Touchstone (44 page)

He looked at his wrist-watch. Two hours to tea-time, when the assembled enemies would come together and begin their prickly machinations, wary as lovemaking porcupines. He would begin out of doors, and see just how many old friends of the Duke there were, standing guard over Hurleigh House.

In the end he met five more elderly soldiers with sharp eyes, although he knew there would be more, up at the Peak and down near the river. Their perimeter followed the ridge-line, with all the Hurleigh buildings inside, and he took care to introduce himself as Mr. Bunsen’s driver and bodyguard.

He trotted down the steep path from the chapel, moving quickly because his reconnaissance had taken longer than he’d planned. When he came off the hill he was moving at a fast trot, aimed at the shaded garden to the side of the house itself.

His pace and the slope made it hard to stop when a man stepped out and pointed a gun at him.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

I
T COULD HAVE BEEN AN AWKWARD MOMENT,
with Stuyvesant trying to dig in his heels even as he threw up both hands in a declaration of innocence. But he’d managed to skid to a halt before his momentum had him plowing into the man, and fortunately, the fellow wasn’t trigger-happy.

“Here I was just thinking,” Stuyvesant said, over the barrel of the man’s gun, “at the top of the hill, that the place seems well guarded.”

The guy was clearly not interested in conversation, but Stuyvesant could forgive tactiturnity in a man who’d passed up the chance to shoot him, so he said, “Name’s Stuyvesant. I’m with Mr. Bunsen.”

The man with the gun finally spoke. “What were you doing up there?”

“Wanted some fresh air. And wanted to see the set-up.”

After a minute, the gun lowered a fraction. “You’re the Yank.”

“I guess.”

“You armed?”

“Do I need to be?”

“Reason I ask is, there’s no guns allowed inside the garden walls. They got a lock-box you can leave it in, when you need to come in.”

“Makes sense,” Stuyvesant said, and it did, he supposed. “But I didn’t bring it with me. Thought I’d see what’s what, before I go pulling guns on strangers.”

The man looked at his weapon, and tucked it away inside his coat. “Sorry about that, mate, I heard you running and it took me by surprise, like.”

“No harm done.” He hesitated, then offered his hand. “Harris Stuyvesant, New York.”

“Gwilhem Jones, Cardiff.”

“Are you a friend of the Duke as well?”

“We go back a ways,” Jones admitted.

The Duke of Hurleigh’s own private army, gray of hair but sharp of eye. “Any idea where I might find Mr. Bunsen?”

“Through that door, past the kitchen and to the right, you’ll find someone to ask.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jones, and I’ll be seeing you around.”

The house was warm to a man in outdoor clothing coming in from a hike through the cold woods, and he took off his overcoat. Past the kitchen, he found a man seated at a desk. This one was not a retired soldier, or at least, not one of the Duke’s retired soldiers. He was about forty, with a dark suit so non-descript that it might have been a uniform; the expectant look on his face was equally professional: mid-level civil servant.

“I’m looking for Mr. Bunsen.”

“Mr. Stuyvesant?” the man asked, rising and putting out his hand. “I’m Julian Exeter. Come, right this way.”

On the other side of the next door there was another man, a slightly less polished version of the first. He got up from his chair and slipped into the room that had just gone vacant.

Exeter led him through the house, using a route Stuyvesant hadn’t known was there, along the northern side and up some narrow and poorly lit stairs. Eventually they went through a door into the family’s realm. Here the walls were wood, the air was warm, and the floorboards underfoot were polished.

One more jog of a hallway and Stuyvesant’s guide rapped on a closed door, opened it a few inches, and said, “Mr. Stuyvesant is here.”

“Bring him in,” said a woman: Laura Hurleigh.

Laura and Richard Bunsen were alone in the room, a small office or study with a desk and a fireplace. She had a note-pad in her hand and was sitting near the fire; Bunsen was on his feet near the window.

“Stuyvesant, good,” he said, sounding distracted. “Look, Laura, I must run—Baldwin wants a word before we meet the others.”

“Fine, there’s nothing that can’t wait.”

“See you for tea, then.”

The room seemed smaller and slightly shabby when he had left. Stuyvesant went over to glance out of the window, which looked out on the garden, then went to sit on the other side of the fire from Laura Hurleigh.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asked. “Coffee?”

“I’m fine. Your father has men in the woods all around.”

“The Retirees’ Brigade,” she told him, sounding indulgent. “They love it.”

“Look,” he said, “do you honestly think you need a bodyguard here?”

“Here? No. But the others have them, so Richard should.”

Stuyvesant had to laugh. “So you’re just keeping up with the Baldwins?”

“More or less. I hope you’re not offended?”

“That my presence is strictly cosmetic? Why should I be? He’s paying me, isn’t he?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. But you don’t mind if I actually do my job?”

“I expect no less of you, Mr. Stuyvesant.”

“Maybe we should begin with your telling me exactly what’s going on here.” Since he was only supposed to have the sketchiest idea about the week-end, from Sarah.

“It is a meeting, Mr. Stuyvesant. Private, kept out of the press at all costs, and among men who were asked because they may actually listen to each other’s words.”

“It’s an attempt to defuse the Strike?”

“It may be an attempt to defuse a revolution,” she said, sounding remarkably sanguine about it.

“I see. How many will be here?”

“Two mine owners—Mr. Branning and Lord Stalfield, with three assistants each. Richard’s colleague, Herbert Smith, the president of the Miners’ Union, with his three, and of course, Mr. Baldwin.”

“Why here? Why not meet in a back room of Downing Street, or Buckingham Palace? Or the Prime Minister’s country home, what do they call it, Chequers?”

“Hurleigh is neutral ground, far from the eyes of the press. It provides an opportunity for the five individuals to meet as men rather than as figureheads. Take them out of their familiar settings, put a drink in their hands, let them loosen their collars and come together over the billiards table, and they can begin to look at each other as reasonable men with reasonable grievances.”

“I’d have thought they’d be just as likely to break their billiards cues over each other’s heads,” he said, his back still giving him the occasional twinge from just that.

“Yes, well, that’s why I’m here,” she said.

“You? Not your father?”

“It’s been decided that his presence might prove more distracting than useful. He and Mother will come to dinner Friday evening, and to church on Sunday, but apart from that, he will be absent.”

“So if it comes to breaking up a fight, you’re it?”

“There will be no fights, and I have to concur that a woman can serve better to encourage five powerful men to keep their manners.”

Stuyvesant had to shake his head in admiration: Laura Hurleigh’s presence here was a stroke of pure genius. It was not just that she possessed impeccable credentials on both sides, with a history of supporting the workers while the bluest of blood pumped through her veins. It was Laura Hurleigh herself that made the choice brilliant—intelligent, warm, regal, and feminine; a woman among men drilled from childhood to respect women, particularly aristocratic women; confident but never pushy. Her skills at controlling her parents could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two. Laura Hurleigh: eight hundred years of British blood in a cloche hat.

He began to laugh, and said, “Miss Hurleigh, when you get this little strike of yours straightened out, perhaps you’d like to come back to the States with me and sort out a few of our problems, as well.”

She blushed and shook her head. “I’m only here to remind them of their manners.”

“Sometimes, I think that would be enough for the world,” Stuyvesant told her. “So, if I’m to be a bodyguard, can I get a run-down on the various personnel?”

She went to the papers on her desk, coming back with a sheaf of clipped-together carbon copies. The first page showed twenty names and their assigned rooms; the following pages had diagrams of seating arrangements for meals, for the formal discussions, and for the chapel on Sunday morning: Nothing left to chance.

He was halfway down the main stairway before he remembered the servants’ entrance, but he didn’t think it worth turning around again. He raised his eyes to the window showing the Hurleigh family tree: William the Ready, Richard the Firm. The Royalist who’d shattered half the bones in his body to distract Cromwell.

The weight of this week-end gathering was beginning to feel heavy across Stuyvesant’s shoulders. On the one hand, he was an outsider here, a temporary driver, nothing but hired muscle, who even Laura Hurleigh admitted was there mostly for show. Add to that his actual reason for being here, which was, ultimately, looking for evidence to hang Richard Bunsen with, and what he ought to do was drive back to the phone box he’d seen coming through Hurleigh village and find out what the hell was happening with Carstairs.

On the other hand, he was a sworn law enforcement agent, who was in a unique position here by being, as far as he could tell, the only person on the place to know of twenty ounces of missing high explosive. If he drove into Hurleigh to see why Carstairs had gone off the horn, he could not also examine the rooms where the men would be meeting. If he drove to the village and the place blew up while his back was turned, he’d feel responsible.

He would, in fact, be responsible.

Shit. How’d he get into this mess, anyway? It was the sort of thing his kid brother would laugh himself half sick about. If Tim ever laughed again.

He heard footsteps come up a few stairs, then stop; he looked over the stair rail into the face of the government man, Julian Exeter.

“Was there something you needed, Mr. Stuyvesant?”

“Yeah. You and I need to have a talk.”

He told Exeter as little as he could, and most of that between the lines. He said that Exeter probably knew that Bunsen had been a sapper during the War, so he tended to have explosives on the brain. He said that although he personally didn’t know Bunsen well, they had friends in common (not entirely untrue, although he’d met those friends at the same time). And he said that he, Stuyvesant, had a pretty good eye for a booby trap, although they really didn’t want to go using the word
bomb
in front of anyone else, did they? Because it would get back to the delegates, and there’s nothing like cutting into your ability to relax and focus on the job at hand when you were afraid your chair was going to go up underneath you.

He’d chosen his man well: Exeter understood (at least, he understood the story Stuyvesant was giving him) and agreed, silence was paramount.

“Let me be clear,” Stuyvesant said. “I have no scrap of evidence that there’s so much as a faint rumor of a story of One of Those Things. But my boss, he’s a worry-wart, and so I look carefully.”

“And you’d know what you were looking at?”

“I’ve found one or two,” Stuyvesant answered, the first half of which was literally true—the man might not be reassured by the whole truth.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Tell me who’s here, what the set-up is, and let’s go look at where they’re meeting.”

As Exeter led the way back up the stairs, he told Stuyvesant, “Four of the five delegates have arrived. Mr. Baldwin is still en route but is expected soon. The next forty-eight hours are arranged to be both formal and unstructured. After tea, there will be drinks, dinner, and then cards or billiards, for those who wish it. Tomorrow after breakfast they will assemble for a formal meeting in the Great Hall, primarily to air grievances. Then there will be an hour’s break, followed by lunch, then two afternoon sessions of ninety minutes each. In between times there are any number of entertainments available—tennis, croquet, there’s even a lawn-bowling court near the barn. And after luncheon, anyone who wishes an excuse for walking will be given a shotgun to pot a few rabbits. Not the same as a proper shoot, but gentlemen often enjoy blasting away at small creatures when they’ve had a tense morning.”

Stuyvesant glanced sharply at the man, but saw no glimmer of humor.

“This is where they’ll take tea.”

It was the long gallery, and the information was rendered unnecessary by the sight of servants laying out tables at the far end.

“So,” Stuyvesant said. “The common rooms will be the long gallery, the solar, and the billiards room upstairs, and downstairs the breakfast room for meals and the Great Hall for more formal meetings.”

“The Hall will also be used for dinner both nights. And, of course, the chapel on Sunday morning, if they manage to work out the details of how to do a joint service, Anglican and Chapel. It may just be a prayer meeting, not Communion.”

As a Catholic who hadn’t been to church since his father’s funeral eleven years before, Stuyvesant figured the exact disagreements that existed between the various factions of Protestant were beyond him. Enough to help check the place for bombs.

Although in truth, Stuyvesant had absolutely zero expectation of finding anything untoward. Certainly not this early in the week-end, especially since the Prime Minister wasn’t even here yet. Nonetheless, he ran his eyes over the familiar paintings and sculptures in the gallery, then opened the door leading into the solar. Exeter followed, watching his every move.

The room was empty, the fire unlit, although the servants had brought in two crates of various drinks. He started there, found all the bottles sealed, then started to work his way around the room, lifting furniture, peering behind the books on the shelves, taking the lids off decorative jars and looking inside.

The first guests came into the gallery, and were offered tea. Exeter shut the door.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Stuyvesant told him, and climbed up on a chair to look at a particularly ugly Chinese vase on a high shelf.

“You’re right, I should probably get back to work. You sure I can’t help you?”

“Only if I find anything,” he said. “I’ll let you know if I do.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Exeter said, a second near-invisible trace of humor, and let himself out of the solar.

Stuyvesant finished with the solar minutes before the servants opened the doors and started setting out the drinks trolley. The billiards room, although larger than the solar, was easier to search, being less crowded with decorative knickknacks and furniture.

And being a bigger room, it would require a larger quantity of explosive to destroy.

He found nothing.

Which could mean there was nothing to find, and Aldous Carstairs had gone off for a week-end in Paris and neglected to mention that the Army had found their missing explosive. Or it could mean Carstairs was lying unconscious in the hospital after a road accident, and Harris Stuyvesant was on his own.