to the enthusiastic reception of the Princess of the Alpenwald. After a full page of this, the story turned to the drama that had played out upon the pavement.
It went on at great length describing the event and quoting Inspector Mornaday of Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, who characterized the event as nothing more than an ill-timed and nasty joke perpetrated by a japester who had vanished into the crowd. It concluded with a statement from the Alpenwalder delegation that they were perfectly content that this had been a prank and not a serious attempt upon the princess’s life.
“It seems Mornaday has come to the same conclusion you did,” I said, tossing the newspaper back to Stoker.
“There were no injuries and little damage apart from a few torn garments and broken feathers in the jostling from the panic,” he replied. “It was the obvious conclusion—even Mornaday could not fail to draw it. And the chancellor’s statement would prevent him from investigating further, even if he were so inclined.”
“He will not like that,” I mused. I produced the card from the chocolate box and examined it again. “‘Prepare for your end.’ Ominous.”
“And timely,” Stoker added, forking up a kidney for Huxley. “A threat like that appearing around the same time as her disappearance and the bomb at the opera house? Not a coincidence, I think.”
“A squib,” I reminded him. “As you so cleverly deduced. It would have no doubt made a powerful effect, receiving a threat like that coupled with the fright of the explosion.”
“Did she bolt because she received it?” he wondered aloud as Huxley nibbled daintily at the fork.
I shook my head. “I had a good think and remembered something I ought to have recalled earlier. The seal on the chocolates was unbroken when the baroness offered the box to me. Gisela never saw the threat.”
“So, she did not disappear because it unnerved her,” he said, offering a titbit to Betony. Under his elbow, Nut sidled up to his plate and lifted off a poached egg. “Why then did she leave? And why is the chancellor so certain there is no cause to worry about her?”
“Perhaps he knows where she is,” I ventured. “He does seem the least anxious of the lot of them.” I helped myself to a piece of toast from the rack and spread it liberally with quince preserves. “So what can we infer?”
“That Gisela is being threatened but not harmed. The chocolates carry only a paper threat, but no real danger, it seems,” Stoker said, scratching Vespertine gently behind the ears. “Of course, the chocolates I ate seemed fine, but I suppose we ought to investigate the rest in case any have been tampered with.”
I shook my head. “I examined them carefully first thing this morning. There is no sign they have been adulterated—no discoloration, no peculiar odors. No marks of hypodermic syringes or seams where the chocolates may have been opened and put back together.”
“Very well, we will assume the chocolates and the squib were meant to frighten, but nothing more. To what end?”