The List of Seven Read online

  “What did you do?”

  “I heard the front door open upstairs. And at the sound of it, Lansdown’s eyes opened.”

  “His eyes opened?”

  “You heard me correct, sir.”

  “Did he…recognize you?”

  “That’s difficult to say, sir, ’cause I blew out the candle and was out the door, through that window, and halfway down the alley outside before the room got dark. And if I had it to do over, I’d do the same again. Lansdown Dilks was unpleasant enough in his previous incarnation to warrant the strict avoidance of his company; I figure the odds were hard against this new state havin’ effected any positive turn in his disposition.”

  Doyle couldn’t articulate a response. The wind shifted. Clouds were gathering off to the west. It seemed suddenly ten degrees colder. The ship’s timers groaned as they crested a wave.

  “Whose house was this?” Doyle finally asked.

  Sparks and Larry exchanged a guarded look that Doyle intercepted and to which he took immediate exception.

  “Good Christ, man!” he said preemptively. “If I’m the one they’re after, I’ve a right to know. In for a penny, in for a pound—”

  “It’s for your own protection, Doyle—” protested Sparks.

  “A bloody lot of good that’s done me! I’m a witness to murder, two murders—three, including Petrovitch—I can’t return to my own home, my whole life’s undone! And I have the pleasure of looking confidently forward to a life of abject terror until they butcher me like market beef!”

  “Easy on, Doctor—”

  “I’m either with you, Jack, on the inside of what you know from this moment on, or to hell with you and this whole business—you can put in to shore right now, drop me off, and I’ll take my chances!”

  Despite his inbred horror of making a scene, Doyle secretly enjoyed the cleansing effect of his outburst. It seemed to unlock a door inside Sparks, although it still remained for the door to be opened. Doyle took out his revolver and pointed it at the ship’s hull.

  “You’ve got ten seconds to make up your mind before I blow a hole in this damn boat, and you’ll be lucky if any of us make it to shore,” he said coolly, cocking back the hammer. “I’m quite serious.”

  Larry made a casual reach into his pocket.

  “No, Larry,” said Sparks, without looking at him.

  Larry removed his hand. They waited.

  “Time’s up, Jack,” Doyle said, raising the gun, ready to fire.

  “The house belongs to Brigadier General Marcus McCauley Drummond. Royal Fusiliers, retired. Put the gun away, Doctor.”

  “I’m not familiar with the name,” said Doyle, easing his finger off the trigger but not relaxing the hammer.

  “General Drummond’s service record was distinguished primarily by its lack of distinction,” said Sparks, in a clipped tone free of asperity. “His officer’s commission was purchased with family money, whereby his inexplicable rise to top rank comes clear: The Drummonds are one of the nation’s most prominent munitions manufacturers, our foremost suppliers of bullet and mortar shot. They own plants in Blackpool and Manchester as well as three German companies producing heavy artillery. General Drummond was not a particularly avid consumer of his own inventory; during his twenty years of service no troop under his command ever fired a shot in anger.

  “Upon the death of his father six years ago, the General cashiered out and assumed control of the family concern. The aggressiveness that was in such scant supply during his years in service to the Crown found its voice in commerce: Sales and profits have tripled. Last year Drummond married his eldest daughter into the Krupp family of Munich, his most formidable competitor on the Continent. The result is a potential monopoly. The General is now poised to dominate the international as well as domestic market. He is currently negotiating to purchase the company that manufactures the very service revolver you are holding in your hand. Is there anything else you wish to know?”

  Doyle released the hammer and lowered the gun.

  “What drew your attention to Drummond in the first place?”

  “Orders,” said Sparks, managing in a single word to invoke eight hundred years of monarchy, thereby rendering further inquiry in that direction tantamount to sedition.

  Doyle was not immune to the potency of such a suggestion. He replaced his gun in the bag and sat down. International munitions manufacturers. Orders from the Queen. His mind reeled.

  “My father always said a man’s most useful virtue is to recognize when he’s in over his head,” he said wearily.

  “Have a sandwich, guv,” said Larry kindly, offering the basket.

  Doyle took one. Eating always made him feel better. At least he could still rely on that.

  “I don’t suppose you could prosecute Drummond for harboring a fugitive.”

  “There was no trace of Mr. Dilks or any other gray hood on Larry’s subsequent visits to the General’s house,” Sparks explained. “Even so, the case presents more insurmountable difficulties.”

  “How’s that?”

  “According to the records of the Central Criminal Court, the prisoner Lansdown Dilks died in the hangman’s noose last February. Authorities were kind enough to post us a photograph of his headstone.”

  The sandwich sagged in Doyle’s hand. His jaw was agape.

  “The other point I should like to illuminate for you, Doyle, is that, generally speaking, conventional prosecution of whatever adversaries I might in the execution of my duties pursue is not necessarily, by any means, my primary objective,” Sparks said quietly. “I am not, in other words, at all times necessarily bound to discharge my responsibilities within the strictest confines of the law.”

  “No?”

  “Not strictly, no. This frees me to rely on the talents of men under my command who would otherwise find the prerequisites for employment within the established law-enforcement system…unduly rigorous.”

  Doyle turned to Larry, who smiled, cracked open a bottle of stout with the gap in his teeth, and offered it to him.

  “I see,” Doyle said, and took the beer.

  “Now, Doctor, I have confided in you the true nature of my business,” Sparks said, leaning back and relighting his pipe. “Are you still of a mind to cast your lot with me, or shall I instruct Larry to put in at the next negotiable beach?”

  Sparks seemed perfectly content to wait him out indefinitely. For a moment, South America leapt irrationally into Doyle’s mind as a third, immensely attractive alternative. He drank his beer and tried to brake the wheel of fortune spinning in his head.

  “I’m with you,” said Doyle.

  “Good man. And glad we are to have you,” said Sparks, energetically pumping his hand.

  “Welcome aboard, sir,” added Larry, beaming.

  Doyle thanked them, smiling wanly, secretly yearning for even the smallest confidence in the wisdom of his choice. The question of his enlistment settled, they busied themselves with trimming of lines and sails to fit the changing conditions of the sea. As the sun reached its ascendant, land appeared on the southern horizon.

  “The Isle of Sheppey,” Sparks said, pointing south. “If the wind holds, we should make land at Faversham by sundown. It’s a full night’s ride from there to Topping. If you don’t mind, I think it advisable we push straight on through.”

  Doyle said he didn’t mind.

  “The late Lady Nicholson’s husband is a man by the name of Charles Stewart Nicholson, son of Richard Sidney Nicholson, the earl of Oswald, who over the years has quietly become one of the wealthiest men in England,” said Sparks, with a note of contempt. “I’m most eager to meet Charles Stewart Nicholson. Would you like to know why?”

  “Yes,” answered Doyle neutrally, content now to let Sparks dictate his own rate of revelation.

  “Lord Nicholson, the younger, came to my attention last year when he sold a large tract of family land in Yorkshire to a blind trust. Surrounding this seemingly commonplace transaction was
a legal miasma that proved tremendously difficult to penetrate: Someone had gone to considerable lengths to conceal the identity of the buyer from the public view.”

  Sparks paused, watching Doyle’s confusion with amused interest.

  “Would it surprise you to learn that the man who purchased Nicholson’s land was Brigadier General Marcus McCauley Drummond?”

  “Yes, Jack. Yes, it would.”

  “Yes. It did me, too.”

  chapter ten

  TOPPING

  THEY DID INDEED REACH FAVERSHAM BY NIGHTFALL. NEGOTIating the outer reaches of the Isle of Sheppey, they sailed up the generous arm of the sea known locally as the Swale, took a narrowing channel upstream, and put in at the edge of the oyster beds in shallow waters outlying the old town.

  Larry leapt off the bow, pulled them ashore, grabbed their bags, and scampered up an embankment, disappearing from view. Doyle and Sparks gathered the remainder of their possessions and followed his path up the hill. Waiting for them on the ridge above was a brougham with a brace of fresh horses, and helping Larry load in was none other than brother Barry. Doyle found it nigh onto impossible to discern one from the other until he moved close enough to spy Barry’s disfigurement. Larry took evident pleasure in properly reintroducing Barry to his valued friend, the esteemed Dr. Doyle. Barry was not nearly so talkative as his brother, quite the contrary, but between the two of them Larry’s generous endowment of gab amounted to an equitable disbursement of verbal capital. Doyle found his chilly opinion of the twins beginning to thaw with prolonged exposure to Larry’s homely warmth. The only dissonance he experienced came while attempting to reconcile Barry’s sour mien and retiring disposition with Larry’s characterization of him as a rampant, indefatigable womanizer.

  Once the carriage was packed and travel-ready, Larry bid Doyle a friendly farewell—he was leaving on some undisclosed assignment—and walked blithely off into the night. Barry assumed the driver’s seat, Doyle joined Sparks in the enclosed cab, and they drove away.

  “Where’s Larry off to?” Doyle asked, looking back through the curtains at Larry’s receding figure, already missing him a little.

  “Cover our tracks and make his way to London. There’s work to do,” said Sparks. A dark mood had crept over him with the night. He was remote and avoided eye contact, mulling over something tough and disagreeable. With no invitation to engage, Doyle did not press for conversation and eventually drifted off to sleep.

  He awoke to weight shifting overhead. The carriage was still moving. Sparks was no longer in his seat. Doyle fumbled for his watch: half past midnight.

  The door opened, and a small steamer trunk appeared in the opening.

  “Don’t sit there, Doyle, give us a hand,” he heard Sparks say.

  Doyle helped wrestle the trunk onto the seat opposite as Sparks pushed it through, reentered, and shut the door behind him. His color was high again, his spirits burnished to their former brightness.

  “How is your weekend etiquette?” asked Sparks.

  “My what?”

  “Houseguest skills, billiards, table talk, all that rubbish.”

  “What’s that got to do with—”

  “We’re visiting a gentleman’s country house for New Year’s Eve weekend, Doyle. I’m trying to ascertain your aptitude for the upper crust.”

  “I know which fork to use, if that’s what you mean,” said Doyle, his ears burning with pride.

  “Don’t take offense, old boy, I need to determine which part you’re going to play. The less suspicion we arouse among Lord Nicholson and his posh crowd, the better.”

  “What are my choices?”

  “Master or manservant,” said Sparks, throwing open the trunk to reveal its two halves packed with wardrobe appropriate to either role.

  “Why don’t we just tell them I’m a doctor?” Doyle asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to shed his comfortable middle-class skin for a vertical move in either direction.

  “That’s boxing clever. There’s every reason to suspect your enemies may be waiting for us there. Why don’t you have cards printed and solicit for patients while we’re at it?”

  “I see,” said Doyle. “You’re suggesting we arrive incognito.”

  “Baron Everett Gascoyne-Pouge, and valet, R.S.V.P.,” Sparks said, producing an invitation to the year’s end party, addressed to same.

  “How did you come by this?”

  “It’s a facsimile.”

  “But what if the real Gascoyne-Pouge should decide to come?”

  “There is no such person,” said Sparks, barely concealing his displeasure at Doyle’s puny leaps of imagination.

  “Ah. Printed yourself. I’m with you now.”

  “I was starting to wonder.”

  “Sorry, I’m always a bit thick just after sleep,” Doyle explained, yawning. “Takes a moment to stir the soup again.”

  “Quite all right,” Sparks said, handing him the working-class clothes. “And I’m sure you’ll find the servants’ quarters at Topping will be more than adequate.”

  “But, Jack, don’t you think they’ll see right through this charade?” Doyle stuttered, staring down at the valet’s vestments. “I mean I suppose I can muddle through playing the part well enough—”

  “No one ever looks at the servants, Doyle. You’ll blend in like a black cat in a coal bin.”

  “But I mean, what if they should notice me, Jack? They may not have a clear idea of your appearance, but they certainly know what I look like.”

  Sparks stared at him hard. “Right,” he said. He rummaged around in the trunk and pulled out a razor. “We’ll have Barry pull over so you don’t endanger your sense of smell.”

  Doyle’s fingers flew protectively to his mustache.

  Gray dawn of New Year’s Eve found them entering an arched gate and making the approach to Topping Manor down a straight and narrow lane lined with stately oaks, their sere branches reaching out to form a craggy canopy. Dressed in the unfamiliar garb of his new profession, Doyle had managed only a few minutes’ more rough sleep, troubled by dreams of hopelessly incompetent servitude, followed with unmasking and capture by unknown figures. Queen Victoria had figured prominently; he remembered serving tea only to have her discover a dead mouse floating in the pot. That distressed him far more than the hard treatment he suffered at the hands of his shadowy captors, and he woke with a start, bathed in a sheen of cold sweat.

  He realized his waking had been precipitated by the carriage braking to a stop. Doyle heard the door open and close before his eyes could properly inform him that Sparks was leaving the coach. Fumbling for the door, Doyle dragged himself outside.

  The rows of oaks ended abruptly where Barry had brought them to a halt. The majestic trees had at one time apparently marched on ahead, accompanying the road for an additional hundred yards; now not only the oaks but every tree from that point forward had been felled, stumps scorched and blasted, and all ground cover burned. Rising abruptly out of the torched flatland before them was a solid wall thirty feet high, makeshift, unbalanced, constructed from the untrimmed bodies of the downed trees, coarsely mortared with rocks, bricks, straw, dead grass, and wattles. Early light reflected off chunks of broken glass set in the binding caulk and all along the rampart. The wall ran off for a considerable distance in both directions and then doubled back, appearing to entirely enclose the manor house and grounds inside. The highest parapets and crenellations of Topping Manor itself, a late Gothic masterpiece, were visible above and beyond the mysterious fortification. No smoke rose from any of her chimneys. No gates or entrances interrupted the unbroken face of the wall. Viewed from their perspective, this crude eruption of a barrier spoke of nothing but terror, haste, and madness.

  “Good Christ…”

  “It would appear the fate of our party is in some jeopardy,” said Sparks.

  “What’s happened here?”

  “Barry, take the carriage round, see if they’ve left a way in. The doctor and I will invest
igate on foot,” Sparks instructed.

  Barry tipped his cap and drove off to circumnavigate the fortress as Sparks and Doyle picked their way forward through the devastated field.

  “What do you see, Doyle? What does this tell you?”

  “The fire was set recently, I’d say within the week. Probably the last Step in the disfigurement. Discoloration around the stumps is similar; suggests they were all cut down within a short period of time.”

  “A great number of men, working together,” said Sparks.

  “How close is the nearest town?”

  “At least five miles. The wall isn’t the work of craftsmen, Doyle. The servants of the manor must have done the work.”

  “Without supervision or any evident design.”

  “No joints or mortises. No thought to quality or longevity.”

  “Someone wanted a barricade put up quickly.”

  “Why, Doyle?”

  Doyle stopped and looked at the wall, ten feet away, trying to feel the panic and urgency of its builders. “No time. Something coming. Something that needed keeping out.”

  “They started building before Lady Nicholson and her brother were killed. How long did she say her son had been missing?”

  “Three days before the séance.”

  “Before he was kidnapped as well; that could’ve been the reason. Fear of abduction. Protect your young—the oldest instinct in the human heart.”

  “A child can be moved, sent away,” countered Doyle. “It’s almost too rational a reason. This feels like the work of someone who’s gone utterly mad.”

  “Or been driven there.”

  Sparks stared grimly up at the wall’s vast reach. Two sharp blasts from a cabbie’s whistle pulled their attention away to the right.

  “Barry,” said Sparks, taking off at a sprint, shouting back over his shoulder at his less agile companion. “Come along, Doyle, don’t dawdle.”

  Doyle ran after him, rounded the corner, and turned left, Barry waved to them, standing beside the brougham, a quarter-mile away, half the visible length of the wall. Doyle labored to keep pace with Sparks and was completely breathless by the time he reached them.