The Great Game (Royal Sorceress) (31 page)

Gwen stepped backwards and allowed the policemen to start their work. Lestrade had shown the foresight to send a policemen to Hiram’s office to find someone who actually knew him, allowing the body to be identified quickly. The unknown man turned out to be the son of one of Hiram’s business associates in Turkey, who’d been staying with Hiram to learn how to act in Britain. Gwen felt a moment of pity for the poor man’s father as the policemen slowly carried the body out of the house. As a foreigner, the body would probably be shipped back to Turkey rather than cremated. God alone knew what would happen to Hiram; his legal status, she suspected, was rather indeterminate.

“Hellfire,” Lestrade said, thirty minutes later. He had started to probe through the drawers that Gwen hadn’t been able to touch before they arrived. “Lady Gwen – look at
these
.”

Gwen took the papers, glanced at them... and nearly jumped out of her skin. Sir Travis’s handwriting was distinctive – and the numbers on the top of the page matched the papers that were missing from the safe. Lestrade would crow over finding them before the Royal Sorceress, but it hardly mattered. The
real
question was how they’d come to be in Hiram Pasha’s house.

“Those are Travis’s papers,” Sir Charles said, looking over her shoulder. He sounded badly shaken. “What... what are they doing here?”

“Good question,” Lestrade said, briskly. “Did your friend and confidant tell you anything about this foreigner?”

“Nothing,” Sir Charles said. “But I didn’t know
everything
he did.”

“It seems that they had a bit of a relationship going,” Lestrade grunted. “The person who killed Sir Travis could easily have been the same person who killed the three victims here.”

He might well be right, Gwen decided. If someone had managed to sneak up on a Sensitive, they wouldn’t have any trouble dealing with Hiram Pasha’s household. The maid would have been almost childishly easy to kill; the others might have been a little harder. But an assassin might not have had any real problems with them.

“Find out when he was last seen alive,” Gwen ordered. She would bet half of her fortune that Hiram Pasha had last been seen on the same night Sir Travis died. “And then...”

She scowled. Every time she thought she was putting the pieces together, something appeared to force her to reconsider.

“I spoke to the manager of his shipping company,” Lestrade said. “He was last seen alive three days ago.”

Gwen nodded. Hiram Pasha had died on the same night. That could
not
be a coincidence.

Lestrade raised his voice as more policemen arrived. “I want this entire house searched
thoroughly
,” he ordered. “Full procedure; anything out of place should be brought to me at once, after it has been carefully logged. Anyone who makes a muck of it will be patrolling the docksides after dark for the next ten
years
.”

“Tough guy,” Sir Charles muttered. He didn’t seem to like Lestrade. “But how well would he do on active service?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Gwen said, tightly. “He isn’t being
judged
on active service.”

The policemen were very efficient – and thorough. Everything in the house, starting with the bedrooms, was carefully inspected and catalogued, then removed while the policemen felt around for secret compartments. The search was so thorough that they would probably have found Gwen’s hidden compartment at Crichton Hall, although they would probably not have been able to break in without a magician’s help. They even removed the maid’s clothes and inspected each of them, separately.

“Come and look at this,” Lestrade said, ten minutes after the search began. “I think it’s magic.”

The compartment had been hidden at the back of the kitchen table, an odd place for a secret of any kind. Inside, the policeman had found a pair of crystals, a handful of papers and a strange clockwork device that seemed to resemble an unsealed watch. Gwen touched one of the crystals and scowled as she recognised the magic infused into the rock. Hiram Pasha had been very paranoid – or he’d had something to hide.

Lestrade scowled at them, as if he took their presence as a personal affront. “What
are
they?”

“Privacy crystals,” Gwen said, slowly. “They prevent magicians from spying on you.”

Seeing was one of the most unreliable talents, even though it was immensely useful when it worked properly. Magicians couldn’t see the future, but they could spy on someone – if they knew enough about the person or location to focus their minds properly. As far as Gwen knew, Hiram Pasha had never been spied on by Cavendish Hall, but there were no shortage of Seers who might decide to work for someone else. And it was quite possible that there were other Seers who might have remained completely unregistered. The talent could be very useful if no one knew that a particular person was a Seer.

“He would have had something to hide,” Sir Charles said, when Gwen had finished explaining. “
What
did he have to hide?”

“A very good question,” Lestrade said. He gave Gwen an unreadable look, then picked up the other crystal and studied it. “How common are these things?”

“Too common,” Gwen said. An Infuser with enough talent to make them could earn enough to retire on within a few months.
Everyone
wanted a blocking crystal. “They don’t last indefinitely, but even an unskilled Infuser could recharge it once it was created.”

She picked up the clockwork device. “What is this?”

“Code wheel,” Lestrade said, after a moment of hesitation. “I’ve seen them before, once or twice. You spin the wheel, then use it to produce a simple substitution cipher. It can be difficult to break without knowing the key.”

Gwen studied the device for a long moment, admiring the workmanship, and then put it down on the table. “What sort of person would own one?”

Lestrade made a face. “Most shipping owners do write their orders in cipher,” he admitted. “It isn’t uncommon for their rivals to try to steal an advantage where they can. But this... combined with the papers we found, suggests that Hiram Pasha was a spy.”

Sir Charles clenched his fists. “Are you suggesting that he
spied
on my friend?”

“It is also possible that Sir Travis sold him the notes,” Lestrade said, his face darkening. “He had gambling debts to pay...”

“I will not listen to such insinuations,” Sir Charles thundered. “Sir Travis risked his life for his country while you ran around London threatening to arrest innocent maids. Where were
you
when we were surrounded by a million holy warriors bent on cutting off our manhoods and then burning us to death? I
demand
that you retract your allegation at once!”

Lestrade purpled. “It is my duty to consider all possible reasons for the crime,” he snapped back. “Sir Travis gambled! What else might he have done?”

“He would never betray his country,” Sir Charles insisted. “Never! Do you know what he went through when we were caught...?”

Gwen stared from one to the other, unsure of what to do. She couldn’t let them start throwing punches, or Lestrade would have to arrest Sir Charles... and God alone knew where
that
would end.

“You arrested an innocent girl because you couldn’t be bothered to look for the real murderer,” Sir Charles snapped. “Lady Gwen does all of the investigation and you use what
she
finds to try to tarnish Sir Travis’s reputation!”

Gwen hesitated, then generated a light ball between the two men, bright enough to make them stumble backwards and cover their eyes.

“Enough,” she said. Both men stared at her, but relaxed. It dawned on her that neither of them had really
wanted
to start throwing punches, at least not in front of her. “There is nothing to suggest that Sir Travis willingly handed over his private papers to Hiram Pasha – or, for that matter, no conclusive proof that Hiram Pasha was a spy.”

She stared at them both until they calmed down. “Now, this has clearly become
political
,” she added, with the private thought that the whole case had
always
been political. “I need to speak to Lord Mycroft to discuss where we go from here. I’ll take the rest of the papers from Sir Travis with me – the Inspector can see to it that I get a list of everything else in the house, particularly the paperwork.”

“Yes, Milady,” Lestrade said.

“I need you to arrange for Polly to be brought to Whitehall,” Gwen continued. There was no time to go to Mortimer Hall and question her about Hiram Pasha. “Mortimer Hall can remain under guard until we have completed the investigation; Polly... can go back there once I’ve finished asking her questions. But she isn’t a prisoner and you are not to treat her like one.”

Lestrade scowled, but nodded.

Gwen turned to Sir Charles. “I overlooked something,” she said, briskly. “I want you to go back to the Golden Turk. Don’t tell them about Hiram Pasha’s death; just ask Abdullah if Howell was backing any debts on the gaming tables. If so, find out who and when. I have a hunch.”

And it will keep him busy, away from Lestrade
, she added, silently.

“Of course, Milady,” Sir Charles said.

Gwen led the way outside, wondering if she’d ruined their budding relationship... if they
had
a budding relationship. Men were so hard to understand at times.

He caught her arm as she started to walk towards Whitehall. “Take the carriage,” he said. “Jock will see you there safely – and it isn’t that far back to the Golden Turk. And” – he leaned forward to whisper in her ear – “will you come with me to the dance tomorrow night?”

Gwen hesitated, then nodded. If nothing else, she would be making a point. She was not going to allow others to dictate the path of her life.

And Talleyrand will be there too
, she thought.
Maybe I can ask him about Hiram Pasha and see how he reacts. Or would he bring Simone? That would be interesting to see.

Chapter Twenty-Six

H
iram Pasha being involved in this affair is... worrying,” Lord Mycroft admitted. “His death is even more so.”

Gwen frowned, sipping the cup of tea Lord Mycroft’s assistant had brought her. “You knew him?”

“I was aware of his existence,” Lord Mycroft said. “He was serving the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire as a spy.”

“A spy,” Gwen repeated, shocked. “He was spying on
us
?”

“Everyone spies on everyone else,” Lord Mycroft said, dispassionately. “The Turks might want us to be their allies, but they spy on us anyway – as we spy on them. You never know when some domestic policy issue will weaken the alliance without any formal announcement that it is being terminated.”

“It doesn’t seem cricket,” Gwen muttered, crossly.

“The French and the Spanish don’t
play
cricket,” Lord Mycroft reminded her. “There are certain things we have to do, no matter how distasteful, to protect the British Empire. Spying and counter-spying are merely two of them.”

He gave her a droll smile. “We became aware of Hiram Pasha shortly after his arrival in London; his cover story was just a shade too convenient for our tastes, so we kept an eye on him. Eventually, we realised that he was slipping information back to the Sultan, who seems to have a mania for intelligence gathering.”

Gwen stared at him. “Why didn’t you arrest him?”

“Better to have someone we know than someone we don’t know,” Lord Mycroft said. “This way, we get to feel out his spy network and prepare to round them all up if the situation changes. So far, he hasn’t sent much back to Turkey beyond some reports on the post-Swing political changes.”

“That you know about,” Gwen said.

“That we know about,” Lord Mycroft confirmed. “This game is always risky.”

He pressed his fingertips together, contemplatively. “But this raises a worrying question,” he added. “How did Hiram Pasha obtain Sir Travis’s documents?”

Gwen scowled. Sir Charles had been insistent that Sir Travis was no traitor, but the gambling debts suggested a strong motive for treason; Hiram Pasha’s backing of Sir Travis’s debts might be nothing more than a subtle way to pay him for his services. And yet, if that were the case, who had killed Hiram Pasha – and why? And why leave the documents there for the police to find?

“There was no report of Sir Travis meeting with Hiram Pasha,” Lord Mycroft continued, “but that doesn’t prove anything. He was not obliged to report such a meeting – and we could only watch from a distance without arousing Hiram Pasha’s suspicions. A Sensitive would be hard to shadow in any case.”

“So where does that leave us?” Gwen asked, bleakly. “Sir Travis a traitor?”

“Worse than that,” Lord Mycroft said. “There are people who will argue that the Airship Treaty is too favourable to Turkey. Right now, they can argue that the Turks
paid
Sir Travis to write a treaty that will give them considerable advantages – without repaying us in equal coin. The Airship Treaty would be a dead letter.”

“But there would be no conclusive proof,” Gwen pointed out.

“It wouldn’t matter,” Lord Mycroft said. “The mere suspicion would be enough to scuttle the treaty – and destroy any hope of an alliance with Turkey.”

Gwen shook her head, thoughtfully. “But who murdered Sir Travis and Hiram Pasha?”

“We may never know,” Lord Mycroft said. “The Sultan is a sneaky fox – and his intelligence officers are trained to seize every advantage they can get. If one of them killed Sir Travis, then Hiram Pasha, it would break the chain that would lead us to Turkey – and make it impossible for us to
prove
anything. Except that still doesn’t explain the documents. What were they doing in Hiram Pasha’s house?”

“Maybe Hiram Pasha didn’t know that he was about to be sacrificed,” Gwen said, looking over at the chessboard. “The assassin might not have known that they were there.”

“Perhaps,” Lord Mycroft said. “I understand that you brought Sir Travis’s maid to Whitehall?”

“Yes,” Gwen said, flatly.

“You must find out what, if anything, she knows about Hiram Pasha,” Lord Mycroft said. “And then we need to wrap this whole affair up as quickly and quietly as possible.”