A Study in Darkness (28 page)

He pressed against the wall, feeling the chill of marble against his back, and glared across the reception hall at the happy, noisy scene. The food had been eaten, the cake cut, and now the attendees were mixing and chatting, hoping to score a social point or two. In contrast, Bancroft’s heart was pounding slightly, sweat breaking out beneath his immaculate shirt collar. He kept his face perfectly still since the father of the groom was not expected to run screaming through the champagne and truffles—at least not at this early hour. The clock had barely struck four in the afternoon.

He searched the crowd, trying to catch another glimpse of the one man alive or dead who could make his blood run cold. But the guests milled in thick crowds across the deep green and wine-colored carpet, obscuring his view. The social success of the event was going to be the bane of his hunt.

Above the throng, pale cream marble framed an airy space accented by extravagant crystal chandeliers. The Portmore Hotel, close to Hyde Park, captured all the elegance Mayfair
had to offer. Keating had chosen it for the wedding breakfast—actually served after the eleven o’clock wedding—to show the power of his pocketbook. Although the bride’s home was the traditional location for the meal, even the Gold King’s elegant London abode could not accommodate the scale of the celebration. In Bancroft’s opinion, the entire affair was splashy to the point of vulgarity.

Furthermore, for all its grandeur, the venue appeared to be haunted—at least, if the dead man walking from the stairway toward the exit was any indication. Bancroft was sure he’d seen a tall, thin form weaving through the crowd of guests. The silver-headed cane, the lean, dark face, and the insolent swagger had all been horribly familiar.
Magnus
.

But he’s dead!
Revulsion brought a fresh wave of sweat to his brow, and he pressed his hands against the marble wall to feel the chill of the stone through his gloves. Bancroft suddenly felt like a little boy again. Was it better to look under the bed and confront a monster, or simply ignore his terror in hopes the nightmare wasn’t real? He felt the rich breakfast rolling uneasily in his stomach, and decided the dreadful uncertainty was worse than any disaster. He had to act.

He strode in the direction he’d seen the figure go, putting on the expression of a man hurrying to speak to a long-lost friend. Guests blocked his way, and he dodged around them with polite excuses. The endless blather of banal conversation irked him. Most of Keating’s guest list was made up of the politically ambitious, to whom confidential information was more precious than gold, and everyone wanted to show they had learned important secrets before anyone else. After a lifetime of service to the Crown, Bancroft could play the game in his sleep. He had no time for hungry beginners.

He was after different stakes now—ones that counted. He
was
the secret. But if he actually had seen Magnus, that would complicate everything on a hundred different levels.

Bancroft reached the reception hall door without another glimpse of the phantom doctor. The afternoon outside was gray, the street slick with rain, and the cool, fresh air cleared
his head. He looked around, wondering if anyone had noticed the father of the groom’s rush to meet no one.

It didn’t look like he’d been noticed. The roof of the narrow porch protected a gaggle of laughing guests while they awaited their carriages. A man put up his stark black umbrella to shield the ladies because their parasols were too delicate for such vile weather. Bancroft stood at the edge of the rain, not caring if he ruined his shoes. The shade of Magnus was nowhere in sight. Maybe now was the moment to return to the wedding and assume the monster under the bed had never been there.

The wedding
. Bancroft felt a twist of pain in his chest. The only thing left to do on that front was to mourn the loss of his son to the enemy.
Poor bastard
. At least Bancroft had loved Adele when he’d married her. Tobias didn’t even have that.

There!
Bancroft started, drawing a look from the man with the umbrella. The ghost had stepped into view, lingering a moment in plain sight before turning the corner and slipping away. Bancroft launched himself down the hotel steps, the soles of his shoes sliding on the wet granite. His sudden departure drew exclamations from the guests, but to hell with dignity. Pushing himself hard, he raced down the road, hat under his arm, the tails of his coat sailing behind him. If Magnus was there in the flesh—rotting or otherwise—he wasn’t getting away.

Bancroft dug his soft heels into the gritty paving stones and wheeled toward the narrow street where the apparition had disappeared. Then he stopped, panting, the heavy meal fighting his sudden exertion.

Nothing. The lane—little more than a passage—held only litter and pools of water. A steady
drip-drip
echoed through the miasma of wet refuse. Bancroft took a few hesitant steps forward, rain slipping under his collar with the chill of a kelpie’s fingers. He shivered, half with cold and a little with sudden superstition. Where had Magnus gone?

Bloody hell
. He’d given up drinking, true, but he’d thought the hallucinations would have stopped by now. Maybe it had been the strain of watching everyone raise a toast while all
he had allowed himself was water.
Time to go back. Maybe you can say you saw someone who owed you money. Or a pickpocket who took your watch. Yes, that sounds plausible. The watch was a family heirloom
.

He turned and walked straight into Magnus. He jumped back, swearing.

“And here I thought you wanted to see me,” said the doctor, his teeth very white against his swarthy face.

Bancroft had known the man well over twenty years. In their youth, he had even called Symeon Magnus a friend. In all that time, while Bancroft had aged to maturity, Magnus had looked the same—but now there were threads of gray at his temples, and more than the suggestion of lines in his face. Apparently death had taken something out of him. Bancroft felt a stab of petty satisfaction.

“How did you get here?” Bancroft demanded.

Magnus shrugged. “I took a hansom.”

Bancroft fought the urge to bash his head on the brick walls hemming them in. Or throw up. The very unnaturalness of Magnus’s presence made his flesh creep. “How did you get
here?
Alive? You were shot. Burned. The doctors had you on their slab.”

A glitter of amusement showed in the ink-black eyes. “And yet I rise like the phoenix. I know. It is one of my more annoying talents.”

“You’re a bloody sorcerer!”

“It took you this long to figure that out?”

“Of course I knew. I just didn’t understand the extent of your pact with the devil.” Bancroft longed for a gun. Even if a bullet wouldn’t kill Magnus, surely it would hurt like hell. That was worth something.

Magnus watched his face, tracking the play of his expressions. “Let’s skip forward from the how to the why of my presence.”

Bancroft’s gut tightened, a part of him not wanting to know. “It’s my son’s wedding. Can’t you respect even that?”

“I did. I drew you out here rather than marching in like Banquo’s ghost, as amusing as that might have been. By the
way, I thought for certain young Tobias would want Miss Cooper for his bride. Young men can be so fickle.”

A foul taste filled Bancroft’s mouth at the Cooper girl’s name. “Good riddance to that bit of baggage.”

Magnus leaned on his silver-headed cane, regarding Bancroft through heavy-lidded eyes. “Still annoyed that she played a role in exposing your ridiculous forgery plot? Or are you actually angry with your own stupidity?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“That bit of folly put you in Keating’s power, didn’t it? It cost Tobias his future, since it was he who traded his considerable talents to Keating to spare your family’s good name. How does it feel to have sold your only son to your enemy?”

How the blazes did he know any of this? “You go too far.”

Magnus straightened, lightly tapping the cane’s head against Bancroft’s chest. “I merely correct your logic. It seems to me that poor Miss Cooper is merely a convenient target for your shame. You forget I know you far too well. And that is why I am here—to give you the chance to make things right. Maybe you will even save your son from a life of servitude to a man you both despise.”

“Oh, really?” Bancroft’s tone was skeptical.

“I’m more than a little annoyed with Mr. Keating for ordering my assassination. It was an incredibly inconvenient episode.”

“No doubt.”

“Scoff if you like, but I would not wish the tender mercies of a medical examiner on my direst foe.”

Bancroft felt his meal shift dangerously in his gut. “Yes, yes, so you have a score to settle. What does that have to do with me?”
Dear God, I want a drink
. Abandoning his temperance vows couldn’t be worse than seeing Magnus alive and well and critiquing his own autopsy.

Magnus paced to one side of the passage, flicking aside some damp papers with the point of his cane. “Events are finally turning my way. Those I had believed lost forever are suddenly walking through my door. Old projects are suddenly looking possible. Perhaps Mercury has gone retrograde.”

He’d always hated it when Magnus stopped making sense. It usually meant trouble. “What are you babbling about?”

“Do you recall our last conversation, in which I asked you to help me steal Athena’s Casket from Mr. Keating?”

“Yes, I remember.” Magnus had cornered him at Hilliard House, where Bancroft had been throwing a dinner party. He’d called Magnus a vain tyrant. Magnus had prattled something about benevolence and world order.

Then Bancroft realized that it was no longer raining—except that it was, outside a circle that encompassed the two men. He could see the rain bouncing off the street, though he remained dry. He felt his cheek twitch with tension.
Magic
. And it was just like Magnus to remind him of what he could do in such a subtle way.

“I still want the casket. I know it was one of the artifacts that were melted down for gold during your forgery debacle, but I understand that the inner workings remained intact and have continued their adventures since. Are you aware of this?”

Since the entire world seemed to want the bloody casket, Bancroft had made it his business to learn what he could about the wretched thing. Accordingly, he’d paid handsomely for a look at Inspector Lestrade’s files. “Yes. Holmes had the remnants brought to Keating’s gallery, but then they disappeared.”

“Stolen from Keating’s gallery by a circus Gypsy named Niccolo, who later turned pirate. One of my would-be killers, as it turns out.”

Bancroft had known some of this, but not all. “He’s the one with the remarkable ship? The one everyone wants to catch?”

“Especially the Steam Council.” Magnus’s smile vanished, his expression closing down as if a door had slammed shut. “The casket is a highly sophisticated navigational device and allows for greater lift than mere science can offer. I don’t need to explain to you, the former ambassador to Austria, what a leap in military technology could mean to a man like Keating.”

“Wealth.” Bancroft felt suddenly light-headed. The picture
Magnus painted, of Keating and a fleet of magic warships, threatened to give him nightmares to rival Imogen’s.

The sorcerer nodded. “And territorial domination. I’m appealing to your experience and common sense, Bancroft. Suffice to say that such a device falls more properly into my domain than that of the Gold King.”

That removed any doubt that magic was involved. Bancroft shuddered. “Keating burns witches. He doesn’t play with their toys.”

Magnus gave a low laugh. “We’re talking about imbuing machines with life and intelligence. Keating would kill to be the first to have that secret. To paraphrase the Darwinists, it would make him the evolutionary survivor when all his steam-powered rivals became extinct.”

Bancroft swore. He’d had the device in his power, but let it slip away out of ignorance.

“So you see why I must have it,” Magnus declared. “I’ve begun to set traps, but thus far the mouse Niccolo disdains my bait.”

Bancroft wondered what that bait was. Then he wondered even harder what it had to do with him. He tried to avoid the sorcerer’s eyes, but in the end Magnus’s dark gaze caught him and pinned him motionless where he stood. They remained like that for a long moment, him frozen and Magnus smirking, as the rain pattered down around their magic circle.

“What do you want?” Bancroft finally snapped.

“Many things,” Magnus replied. “I will accept any one of them from you.”

“Such as?”

“What I want most is the casket, but I hold no real hope that you can get it yourself.”

Bancroft snorted. “Should I be offended or relieved?”

“Your choice. However, if Keating succeeds in obtaining it, you’re going to get it from him on my behalf.”

“How?”

Magnus twirled the cane in his fingers. “The father of the bride has just lavished a fortune on his daughter. I would say she is the dearest object in his life.”

Bancroft stared. He had done vile things in his career, murder included, but the notion of actually harming Alice chilled him. “She’s barely a woman.”

Magnus let the cane slip through his fingers until it met the ground with a sharp tap. “Don’t play the sentimental card with me. I know you far better than that.”

Bancroft let that slide. Some things didn’t bear examination. “And if Keating doesn’t get the casket?”

“Bring me his head. Let him experience the annoyance of assassination.”

Shame bled into anger. Bancroft drew himself up, his chest burning with fury. “Blackmail? Ransom? Murder? What do you take me for?”

The man gave a thin smile. “A man who has made a career out of just such crimes. A man who literally put his own son on the altar to spare himself. A man who has no choice, because I still have something of yours.”

The words struck like a fist. Air rushed from Bancroft’s lungs in a wordless cry.
The automatons
. “You still have them?”

“Of course I do.” Magnus took a step back. “I take care to guard my weapons well.”