of murder. You’re twisting everything around to make him a criminal!”
A spasm of pain tightened Lady Kathleen’s delicate features. “He’s never wanted to believe there was anything wrong with Niall.”
“So he did nothing?”
“Not until Niall was sixteen. There was a riot in Dublin, when some Catholic students protested against the English government. Niall marched with them even though we aren’t Catholic.”
“You aren’t?” I was surprised; I’d assumed the Kavanaghs were Catholic, like most Irish.
“No. Our family is Protestant.”
I now recalled that many Irish nobles were. “But I understood that when Niall went to England, he was a devout Roman. He agitated for Catholic rights and even joined a branch of Young Ireland during the revolutions of 1848.”
“He converted to Catholicism,” Lady Kathleen said. “His father was furious.”
Maybe he’d done it to infuriate his father. Maybe he had an inherent need to set himself in opposition to authority; maybe he perversely craved the punishment that angered him so. By styling himself an Irish Catholic in England, he’d certainly courted disapproval. “What happened to him during the riot?”
“He stabbed a constable,” Lady Kathleen said. “The police arrested him and put him in jail. Sir William blamed Niall’s friends, and the troubles in Ireland, and everybody but Niall.”
In the background, Slade’s voice continued, low and relentless. Sir William declared, “Someone must have planted the evidence.”
“Who?” Slade asked.
“Maybe your government,” Sir William said. “There are plenty of folks in it who’d like to silence anyone who agitates for Irish rights.”
“Sir William thought Niall just needed a change of scene,” Lady Kathleen said. “He used his influence to get the charges dismissed, and to get Niall admitted to Oxford. We thought Niall could get a proper education and put his mind to better use. But while he was there…”
“I know,” I said, sparing her the pain of describing her son’s career in England.
“I prayed that he would see the error of his ways and mend them,” Lady Kathleen said sadly. “But I knew in my heart that something was missing in him from the start. A moral sense, the ability to care about other people. When I saw him this last time, I gave up hope.”
“When was that?” I spoke quietly, controlling my eagerness.
“In early May. He hadn’t been home in three years, and he’d changed so much I barely recognized him. He was skin and bones. His hair was long, and he’d grown a shaggy beard. He looked and smelled as if he hadn’t washed or slept in days. And his eyes were wild, like a madman’s. He said he was in trouble. When we asked him what kind, he wouldn’t explain. He just begged us to protect him. Sir William said he could stay here. We thought that was what he wanted. He’d brought his trunks, and some packages.”
An internal thunder reverberated through me. Niall apparently hadn’t left everything behind in his house in Whitechapel or his secret laboratory. Did he have with him the makings of his weapon?
“But Niall said that people were after him, dangerous people, and he couldn’t stay here because they would find him.” Lady Kathleen sounded as perplexed and frightened as she must have been that day. “So Sir William sent Niall…”
“Where?” I asked urgently.
Lady Kathleen compressed her lips. We listened to Slade say, “Your son is a danger to himself as well as to others. I’ll ask you again: Where is he?”
“If he’s a problem, I’ll deal with him myself,” Sir William said.
Lady Kathleen’s face twitched, responding to the tug of the conflict inside her. “Sir William doesn’t want me to tell.”
“There really are people after Niall,” I said. “Your best hope of keeping him safe is to help Mr. Slade find him first.”
“I’ve never gone against Sir William’s wishes.”
I could see that she longed to place the heavy weight of her son’s troubles in other hands. “This time you must. For Niall’s own good.”
She exhaled a tremulous, forlorn sigh. “I can’t.”
“Then you must help Mr. Slade persuade Sir William to change his mind. Come.”
When I brought her to the terrace, I was shocked by the transformation that Sir William had undergone. He looked older and shrunken, his confidence diminished. In his heart he knew the worst about Niall despite his lifelong effort not to believe it, but he raised his fist to Slade and said, “Get off my property, or I’ll have you shot!”
Lady Kathleen hastened to him. “Mr. and Mrs. Slade are right. You must tell them where Niall is.”
He turned his anger on her. “Don’t tell me what to do!”
She persisted bravely. “We can’t protect Niall anymore. We need help.”
“You’re no match for Wilhelm Stieber,” Slade interjected. The force of his personality held Sir William captive as if he had the man by the throat. “Let me save Niall.” Compassion mellowed his clear, hard gaze as he glanced at Lady Kathleen. “For his mother’s sake.”
Sir William stared at us in wounded fury, as though we’d all conspired against him. Then he lowered himself into a chair and spoke to his wife in a quavering voice. “Our son is a criminal. He’s gone mad. He killed those women. I’m to blame because I didn’t help him when I could have.”
The sight of a strong, proud man breaking is terrible. I could hardly bear to watch.
Lady Kathleen laid her hand on her husband’s. “Help him now,” she urged softly.
Sir William turned to Slade. “I lied when I said I hadn’t seen Niall in years. He came home a few weeks ago.”
“In early May.” Lady Kathleen repeated the words she’d spoken to me.
“I sent Niall to France the next day. A distant cousin of mine owns a chateau in Normandy. Niall is there-as far as I know.”
33
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in fiction: whenever the author tells the reader what his characters are planning to do, it does not happen. Something else occurs to render their careful forethought useless, to foil their hopes and the reader’s anticipations. Whether or not this is always true in books, it is in the case of the story that I am now telling.
Before we left Ireland, Slade and I formulated a plan to travel to London, where I would stay with his sister while he went on to Paris. There he had friends who would accompany him to Normandy and help him capture Niall Kavanagh. Afterward, he would determine what to do with Niall Kavanagh and the weapon and how to take his revenge on Wilhelm Stieber. I couldn’t like this plan. Not only was it vague, but I dreaded sitting idle and waiting for news of what had happened.
Would Wilhelm Stieber kill Slade? Or would Slade prevail, but abide by his stubborn intention to leave me because he didn’t want me tainted by his sins?
But I could not follow Slade where he was going. Impropriety aside, I would only be in the way, and the danger was too great. I therefore reluctantly agreed to the plan. We had no idea that unexpected complications would force us to change course.
We arrived in London early the next morning. I was exhausted and disoriented from crossing the kingdom so many times that I’d lost count. The trains roaring in and out of Euston Station, the hurrying crowds, and the smoke and heat of the city all dazed me. I didn’t notice anything amiss until Slade said, “There are more police than usual.”
I blinked and saw the constables patrolling the platform. “What are they looking for?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Slade said. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”
When we entered the station, his instincts proved correct. Two large posters hung on the wall. One showed a black-and-white reproduction of my portrait by the artist George Richmond, which I’d sat for last year. Beneath it
