Kavanagh ripped the suitcase out of my hands. Exhaustion and dizziness overcame me. I collapsed. Kavanagh absconded, the suitcase in tow. He wheezed and coughed, his steps slowed by exhaustion, his strength sapped by disease: a dead man on his last, desperate flight.
Slade wrenched the pistol and himself away from Stieber. He rose on his good leg, teetered on his injured one. Stieber sat up, bleeding from his nose and mouth. Slade aimed the pistol at his foe and cocked the trigger. His raw, battered face wore an expression of triumph so unholy that it was frightening. At last he would have his revenge.
The Queen shouted, “Kavanagh is getting away!” She started after him, hobbled on a sprained ankle, and stopped. “Mr. Slade!” She pointed at Kavanagh, who’d progressed some ten feet down the transept. “Shoot him!”
Jolted out of his private obsession, Slade looked from Stieber to Kavanagh. His face went momentarily blank as he observed Kavanagh lugging the suitcase that contained the bomb, which needed only a new fuse and new matches to explode. He aimed the pistol at Kavanagh.
“There’s one bullet left,” Stieber said, his words muffled by cut, bloody lips. “You can shoot him or me. It’s your choice.”
“Him!” The Queen jabbed her finger at Kavanagh.
Slade gritted his teeth against the pain of his wound. His trousers were drenched with blood. I watched him realize that if he shot Kavanagh, he would have to kill Stieber with his bare hands, and he hadn’t enough strength left. He swung the pistol around to Stieber.
“Don’t! That’s an order!” the Queen shouted.
“You’d better shoot Kavanagh before he’s out of range.” Amusement gleamed through the blood running into Stieber’s swollen eyes.
Although he knew that Kavanagh and the bomb posed a greater immediate threat than Stieber did, Slade hesitated. I saw his thirst for revenge battling his duty to the Queen and his need to save the world. I was so much in sympathy with my husband that I couldn’t speak, even though my own life hung in the balance. The decision must be Slade’s.
“Well?” Stieber said with a malicious smile. “Which will it be?”
Despair shone in Slade’s eyes.
They met mine.
Love obliterated the anguish and indecision in his gaze.
As Kavanagh hobbled farther away, Slade clasped the gun in both hands to steady it, sighted on Kavanagh, and fired. The gun kicked in his hands as it boomed. The force knocked Slade to his knees. Kavanagh twisted, then crumpled. He lay beside the suitcase, writhed, and squalled. Slade had sacrificed his revenge, for my sake.
Stieber pushed himself to his hands and knees. He crawled, then walked on all fours, then stood up and ran with a lurching, unsteady gait.
George Smith returned, accompanied by a horde of policemen. The Queen directed them to Kavanagh. The police surrounded the scientist. She said, “Take that suitcase, and be careful with it!”
Mr. Thackeray awoke and said dazedly, “What happened?”
I gathered myself up. Still battling dizziness, I faltered over to Slade.
“Are you all right?” I asked. The sight of all the blood on him horrified me. Could he lose so much and survive? I wrung my hands, not knowing what to do. I embraced him and kissed his cut, bruised face.
“I’m fine,” Slade gasped out.
He limped after Stieber, fell, and cursed. Helpless, he aimed the gun at his retreating enemy. He pulled the trigger, and I knew he hoped Stieber had lied about the number of bullets left in the gun. But the gun only clicked. Stieber had spoken the truth. With a roar of enraged frustration, Slade threw the gun at Stieber. It landed on the floor inches short of its target. Stieber reached the crowds still massed at the distant end of the Crystal Palace.
“Stop him!” I cried.
No one did.
43
A week after the scene at the Crystal Palace, I returned to Bedlam. It was a rare, fine summer morning in London, shortly before eight o’clock. The sky was blue, the air freshened by a cool wind. Pigeons fluttered, their wings flashing white in the sun, above the dome of the insane asylum. The horrors that I’d experienced there still gave me nightmares, but today I felt no fear as I entered Bedlam. Slade was beside me. He limped from the gunshot wound in his thigh and leaned on a cane, but fortunately the bullet had gone straight through, causing no serious damage besides an alarming loss of blood. That he hadn’t died was a testament to his strong constitution and will to live.
We walked together beneath the shade trees on the grounds of Bedlam. I carried a gift- wrapped box from a confectionary store. We climbed the wide staircase with the other visitors, then proceeded to the criminal lunatics’ wing. I hesitated, my heart suddenly pounding, outside the iron door, that portal to hell.
“Don’t be afraid,” Slade said, his hand closing warmly around mine. “Everyone who worked for Wilhelm Stieber is gone.”
“I know.” The police had arrested the doctor who’d tortured us. Wagner was dead, accidentally killed by me. Friedrich had hanged himself in Newgate Prison. We had learned this from a Foreign Office agent who’d come to see us at the hotel where we were staying. But I had to steel my nerves as the matron admitted us to the criminal lunatics’ wing and led us down those dismal corridors. She unlocked a door, put her head in, and said, “You’ve a visitor.”
While Slade waited outside, I entered the cell. Julia Garrs sat primly on her bed. She smiled, and her violet-gray eyes sparkled with pleasure. “Charlotte! You’ve come back to see me! They said you wouldn’t, but I knew you would.”
“Hello, Julia.” Tears stung my eyes because she again reminded me so painfully of Anne. “I brought you a present.”
She tore open the wrappings. “Oh, I love candy! Thank you so much.”
“I wanted to thank you,” I said. “You saved my life.”
When Lord Palmerston had sent his troops to Bedlam, Julia had guided them to me. If not for her, I would have been murdered by Stieber.
She nodded as if she understood, even though I couldn’t tell her what had happened. I said, “If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.”
“Could you find my baby?” she asked. “And tell him that I’ll be with him soon?”
All I could say was that I promised I would. I pitied her, and I thanked God that Anne was at peace. I bid goodbye to Julia, then joined Slade in the corridor. He said, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.” I had set off a chain of events, and I felt obligated to witness all the consequences.
The matron led us to another cell. Slade and I peered in the window. Niall Kavanagh crouched on the floor, dressed in pajamas, his red hair tousled; his spectacles had slipped down his nose. Pen in hand, he scribbled frantically on sheets of paper. His writings and diagrams looked like utter nonsense.
“He’s been doing that every day,” the matron said. The army had taken Kavanagh straight from the Crystal Palace to Bedlam. The doctors had removed the bullet that Slade had fired into his shoulder and stitched up the wound. They’d also discovered that he was suffering from pneumonia, not wool-sorter’s disease. He wasn’t going to die yet. “His ma and pa came to see him yesterday, and he got so violent we had to tie him up in a blanket gown.”
I pitied Sir William and Lady Kavanagh. As I wondered what terrible new ideas he was formulating, Kavanagh looked up. His face was puffy, his gaze blurred. He didn’t seem aware of me. Then he bent his head over his papers and continued scribbling. My heart ached because I saw Branwell in him. But I took comfort from the fact that my brother had come to his senses and repented of his sins in the end, while Kavanagh had not.