Elizabeth Kidd (20 page)

Nonetheless, she had found nothing unusual by the time she reached the end of the street. She turned and walked back, looking up this time instead of at doors and alleys at eye level. It was thus that she noticed that one of the last buildings at the south end of the street was unoccupied. There was no knocker on the door, and shades rather than curtains covered all the windows. She looked at this house more carefully, up and down, until she saw something in the dust of the carriage drive. Footprints.

She leaned over slightly and examined them. They seemed to be fresh, as the drive was very dusty and the marks would have blown away had they not been made recently. What was more, the indentations in the dirt were very smooth, indicating leather soles and a fine new pair of boots.

Carey had come this way.

She started forward, but William caught up with her and asked, “Shall I go first, my lady?”

She was about to dismiss him again, but then had another thought. “Thank you, William. I believe Mr. Fairfax came this way. Perhaps you would walk around to the back of this house and see if he is still there.”

“Certainly, my lady,” William responded, apparently forgetting that he would of necessity leave his mistress standing in the road by herself if he carried out this request, but as Antonia had hoped, that was precisely what he did.

As soon as he had gone, Antonia darted into the shadow of a doorway she had seen at the side of the house. There was no lock on the old wooden double door—she supposed it had once led to stables or some kind of pantry—so she opened it and went in.

She descended two stone steps and found herself in a dark, dirt-floored room, which was apparently empty. There were only two small windows at street level to admit light. She waited for a moment until her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, then explored the perimeter of the wall.

A sound startled her, and she looked up apprehensively at the window, but then realized that it was only William returning from his errand. She supposed she ought to go out before he found her gone and began a search. Reluctantly, she turned toward the door—and stumbled over something on the floor.

She looked down and saw that it was an iron ring, attached to some sort of door. A trapdoor! Dared she open it? Could she? She considered her new gloves for a moment, then took them off, stuffed them into the pocket in her petticoat, and took hold of the ring with both hands.

She had thought the hinges might be rusted shut, but to her surprise, the trapdoor opened readily, as if it had been frequently, and recently, used. This gave her pause again. She looked down into the hole she had revealed and saw the outline of a ladder.

She was mulling over what she would do next when she heard William run past again. Quickly, she pulled up her skirts and scrambled down the ladder, hoping there were not too many cobwebs attached to it.

The last rung of the ladder was farther from the ground than she would have guessed, and she nearly fell, clutching the ladder to prevent herself from doing so. She straightened up and saw that she was now inside some kind of cellar, even darker than the room above, with only the faint light coming through the trapdoor to see by. She listened for a moment, hoping there were no rats here, but the cellar was as clean as such places could be, and apparently empty. She peered into the darkness.

Some distance away, she thought she saw a wooden wall. She ventured closer and touched it. It was not a wall, after all, but some very large packing cases arranged neatly in a line. Something was being stored down here. She felt her way along the wooden sides of the cases until she came to an end. There she felt a slight movement of air and a change in the temperature; the air was cooler here. Slowly, for she could scarcely see at all, she moved forward into what seemed to be some kind of passage.

Then she saw a light ahead of her. A lantern! She began to move toward it, then stopped abruptly. If there was a lantern, there might be someone down here. She moved close to the wall of the passage, out of the direct light.

A voice from out of the dark said, in exasperated tones, “I don’t believe this.”

Startled, Antonia screamed, and a hand clasped itself over her mouth.

“Shh! Antonia, it’s me.”

She grasped the hand and pulled it away from her face, then inhaled a deep breath. “Duncan!”

He turned her around. “Are you mad? I might have shot you! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

It was only then that she saw the pistol in his other hand. Her knees went weak, and she almost fell, but he held her upright.

“How did you know it was me?”

“Your perfume.”

“Oh.”

“Antonia, what are you doing here? How did you get in?”

She waved vaguely back in the direction she had come. “There was a trapdoor…I saw Carey’s footprints…and what are
you
doing here, Duncan? I thought you were going to see Robin.”

“I did. We are under Burlington House—or at least I was when I set out on this little excursion. I’m not certain where I’ve finished up.”

Antonia looked back the way she had come, even though she could see only a few feet back into the passage, and said, “Oh, yes, of course. I was north of…oh, dear.”

She looked up to find him patiently waiting, his brief burst of anger forgotten, for further explanation. “Dearest, do you think we could go out?” she said. “I expect William is beside himself with worry by now, poor dear.”

He sighed and put his pistol back into his coat. “I won’t even begin to try to understand that. You can explain it all at home—and then I’ll decide whether I must lock you in your room. Of all the foolish, reckless….”

He muttered under his breath in this fashion until they reached the room with the ladder. There he stopped abruptly, raised his lantern, and exclaimed, “Good God!”

“Now what?” Antonia said. “Oh, those cases—I could not be sure earlier that was what they were, since I had no light. Do you know what is in them?”

He grinned, then wrapped his free arm around her and kissed her soundly. “Antonia, you are amazing!”

Disentangling herself, she said, “I don’t know why people always say that we ladies are flighty and change our minds constantly. If anyone saw
you
now—”

“Let us hope no one does,” Kedrington said, sobering suddenly, “and let us get out of this place before William raises a hue and cry and someone
does
see us. I’ll explain when we get home.”

“Does that mean you will not lock me in my room?” she said, as he helped her up the ladder.

“That still remains to be seen.”

Chapter 18

“Is it not possible that the marbles were stolen for the sole purpose of returning them to Greece?” Lady Kedrington asked her husband. “I must say, Duncan, your devious mind is capable of imagining a staggering number of the most complicated reasons for the theft, but might it not come down to the simplest of them in the end?”

They were seated in Lord Kedrington’s study, whereto his lordship has invited his wife, the day after their adventure in the underground passage, in furtherance of his promise to keep her informed of the progress of what she was pleased to call “our investigation.” They had spent the previous night explaining to each other the peculiar circumstances which had brought each of them into the underground passage at the same time—although from opposite ends—but they had fallen asleep before they were able to consider the consequences of what they had found and what action ought to be taken—and by whom.

“It may very well come down to the most obvious answer,” he said, in defense of his mental habits. “But I like to consider all the possibilities. It is better to start with as many as one can imagine and eliminate them one by one than to be surprised by an unthought-of contingency just when one has become enamored of some other scheme.”

“That sounds very profound.”

“Only logical. I like to keep an open mind.”

“Very well, then,” Antonia said, “explain what a political motive might be.”

She was comfortably ensconced on a sofa, with her legs curled up beneath the blue satin-striped skirts of her favorite day dress, which was no longer fresh enough to be worn in company, and a cup of chocolate in her hand. She drained the contents and put the cup on the small table beside the sofa, then looked to him for an answer.

“To embarrass the government,” he said.

“So it must be someone in the opposition.”

“Never say
must
about politicians,” Kedrington advised. “It could very well be a member of the prime minister’s own party, out to discredit him or some other faction.”

“In other words, Sir John Drummond and Lord Fenton are equally likely candidates?”

“Someone
such as
Drummond or Fenton, yes. Outspoken advocates of any position are unlikely to resort to illegal acts to get their way, however, since they would be the first to be suspected.”

“But for that reason, they might believe themselves beyond suspicion.”

He smiled. “Now you are thinking like a politician.”

“Oh, dear, did I really say that? It is all your fault for putting ideas into my head.”

“I do enjoy doing so, you know. I can be sure they will not simply rattle around in there with nothing to feed on. Although I still insist that you must not put your precious person in peril again, you do have a nimble mind, my love, and should use it more.”

She leaned over to kiss him. “You say the nicest things.”

What he might have said, or done, in reply was cut off by the abrupt entrance into the room, unannounced, of Lady Kedrington’s brother.

“See here, Duncan,” Carey burst out. “Something’s happened that—oh, hullo, Tonia. Didn’t know you were in here.”

“Could you not have inquired of Trotter if we were receiving visitors?” the viscount asked in aggrieved tones.

“Oh, stuff! We’re family, ain’t we? I don’t stand on ceremony.”

“I, however, do, when the occasion demands,” said Kedrington, suiting the action to the word and rising from his chair to confront the intruder.

“But you don’t understand—Elena’s disappeared!”

“What?” This caught Antonia’s interest at once. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

“Dimitri, too, although not together so far as I can tell. He’s left Grillon’s at any rate. Paid his shot and departed early this morning.”

“How do you
know
Elena is missing?” Antonia asked, having had two seconds to put her nimble mind to work. Her husband smiled encouragingly.

“I told you so,” he said, sotto voce.

Carey paid no attention to this exchange, having some difficulty in formulating his reply.

“I met this girl, Mary—”

“Carey!” his sister exclaimed. “Never tell me you have been unfaithful to Elena already!”

“No such thing!” he protested. “I’d never—but that’s beside the point.”

“What
is
the point?” Kedrington inquired disinterestedly.

“Well, Mary—her dad owns a flower barrow that he keeps on Gloucester Place and Mary and I got to talking one day, that’s all. Anyway, she told me that Elena got into a carriage yesterday morning and drove away and hasn’t come back.”

“How does
she
know? I don’t suppose she watched the house day and night.”

“No, but she went up to the door the next morning and asked for the mistress of the house. The butler told her that everyone was away, the master and his ward both.”

“Together?”

“No, Mary asked. And she said it wasn’t Melville’s carriage Elena got into. She didn’t recognize it or see who else was in it. Besides, she’d seen Melville drive off the day before and knew he hadn’t come back.”

“Observant girl.”

“Er, well—I asked her to keep a lookout for me. Can’t be in six places at once, can I?”

Antonia put her arm around her brother’s waist. “Of course you can’t, love, and I know you were worried about Elena.”

Kedrington gave her a sharp look. “Why should he be?”

“Never mind, dearest. I’ll explain it all to you later.”

He raised his eyes heavenward in exasperation. “Do you mean we are not finished with explanations yet?”

Antonia disregarded this peevishness and said, “Now I think I must call on Arthur Melville—if he has returned—at once. Carey, will you ask someone to bring the carriage around front? I shan’t be more than twenty minutes.”

“I’ll come, too,” Carey said.

“No, you won’t,” Kedrington returned. “You’ll only set up Melville’s back if he’s there, and if he’s not, I think I can get more out of the servants than you could.”

Carey surprised them both by agreeing with this and—as a reward, Antonia suspected—Kedrington suggested that he go to the City and inquire at the Swan whether Miss Melville had purchased a ticket for the Mail. If not, he could then attempt to learn what sort of carriage she had left in and try to pick up its trail.

To Antonia, such a search seemed a hopelessly lengthy prospect, but Carey made no demur and, eager to make himself useful, he departed as abruptly as he had arrived.

“That should exhaust him sufficiently,” his lordship remarked.

* * * *

An hour later, the Kedringtons raised the knocker on Arthur Melville’s door. It was a moment before it was opened to them by a harried-looking butler. Antonia guessed that his employer had recently returned home and found the household being run not at all to his liking.

This proved to be the case when they were shown into a drawing room, and an equally harried Arthur Melville hurried in to greet them.

“My dear Lady Kedrington—Lord Kedrington, how good of you to call.” He shook both their hands and invited them to be seated.

“I imagine you have come to call on Elena, but I regret to inform you that she is not at home. In fact…oh, dear, I do not know how to say this…. I am not precisely sure where she is, as she apparently slipped out without being observed. I don’t suppose she has communicated with…?”

“She did not leave any message for you?” Kedrington asked, not answering Melville’s question.

Something in his tone alerted Melville. “You knew, then? That she had gone? How, may I ask?”