I shook my head. “You complain you are not making your way in the world, yet your ascent through the ranks at the Yard has been meteoric, I am told.”
“Not through my own merit,” he said in real bitterness. “I was given advancement upon the recommendation of my godfather, who was Home Secretary at the time.”
I remembered hearing something of the sort when we had first made Archibond’s acquaintance. Something else niggled at the corner of my memory, a bit of scandal from the English newspapers when I had been abroad in Madeira.
“The Home Secretary? The one who was forced to resign after his wife sued for divorce claiming he had another family tucked away in—where was it?”
“Barnstaple,” he supplied. His expression was grim. “His fall affected all of us. My sister’s fiancé broke off the engagement and she has been forced to come and keep house for me instead. My own career at the Yard has been effectively ruined. I will never climb higher because I have no patron to smooth the way. Sir Hugo has made it perfectly apparent that I have achieved all I may ever hope for under his aegis.”
“Still, to be second at Special Branch is no mean feat. Why is that not enough for you?”
“Because everything I have worked for has been ruined by the peccadilloes of another!” he protested. “And what of the thousands of others, trammeled under the boot of tyranny, without prospect or hope of improvement? You could step one foot outside this door and meet dozens, nay, hundreds of men who will live and die in the station to which they were born, never knowing what they might have been with the proper education, with training and opportunity.”
I gave him a pitying look. “You cast yourself as a benefactor and yet I suspect your largesse will begin and end with you, Inspector.”
“I would see this country refashioned for the good of all,” he countered coldly.
“It is the dream of an adolescent,” I told him. “I have met one or two anarchists on my travels, and without fail they are exceedingly childish. Anarchy is the sort of idea one may embrace at university, but one would be very ill-advised to take it home and marry it. Their plots have frequently been catastrophic failures,” I added. “No one yet has brought down civilization as we know it to remake the world.”
“It is only a matter of time before someone succeeds,” he insisted. “And I intend to be that man.”
“So you have abducted the future king and entered into a conspiracy with an unrepentant Irish radical who would install a puppet queen? Hardly a marriage of like minds,” Stoker pointed out.
Archibond’s gaze slid away and he did not answer.
“How does murdering Madame Aurore fit into your scheme?” I asked.
He did not flinch. “A necessary casualty and not a particularly regrettable one. Any further questions?”
“I can think of a few dozen,” Stoker said amiably. “To begin with, how did de Clare find you?”
“I found him,” Archibond said. “He very nearly died the last time he encountered the pair of you, but he dragged himself out of the Thames and his henchmen spirited him back to Ireland to recover and to brood on his losses. When I learnt of Miss Speedwell’s true identity, it was an easy enough matter to track him down.”
“How did you discover my birth?” I demanded.
He shrugged. “The files at Special Branch hold all sorts of secrets and Sir Hugo is often too busy to notice where I have been wandering. I studied the files in hopes of discovering something, anything, I could use to leverage myself into a better position. Those file drawers are full of nasty little scandals—adultery and profiteering and cheating at cards and gambling. But imagine my delight when I learnt your secret, Miss Speedwell. It cast all the others into gloom, I assure you.”
“And de Clare was only too happy to have someone new to recruit to his cause,” Stoker guessed.
“My dear fellow, the matter was settled over a bottle of good Irish whisky and a handshake.”
“He is an unrepentant lunatic,” I said succinctly.
“What a very hurtful thing to say about one’s blood relation,” he said thoughtfully. “I prefer to think of him as dogged in his pursuits.” He paused. “He rails quite a lot—gets into these dark moods where he sits up all night, nursing a bottle of rather fine, peaty whisky and saying decidedly unkind things about you. He has spent the last months in a fever of frustration because he had no idea where you were. He had a dozen plots to kidnap this one and torture him into talking,” he said with a jerk of his head towards Stoker, “and you can thank me for putting him off that idea.” He paused, but when no sign of gratitude was forthcoming from Stoker, he shrugged and went on. “He was ripe as a plum when I found him, ready to fall in with my plans at the first approach.”
He rose then, rubbing his hands together briskly. “Now then, I merely wanted to look in and make certain our charges were of good cheer. I will return later.”
He edged towards the door, and that was when they made their mistake. Quiet Dan and his companion withdrew first, leaving Archibond exposed.
Stoker surged up from the bed in a single, fluid motion, taking up one of the chairs and smashing it in a single blow so that he held a piece in each hand, brandishing them like a lion tamer. He started forwards, making straight for Archibond. The inspector stepped back swiftly, letting Quiet Dan move to the fore. The Irishman raised his gun but Archibond gave a shout of alarm.
“Don’t shoot, you cretin! If you miss it will ricochet,” he protested. Quiet Dan resorted to his fists, swinging wildly, but Stoker never paused in his implacable advance. He dropped to his knees, slashing with the spindles at the Irishman’s knees, bringing him down hard. Quiet Dan howled, but the noise was cut off as Stoker slammed one spindle into his solar plexus. The fellow pitched forward, and Stoker cut up sharply, putting all of his strength into a blow that snapped the fellow’s head back so hard, I could feel the crack of it in my bones.
From the doorway, Archibond raised his own revolver, aiming carefully at me and stopping Stoker squarely in his tracks. “On your knees, Templeton-Vane,” he said through gritted teeth.
Stoker hesitated and Archibond cocked the pistol. “I am not de Clare,” he said, his voice cold as a winter wind. “Believe me when I tell you that you care far more than I do if she dies. On your knees.”
Stoker complied this time, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“Now on your face,” Archibond instructed.
Stoker lay facedown and gave me a long look of resignation. I gave him a nod in return to show that I understood, and before he could respond, Archibond circled around and lifted his boot to aim a careful kick at Stoker’s jaw. His eyes rolled back in his head but Archibond kicked him once more for good measure. Thoroughly and obviously shaken, Archibond signaled angrily to a staggering Quiet Dan and his companion. Together they scooped Stoker up under the armpits and dragged him from the room.