business with Her Majesty. By the time I received the news, you had been taken to Bedlam. I sincerely apologize for the delay.”
“I sincerely thank you for rescuing me,” I said.
Lord Palmerston smiled. “It was the least I could do. After the service you rendered our nation, we owed you a favor.”
“Consider it a favor repaid,” the Queen said grumpily. “But do not consider yourself a free woman, Miss Bronte. You are still facing a charge of murder. Did you kill that actress?”
“Of course she didn’t,” Lord Palmerston said.
Prince Albert said, “Miss Bronte is incapable of doing such a thing.”
“Stay out of this,” the Queen snapped at them. “Let Miss Bronte answer, and let me draw the conclusions.”
“Yes, dearest,” said Prince Albert.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” said Lord Palmerston.
The Queen’s round, protuberant eyes fixed me with a suspicious stare. “I want to know what in Heaven is going on. Did you kill that woman, or did you not?”
“I did not kill Katerina,” I said with all the force of the truth.
She looked askance at me. “I understand that you were caught standing over her dead body with the murder weapon in your hands. How do you explain that?”
“Katerina had been tortured and stabbed before I arrived,” I said. “I found her. Then I heard someone coming. I thought it was the murderer, and I picked up the knife in order to defend myself.”
The Queen harrumphed, although the men seemed satisfied by my explanation. “If you didn’t kill her, then who did?”
“It was Wilhelm Stieber,” I said.
“He is a spy for the Tsar,” Lord Palmerston interjected.
“I know who he is,” the Queen said, peeved. Lord Palmerston had educated her about foreign politics, and she chafed at her role as his pupil.
Lord Palmerston leaned toward me, chin in hand. “I’ve heard reports that Stieber has been sighted in London. This is a most interesting development.”
“How do you know Wilhelm Stieber killed Katerina?” the Queen asked me.
“She told me before she died.”
The Queen studied me skeptically. “How convenient. Why, pray tell, would the Tsar’s spy torture and kill a cheap, common actress? How did Wilhelm Stieber even know Katerina?”
“She was his informant.” I explained that Katerina had apparently consorted with men, that she’d elicited from Russian immigrants their secrets about plots against the Tsar, that she’d sought from Englishmen clues to the whereabouts of Niall Kavanagh and the gun he’d invented. I mentioned that the gun could decide the outcome of a war between Russia and England, and that Wilhelm Stieber meant to obtain it for the Tsar. “But Katerina began working for a British secret agent. Stieber found out. He tortured her in an attempt to learn where the agent was, and he killed her for betraying him.”
The Queen’s response was a derisive snort. “Surely a woman on her deathbed would be incapable of relating such a complete, coherent, and fantastic story as that.”
“She didn’t,” I admitted. “I deduced it by combining her last words with what the British agent had told me earlier. The agent is John Slade.”
“Slade!” The Queen smiled with good humor for the first time that evening. Although Slade had been as much involved in her children’s kidnapping as I had, she bore him no grudge. “That marvelously attractive spy who thwarted the attack on my kingdom!”
Lord Palmerston’s expression turned grave at the mention of Slade. “That marvelously attractive spy is no more, Your Majesty. John Slade went to Moscow in the autumn of 1848. While there, he turned traitor and revealed the identities of his fellow agents to the Russian secret police. He was executed.”
“My heavens.” The Queen stared openmouthed at Lord Palmerston. “When was this?”
“Four months ago.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why have you not told me until now?”
“I didn’t want to upset Your Majesty,” Lord Palmerston said smoothly.
Anger flushed her cheeks a brighter red; she put her fists on her hips. “I’ve told you time and again that I want to know everything that happens, yet you are always keeping me in the dark! I’ve also made it clear that all important decisions should be mine, but you make them without consulting me. Now you’ve gone behind my back and permitted the execution of a man I considered a friend! You are insufferable!”
“There was strong evidence against Slade,” Lord Palmerston said. “We had to conclude that he’d committed treason. In a case like his, execution is standard procedure.”
I was appalled to realize that Lord Palmerston had a part in Slade’s troubles, even though he probably hadn’t given the order of execution himself. I wanted to protest that Slade was innocent, but I did not know that for sure.
“Calm yourself, dearest,” Prince Albert said. “Overexcitement will make you ill.”
The Queen narrowed her eyes at him. “You knew about Slade, didn’t you?” The guilty look on her husband’s face was her answer. “Ah!” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “You are as bad as Lord Palmerston!” She subsided into dark, ominous brooding.
Lord Palmerston said to me, “Were you in contact with Slade while he was in Russia?”
“No,” I said.
“Then how could he have told you about Wilhelm Stieber or this Niall Kavanagh?”
I searched Lord Palmerston for a hint as to whether he’d heard of Kavanagh before. His smooth face gave me none. I didn’t know whether to trust him, but I had nowhere else to turn. “I saw Slade in London. He was alive, at least as of Sunday.”
Lord Palmerston was startled into silence. The Queen bent a distrustful look on me. Prince Albert watched her cautiously. The sounds of crickets chirping in the garden, a cool breeze stirring the trees, and the distant rush of ocean waves drifted up to the terrace. Lord Palmerston leaned toward me and clasped my hands in his. “My dear Miss Bronte,” he began.
“Don’t tell me it’s impossible.” I wrenched free of his warm, subduing grasp. “Lord Eastbourne already tried to convince me that Slade is dead. I didn’t listen to him, and I won’t listen to you, either. I refuse to believe what my own eyes and ears have told me is untrue!”
Lord Palmerston and the Queen sat back in their chairs, surprised by my vehemence. “I’m afraid your mind has deceived you,” Lord Palmerston said regretfully.
Prince Albert said, “I deem Miss Bronte to be a levelheaded person. I do not think she would invent such a fantasy.”
“She invented plenty of fantasies in her book,” the Queen retorted.
“I believe that Miss Bronte knows the difference between fantasy and reality,” Prince Albert said. “If she says Mr. Slade is alive, we should give her the benefit of the doubt.”
The Queen seemed to realize that although she wanted to contradict her husband and claim that Slade was dead, that meant she would be agreeing with Lord Palmerston. And perhaps she liked Slade enough to want to think he was alive. “You’re right, dearest. We will operate under the assumption that Mr. Slade is alive, until evidence to the contrary presents itself.” She shot a triumphant look at Lord Palmerston.
An inaudible sigh of resignation heaved Lord Palmerston’s chest. I met Prince Albert’s eyes and gave him a gaze filled with my gratitude for his support. He responded with a somber nod.
“Supposing that John Slade is alive, Miss Bronte,” Lord Palmerston said, “what is he doing in England?”
I replied that he had come back to find Niall Kavanagh and the invention before Stieber did.
“How did you chance to see Slade?”
Alas, the answer would put Slade in a bad light; but I related the story of my first visit to Bedlam, my glimpse of Slade, the second visit, and the murdered nurses. I revealed that Slade was a fugitive known to the police as Josef Typinski, a Polish refugee. By the time I’d described the incident at the zoo, the royal couple looked incredulous and Lord Palmerston grim.
“Slade has much explaining to do,” Lord Palmerston said. “I would like to know why he’s not dead. What did
