The Chemickal Marriage (17 page)

‘What discussion?’ asked Miss Temple, a bit too loudly.

They turned at the sound of Mr Cunsher clearing his throat. Miss Temple took interruption as censure, and addressed Cunsher directly: ‘It is easy to repent when one has
lost
.’

Cunsher studied her face, which Miss Temple bore for perhaps three seconds before returning the stare doubly hard.

‘Any luck with the door?’ called Doctor Svenson.

‘The problem,’ Mr Phelps replied, ‘is that there is no
lock
.’ He nodded at a metal key plate. ‘To summon the car, one inserts the key, at which point the vestibule car descends. Only when the car is in place will the door open. Even had we an axe, we could only reach the empty shaftway.’

‘Then why did you bring us here?’ snarled Chang.

‘Because the way is unguarded. The hallways of Stäelmaere House connect to the Palace on one side and to the Ministries on the other.
This
was the private exit for the Duke himself – only his most intimate servants and aides know of it. Once inside we can search for the Comte – for Vandaariff – in any direction.’

‘Is there no signal?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘Some sort of bell?’

‘Of course,’ huffed Phelps, ‘the use of which will alert those inside. We will be taken and killed!’

‘Perhaps I do not understand,’ Svenson offered. Phelps had so deftly managed the cordon, it was dismaying to see him at such an impasse. ‘If we
do
ring the bell –’

‘Whoever hears it may well send the car down. But ringing the bell after the Duke’s death will spark all kinds of suspicion. The car will rise to a reception of armed men.’

‘And that is because we lack a key.’

‘Yes. Without a key, it will only return to whoever sent it down. It is a protection against any stranger using it.
With
a key, we could go to any floor without pause –’

‘But that could still deliver us to armed men,’ said Chang. ‘You have no idea.’

‘I descended from the Duke’s rooms to this sub-basement without stopping,’ announced Miss Temple rather unhelpfully.

‘We should press on to the river,’ muttered Chang.

‘I disagree,’ replied Svenson. ‘The idea to infiltrate is sound, a chink in our opponent’s armour.’

‘Entering a lion’s den does not constitute a
chink
.’

‘Then
I
will go,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘I will go by myself.’

Miss Temple took his arm. ‘You will not.’

Chang sighed with impatience. ‘Lord above –’

Phelps raised his hands. ‘No. I have brought us here – no one else need take the risk. Stand away.’

He pressed a disc set into the keyplate. Somewhere above them echoed a distant trill.

They waited, the sole sound the muffled breath of the constable, which they all chose to ignore. But then came a mechanical
thrum
… growing louder.

‘Well begun at least,’ Phelps said with a brittle smile. ‘
Someone
is home.’

His relief was cut short by the click of Cunsher pulling back the hammer of his pistol. Svenson dug out his own and soon they all stood in a half-circle, weapons ready. The car descended, settling with a
clank
.

The door opened wide. Beyond an iron grating, the vestibule car was empty. Phelps shoved the grate aside and stepped in.

‘I will go where it takes me, and if all is safe return to collect you.’

Chang shook his head. ‘All of us together may be able to overcome resistance – if you are taken alone, it will expose everyone.’

‘And there is no time,’ added Svenson. ‘Vandaariff is in the Palace
now
.’

Svenson entered the car and turned, averting his gaze from the figure of the trussed, wriggling constable. Overruled, Phelps slammed the iron gate home and the car rumbled into life. Cunsher took Chang’s arm, looking up. ‘Count the floors …’

They waited, listening. Cunsher nodded at a particularly loud
clank
.

‘Do you hear? We have passed the cellars.’

Svenson gripped his revolver. Another
clank
.

‘The ground floor,’ whispered Phelps. ‘Which offers passage to the Ministries.’

‘We’re still climbing,’ said Cunsher. They waited. The cables above them groaned. Another
clank
.

‘The first floor.’ Phelps nodded to Miss Temple. ‘The Duke’s chambers.’ Another loud
clank
. ‘We will reach the second, with passage to the Palace. Of course the corridor leads not to the Palace
proper
– first to suites of older apartments, where no royal has lived these fifty years – but technically speaking –’

‘Who will
be
there?’ hissed Chang.

‘I have told you!’ replied Phelps. ‘Absolutely anyone!’

The vestibule came to a shuddering halt. The iron gate slid into the wall and a wooden door was before them. Its lock snapped clear. Before the door could be opened from the other side Chang kicked it wide. An elderly man in black livery took the door across his chest and sprawled on the carpet. In a second Chang was above him like a ghoul, his razor against the servant’s throat.

‘Do not! Do not!’ Phelps spoke quickly to the stunned old man. ‘Do not cry out – it is your life!’

The servant merely gaped, his webbed old mouth working. ‘Mr Phelps … you were pronounced a traitor.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Phelps. ‘The Duke is dead and the Queen in danger. The
Queen
, I say, and there is little time …’

Svenson inhaled, tasting the dank air of a sickroom. Stäelmaere House had been the glass woman’s lair, staining all who came there with decay. The Duke’s old serving man showed dark circled eyes, pasty flesh, livid gums – and this after weeks of recovery. Phelps interrogated the servant. Svenson walked to a curtained window at the corridor’s end.

‘Where are you going?’ called Chang.

Svenson did not reply. The corridor was lined with portraits, intolerant beaks above a progression of steadily weaker chins, watery eyes peering out between ridiculous wigs and lace collars as stiff and wide as serving platters – an archive of the Duke’s relations, whose exile to the upper floor reflected the degree to which they’d been forgotten. Was there a plainer emblem of mortal doom than the extravagant portrait of an unremembered peer?

The Ministry of War blocked his view of St Isobel’s Square, but beyond its slate rooftops echoed regular spatters of musketry. That gunfire continued after the lancers and the column of infantry only confirmed the extent of the uprising, and the savagery employed to put it down.

To his left was a small wooden door. Svenson put an ear against it. Miss Temple motioned to return. Instead, the Doctor carefully turned the knob and eased the door open: a bare landing with a staircase leading down and,
unexpectedly, continuing up. Was there a higher floor Phelps had not mentioned? He walked back to the others.

‘What did you see?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘There is more gunfire in the square.’

‘Even better for a distraction,’ said Chang, stepping behind Svenson and Miss Temple and herding them along. Chang leant close to Svenson’s ear. ‘What
did
you see?’

Svenson shook his head. ‘Nothing – truly –’

‘Then what is
wrong
with you?’

By then they had reached Phelps, who laid a hand on the door behind him and spoke in a nervous rush. ‘Stäelmaere House is all but abandoned, under quarantine. The lower floors are a sick ward. The Privy Council has shifted to the Palace, and Axewith and Vandaariff will meet in the Marble Gallery, only a minute’s walk from the Queen herself. Axewith must be desperate, practically begging Vandaariff for the money to solve the crisis –’

‘But is money the issue?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘No, which Axewith does not understand. Without sound strategy, Vandaariff’s entire treasure is but a bandage on an unstitched wound. The crisis will continue, and Vandaariff has to know it.’

‘Then why appear?’ asked Chang. ‘Why associate himself with Axewith’s failure?’

‘Perhaps he only seeks an excuse to enter the Palace,’ said Cunsher.

At this Phelps opened the door and hurried them through. ‘We are now in the Palace. We will
quietly
descend and proceed east – east, I repeat – until the décor changes first to lemon, and then to a
darker
yellow, like the yolk of a freshly poached egg. It is a question of concentric
layers
– ah … here is the balcony.’

Svenson forced a yawn in hopes it might end the nagging whine in his ears. He looked at the faded and splitting blue wallpaper. Why had this wing of the Palace been allowed to go to seed? When had its last royal resident died – and was its lack of care an expression of poverty or grief? Svenson found the squalor a comfort.

Phelps started down the staircase and Svenson followed, last in line, the revolver heavy in his hand. His eyes darted along the opposite balconies,
recalling a mission to Vienna long ago, a search for documents that had brought him to an abandoned brothel … bedsheets spread across a barrelhead, upon which a consumptive whore played cards with a one-legged pensioner –

Phelps hissed from the foot of the stairs and pointed to a heavy door. ‘Remember the walls: blue, then lemon –’

‘Then a poultry yard, yes,’ Chang sighed. ‘We have grasped the sequence.’

‘It is a precaution if we become separated.’

‘We will only become separated if we are seen – and in that case we all know enough to run for our lives.’

It was an ill-timed remark, for as the sour words left the Cardinal’s mouth Mr Phelps opened the door. Directly before them stood a detachment of the Palace guard in helmets, doublets and hose – holding
halberds
of all things – and a group of men in black topcoats. One of these, with pale hair and a waxed moustache, yelped in shock, staring at Phelps.

‘You!’

‘Harcourt!’ cried Phelps, but Cunsher lunged at the door and slammed it closed. The door leapt in his hands as the soldiers pushed from the opposite side.

‘Run!’ shouted Chang, seizing Miss Temple’s arm. ‘
Run!
’

The door was flung wide and an axelike blade shot through, nearly severing Cunsher’s arm. The others fled, but Svenson raised the revolver with an unfamiliar coolness and fired into the mass of men. The two in front sprawled, but a guard behind came on, his long weapon aimed at Svenson’s chest. A third bullet and this man toppled into the guards behind him.

The fire drew their pursuers, and Svenson retreated up the stairs, hopping like a hare as a halberd stabbed through the railing. He fired again, splintering the rail, and scrambled upwards. His companions had vanished. His boot slipped on the carpet. The last of the halberdsmen charged up the staircase. Svenson deliberately squeezed the trigger. The man flew back in a windmill of limbs. No one took his place.

At the top of the staircase Svenson dropped into cover, just ahead of a hail of bullets tearing at the wall – halberds finally succeeded by modern
weaponry. Svenson charged back to Stäelmaere House, racing for the pneumatic vestibule.

It had been called to another floor. He pelted down the corridor to the little door by the window. To go down would only deliver him to his enemies. Svenson took the staircase leading up. The door was unlocked. He tumbled through, shut it behind him and – blessedly – found a key sticking out of the hole. He turned it, heard the sweet sound of a bolt going home and let out a deep, heaving sigh of relief.

His coolness of mind was gone. Svenson’s fingers were shaking. He looked down the attic hall, its angled ceiling echoing the rooftop. Twenty yards away, in a flaming silk dress, stood the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza.

At once the Doctor raised the revolver, aiming for her heart. The hammer snapped on an empty chamber. He squeezed again – nothing. The Contessa stumbled back, lifting her dress with both hands. A rush of hatred enflamed the Doctor’s body and he ran at her, already tasting the satisfaction of cracking the pistol-butt upon her head.

She ran but he was faster, seizing a fistful of her dress. He pulled hard and she spun towards him, eyes blazing, swinging a small, jewel-encrusted handbag. Svenson swore at the stinging impact and launched a roundhouse blow with the pistol-butt that struck her shoulder. The Contessa overbalanced on her heels and fell. Doctor Svenson stood over her, ignoring the blood on his face, and snapped open the cylinder of the revolver. With a flick of his wrist he dumped the spent shells onto the carpet and groped in his pocket for more.

The Contessa dug in her handbag and pulled out a fist wrapped with an iron band from which protruded a vicious sharp steel spike. Svenson retreated two quick steps and slotted another cartridge into place. She struggled to her feet, weighing whether to attack him or to flee. He did not care – he would quite happily shoot her in the back. He slammed the cylinder home, having loaded three shells – more than enough – and extended the weapon.

‘If you kill me now you are a fool, Abelard Svenson.’ She spoke quickly
but without desperation, a statement of fact. ‘Without my knowledge you will fail.’

Behind them, the staircase door flew open and two uniformed guards tumbled into the corridor. Svenson spun round and fired twice, the shots roaring in the cramped confines. The Contessa bolted and he dashed after her. At the end of the corridor stood a narrow door. Svenson fired his last bullet and the panel near her head split wide. She slammed it shut but before she could turn the lock he crashed through. She slashed at his throat but the blow went wide. Svenson tackled her to the floor.

‘You idiot!’ she snarled. ‘You
idiot
!’ She kicked with both legs, but her dress had caught them up. He dropped the revolver and pinned the spike-hand down. Her other clawed at his face – more scratches, more blood – but he caught that too and slammed it to the carpet. He lay atop her, both of them panting, inches away from one another.

With a shock his gaze found her pale throat, strung with garnets, and then her bosom, heaving with exertion. He lay between her legs. His groin pressed to hers. He met her gaze and swallowed, stupefied.