The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction (43 page)

“Believe me, Lady Byron, I’m as worried as you are. She has not come here, and I’ve not seen her since she was last here several days ago. As for romance – we confine our discussions strictly to science and mathematics, and matters of the higher mind.”

Lady Byron bit at her knuckle as she wandered to and fro in Babbage’s drawing-room. “Then where can she be?”

“How long since she disappeared?”

“Four full hours. She’s never been a robust child, and without proper care she might easily fall ill. Where has she gone? I hope the foolish girl did not have romantic notions. I’ve seen her reading
The Times
Personal columns, but she assured me—”

“Ah, that would be because of me. We were – testing out a new code.”

“So she
was
telling the truth.” Lady Byron sank into a chair and put her head in her hands. “She can’t have … it’s too much to think … it can’t be in her blood … the water—”

“I’m sure she has not taken her own life,” Charles declared bluntly. “She was too engaged in our mathematical studies. There is only one answer. She must have departed by boat. Yet no one saw her?”

“Her tutors did not see her on any of the boats passing by. Only her purse was lying on the ground.”

“Do you have it with you?” It was clear now to Charles that Ada has been abducted and hidden on one of the passing boats. If she’d gone by choice, she would not have dropped her purse. Had she left it on purpose? Might there be some clue about it?

Lady Byron opened her own bag and handed the purse to him. “I showed it to the police, but they did not need to keep it.”

Charles also sat down, and opened the clasp of the yellow satin bag then emptied the contents on the mahogany occasional table in front of him. He stirred them with his forefinger. A handkerchief with the initials AB entwined in red embroidery in the corner. A tortoiseshell comb. A small mirror. For some reason he thought of his beloved daughter Georgiana, so much missed, and his eyes misted over. Ada could not be a substitute for her, but he felt the same fatherly protective instincts for her as he had for his daughter.

He blinked. There was also some paper. He opened it up and recognized the elements from the fourth quadrant, whose solution had so far eluded him. Her busy mind had been working hard on them. He scanned her notes and suggestions, and the back of his neck suddenly prickled with excitement. She’d written “Proportions?” and what was this, a decorative necklace?

Of course! His mind leapt ahead and reached the conclusions she had not. But then he’d been blinkered by following the normal code-breaking routes, whereas she had made a sideways leap of the imagination.

“Lady Byron, may I take this? I have a contact who may be able to help us.”

“Anything – but hurry. Her reputation! Poor girl.” She gave a sob.

“Please wait here. I’ll send a messenger as soon as I can.”

Hatless and shrugging into his coat as he ran downstairs and out into the street to hail a hansom cab, his mind worked feverishly. Even though Ada had crossed through her workings and written “hopeless”, he was sure she’d made the right connection. The other 75 was saltpetre – combined with 10 parts of sulphur and 15 of carbon, it formed gunpowder. If so, then could the jewels on the other side of the equation be a ransom? Pay me a King’s ransom in jewels, or Wanstead Abbey would suffer the same fate as Parliament! Was that what the Prankster was threatening? No, why bother to blow up Wanstead Abbey? It had to be some other ecclesiastical building – and where else to make a bigger mark than St Paul’s Cathedral!

*

Robert crouched on the outhouse roof to regain his breath before testing the stability of the drainpipe above him. He’d first tried knocking at the door of the building, and, when the big fellow with wild woolly hair had opened it, he’d said, “Any knives need sharpening? Any rags you want got rid of?”

“Piss off or you’ll be buried so deep, even the mudlarks won’t find yer.” And the door was slammed in his face.

As he cast about the row of ancient buildings looking for another way in, by luck he saw a messenger-boy emerge from the door where he’d seen the clerks scribbling away. He gave him the Under Secretary’s address, his own name and that of the Stairs, plus a silver coin. He could only hope he was an honest boy.

A short while later he’d come across the entrance to a very narrow gunnel that ran behind the buildings, and now he was attempting to reach a first floor window to force his way in. He shivered. It was cold and dank here and he felt sick and sore. But he had to find out if Ada was inside, and why. Bracing himself, he took hold of the drainpipe.

*

It was getting dark, Ada noticed. The room she’d been forced into was getting gloomier by the minute. She’d been standing upright in the middle of the room for most of the time since being locked in. The floor was bare boards and there was no furniture, only a pile of musty sacks in one corner.

Her first action had been to look out of the one small window but all she could see was a brick wall opposite and a tiny glimpse of sky above. And then she heard them. Rats – mice – scuttling in the walls and above her head. There would be silence and then they’d be running by again. She visualized thousands swirling through the building. She tried not to think of the Plague, of rat bites – she stared down at her hands and saw to her disgust how they trembled.

She longed to sit down but could not bring herself to use the sacks. Supposing they were infested with fleas? Once or twice she sat down on the hard floorboards in the centre of the room, the only place she felt safe. She could imagine hundreds of beady eyes peering at her through cracks … horrible!

She’d tried banging on the door and shouting, but it had had no effect. She had then pressed her ear to it and heard the two men who’d brought her here laughing and cursing. It sounded as if they were playing cards. They ignored her.

She was cold, hungry and afraid, but as time passed her strongest emotion was anger – at herself. How could she, clever Ada, have been fooled so easily? Charles Babbage wasn’t here. She’d been tricked. But why? They knew of her association with Charles. Did that mean she’d been watched? And what did they want of her?

She heard the door being unlocked and drew herself up straight, assuming one of her mother’s sternest expressions. She would meet her fate with dignity.

In the glow of a lamp, a new man stood framed in the doorway. He gave a slight bow of the head. “Miss Byron, come and join us.”

Hesitantly she followed him into the outer room, which she’d only glimpsed before. A fire burned in the grate with hall chairs either side, while her two abductors sat at a small card table on the other side of the room. They glanced at her then resumed their game.

“Sit,” said the newcomer, indicating the chairs by the fire. She managed to make herself walk over and sit down. She watched as he poured some wine from a beautifully engraved decanter into equally exquisite glasses, and handed her one. There were other items of quality in the room too, she noticed. A French clock on the mantelpiece, and the rug at her feet was Chinese silk.

The man sat opposite her. His trousers and jacket were very well cut, and there was a diamond-tipped pin in his expertly tied stock. His blond hair was straight, and just brushed the collar of his jacket. Finally she looked into his eyes. They were a cold, cold green. Was this the Prankster?

“Your health, Miss Byron.” He raised his glass and drank. “I have sent for some supper. I intend to look after you. You’re far too valuable to me to be neglected.”

Valuable? For a moment she wondered if he wanted to employ her mathematical skills, but his next words disabused her.

“I can see you are your father’s daughter. You are brave, if not as beautiful as he was.” He smiled, but she did not sense any warmth. His speech and manners marked him as one of the gentry, but she’d never seen him before. He went on, “How much, I wonder, is Miss Byron worth? What do you say, my friends-in-evil?” Now he laughed and the other two joined in.

“A tasty piece,” the bearded man said. “Five hundred gold sovereigns.”

“At the very least. Add that to our pay-off for not blowing up St Paul’s and I reckon we might live comfortably – for a little while.”

“They were jewels. A ransom,” Ada said, finding her voice.

“I knew you’d solved it when I saw your coded message in the Personals.” The cold green eyes glittered. He stood up and leaned on the mantelshelf. “The poetic quotation was not as apt as I would have expected, but confirmed your identity. You decoded my message with help from Mr Babbage – my men have told me how you visit him. Now all that needs to be done is give the location where our ransom should be placed. I’m sure Mr Babbage can manage that alone.”

“I still don’t see why we need her.” The younger man who’d grabbed her on the jetty jerked his thumb at her. “I say she’s a liability. The ransom for the cathedral is enough.”

“Enough!” The blond man spoke quietly but with such venom that the other two men shrank back. “Nothing is enough, I’ve told you that before. I can never be recompensed for what I’ve been denied.” He looked at her, and she felt herself flinch. “I should have had the privileged life you’ve led – even more so. My father, the Duke, refused to acknowledge his by-blow, though. My mother told me everything. So I am making him and his kind pay – but on my terms.” He tossed back the last of his wine and went to the decanter for a refill. “As for why Miss Byron is here – I’ve sent a strong message: ‘Look at what I can do. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”. Ozymandias should be my middle name.’”

“Where did you learn to cipher?” Ada asked.

“Oh, I had a good education, the best. But I was bored, and found other things to interest me.”

“I have been tutored at home. And now,” she declared standing up, “I demand that you return me there.”

Her adversary flung his head back and laughed. “What if I decide to keep you? No one would be surprised. Mad George Byron’s daughter run off with an adventurer – only to be expected.”

Ada felt her throat grow tight. “My father,” she began, when suddenly she heard a voice from behind.

“Miss Byron, are you all right?”

“Robert!” He stood, pale and swaying a little, in the doorway to the second room.

“Get him,” the blond man ordered. As the other two men stood, Ada jumped up and ran to Robert.

“Leave him alone,” she said, standing protectively in front of him. “Haven’t you harmed him enough?”

“Not nearly enough,” growled the bearded man. “He should’ve died for his pains.”

“But someone did die,” Robert said. “That young man. You sent a message to the White Hart for him to come here. Why? Tell me that, before I follow him into the Thames.”

“He disobeyed me. He was supposed to hand my coded message to the speaker that night, to send the police searching after Radicals. At first he said he’d done so, but then we found out he was too frightened so he’d planted it on a policeman – you – to get rid of it. He’s learned his lesson now.”

“So that paper was never meant for me,” Robert said. “It was just chance. You chose that meeting to throw suspicion on the union men or the Irish.”

“Or even a latter-day Guy Fawkes. Now, get rid of him.” The blond man flicked his fingers and Ada braced herself, just as the sound of wood splintering, shouts and the blasts of whistles came from below.

“Quickly, out the back way. Bring her, kill him.”

Ada felt Robert’s arms take hold of her and together they struggled against the bearded man. She found a strength she didn’t know she possessed as she kicked out. But in the next moment the police had stormed up the stairs to their rescue and the blond man had shoved past them to escape through the back window.

*

“I have ordered up some meat and potatoes, and here’s some porter to drink.” Clark was smiling. Ada had heard him say several times, “A very good outcome indeed. Very good indeed.”

She sat beside Robert on one side of the grate, where the flames of a generous log fire gave as much light as the few candles around the room. Charles Babbage was on the other side, legs stretched out in front of him. They were in an upper floor private room of an eating house in the Strand. News had been sent to her mother that she was safe and would be home soon. She had been waiting for Clark’s restless energy to subside, but her questions could no longer wait for him to settle. She swallowed some of the bitter drink, her first taste of porter, coughed, and said, “You found me because of the message Rob— Constable Duckett sent?”

“It arrived at the same time Babbage did, with his news of your abduction and the final solving of the cipher – as well as the part played by his coded message in
The Times
. I should reprimand you, Mr Babbage, for acting alone and without sanction, but it had the desired effect. It drew our man out.”

“He thought Ada placed it. I’m sorry, Ada, for what happened,” Charles said.

“You asked my permission and I gave it.” She smiled at him.

Beside her, Robert stirred and coughed. He had a rug around his shoulders and the colour was returning to his face. “How did you know I was there?” she asked him.

Robert recounted his story of the young lad in the morgue and his returning memory. “The young man was punished all right. That villain, that Prankster, is a cruel man.”

“If you hadn’t posted extra men at the back of the building, Mr Clark, he might have escaped. Do you know his true name now?”

At last Clark sat down. “He has refused to give it, but in fact I recognized him from a State Assembly I attended in the summer. Henry de Bellfont. He was thrown out of the Assembly for making a fracas, and I learned his sorry history. No doubt he hatched his plot then. With apologies, Miss Byron, he is the bastard son of a Duke and, although his father did provide enough money for a good education, he has refused to acknowledge him publicly, for the sake of his legitimate children. Henry was sent down from Oxford University for underhand dealings and general misbehaviour, at which point the Duke stopped sending money altogether.”

“He felt he wasn’t getting what he was due – despite the rest of us having to earn our living, or our position in society,” Robert observed.