“Let us talk of money,” Professor Fell said. “Let us talk of rewards, Matthew. Here is what I propose. If you fail to produce the traitor in the next three days, I will pay you three hundred pounds and send you, your lady friend and the blackbird back to New York. If, however, you do produce the traitor and some evidence of treachery, I will pay you three thousand pounds before sending you home. Also, your death card is burned to ashes and so is the death card of your friend Nathaniel Powers in the Carolina colony. All grievances against you and Powers will be forgiven. Does this still sound impossible?”
Matthew had to spend a few seconds recovering from the sound of that much money. And the fact that ex-magistrate Powers would no longer fear the man who never forgets. “Maybe not impossible,” Matthew answered. “But nearly so. What would I have to work on?”
“Your instincts. Your intelligence. Your experience. Your…guess, if it comes to that. I will provide a key for you to use in entering the rooms of our three suspects. Sirki will inform you when the time is right to do so. I also will empower him to answer any further questions, within reason. Perhaps you’ll discover for yourself what the betrayal was, but I shall inform you of this: if I sat here and told you exactly the facts of the matter, I should have to prevent you and your charges from ever leaving this island again. So…I am asking you to use your skills, Matthew. Are they sufficient for this task, or not?”
The answer was truthful enough. “I don’t know.”
“Know by morning. Sirki will come to your door before breakfast.”
“Give me this, then,” Matthew said. “Does this involve the man you’re seeking? Brazio Valeriani?”
“No. That is a different matter. Yet I will say that if you are successful in this situation, I should think of sending you to Italy to search Valeriani out. And if you found him I would pay you enough to own that little town of yours.”
“Ownership of a town is not my ambition.”
“Hm,” said the professor, and Matthew thought that small unspoken comment was Ownership of the world is mine.
“I’ll come to some decision by morning,” Matthew replied, though he knew what the decision must be. He was going to be working blind, but he had to try.
Professor Fell suddenly stood up. He was about two inches taller than Matthew and nearly frail but he moved with graceful strength. “I shall trust that you trust yourself. I know what you’re capable of. After all, we have a history, don’t we?”
The Black Plague had a history too, Matthew thought.
“I’ll speak to you again,” the professor promised. He walked to the door and paused with his hand on the polished knob. “This is important to me, Matthew. It is vital. Find this traitor, and you may be assured of a very bright future.”
As Matthew hoped to be assured of any future, he chose to let that observation pass. But he had another question: “Before you entered the room, there was a small…jolt, it felt to be. A movement. What was that?”
“An earth tremor. We get them occasionally, but nothing to be alarmed about.”
“This castle is on the edge of a cliff and you say an earth tremor is nothing to be alarmed about?”
“The tremors are mild and the castle is sturdy,” said the professor. “I know, because I had it rebuilt when I claimed the island as my birthright. This is the house I was born in. My father was the governor here.”
“The governor? Of Templeton?”
“It is time for you to rest,” came the soft reply. “I wish you pleasant dreams.”
“Thank you, but aren’t you worried about running into one of your associates in the hallway? That wouldn’t do for your pretense as an automaton, would it?”
“No, it would not. That is why the vanilla cake, the sugared almonds and the wine have been treated with a potent sleep drug. I believe the others are likely resting in the comfortable patio chairs by now. I doubt that Miss Cutter will be leaving her room to wander the hallways tonight. Madam Chillany is also behind a locked door, and she won’t be coming out either.”
“But you knew I wouldn’t want any of that dubious dessert?”
“Not after the dinner, no. But just in case, Mother Deare was watching you, ready to intercede, and Sirki was going to summon you from the patio. In any case, I did not come up by the main staircase and I shall not be going down them.”
“No secret passages here?” Matthew dared ask, with a trace of improvidence.
“None,” said Professor Fell, “that you shall know about. Oh…you do realize you have wet your breeches, don’t you? Leave your suit outside the door. I’ll have it cleaned for you.” Matthew didn’t have to look. It was a little too late for the chamberpot. “Goodnight.” The cowled figure opened the door, paused only briefly to regard the corridor, and then left Matthew’s room. The door closed behind Professor Fell with nearly the same sound as the breath leaving Matthew’s lungs a few seconds later.
Matthew got his legs moving. He went out onto the balcony to listen to the waves against the rocks. Stars filled the sky in the utter black. It was majestic but also seemed desolate and dangerous. Many things whirled through his mind. He concentrated on keeping the vision of Jonathan Gentry’s yellowing face out of his brain, but it was a hard order. He knew that when he attempted sleep it would all come back upon him, and therefore he would surely end up flaming the eight tapers in the overhead chandelier as well as keeping the candelabra burning all night.
What a day this had been! He wondered how Berry and Zed had survived it, and what their present situation was. He wondered at the mysterious fort and the brightly-colored skulls that served as warnings of death. He wondered at the fate of Captain Jerrell Falco, and how he was going to deliver Fancy—if she was indeed who he thought she was—from the rude clutches of the Thacker brothers.
He wondered who Brazio Valeriani was, and what was the Cymbeline. He wondered how he was going to uncover a traitor in three days. And mostly he wondered how the hell he’d gotten into this predicament.
But the fact was…he was here. Up to his neck in a sea of predators, and him wearing a suit that smelled of blood.
I wish you pleasant dreams, the professor had said.
Not to be had this night, Matthew thought.
But in another moment he would take off his blood-spattered suit, fold it and put it outside the door and he would stretch himself out in the bed in the room in the castle of Professor Fell, and he would seek some kind of rest because he needed a fresh mind in the morning when Sirki came to call.
He was who he was. And as Katherine Herrald had once told him regarding his position at the Herrald Agency: We need you, Matthew. You’ll be well-paid and well-challenged. Probably well-travelled too, before long. Certainly well-educated in the complexities of life, and of the criminal mind. Have I frightened you off?
Matthew stared into the deeper darkness, and he answered aloud as he had answered the woman in person.
“No, madam. Not in the least.”
But then again, there was always tomorrow.
Twenty-One
BERRY awakened in the light of the candle at her bedside. She lay still, listening. A dog was barking out in the town. Another answered from a different direction. She wasn’t sure it was the noise that had roused her from her troubled sleep. No, there was something else…