The Dark Enquiry (27 page)

He gaped at me, his eyes starting in his white face.

I continued on, my tone deliberately pleasant. “We know that you had to adopt some more regular occupation to account for your presence in London, but we are curious as to why I should figure so prominently in your pieces for the newspaper. Would you care to enlighten us?”

He opened his mouth and closed it again, giving him a rather distressing resemblance to a freshly caught fish. At last, he found his voice.

“Sorry about that, ma’am,” he said, and he did manage to look contrite. “And I am sorry for the things I wrote about you. I meant nothing personal, you understand. But I had to ensure that Mr. Brisbane stayed upon the case.”

“Why? I should have thought Brisbane would have been a hindrance to you,” I said bluntly.

“Thank you for that,” Brisbane drawled.

“Not at all, ma’am,” the American said. “In fact, I needed him.”

“Needed him?”

Mr. Sullivan seemed to relax a little, so long as he was not looking directly at Brisbane. “Yes, ma’am. I knew Lord Bellmont had consulted with him, and I figured nothing would be more natural than a fellow in trouble appealing to his brother-in-law to get him out. I thought if I just kept Mr. Brisbane in my sights, he would find the letters for me. He was my last hope.”

I shot a questioning glance at Brisbane. “Then you do not have the letters? You are not the blackmailer?”

“I am the blackmailer,” he said patiently, “at least, I sent Lord Bellmont the note demanding money. But that was because I needed help in finding the letters, and I knew if I approached any of you directly, I would never get them.”

I shook my head. “I am entirely confused, Mr. Sullivan. Let us begin at the beginning. You knew there were letters in Madame Séraphine’s possession that compromised my brother.”

“Yes.” He nodded emphatically to demonstrate his cooperation. He darted a glance at Brisbane, who sat glowering in the corner, saying nothing, but keeping a watchful eye upon the fellow.

“And you wanted the letters.”

“I did,” he said. He reached into his pocket, and in a flash, Brisbane was on him. The American gave a cry of pain as Brisbane bent his wrist back nearly upon itself. “Easy, fellow! I only want my handkerchief.”

Brisbane dipped two fingers into the pocket and retrieved the somewhat grubby handkerchief. He inspected it, then dropped it on Mr. Sullivan’s lap. The American took it up and mopped his brow with it. “Where was I?”

“The letters,” I supplied.

“Yes. I had been attending the séances for some time. I was under strict orders to listen and report back to Washington what I heard, and that is all. But I started to get suspicious that something was up. So I started hanging around more, watching for regulars. I found two who interested me in particular, the first was General Fortescue.”

I had blinked furiously at the mention of Washington. I had truly believed Mr. Sullivan was an agent of the Germans, reporting to Bismarck, the old misery. It galled a little to learn that he was precisely what he appeared to be—a not terribly skillful American agent.

I left my musings about his allegiances as Brisbane seized upon his last remark. “General Fortescue? Why did he pique your interest?”

“He was a contact of ours from some years back, occasionally passing bits of information.”

I bristled. “The general passed information to America? That treacherous devil! And to think I comforted him about his lost soldiers,” I fumed, and Mr. Sullivan gave me a kindly smile.

“He never gave up anything significant,” he assured me. “And I soon realised he wasn’t giving up anything this time. He is exactly what he seems—a man who is haunted by the ghosts of his regrets.”

“Who else captured your interest?” I asked, wondering if he would identify Morgan as his British opposite.

But he did not. “A certain woman who never spoke and who always wore a heavy veil she wouldn’t take off.”

“The veiled lady!” I cried. I was not entirely surprised that Morgan had been subtle enough to avoid detection by the Americans, but I was vastly annoyed that Brisbane and I had discounted the veiled lady so thoroughly. “I thought she was simply a client,” I admitted.

“So did I,” Mr. Sullivan assured me. “Until I realised she had managed to worm her way into five or six of the gentlemen’s sessions and never said a single word. She came and Madame gave her messages about a dead son and an inheritance, but once Madame slipped up. She mentioned a dead daughter instead, and it was a tiny mistake, but it was all I needed to know. The veiled lady was a fraud, and Madame was in on it. The likeliest explanation was that she was there to keep an eye on the rest of us, and at first I thought she must be my British opposite.”

I choked slightly at the notion that the veiled lady might be mistaken for Morgan, but I swiftly recovered and he went on.

“I saw her nip up the stairs one evening after everyone else had gone. Madame opened the door to her room and I heard one of them say,
‘Guten nacht,’
and that was all I needed to hear.”

I dared not look at Brisbane. We had assumed Bismarck had dispatched a man for this job, but clearly he had a greater opinion of my sex than I had credited him.

Mr. Sullivan went on. “The veiled lady clearly had German connections. And Agathe confirmed it.”

Brisbane stirred himself. “You befriended Agathe?”

Mr. Sullivan turned slightly pink and tugged at his collar. “I suppose you could say we were friends.”

“Intimate friends,” Brisbane pressed.

Mr. Sullivan shot a look towards me and flushed an even more startling shade of pink. “Damn me, must we talk about such things in front of a lady?”

“Think of her as a fellow investigator,” Brisbane offered helpfully.

I gave Mr. Sullivan a cool smile to show I was not offended by the subject at hand, and he mopped his brow again.

“All right. Yes. We were intimate friends. I saw right off the bat I would never manage to worm my way into Madame’s good graces. She wanted men who were either rich or powerful, and I didn’t have anything in that way.”

“Come now, Mr. Sullivan,” I said. “America is a very wealthy young country. Surely your government could have funded such a masquerade. You could have presented yourself as a railroad magnate or cattle baron.” I looked to Brisbane. “Is that right? A cattle baron? It sounds strange.”

“It is correct,” he averred. “But I suspect Mr. Sullivan was operating beyond the scope of his assignment. You set yourself the task of unravelling Madame’s plot, didn’t you? Without direction or support from Washington,” Brisbane guessed.

Mr. Sullivan wiped his brow again. “You don’t know what it’s like there, all those stuffy old men pushing papers around. It would have taken me a year to get the proper permission, and that is only if I were the luckiest man on God’s green Earth. No, sir, if I had asked, my superiors would have taken so long to argue about it that Lord Salisbury’s government would have fallen twice over before I could act.”

“So you took the initiative to present them with a
fait accompli,
” I finished.

He grinned, and it was a charming, boyish thing, his grin. “I find it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

I led him back to the subject at hand. “So you set out to seduce Agathe because you sensed she was an easier mark than her sister.”

“Yes, ma’am. And all she really wanted was someone to listen to her. She used to be the headline act when they first starting touring as mediums. But there was a dust-up in Germany and Agathe lost her nerve. Madame Séraphine stepped in and that was it. She just took over, and year by year, Agathe dropped further back into the shadows. To tell the truth,” he said, dropping his gaze, “I felt sorry for her.”

“Then you are a very poor spy,” I commented, smelling the deceit upon him. “They should have taught you never to get personally attached to your subjects.”

Again he offered up the grin, this time tinged with apology. “All right, I was not entirely sorry for her. Agathe was a bit of a shrew, if I may speak ill of the dead. She and Madame used to scrap like cats. And one of the things they quarrelled about was Madame’s throwing in with the Germans.”

That much made sense. After her experiences in Bavaria, Agathe would not look kindly upon Germans.

“So you learned from Agathe of Lord Bellmont’s letters and concluded there was a conspiracy to use them to topple Lord Salisbury,” I said.

He nodded. “And I knew I couldn’t let that happen. The trouble again is Washington. If I had taken the time to let my superiors know, they might have told me just to let it play out. There are those who think America shouldn’t involve itself at all in what you Europeans do, that it’s going to lead us into a hell of a war someday, begging your pardon, ma’am,” he added with a tip of his hat. “But I think England and America have always been real good friends and we ought to stay that way. A strong England is good for us, and frankly, I’m more than a little scared of Germany.”

“As are we all,” I murmured. “So you took it upon yourself to retrieve the letters.”

“I told Agathe what I suspected was going on so she could search Madame’s things for the letters. I figured if I enlisted her help, she could find them for me.”

“And she failed, as well?”

“Madame found her looking and they had a big fight. Madame told her it was too late and that she had thrown in her lot with the Germans and that when the time came, England would be easy pickings for the Continentals. She said Bismarck was going to reward her with a title and a huge amount of money, her German friend had told her so.”

“What else did you discover about this German friend of Madame’s—the veiled lady?”

Sullivan looked disgusted. “Precious little. I only know that she pulled Madame into the plot on the orders of Bismarck and that she has some mighty powerful friends in Germany.”

“Doubtless because she is a relative of the kaiser,” Brisbane put in blandly. I bit back the oath that sprang to my lips. Leap of logic or brilliant stroke of intuition, I could not say, but in either event, it made perfect sense. Such perfect sense, in fact, that I could not believe I had failed to see it for myself.

Mr. Sullivan regarded Brisbane with awe. “How do you know that?”

“She wears buttons marked with the family name as a badge of honour. A rather indiscreet practise for a spy, but then I suspect she is an amateur, commissioned by Bismarck on the strength of her connections rather than her skills.”

Sullivan looked dumbfounded. “The family?”

“Sigmaringen-Hohenzollern,” I informed him. “A cadet branch of the kaiser’s dynasty. One thing puzzles me. The scandal would indeed have been enough to sink Lord Salisbury if the letters had come to light. Why didn’t they?”

He shrugged. “They disappeared the day Madame died. She and Agathe quarrelled about the letters, about the Germans, about me. Madame had found out Agathe and I had been seeing quite a lot of one another and she said some pretty cutting things about it. Agathe was as hurt and mad as I’ve ever seen a woman.”

“Hurt and mad enough to kill her own sister?” Brisbane asked.

Mr. Sullivan’s eyes widened, and his colour rose furiously. “Now, that’s just a damned lie, that is. Agathe was all right. I mean, she was tight with a dollar and she could talk the ears off a rabbit, but she would never have hurt her own sister, and that’s God’s own truth.”

I was touched in spite of myself. I had had the sense throughout the conversation that Mr. Sullivan was guarding himself carefully, telling only as much as he had to. But this spirited defence of Agathe rang true, and I liked him a little better for it.

“No, I do not think Agathe killed Madame,” I said, sighing deeply. “Is it possible that she took advantage of her sister’s death to find the letters and conceal them, even from you?”

“No, ma’am.” The reply was adamant. “She was in a bit of a panic about it, actually, and we both figured the murderer must have taken them. I promised her we’d get them back. I knew that Lord Bellmont was connected to Mr. Brisbane and knew he would be after the letters, as well. I figured if I could get him to retrieve the letters, I would just steal them from him and be done with it.”

Brisbane gave him a bland smile. “Nicely done, Mr. Sullivan, but I think we may excuse you of altruistic motives on that score. If I had found my brother-in-law’s letters, I would have destroyed them in his presence. I hardly think you would have done the same.”

Mr. Sullivan managed to look hurt. “No, but I assure you they would have never been used against him.”

“You would have taken them to Washington, perhaps to keep as an insurance policy, perhaps as a tool to get what you wanted from Lord Salisbury,” Brisbane pressed.

“I resent that, sir,” Mr. Sullivan said, raising his chin. “My government would never resort to such methods.”

Brisbane snorted, and I waved him off. “That is neither here nor there. The point is, you did not have the letters and so you began to take steps to flush them out. Hence, following me about, writing articles for the newspaper. What was the purpose in setting fire to our house? I presume that was you?”

He had the grace to look deeply embarrassed. “I am sorry about that. I wanted to search Mr. Brisbane’s study for the letters. I thought if I got you both out of the house, I would have a chance. I managed to kick over a lamp on my way in. I never got past the window,” he said in some disgust.

“So you did not intend harm to me?” I asked pleasantly.

His expression was one of horror. “God, no! I figured you would tag along with Mr. Brisbane to the cemetery. That’s why I chose Highgate. Agathe had made it her business to discover as much as she could about Lord Bellmont and his family, and I knew if I put in that bit about your husband’s grave, you’d think there was a connection to you and come along. I wanted you as far out of the house as possible.”

“And you arranged the little trap for us at Highgate?”

He ducked his head again. “I had to ensure you would be out of the way for some time. I do apologise. If it’s any consolation, you made it out much faster than I expected.”