— for a little while.”
“They were jewels. A ransom,” Ada said, finding her voice.
“I knew you’d solved it when I saw your coded message in the Personals.” The cold green eyes glittered. He stood up and leaned on the mantelshelf. “The poetic quotation was not as apt as I would have expected, but confirmed your identity. You decoded my message with help from Mr Babbage — my men have told me how you visit him. Now all that needs to be done is give the location where our ransom should be placed. I’m sure Mr Babbage can manage that alone.”
“I still don’t see why we need her.” The younger man who’d grabbed her on the jetty jerked his thumb at her. “I say she’s a liability. The ransom for the cathedral is enough.”
“Enough!” The blond man spoke quietly but with such venom that the other two men shrank back. “Nothing is enough, I’ve told you that before. I can never be recompensed for what I’ve been denied.” He looked at her, and she felt herself flinch. “I should have had the privileged life you’ve led — even more so. My father, the Duke, refused to acknowledge his by-blow, though. My mother told me everything. So I am making him and his kind pay — but on my terms.” He tossed back the last of his wine and went to the decanter for a refill. “As for why Miss Byron is here — I’ve sent a strong message: ‘Look at what I can do. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”. Ozymandias should be my middle name.’”
“Where did you learn to cipher?” Ada asked.
“Oh, I had a good education, the best. But I was bored, and found other things to interest me.”
“I have been tutored at home. And now,” she declared standing up, “I demand that you return me there.”
Her adversary flung his head back and laughed. “What if I decide to keep you? No one would be surprised. Mad George Byron’s daughter run off with an adventurer — only to be expected.”
Ada felt her throat grow tight. “My father,” she began, when suddenly she heard a voice from behind.
“Miss Byron, are you all right?”
“Robert!” He stood, pale and swaying a little, in the doorway to the second room.
“Get him,” the blond man ordered. As the other two men stood, Ada jumped up and ran to Robert.
“Leave him alone,” she said, standing protectively in front of him. “Haven’t you harmed him enough?”
“Not nearly enough,” growled the bearded man. “He should’ve died for his pains.”
“But someone did die,” Robert said. “That young man. You sent a message to the White Hart for him to come here. Why? Tell me that, before I follow him into the Thames.”
“He disobeyed me. He was supposed to hand my coded message to the speaker that night, to send the police searching after Radicals. At first he said he’d done so, but then we found out he was too frightened so he’d planted it on a policeman — you — to get rid of it. He’s learned his lesson now.”
“So that paper was never meant for me,” Robert said. “It was just chance. You chose that meeting to throw suspicion on the union men or the Irish.”
“Or even a latter-day Guy Fawkes. Now, get rid of him.” The blond man flicked his fingers and Ada braced herself, just as the sound of wood splintering, shouts and the blasts of whistles came from below.
“Quickly, out the back way. Bring her, kill him.”
Ada felt Robert’s arms take hold of her and together they struggled against the bearded man. She found a strength she didn’t know she possessed as she kicked out. But in the next moment the police had stormed up the stairs to their rescue and the blond man had shoved past them to escape through the back window.
“I have ordered up some meat and potatoes, and here’s some porter to drink.” Clark was smiling. Ada had heard him say several times, “A very good outcome indeed. Very good indeed.”
She sat beside Robert on one side of the grate, where the flames of a generous log fire gave as much light as the few candles around the room. Charles Babbage was on the other side, legs stretched out in front of him. They were in an upper floor private room of an eating house in the Strand. News had been sent to her mother that she was safe and would be home soon. She had been waiting for Clark’s restless energy to subside, but her questions could no longer wait for him to settle. She swallowed some of the bitter drink, her first taste of porter, coughed, and said, “You found me because of the message Rob — Constable Duckett sent?”
“It arrived at the same time Babbage did, with his news of your abduction and the final solving of the cipher — as well as the part played by his coded message in
“He thought Ada placed it. I’m sorry, Ada, for what happened,” Charles said.
“You asked my permission and I gave it.” She smiled at him.
Beside her, Robert stirred and coughed. He had a rug around his shoulders and the colour was returning to his face. “How did you know I was there?” she asked him.
Robert recounted his story of the young lad in the morgue and his returning memory. “The young man was punished all right. That villain, that Prankster, is a cruel man.”
“If you hadn’t posted extra men at the back of the building, Mr Clark, he might have escaped. Do you know his true name now?”
At last Clark sat down. “He has refused to give it, but in fact I recognized him from a State Assembly I attended in the summer. Henry de Bellfont. He was thrown out of the Assembly for making a fracas, and I learned his sorry history. No doubt he hatched his plot then. With apologies, Miss Byron, he is the bastard son of a Duke and, although his father did provide enough money for a good education, he has refused to acknowledge him publicly, for the sake of his legitimate children. Henry was sent down from Oxford University for underhand dealings and general misbehaviour, at which point the Duke stopped sending money altogether.”
“He felt he wasn’t getting what he was due — despite the rest of us having to earn our living, or our position in society,” Robert observed.
“He was cold and calculating,” Ada said, remembering his green eyes. “All he wanted was riches.”
“Pure self-justification. But he is very clever,” Charles said. “The codes were the work of a brilliant mind, only used for the wrong purpose.”
“Now,” Clark was suddenly serious. “I must ask each of you to keep all the details of this affair secret. As far as the police are concerned we have captured a thief and dealer in stolen goods. I have tried to protect Miss Byron’s identity.”
“Why a secret? Sir?” Robert asked. His tankard of porter was already drained.
“No good cause would be served by tarnishing those close to the king. We must preserve stability at all costs. And we don’t want speculation and gossip about Henry de Bellfont’s claims that he burned down Parliament and is capable of blowing up St Paul’s Cathedral.”
“They were empty threats?” Ada asked. “He didn’t have a hand in that fire? Or the collapsing buildings?”
“With that mind, he could plan anything,” Charles said, “but would he have been able to carry it through?”
“I shall make very discreet investigations, but I believe not. He seized on two events and pretended he caused them, so we would pay to save St Paul’s. I doubt he had any intention of blowing it up. Abducting Miss Byron was to add strength to his claims.”
“What about his trial? He might take the opportunity to boast of these deeds?” Robert said.
“We shall find another way of dealing with him,” Clark said. Ada saw a glint of ruthlessness in his eyes that made her wonder if Henry de Bellfont would ever reach a courtroom. Perhaps he’d be encouraged to go to Tasmania, or America. She caught Robert’s eye and saw he’d come to the same conclusion.
The door opened and two serving-women came in carrying trays of food. Once everything had been laid out, the porter topped up, and the women gone, Clark said, “I propose a toast. To Miss Ada Byron, without whose mathematical genius, ably assisted by Mr Charles Babbage, we would not have averted this crime.”
As the three men raised their tankards, Ada laughed, and felt herself go pink. She wondered if she would ever be so content again.
Brodie and the Regrettable Incident
ANNE PERRY
