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“This is important?” von Namtzen asked, watching Grey’s face.
“Very.” Grey folded his hands into fists, trying to think. “It is of the greatest importance that we discover where Frau Mayrhofer is. This ‘doctor’ is very likely a spy, in the Mayrhofers’ employ, and I very much suspect that the lady is in possession of something that His Majesty would strongly prefer to have back.”
He glanced over the ranks of the servants, who had started whispering among themselves, casting looks of awe, a
“Are you convinced that they are ignorant of the lady’s whereabouts?”
Von Namtzen narrowed his eyes, considering, but before he could reply, Grey became aware of a slight stir among the servants, several of whom were looking toward the door behind him.
He turned to see Tom Byrd standing there, freckles dark on his round face, and fairly quivering with excitement. In his hands were a pair of worn shoes.
“Me lord!” he said, holding them out. “Look! They’re Jack’s!”
Grey seized the shoes, which were large and very worn, the leather across the toes scuffed and cracked. Sure enough, the initials “JB” had been burnt into the soles. One of the heels was loose, hanging from its parent shoe by a single nail. Leather, and round at the back, as Tom had said.
“Who is Jack?” von Namtzen inquired, looking from Tom Byrd to the shoes, with obvious puzzlement.
“Mr. Byrd’s brother,” Grey explained, still turning the shoes over in his hands. “We have been in search of him for some time. Could you please inquire of the servants as to the whereabouts of the man who owns these shoes?”
Von Namtzen was in many ways an admirable associate, Grey thought; he asked no further questions of his own, but merely nodded and returned to the fray, pointing at the shoes and firing questions in a sharp but businesslike ma
Such was his air of command, he got them. The household, originally alarmed and then demoralized, had now fallen under von Namtzen’s sway, and appeared to have quite accepted him as temporary master of both the house and the situation.
“The shoes belong to a young man, an Englishman,” he reported to Grey, following a brief colloquy with butler and cook. “He was brought into the house more than a week ago, by a friend of Frau Mayrhofer; the Frau told Herr Burkhardt”—he inclined his head toward the butler, who bowed in acknowledgment—“that the young man was to be treated as a servant of the house, fed and accommodated. She did not explain why he was here, saying only that the situation would be temporary.”
The butler at this point interjected something; von Namtzen nodded, waving a hand to quell further remarks.
“Herr Burkhardt says that the young man was not given specific duties, but that he was helpful to the maids. He would not leave the house, nor would he go far away from Frau Mayrhofer’s rooms, insisting upon sleeping in the closet at the end of the hall near her suite. Herr Burkhardt had the feeling that the young man was guarding Frau Mayrhofer—but from what, he does not know.”
Tom Byrd had been listening to all of this with visible impatience, and could contain himself no longer.
“The devil with what he was doing here—where’s Jack gone?” he demanded.
Grey had his own pressing question, as well.
“This friend of Frau Mayrhofer—do they know his name? Can they describe him?”
With strict attention to social precedence, von Namtzen obtained the answer to Grey’s question first.
“The gentleman gave his name as Mr. Josephs. However, the butler says that he does not think this is his true name—the gentleman hesitated when asked for his name. He was very . . .” Von Namtzen hesitated himself, groping for translation. “ Fein herausgeputzt. Very . . . polished.”
“Well dressed,” Grey amended. The room seemed very warm, and sweat was trickling down the seam of his back.
Von Namtzen nodded. “A bottle-green silk coat, with gilt buttons. A good wig.”
“Trevelyan,” Grey said, with a sense of inevitability that was composed in equal parts of relief and dismay. He took a deep breath; his heart was racing again. “And Jack Byrd?”
Von Namtzen shrugged.
“Gone. They suppose that he went with Frau Mayrhofer, for no one has seen him since last night.”
“Why’d he leave his shoes behind? Ask ’em that!” Tom Byrd was so upset that he neglected to add a “sir,” but von Namtzen, seeing the boy’s distress, graciously overlooked it.
“He exchanged these shoes for the working pair belonging to this footman.” The Hanoverian nodded at a tall young man who was following the conversation intently, brows knitted in the effort of comprehension. “He did not say why he wished it—perhaps because of the damaged heel; the other pair were also very worn, but serviceable.”
“Why did this young man agree to the exchange?” Grey asked, nodding at the footman. The nod was a mistake; the dizziness rolled suddenly out of its hiding place and revolved slowly round the inside of his skull like a tilting quintain.
A question, an answer. “Because these are leather, with metal buckles,” von Namtzen reported. “The shoes he exchanged were simple clogs, with wooden soles and heels.”
At this point, Grey’s knees gave up the struggle, and he lowered himself into a chair, covering his eyes with the heels of his hands. He breathed shallowly, his thoughts spi
“Oh, Christ,” he said, and dropped his hands. “They’re sailing.”
Chapter 16
Lust Is Perjur’d
It took no little effort to persuade both von Namtzen and Tom Byrd that he was capable of independent movement and would not fall facedown in the street—the more so as he was not entirely sure of it himself. In the end, though, Tom Byrd went reluctantly to Jermyn Street to pack a bag, and von Namtzen—even more reluctantly—was convinced that his own path of duty lay in perusing the contents of Mayrhofer’s desk.
“No one else is capable of reading whatever papers may be there,” Grey pointed out. “The man is dead, and was very likely a spy. I will send someone from the regiment at once to take charge of the premises—but if there is anything urgent in those papers . . .”
Von Namtzen compressed his lips, but nodded.
“You will take care?” he asked earnestly, putting a large, warm hand on the nape of Grey’s neck, and bending down to look searchingly into his face. The Hanoverian’s eyes were a troubled gray, with small lines of worry round them.
“I will,” Grey said, and did his best to smile in reassurance. He handed Tom a scribbled note, desiring Harry Quarry to send a German speaker at once to Mecklenberg Square, and took his leave.
Three choices, he thought, breathing deeply to control the dizziness as he stepped into a commercial coach. The offices of the East India Company, in Lamb’s Conduit Street. Trevelyan’s chief man of business, a fellow named Royce, who kept offices in the Temple. Or Neil the Cunt.
The sun was nearly down, an evening fog dulling its glow like the steam off a fresh-fired ca
“You want what?” Stapleton had been asleep when Grey pounded on his door; he was in his shirt and barefoot. He knuckled one bleary eye, regarding Grey incredulously with the other.