Slade added provocatively.
Angered beyond prudence and forced to assert his masculine courage, Ogden charged at Mr. Slade, who dodged his blows and struck Ogden in the stomach. Ogden bellowed in pain, doubled over, then rammed his head into Mr. Slade’s chest. They crashed against the door and grappled with each other. I feared that Mr. Slade would be harmed; yet I trembled with exultation to see his face and muscles strain. I thought of his days as a soldier in the East and as a spy on the Continent. The same hands that had touched me must have done harm, even killed. I did not care.
As Mr. Slade and Ogden fought, Jakes rushed towards the door. A constable grabbed him, and a storm of flying fists engulfed the pair. Mr. Slade flung Ogden at the other constable. The constable caught Ogden, and they struggled together. My heart beat wildly; gasps parted my lips. Now I understood why men in Haworth flocked to the boxing matches at the Black Bull Inn. Mr. Slade advanced on Crowe, who backed fearfully away.
“Please don’t ’urt me!” Mr. Crowe said.
The constables wrestled Ogden and Jakes facedown on the floor and straddled their backs. “I’ll spare you if you’ll talk,” Mr. Slade said to Crowe.
I realized that Mr. Slade had marked Crowe as the weakest member of the group. By overpowering the others, he’d aimed to win a turncoat. Crowe exclaimed, “All right! It’s true! Charlie attacked them women. Sid took the guns.”
“Shut up!” yelled Ogden, pinned under the constable. His nose bled; his ginger hair dripped with sweat.
Jakes, lying limp and defeated, said to Crowe, “Bloody traitor, you’ll pay for ratting on me.” In retaliation he addressed Mr. Slade: “He killed that yellow-haired bitch who was governess at Mr. Lock’s house.”
I stared dumbstruck at Crowe. He was the man I’d seen stabbing Isabel White! Mr. Slade momentarily froze in astonishment that his hunt had netted the murderer. I could scarcely believe that Anne, my little sister, had led us to this revelation. Mr. Slade glanced at me, and we shared satisfaction that one mystery had been solved.
“It was ’im said to do it,” Crowe babbled, desperate to excuse himself. “It was ’im told Charlie to kidnap the Bronte woman, and Sid to get the guns.”
“Who?” Mr. Slade asked, looming over the cowering man.
“He’ll kill us if you tell, you fool!” Ogden shouted.
“Don’t say nothin’ else!” said Jakes.
They obviously feared their master more than they did the law. Mr. Slade’s eyes glinted, registering this fact. “Mr. Crowe, you’ve confessed to murder. You’ll hang for it.” Crowe sat on a bench, huddled in dejection. Mr. Slade turned to Ogden and Jakes. “I have witnesses to the blackmail of Henry Lock and the attack on the Misses Bronte. Ordinarily, you would go to prison. But your employer leads a conspiracy to destroy civil order in Europe and undermine the British government. The crimes you have all committed for him make you accomplices to treason, and the penalty for treason is death.”
Ogden and Jakes scowled; I could feel panicked thoughts racing through their heads.
“But if you cooperate with me, I’ll reduce your sentences,” Mr. Slade said. “Give me the name and whereabouts of the man who ordered your crimes, and I’ll protect you from him.”
I was horrified that these criminals might not be punished to the fullest extent of the law, but I understood Crowe, Ogden, and Jakes were but small game, and Mr. Slade wanted larger prey. Leniency towards them was the price he must pay to capture their master.
Jakes uttered a scornful laugh. “There’s nowhere safe from him, and none what can protect us. Betray him, and we’re dead.”
“Betraying him is your only chance to survive,” Mr. Slade said. “When he learns of your arrest, he’ll assume you talked whether you did or not. Here are your choices: Help me catch him so that he can’t harm you, and you’ll go free. Refuse my offer, and either you’ll hang or he’ll kill you.”
A short eternity passed. Jakes and Crowe looked to Ogden, who heaved a breath of resignation and nodded. I admired Mr. Slade because although his strength had gained him an advantage over the men, his cleverness had won him victory. The constables returned Ogden and Jakes to their seats. There the men slumped, diminished by defeat.
Mr. Slade walked to the head of the table. “Who is your employer?”
“He’s a Frenchman named LeDuc,” Ogden said reluctantly.
At last we could put a name to Isabel White’s mysterious master.
“Where can I find him?” Mr. Slade’s manner was quiet; only his intense gaze bespoke his eagerness for the information.
“He lives in Brussels,” said Ogden.
At Mr. Slade’s prompting, Ogden gave an address I did not catch because such emotion besieged me. The mention of Brussels inevitably recalls the torment I experienced there.
“Who is LeDuc?” Mr. Slade said.
“He belongs to the Society of the Seasons.” This, I later learned, was a radical French secret society. Ogden revealed that LeDuc was wanted for fomenting insurrections in Paris and had gone into exile in Belgium.
“How did you meet him?” Mr. Slade asked the prisoners.
“We never did,” said Ogden, and the other men echoed him.
“He hired us through the Birmingham Political Union.” I recognized the name of a local Chartist organization. “He and those union men wanted to spread the revolution to England. He gave them money to pay people to stir up the townsfolk and start riots.”
Evidently, a faction within the union had chosen violence as a means to social reform, with the support of the radical Frenchman who must have employed Isabel White as a courier between himself and secret societies around the world. The riots were easy money for Jakes, Ogden, and Crowe, and when the Chartist movement died down, LeDuc found other work for them. Mr. Slade pressed the men for details about the nature of their work.
“’E paid me to snoop around Yorkshire and find out about the Bronte woman,” Crowe mumbled, fidgeting. “I broke into the parsonage to steal a book ’e wanted, but someone almost caught me. I ’ad to run.” He had been the stranger who’d questioned the Haworth folk and nearly killed Branwell!
And with more pressure, it came forth that Ogden had been the man who chased me at the opera and searched our room at the Chapter Coffee House.
“What did you plan to do with Miss Bronte after you kidnapped her?” Anger tinged Mr. Slade’s calm voice, and I liked to think it signified more than ordinary concern on my behalf.
“I was supposed to drive her to Kirkstall Abbey,” said Ogden. “Someone was to meet us and take her someplace. I don’t know who nor where.”
A shiver passed through me. Had Mr. Slade not rescued me, would I have been transported across the ocean into the hands of the evil LeDuc? Did he want me yet?
Mr. Slade interrogated the prisoners for quite some time, but they appeared to have no further information about LeDuc. “What’s going to happen to us?” Jakes demanded.
“For now, you’ll stay in prison, under constant guard,” Mr. Slade said.
The men sullenly accepted their fate. Mr. Slade exited the room; I met him in the corridor. We walked from the prison, both of us rendered uncomfortable by what I’d seen him do. It was not until we were riding in the carriage that Mr. Slade spoke.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking out the window. “Know that the requisites of my work are as disturbing to me as they must be to you.” His profile was strained. “Will you forgive me?”
I said, “I forgive you.” But I couldn’t forgive myself for the thrill I had felt watching him.
Mr. Slade turned to me. Our gazes met, and I saw that he discerned what I’d felt while he’d coerced the criminals. I burned with shame-what a perverse, unnatural woman he must think me! But his face relaxed, and from him eased a breath that was part mirth, part relief. A strange sweetness warmed me. He would not condemn me for the guilty pleasure I had felt because he’d felt it, too. The episode at the prison had been a kind of intimacy we had shared. As the carriage sped through the streets of Birmingham, I waited to hear what Mr. Slade would say.
“It seems that M. LeDuc is the criminal we’re looking for,” Mr. Slade said. Although he spoke of our investigation and not ourselves, his voice was unsteady. “Perhaps the solution to the mystery lies in Belgium.”
