The Great Game (Royal Sorceress) (30 page)

Gwen sat down on a cushion and watched as he produced a set of account books from a shelf on the wall. “We keep careful track of all debts owed to us,” Abdullah informed her. “As many of our players often gamble beyond what they are carrying on their person, we allow them to run up gambling tabs – provided that they can prove that they can repay us or that they have a backer who can repay us. Many of your young English noblemen try to use their father as their backer, which can cause problems when the father refuses to back up the debt.”

He passed the first account book to Gwen. “In this case, you will see that Sir Travis ran up a series of debts over the last four months,” he explained. “Those debts were not, at first, backed – but his luck held and he won a place at the advanced tables.”

Gwen looked up at him. “The
advanced
tables?”

“Those who prove that they can pay can be invited to the advanced tables,” Abdullah said. “It causes no shortage of embarrassment when a player is pushed out because he cannot continue to match his competitors, even without actually
losing
. We prefer to avoid such scenes where possible.”

“I can imagine,” Gwen murmured.

“Sir Travis started to lose – not all the time, but he lost enough to run up a debt,” Abdullah said. “We asked him to find a backer or withdraw from the games; he found Hiram Pasha, a wealthy man, to back up his debts.” He produced an envelope, withdrew a sheet of paper and passed it to Gwen. “The Pasha promised to pay if Sir Travis proved unable to meet his debts.”

Gwen glanced at the paper, then frowned. “It is in Arabic,” she pointed out. “I cannot read it.”

Sir Charles took the paper and read it quickly. “It’s very florid, but it basically commits Hiram Pasha to guaranteeing the debt and paying the Golden Turk if Sir Travis proved unable to pay,” he said. “Do you want a precise translation?”

“No, thank you,” Gwen said. She looked up at Abdullah, who was watching her expectantly. “I know very little about gambling, but Sir Travis is clearly unable to pay his debts. Why haven’t you collected the money from Hiram Pasha?”

“We attempted to contact the Pasha when we heard about Sir Travis’s death,” Abdullah explained. “However, he did not answer his door and the messenger was reluctant to try to do anything that might attract his attention. He was known to have a dark temper when crossed.”

Gwen knew far too many people like that, starting with most of the Royal Committee. “So you resorted to sending a demand note to the estate?”

“We need that money,” Abdullah admitted. “Legally, we have a claim on part of Sir Travis’s estate.”

That
was questionable, Gwen knew... but Abdullah was between a rock and a hard place. Sir Travis might not have owned very much, yet if it were auctioned off the proceeds would definitely be more than four thousand pounds. In that case, Abdullah would have to try to get the money from the estate first,
before
trying to claim it from Hiram Pasha. After all, Sir Travis
could
still pay his debts... if the estate were sold instead of passed down to the closest male heir.

“So it would seem,” Gwen said. “Who
is
Hiram Pasha, anyway?”

Abdullah gave her a surprised look. “How can you not have heard of him? He runs an import-export company, importing food and materials from home to make our exile a little more comfortable – and exporting British produce to Turkey. The” – he spluttered a number of words Gwen didn’t recognise – “who calls himself the Sultan has a mania for British goods. He is obsessed enough to allow us exiles to dabble our hands in business, just as long as he gets his imports. Hiram Pasha is one of those who serve as a link in the chain from here to Istanbul.”

“A very wealthy man,” Gwen guessed. “Does he have a reputation for paying his debts?”

“Of course he does,” Abdullah said. “If he hadn’t, we would never have accepted his word of honour.”

Gwen nodded. The courts
might
grant Abdullah his debts – either from Sir Travis’s estate or Hiram Pasha’s pockets – or they might not. Polite Society disapproved of gambling debts, which was ironic as most of them were run up by aristocrats, and they might not allow the debt to be passed on to someone else. And that might destroy the Golden Turk. Even a prolonged legal battle might be disastrous.

“His debts were backed,” she said, slowly. “Did Hiram Pasha back any other debts?”

Abdullah gave her an odd look. “No,” he said, slowly. “Sir Travis was the only one he backed.”

Gwen looked over at Sir Charles. “How did they know each other?”

“They might well have met,” Sir Charles said, slowly. “The simplest way to practice another language is to speak to a native – and the native might well know more about what was actually happening in Istanbul than a diplomat. Sir Travis could have learned a great deal from him.”

“Could be,” Gwen said.

Abdullah cleared his throat. “This is all very interesting, but I must have my money,” he said, quickly. “I cannot afford to write off such an expense. If you do not present me with the money, I will be forced to start legal action.”

“I need copies of your accounts,” Gwen said, firmly. “We are currently in the process of working out what Sir Travis actually owned and what belongs to the family. Once that is completed, we will try to settle his debts.”

“I need the money quickly,” Abdullah insisted. “Within a week, perhaps two - or I shall be forced to hire lawyers...”

Gwen nodded. “We will deal with it as quickly as we can,” she said. She stood up. “For the moment, we need to visit Hiram Pasha. Do you have his address?”

Abdullah found another book, flicked through the pages and showed her a particular page. Hiram Pasha lived close to the Thames, Gwen saw, near the giant warehouses that stored goods shipped in and out of London. And near one of the bases Jack had used to conceal his army for the planned uprising. She wondered, as she copied down the address, if Hiram Pasha had ever known what was hidden nearby.

“Thank you for your time,” Gwen said, taking the account books under one arm. “We will contact you as soon as possible.”

The manager insisted on escorting them back down to the ground floor personally, rather than summoning his young servant to do the honours. Gwen wondered, absently, what sort of relationship there was between the two; the girl seemed too dark-skinned to be Abdullah’s daughter, yet she seemed more than just a servant. She puzzled over it as they were shown outside with a final handshake, then asked Sir Charles as they walked back to the carriage.

“Many of them were Ottoman nobility, fleeing the purge,” Sir Charles commented. “
Pasha
isn’t a surname; it’s a title. And many of them brought their servants with them when they fled. That girl is probably someone who grew up with noble children and played with them, but isn’t really noble. You should pity her.”

Gwen nodded.

Chapter Twenty-Five

N
ot a very impressive house,” Gwen commented, as they climbed out of the carriage in front of Hiram Pasha’s home. It was a dark two-story building, one of many built for London’s merchants and traders. “You’d think he could have bought a proper home.”

“He might not have wanted to stay in London permanently,” Sir Charles pointed out. “If he was not completely barred from Istanbul, he would merely have wanted a place to stay in London, rather than a proper home.”

Gwen nodded as she walked up to the solid wooden door, found the knocker and tapped it firmly. There was no response. She waited two minutes, then tapped again. Surely Hiram Pasha would have a manservant or a maid, even when he wasn’t at home. His partners might come to visit and need somewhere to leave their letters or cards.

“Maybe he fled the debt,” Sir Charles suggested. “Four thousand pounds is a
lot
of money.”

“Could be,” Gwen said, as she stepped backwards. The curtains were drawn over the ground floor windows, but the upper floor windows were uncovered. She glanced at Sir Charles, then levitated herself up into the air until she could peer into the windows. The first window showed a small bedroom, completely deserted; the second revealed a man lying on the ground, unconscious or dead.

“Someone’s wounded,” Gwen said, dropping back to the ground. “I saw a body.”

She stepped up to the door and reached out with her magic, pressing against the lock. It clicked, allowing her to push the door open. The interior of the house was as dark and silent as the grave; Gwen concentrated, generated a ball of light and sent it drifting forward, illuminating the hallway. A second dead body was lying on the floor.

Sir Charles bent down to study the body. “Her neck’s been broken,” he said, grimly. “I saw something like it in India; the killer came up behind her, caught her neck and snapped it with one twist. She wouldn’t have had time to fight back.”

Gwen winced. The girl – the maid, given how she was dressed – didn’t look Turkish; she had to be one of the country girls who came into London in hopes of finding a better life. Many of them had tried to tough it out with the young Gwen; it hadn’t been until years later that Gwen had realised that her maids had been among the lucky ones. Some others had faced worse than a bad-tempered girl who couldn’t or wouldn’t control her magic.

She stepped into the next room and scowled. A man was sitting on a chair in front of a desk, half-hidden in the semi-darkness. Gwen created a second light and swore as it revealed blood on the floor. Up close, it was clear that someone had cut the man’s throat with a knife, probably before he even knew that he was under attack. The man – she guessed the dead body belonged to Hiram Pasha – seemed almost peaceful.

Leaving the light globe in the room, Gwen walked back into the hallway and headed up the stairs. There were three bedrooms on the upper floor, one containing another dead body. She studied the corpse quickly, but found no obvious cause of death. Poison? Magic? Or maybe it was something physical. There was no way to know.

She glanced into the other two bedrooms, trying to determine who had owned them. One – the larger one – probably belonged to Hiram Pasha. The next one, she suspected, belonged to the maid, unless there was another woman in the house. All the clothing was clearly feminine. And the third one... must have belonged to the second dead man, she decided. But who was he?

There was a loud rapping at the door. “Police,” a voice barked. “Who are you?”

Gwen blinked in surprise and headed back towards the stairwell. Someone must have seen them entering the house and sent a runner to the police, who’d responded with surprising speed for the area. The Bow Street Runners were normally more careful around the docklands, if only because drunken sailors thought it a hoot to attack policemen and steal their hats. Hiram Pasha must have definitely brought in the money.

“Lady Gwen, Royal Sorceress,” she said, as she came down the stairs. One of the policemen was holding a truncheon, threateningly. Sir Charles looked about ready to go for his throat. “You need to inform Inspector Lestrade that our investigations might well have hit a dead end.”

The policemen looked at her in disbelief. “You?” One of them asked. “You’re the Royal Sorceress?”

Gwen scowled, reached out with her magic and lifted both policemen into the air. “Yes, I am,” she said, as tartly as she could. “Now, one of you can stand guard outside and the other can send for Inspector Lestrade. He is handling the police aspect of this case.”

She put the two policemen down and watched with a certain amount of amusement as they scrambled to do her bidding. Sir Charles looked rather more amused as she stepped back into the study and looked down at Hiram Pasha’s body. At least he wasn’t scared of her...

“You have to be careful not to touch the body,” Sir Charles said. “The police won’t thank you if you mess up the crime scene.”

“I suppose not,” Gwen said. Apart from Mycroft’s brother, there were relatively few detectives who bothered to study the scene of the crime. Scotland Yard tended to prefer to grab the nearest suspect on the automatic assumption that he was guilty. “Can you tell how long it was since they were murdered?”

“More than a few hours, less than three days,” Sir Charles said. He smiled as Gwen blinked at him. “We know that there was no response after Travis died, so he might well have died at the same time. Besides, the bodies haven’t really started to decompose.”

“True,” Gwen agreed, impressed. They would have to ask around to discover when Hiram Pasha had last been seen alive, but that wouldn’t be difficult. “Do you think that the two deaths are connected?”

“They must be,” Sir Charles said, quietly. “What are the odds on two people who knew each other coincidently being murdered on the same night?”

“Don’t forget the others,” Gwen said, quietly. The man who’d killed Hiram Pasha had also killed his maid and the other man, whoever he had been. A son? A business associate? A bodyguard? “Did Polly only survive because she was locked up in her room?”

She walked around the desk and started to study the papers Hiram had left out in the open. A freshly-bound Bradshaw, outlining every means of transport within Britain, from the newly-built railways to canal barges; a book examining the merits of different forms of sailing ship for transporting bulk goods across the Atlantic; a copy of the latest stocks and share prices from London... nothing seemed too out of place. The only oddity she found was a copy of a cheap novel about a woman who entered a Sultan’s harem; it was officially banned, but copies had been popping up everywhere for years.

“I’ve seen harems,” Sir Charles commented, when she showed him the book. “It’s nothing like that.”

Gwen smiled. “What were you doing in a harem?”

“It was our escape route out of Bukhara,” Sir Charles said. “The guards just screeched to a halt when they realised we’d entered the forbidden room.”

“Oh,” Gwen said, suspecting that she was being teased. “And what
else
did you do in the harem?”

Inspector Lestrade arrived before Sir Charles could answer, flanked by a small army of policemen. “Dear me,” he announced to all and sundry. “This is quite a scene.”