The Scottish Prisoner (Lord John Grey #3)(52)
Author: Diana Gabaldon

Fraser glanced up at him and raised one thick red brow.

“How d’ye mean to stop me?”

Twelvetrees slapped at his waist, as do men who are accustomed to wearing a sword. Then sat down, very slowly, reason returning.

“You have no right to examine these papers,” he said to Grey, calmly by comparison with his earlier outbursts. “You are a murderer and evidently an escaped outlaw—for I misdoubt that you have been released officially?”

Grey understood this was intended as sarcasm and didn’t bother replying. “By what right were you examining them, may I ask?”

“By right of law,” Twelvetrees replied promptly. “I am the executor of Gerald Siverly’s will, charged with the discharge of his debts and the disposition of his property.”

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, his expression added. Grey was in fact taken aback at this revelation.

“Gerald Siverly was my friend,” Twelvetrees added, and his lips compressed briefly. “A particular friend.”

Grey had known that much, from Harry Quarry, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Twelvetrees would be so intimate with Siverly as to have been appointed executor of his estate. Had Siverly no family, bar his wife?

And if Twelvetrees was so intimate—what did he know concerning Siverly’s actions?

Whatever it was, he obviously wasn’t about to confide his knowledge to Grey. John got to his feet and, manfully trying not to wheeze in the smoke-filled air, went to the bay window and threw back the lid of the blanket chest. The ironbound box was gone.

“What have you done with the money?” he demanded, swinging back to Twelvetrees. The man glared at him with profound dislike.

“So sorry,” he sneered. “It’s where you’ll never get your thieving hands on it.”

Jamie was collecting the half-charred bits of paper he had saved from the fire, handling each with ginger care, but looked up at this, glancing from Twelvetrees to Grey.

“D’ye want me to search the house?”

Grey’s eyes were on Twelvetrees, and he saw the man’s nostrils flare, his lips compress in disgust—but there was no hint of agitation or fear in his red-rimmed eyes.

“No,” Jamie said, echoing Grey’s thoughts. “He’s right; he’s carried it away already.”

“You’re quite good at this business of outlawry,” Grey said dryly.

“Aye, well. I’ve had practice.” The Scot had a small collection of singed papers in his hand. He carefully pulled one free and handed it to Grey.

“I think this is the only one that might be of interest, my lord.”

It was written in a different hand, but Grey recognized the sheet at once. It was the Wild Hunt poem—and he did wonder where the devil the rest of it was; why only this one page?—much singed and smeared with ash.

“Why—” he began, but then, seeing Fraser jerk his chin upward, turned the paper over. He heard Twelvetrees’s breath hiss in, but paid no attention.

The Wild Hunt

Capt. Ronald Dougan

Wm. Scarry Spender

Robert Wilson Bishop

Fordham O’Toole

Èamonn Ó Chriadha

Patrick Bannion Laverty

Grey whistled softly through his teeth. He knew none of the names on the list but had a good idea what it was—an idea reinforced by the look of fury on Twelvetrees’s face. He wouldn’t go back to Hal quite empty-handed.

If he wasn’t mistaken, what he held in his hand was a list of conspirators, almost certainly Irish Jacobites. Someone—had it been Fraser or himself?—had suggested that the Wild Hunt poem was a recognition signal, and he had wondered at the time, a signal for whom? Here was the answer—or part of one. Men who did not know one another personally would recognize others in their group by the showing of the poem—on its face a bit of half-finished, innocuous verse, but in reality a code, readable by those who held the key.

Fraser nodded casually toward Twelvetrees. “Is there anything ye want me to beat out of him?”

Twelvetrees’s eyes sprang wide. Grey wanted to laugh, in spite of everything, but didn’t.

“The temptation is considerable,” he said. “But I doubt the experiment would prove productive. Just keep him there, if you would, while I have a quick look round.”

He could tell from Twelvetrees’s dour expression that there was nothing further to be found in the house, but, for form’s sake, he went through the desk and the bookshelves and made a brief foray upstairs with a candlestick, in case Siverly should have kept anything secret in his bedchamber.

He felt a strong sense of oppression, walking through the empty darkness of the house, and something akin to sadness, standing in the dead man’s chamber. The servants had stripped the bed, rolled up the mattress, and tidily covered the furniture in dust sheets. Only the moving gleam of candlelight from the damask wallpaper gave a hint of life.

He felt curiously empty, as though he himself might be a ghost, viewing the remnants of his own life without emotion. The heat and excitement of his confrontation with Twelvetrees had quite drained away, leaving a sense of flatness in its wake. There was nothing further he could do here; he could not arrest Twelvetrees or compel answers from him. Whatever might yet be discovered, the end of the matter was that Siverly was dead, and his crimes with him.

“And his place shall know him no more,” he said softly, and the words fell and vanished among the silent shapes of the sleeping furniture. He turned and left, leaving the door open on darkness.

SECTION IV

A Tithe to Hell

29

The Wild Hunt

THEY STRAGGLED INTO LONDON ON THE LATE MAIL COACH, unwashed, unshaven, and smelling strongly of vomit. The channel crossing had again been rough, and even Grey had been sick.

“If you can hold on to your stomach when all about you are losing theirs …” he muttered, thinking that this would be a good line for a poem. He must remember to tell Harry; perhaps he could think of a decent rhyme. “Boozing lairs” was the only thing that came to his own mind, and the thought of boozing kens, dark cellars full of drunken, sweating, cohabiting humanity, combined with the reek of his companions and the coach’s jolting, made him queasy again.

The thought of explaining things to Hal made him queasier still, but there was no help for it.

They reached Argus House near sunset, and Minnie, hearing the noise of their arrival, came hurrying down the stairs to greet them. A quick, appalled glance at them having told her all she wanted to know, she forbade them to speak, rang for footmen and chambermaids, and ordered brandy and baths all round.

“Hal …?” Grey asked, glancing warily toward the library.

“He’s in the House, making a speech about tin mining. I’ll send a note to bring him back.” She took a step away, holding her nose with one hand and gesturing him toward the stairs with the other. “Shoo, John.”

CLEAN AND STILL relatively sober, despite a lavish application of brandy, Grey made his way down to the larger drawing room, where his nose told him tea was being served. He heard the soft rumble of Jamie Fraser’s voice, talking to Minnie, and found them cozily ensconced on the blue settee; they looked up at his entrance with the slightly startled air of conspirators.

He had no time to wonder about this before Hal arrived, dressed for the House of Lords and flushed from the heat of the day. The duke collapsed into a chair with a groan and pried his red-heeled shoes off, dropping them into Nasonby’s hands with a sigh of relief. The butler bore them off as though they were made of fine china, leaving Hal to examine a hole in his stocking.

“The press of carriages and wagons was so great, I got out and walked,” he said, as though he’d last seen his brother at breakfast, rather than weeks before. He glanced up at Grey. “I’ve got a blister on my heel the size of a pigeon’s egg, and it looks better than you do. What the devil’s happened?”

With this introduction, it proved easier than Grey had thought to lay things out. This he did as succinctly as possible, referring to Fraser now and then to provide details.

Hal’s lips twitched a bit at the part about Siverly’s attack upon Jamie Fraser, but he sobered immediately upon hearing of Grey’s two visits to Siverly’s estate.

“Good God, John.” Tea had now appeared, and he absently took a slice of fruitcake, which he held uneaten in one hand while stirring sugar into his tea. “So you escaped from Athlone Castle and fled Ireland, suspected of murder. You do realize that the justiciar will recognize you from your description?”

“I hadn’t time to worry about it,” Grey retorted, “and I don’t plan to start now. We have more important things to think of.”

Hal leaned forward and set down the fruitcake, very carefully.

“Tell me,” he said.

Grey obliged, bringing out the half-charred pages they had retrieved from Twelvetrees’s bonfire. Finally, he deposited the smudged and crumpled sheet of poetry, with the list of names on the back, and explained what he thought these signified.

Hal picked it up, whistled between his teeth, and said something scabrous in German.

“Nicely put,” said Grey. His throat was raw from seasickness and talking. He took up his cup of tea and inhaled it thankfully. “I see one man on that list who holds a commission; if any of the others are in the army, it should be possible to locate them fairly easily.”

Hal put the singed pages carefully on the table.

“Well. I think it behooves us to proceed carefully, but quickly. I’ll put Harry on to these names; he knows everyone and can find out who they are, if they’re in the army, and what their history may be. Plainly most are Irish; I think we ought to have a very cautious look at the Irish Brigades—don’t want to offend them unduly. As for Twelvetrees …” He noticed the fruitcake, picked it up, and took a bite, chewing absently as he thought.

“He already knows he’s under suspicion of something,” Grey pointed out, “whether he knows what or not. Do we approach him directly or just follow him about London to see who he talks to?”

Hal’s face lighted in a smile, as he looked his younger brother up and down.

“You going to black your face and follow him yourself? Or did you have in mind setting Mr. Fraser on him? Neither of you is what I’d call inconspicuous.”

“No, I thought I’d let you do it,” Grey said. He reached for the brandy decanter and poured some into his teacup. He was so tired that his hand shook, splashing a little into the saucer.

“I’ll talk to Mr. Beasley,” Hal said thoughtfully. “I believe he knows where those O’Higgins rascals are; they might be of use.”

“They are Irish,” Grey pointed out. The O’Higgins brother, Rafe and Mick, were soldiers—when it suited them. When it didn’t, they disappeared like will-o’-the-wisps. They did, however, know everyone in the Rookery, that raucous, uncivilized bit of London where the Irish émigrés congregated. And if there was a job to be done involving things that weren’t strictly legal, the O’Higginses were your men.