Elizabeth Kidd (23 page)

“Where did he get the key to that gate?” Antonia wondered.

“I suspect he has been seeing his sister on the sly.”

She turned to stare at him. “You mean, it was all a hum about their being estranged?”

“So it would seem. I daresay he will tell us about it when all this is over.”

“You had better tell me all about catching that gang
now
,” Antonia said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him.

“I regret that you will have to wait at least a little longer,” he said. “Do you see that chimneysweep?”

A tall man in black, carrying a broom over one shoulder, was strolling down the street toward them.

“He’s rather large for a chimneysweep,” she remarked.

“Very observant. He’s a Runner. Doubtless there are others about. Which means it is time for us to pay a call.”

He got down from his perch and walked around to her side of the vehicle. It occurred to Antonia that if they waited where they were, Melville would walk out his door and into the arms of the Runners. But a moment later, it also occurred to her that once he left his house, it would be that much easier for him to get away, and if he should go out the back way, only Dimitri would be there to intercept him.

She put her hand out to her husband, who helped her down to the pavement, then took her arm. They walked across the street and up to the house like any couple paying a conventional call at a more usual hour of the day. But when they reached the door, Kedrington said, “One moment.”

He pulled a key out of his pocket and tried it in the door, but it did not fit. He shrugged.

“What
are
you doing?”

“Never mind. I didn’t really think it would fit, but there are all those possibilities.”

“What can you mean?”

He grinned and said, “Later,” then raised the knocker and flattened himself against the side of the entrance where he would not immediately be seen by whoever opened the door. Antonia understood what he wanted and prepared herself.

But it was only a sleepy butler who eventually answered their knock. Antonia recomposed her features again and said firmly, “Good morning. I am sorry to disturb you at this early hour, but it is imperative that I speak with Mr. Melville. I have distressing news about his ward, which must be conveyed to him at once.”

As she spoke, she moved into the hallway, unopposed by the bemused butler, who said nothing until Kedrington slipped in beside her and made for the stairs.

“’Ere!” he shouted, sufficiently awake now to be alarmed but not to remember his dignity. “You can’t go up there!”

“He can go anywhere he likes,” Antonia said, in an affable tone, as if remarking on the antics of a precocious child. “And if you wish to keep your post when Miss Melville returns—for when she does, she will be mistress of this house—I suggest that you remove yourself at once.”

The butler stared at her, glanced once more in the direction Kedrington had taken, and then turned and did as he was told, disappearing into the nether regions of the house.

A moment later, sounds of an altercation could be heard from the upper floor. Antonia bit her lip, telling herself that Duncan was more than capable of defending himself, yet trying to decide if she could help in any way. But then there was another knock on the door.

She opened it. On the step was the chimneysweep, accompanied by a burly-looking person in a porkpie hat.

“Lady Kedrington?” said the sweep, politely raising his black hat. “May we come in?”

“Please do,” she said. The two men bowed, stepped around her, and made for the stairs as well.

“This is absurd,” she muttered to herself. “I may as well be at the pantomime.”

Loud footsteps sounded on the floor above, and Arthur Melville himself appeared at the top of the stairs, carrying a portmanteau and pursued at a less frantic pace by Kedrington, who appeared to be flushing his bird rather than intending to bring it down.

Melville spotted Antonia a moment before he saw the Runners blocking his escape. She smiled sweetly and raised her hand in a little wave just as the other two men clasped Melville firmly on each side and hauled him toward the outer door. Antonia opened it again and stepped aside. Melville glared at her, his former avuncular expression gone.

“This is your doing!” he accused her.

“
My
doing?” Antonia queried, all innocence. “No, my dear sir, it is all
your
doing.”

“Why is it that criminals always place the blame for their misdeeds on someone else?” Kedrington asked his wife in a tone of disinterested inquiry. “What is more astounding is that they believe it.”

He turned on Melville then, his smile gone. “And what is certain is that only
petty
criminals like you, Melville, behave like that. The real masters of the game are eager to take the credit. Who’s behind this, Melville? Who’s paying you?”

“You’ll never know,” Melville sneered.

“It will go easier for you if you tell us the whole story.”

“That’s what you think,” Melville said. Antonia thought she saw a spark of fear in his eyes that had nothing to do with her husband’s threats. It must be true then, that Arthur Melville was not the instigator of the plot to steal the marbles. But whom could he be shielding?

“What have you done with Elena?” she asked him suddenly, hoping to catch him off guard.

He hesitated for a moment, and the two men holding him began dragging him out the door.

“Wait!” Antonia cried.

Melville looked at her. His expression was no longer readable. He had succeeded in shutting himself away from the world, as he would be shut away physically now.

But he said, “I don’t know where she is.”

He muttered a curse as the men renewed their grip and he was dragged out the door, none too gently. Antonia raised her eyebrows.

“What a rude man.”

Kedrington came up to her, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeves. He looked as if he had just dressed for the day, rather than spent the night, as well as the last few minutes, chasing miscreants.

“I wish I could stay as impeccably groomed for even one hour as you do for an entire day,” Antonia told him enviously. “How do you do it?”

“It is all in the movement,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I am economical in mine. You are extravagant. Clothes cannot lie quietly on you, and they show their agitation in wrinkles.”

“I never heard such nonsense. Where are they taking him?”

“Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, I trust. They will waste no time prosecuting him, if I have anything to say about it.”

They stepped outside, and Kedrington closed the door behind them. They watched Melville, still cursing, being bundled into a closed carriage and driven away.

Antonia gasped. “Duncan, we didn’t make him tell us where Elena is!”

“He doesn’t know,” said a third voice.

“Mr. Metaxis! What can you mean?”

Dimitri had joined them as Melville was being led off. He said, “He doesn’t know, because it was I who took Elena away.”

Chapter 21

Antonia stared at Dimitri. “But why? I mean, I suppose I know why—to keep her away from Melville?”

Dimitri nodded. “It was not that he mistreated her in any way, but I feared that if things went wrong—as they did for Melville tonight—she might come to harm.”

“But—”

“It is another long story, I’m afraid,” Kedrington interrupted. “But she is safe for now.”

“In that case, we had better go home so you can start telling me all about it.”

“I trust you won’t mind if I sleep off all this excitement first,” he said with an exaggerated yawn.

“Why, Duncan, I thought you went through the entire war without sleep. Carey is always saying so.”

“Carey is a liar. Besides, I am older now.”

“How very disappointing.”

He looked at her as they seated themselves once more within their carriage. “What, at my being older, or Carey’s being a prevaricator?”

Dimitri, seating himself opposite them, smiled at this nonsense. “I am beginning to understand why my sister fell in love with your brother, Lady Kedrington.”

“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Our family was a happy one, too, when we were children. There was always a great deal of laughter and joking, even though our circumstances were straitened. We were taken away from that at an early age, however, and thereafter Elena at least was much hedged about with restrictions and British notions of proper behavior. The first time I met her after I came to this country, I thought she had forgotten how to laugh.”

He paused, looking out the carriage window into a past that was beyond Antonia’s vision. Antonia reached her hand out to clasp his warmly. “I hope you will confide in us when all this is over, Dimitri. We should very much like to see you, as well as your sister, become part of the family.”

He looked at her, and she thought she saw a great longing in his expression. But he only smiled and said, “Thank you.”

* * * *

It was full daylight before Lord and Lady Kedrington finally retired to their beds, where they slept soundly for four hours. At ten o’clock, Antonia, wakened by the questions knocking at the back of her mind demanding to be answered, rang for coffee and entered her husband’s bedroom. He was still in bed, but not sleeping; he lay with one arm flung above his head, his head resting on his hand and his eyes open.

“Oh, Duncan, I’m so glad you’re awake.” She climbed into the bed beside him and propped herself up with one of his pillows.

“You were able to sleep for a few hours, I hope?” she asked with concern, as he sat up also.

“Never fear, my love. I slept the sleep of the righteous.”

“Don’t be smug. You have done a good deed today—or I suppose it was last night—but do not let it lull you into self-satisfaction.”

He smiled. “I have no doubt you will bring me back down to earth should I take myself too seriously.”

The breakfast tray arrived, and they both drank a cup of coffee. Antonia nibbled on a slice of toast and said, “Now tell me the story.”

“I thought bedtime stories were for before one went to sleep. Which one would you like to hear?”

“How you caught the gang.”

“Ah, that was not so difficult. It required only the good luck of finding that passage and then a little patience. We—Robin Campbell and I, that is—scheduled the watch so that it would appear from the outside that it had been reduced, in order not to alarm the thieves with an extra contingent of guards. They were there, of course, but not visible. Robin even contrived to fall asleep at his post once or twice.”

“By the way, what is Robin going to do after the marbles are finally installed in Montagu House?”

“Do?”

“For occupation. Will he be asked to stay on at the museum, given his heroic assistance in catching the thieves?”

He looked at her sternly. “That must not be made public, Antonia.”

“Why not?”

“It could embarrass the government.”

“Oh, pooh. The government embarrasses itself every time one of its members opens his mouth.”

He laughed. “Well, then, consider the embarrassment—not to mention possible legal difficulties—to Robin and all those involved, including Dimitri, who might be accused of concealing the plot or the plotters and thus unnecessarily endangering a national treasure.”

“Could that happen?”

“Who knows. Anything is possible.”

She frowned. “Oh, very well. But your Aunt Julia will worm the story out of one of us, see if she doesn’t.”

He chuckled. “Well, Julia is at least discreet. She will keep it from Hester and thus from the world.”

“But you will help Robin, won’t you, if he needs it?”

“Of course. He does not accept charity gracefully, but I shall do what I can.”

“And I shall invite him to some of our parties and introduce him to some eligible young ladies.”

Kedrington flung his arm over his eyes as if to ward off some frightening vision. “Heaven spare us.”

“Why shouldn’t he want to settle down with some nice girl—especially if she has a little money of her own?”

He said nothing more, and she began beating him with a pillow. For a few moments there was some danger of chaos as the coffee pot teetered on the trembling bedside table, until Antonia tossed the pillow at her feet and sighed.

“You have distracted me from your story,” she accused him. “Go on with it.”

Still chuckling, he rearranged himself and said, “Where was I?”

“Robin was falling asleep at his post.”

“Oh, yes. We apparently succeeded at lulling the thieves into believing that there was no suspicion of a theft and that the fakes had not been noticed. Last night, they struck again. There were four of them, but five of us, counting Dimitri, who was an unexpected bonus. One of our men heard the thieves in the passageway—where he was hidden behind that row of support beams you may remember—and after they had passed by him, he went out the door you came in by and came around to warn us.

“We waited until they had actually loaded another piece on a cart and were hauling it toward the passage entrance, then surprised them. They were outnumbered, and we were armed. They offered no resistance.”

Antonia doubted the strict accuracy of this statement, having noticed a bruise on Dimitri’s cheek, but she did not enquire more closely into it. Everyone was safe now, she told herself; nothing else mattered.

“What were they going to do with the sculptures?”

“They were paid thugs with no loyalty to their employer, so they knew very little. They had been paid only to take the pieces, conceal them in crates, and hide them in that cellar where we saw them. Robin and his friends returned them the same way and put the fakes in their place for use as evidence, should it come to that. May I have another cup of coffee now? All this story-telling is making me thirsty.”

She obligingly poured him another cup. “How did Dimitri come to be there?” she asked.

He told her how he had met Dimitri at the Socratic Society and had persuaded him to assist.

“So he had been involved with the plot originally? Why did he break with the gang?”