“As it happens, no, you can’t help,” he said, retreating to the window, a safe distance. “But only because you’re not Melissande.”
“Oh.” Bibbie dropped a folded silk girlish underthing into the suitcase and turned. Then she frowned. “What’s wrong? You look spooked.”
“I am spooked,” he admitted, and rubbed a hand across his face. “Someone’s sabotaged the fireworks.”
“Tonight’s fireworks?” she said, her eyes widening behind Gladys Slack’s ridiculous horn-rimmed spectacles. “That’s dreadful! What are we going to do?”
Saint Snodgrass save him, did she never listen? “We’re not going to do anything. I need Melissande to pump Hartwig for pertinent information and then I’m going to un sabotage them. And please don’t argue with me about it, Gladys. We’ve argued enough for one day.”
Bibbie stared at him, her expressive face and eyes full of many shouted objections. Then she nodded. “Agreed. I’ll just save up the rest of my arguments for when we get home.”
Wonderful. He could hardly wait.
Whoever said the course of true love doesn’t run smooth never knew the half of it.
“And instead of simply standing there, laying down your high-and-mighty janitorial law,” Bibbie added, “you can give me a hand with the rest of Melissande’s boxes. Honestly, the way she packs you’d think the wedding tour was meant to last six months instead of a week or so.”
“Fine,” he said. “But first I need to contact Sir Alec.”
He gave it seven good tries, but with Splotze’s etheretics in an uncooperative mood he had to give up. He was in the middle of hauling Melissande’s ridiculously large and heavy shoe-case out of the wardrobe when she returned to the suite.
“Honestly!” she said crossly, tossing her fox-fur stole onto the bed. “How many times must I tell you, Algernon? You can’t be in here! You’re going to ruin my reputation!”
“Bugger your reputation,” he said, letting the shoe-case drop. “Someone’s fiddled with the fireworks.”
Elegant in her best green silk day dress and dainty heels, Melissande frowned. “What d’you mean, fiddled?”
“What d’you think I mean?”
“Oh.” Rallying, Melissande lifted her chin. “Are you sure? How d’you know? I thought you were going downstairs to luncheon.”
“I did. And when I saw the Lanruvians I came over with a very bad feeling. Melissande, I need to see Hartwig. Now.”
“Hartwig?” She was frowning again. “Are you sure? When you’ve no more proof than a bad feeling?”
“Yes.”
“But d’you really want to kick up a stink, throw the wedding plans into disarray, when this might only be indigestion?”
“Don’t be silly, Mel,” said Bibbie. “If Gerald says trouble’s brewing, then there’s probably trouble.”
Startled, Gerald looked at her. Even angry and hurt, she was defending him. So maybe there was a chance that…
But he mustn’t, mustn’t, let himself be sidetracked by hope.
“Trust me, Melissande, the last thing I want to do is cause a public kerfuffle,” he said. “The idea is to catch who’s behind this, not tip our hand and frighten them off. Please, just take me to see the Crown Prince. If we tell him we want to know about the fireworks for the Times, he likely won’t fuss about keeping the details under wraps. I need to know how many pontoons there are, where in the Canal they’re set up, that kind of thing. The more I know, the better chance I have of figuring out how the fireworks have been tampered with and how I’m going to prevent a disaster.”
“If they’ve been tampered with,” said Melissande, still dubious. Then she sighed. “Only you’re right, of course. You can’t afford not to fear the worst.”
And speaking of fearing the worst…
But before he could open his mouth, Bibbie’s hackles were up. “Oh, no,” she said, fists clenched by her slender hips. “We are not being left behind in this palace like children.”
“Left behind?” Melissande echoed. “Not attend the fireworks, you mean? Sorry Gerald, that’s out of the question. Hartwig’s barge departs on the tour as soon as the display is over. We have to be on board with the rest of the guests.”
“No, you don’t,” he protested weakly. “You could say you’re feeling poorly, then catch up in a carriage first thing tomorrow.”
“No,” said Melissande. “If I try to stay behind, Hartwig will make a fuss and that’ll draw everyone’s attention. Hardly what I’d call being a secret agent.”
Feeling unfairly put upon, Gerald glared at the girls. If only between them they’d bloody well stop being right.
“Fine,” he snapped. “And for pity’s sake, it’s Algernon. Now, can we please go and interview Hartwig?”
“Actually…” Melissande pulled a face. “It might be best if you let me tackle Hartwig on my own. According to poor Brunelda he’s in rather a prickly mood after the tainted crab puff calamity. I might have to-” Blushing, she cleared her throat. “-sweet talk him into chatting with me. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have an audience.”
As if he had a choice. Without Melissande’s help he was hobbled, and she knew it. “All right. But go now. And if Hartwig gets sticky, promise him his picture will appear next to the article. That way you probably won’t be able to shut him up.”
Melissande bit her lip. “D’you really think the Lanruvians are behind this plot to ruin the wedding?”
“I think they’re sneaky, devious bastards with something nefarious shoved up their silk sleeves,” he said. “Possibly hexes to turn Hartwig’s fireworks into a conflagration. Now, please, Melissande, would you go? The clock is ticking.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, reaching for her fox-fur stole. “But until I get back just you stay in the bathroom. There’ll be a maid along any minute and you’ve no idea how their tongues wag.”
Nearly five hours later, almost halfway across the Canal in a stolen boat scarcely bigger than a bathtub, Gerald paused his rowing through the late autumn’s swiftly falling dusk to catch his breath and mop the sweat of exertion from his brow.
Saint Snodgrass save me. If it turns out I am imagining things I’ll never hear the end of it.
But he wasn’t. He knew he wasn’t. And once he’d saved the day, surely no-one would care how he’d done it, or why he’d been so certain the night’s fireworks were in danger. Besides, even if he’d not been so bone-shakingly sure, still he’d have acted. Because if he failed to trust his instincts, let the chance of humiliation stay his hand, and his instincts were proven right? If people were hurt, or worse, if they were killed? Sir Alec really would clap him in irons then throw away the key.
And I’d never forgive myself.
So now here he was, dangerously shrouded in a no-see-’em hex, cultivating blisters as he rowed a purloined, barely Canal-worthy wooden box out to the nearest tethered firework-laden pontoon, while eager crowds of sightseers thronged both sides of the Canal and the wedding party with its glittering comet’s tail of guests was boarding Crown Prince Hartwig’s royal barge in eager anticipation of the imminent fireworks display.
Watching over his shoulder, Gerald felt a nasty sizzle of nerves. Damn. If only the barge wasn’t anchored quite so close to those burdened, possibly lethal pontoons.
Because the evening’s entertainment was intended as a warm up to the big celebration slated to take place on the night of the wedding, there were only three fireworks pontoons for him to investigate. Thanks to Melissande’s clever questioning of the Crown Prince, he knew that each configuration of fireworks was thaumaturgically sequenced and controlled by Radley Blayling, the Ottish wizard who’d designed the display. And since Melissande had managed to wangle herself a last-minute introduction to the man, with himself as her faithful scribe, taking copious notes, he was confident-well, as confident as he could be, anyway-that Blayling was an innocent pawn in the plot.
Which meant the Lanruvians-if it was the Lanruvians- had somehow, whether by bribery, corruption, serendipity, illegal thaumaturgics or a wicked combination thereof, managed to tamper with the fireworks themselves. And if he failed to uncover the mischief in time…
