“I thought you had fled,” Archibond pointed out calmly. “And if you had not, taking these two back into my own custody assures I am not circumvented.”
“Circumvented! And what put that thought into your head?” jeered de Clare.
“Perhaps the fact that you took Madame Aurore’s body off the premises,” Archibond returned.
De Clare flushed, a deep mottled red. “Do not play games with me, you English prick. I know you took her, and I know why. You mean to frame me for her murder and keep the girl under your control,” he said, jerking his chin at me.
Archibond’s tone was arctic. “I would hardly need to frame you for murdering Aurore since your man slashed her throat on your orders. And as for playing games, you are scarcely in a position to talk after what you did with the body.”
They had squared off, each man’s temper flaring, Archibond’s cold and de Clare’s blazing. It made for an interesting study. I glanced back at Stoker and he shrugged. I knew him well enough to interpret the gesture. He would do nothing so long as the two of them were at loggerheads. If the quarrel played out and they did violence to each other, so much the better for us. We might well escape in the confusion. Along with poor Mr. Pennybaker, I thought. But the gentleman was staring at the pair of combatants, eyes wide with interest as he took in their contretemps with all the avid interest of a spectator who has wagered his last guinea at a horse race. Stoker moved, angling his body in front of Pennybaker so the man would be shielded from any possible violence.
De Clare was fairly leaping at Archibond’s accusation. “I tell you, I did nothing with the body! It was you who spirited her off to God knows where.”
Archibond rolled his eyes heavenwards. “And when, precisely, would I have had an opportunity to do that? I was with you, or have you—in your paranoiac fantasies—forgot that? It is perfectly apparent that you must know where the body is.”
“I do not!” De Clare was fairly vibrating with rage at this point. He raised his pistol to Archibond, who countered by leveling his own revolver at de Clare, and there were quite enough guns in that room for my taste. I decided to step in, holding my hands up.
“Stop this brangling at once,” I instructed. “I know where the body is. So I suggest you both calm down and discuss this rationally before gunfire breaks out.”
Archibond gave me a suspicious look. “You know where the body is?”
“Yes, someone left her for us to find,” I told him. “We rather thought it was the pair of you, intending to notify the police and have us arrested on suspicion of murder.”
Archibond’s tone was one of chilled scorn. “Why the devil would we want you accused of murder when you are the linchpin of this whole endeavor?”
I shrugged. “You might have intended to catch Stoker in your little trap,” I pointed out. “It is one way of eliminating him from the equation.”
“There are other ways,” he said.
And before I understood what he meant to do, he shifted his stance, turned to Stoker, and pulled the trigger.
Time stood still as the scarlet bloomed across Stoker’s shirtfront and he slid to his knees. He looked up to me, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Not again,” he said, half laughing. “I don’t bloody well believe this.”
And then he collapsed onto the carpet at my feet.
CHAPTER
24
The instant Stoker fell, several things happened. De Clare, believing Archibond had shot at me, immediately fired at Archibond. His aim was not as true and he merely caught the inspector in the arm. Archibond lifted his other arm to return fire, but before he could, a form vaulted through the window.
“Mornaday!” I cried as our old acquaintance entered, his own revolver drawn.
“Inspector, surrender yourself,” he instructed. “The rest of you are under arrest, except for Miss Speedwell.”
Archibond did not lower his weapon. “I don’t know what you think you are playing at, Mornaday, but that is enough. As your superior, I order you to lower your weapon and take these people into custody.”
“I am afraid not, sir,” Mornaday said evenly. “I have my own orders and they come from higher than you.”
Archibond’s features twisted into a snarl, but before he could pull the trigger, a shot rang out. He pitched forward, surprise registering on his face. De Clare and Mornaday had not moved, and neither had Quiet Dan. But behind Archibond, his wide eyes as stunned as the rest of us, a smoking musket of some antiquity in his hand, stood Mr. Pennybaker.
“Oh dear,” he said, dropping the musket to the ground. “I seem to have hit him in the posterior vena cava. I do believe that will be a fatal wound.”
“Christ in chains,” Mornaday muttered. He swung his revolver to de Clare. “You and your man. Drop your weapons and against the wall.”
De Clare grinned. “I think not, lad. There’s one of you and two of us.”
The little clock on the mantel began to chime, but I could not make sense of it, for time had frozen. We were a tableau: Pennybaker, horrified at his own actions, standing in rigid disbelief; De Clare and Quiet Dan opposite Mornaday, alone and outnumbered and attempting to hold them off.
And most significant of all, Stoker, lying on the hearthrug, his life’s blood pooling beneath him.
It was easy to see what would happen next. De Clare and his minion would open fire on Mornaday first, then Pennybaker. They would finish off Stoker and take me prisoner and that would be the end—the end of my life as I had known it, the end of my love.
I bent as if to look at Stoker, but I came up almost immediately. The gesture was simply a way to shield my movements as I slipped the knife from my boot. Once before, Stoker had lain bleeding from a bullet and I had thrown a knife straight into the heart of his attacker. This time, I did not throw it. I surged forward, blade in hand, and my aim was true. I buried the knife where I intended, in my uncle’s torso, pulling it up and sharply to the left as he stared at me, his expression one of complete disbelief. For a long moment we were locked together, his arms coming up to grip mine, almost in an embrace. And then he eased his hold on me, slipping from my grasp with a little shudder that gave way to perfect and final stillness.
Quiet Dan fired once, hitting Mornaday in the shoulder, dropping him to the floor. Beyond where Mornaday had stood, framed in the windows, was my dance partner, the female liveried and masked porter from Madame Aurore’s, the deerhound Vespertine at her heels, a rifle hefted to her shoulder. Without breaking stride, she fired twice in quick succession, taking out Quiet Dan. Mornaday slumped on the carpet, grasping his bleeding shoulder.