Page 70 of Angel of Vengeance

She could see a faint light under the doorsill of the cook’s bedroom. Again, she pressed her ear to the door. Was the cook in there? It was impossible to tell. He might have retreated to his room to get away from all the excitement—or he and his assistants might have been enlisted in the search. There was only one way forward, and it was through those rooms. Constance flung open the door, stiletto in hand, and rushed in.

The room was empty, the gas turned low.

With a sigh of relief, she moved through the bedchamber and sitting room, to the door leading into the side hall. Beyond, she could hear running and intermittent shouts, growing fainter even as she listened. She used this moment of relative calm to map out in her mind the route to the iron room. She would have to traverse the hall and large room beyond in order to reach the staircase to the fourth floor.

Making sure all remained quiet, she opened the door from the cook’s chambers and darted down the hall. The light remained dim. The door at the end of the hall led into a private entertainment room, which in her own present day was used as a gym by Proctor. Back in 1881… she tried to remember… it had been a billiards room, with a leather seating area and cocktail tables for smoking and drinking. The windows were usually drawn with heavy drapes. Beyond the room was the service stairway leading up to the third floor and then to the attic areas.

No sound could be heard in the space beyond, and the sill was dark. It was empty, the gas off: not surprising, since no one would be playing snooker at a time like this. She opened the door and stepped into the darkness beyond. There was no light at all. But nevertheless, she was aware of shapes, moving quickly—

A gaslight flared up, illuminating a half dozen Milk Drinkers, including Decla. They had been lying in wait and were heavily armed, all guns pointed at her. She shrank back toward the door, pulling the revolver as she did so, but a shot rang out and a blow to her left shoulder spun her around, the gun flying out of her hand. As she struggled to lower the rifle, she was rushed, seized, and thrown to the ground.

Struggling and twisting, she tried to escape, but four brawny men pinioned her, and all she could do was writhe. The shot had merely nicked the upper part of her left arm; the wound didn’t seem serious, but one of the men, seeing a bloodstain, ground his knee into it anyway.

Decla sauntered over, hands in her pockets, and stood over Constance.

“I’ll slit you open like a Christmas goose,” Constance said, struggling.

“What a wildcat you are,” Decla replied. She bent over Constance and methodically searched her clothing, extracting the stiletto, a second knife, matches, a tiny pair of opera glasses, a phial of white powder, and a one-shot ladies’ derringer with a pearl handle.

“Heading off to a fancy-dress ball, are we?” Decla said, inspecting the derringer and putting it in her pocket. “Such pretty little toys.” She held up the white phial. “Don’t tell me you smoke the Shangri-la tobacco, too?” She turned to one of her gang. “Go tell the doctor we caught her just where he suspected.”

The man left, and Decla turned back to Constance, this time playing with the stiletto. “You’re all mine now, love,” she said, rotating the glittering, razor-sharp blade. “This is the beauty you cut my hand with, isn’t it?”

“Too bad I didn’t cut your throat.”

“Oh, it hasn’t seen its end of throat cutting, I’d wager,” said Decla.

Constance struggled but was firmly pinned down. “Is this your idea of a fair fight? Let me up—then I can kill you one at a time.”

With a tight smile, Decla merely bent more closely over Constance, the stiletto point gleaming in the gaslight. “Such shiny thick hair you have,” she said. “In my trade, I can always use another wig—or a merkin, for that matter.”

Carefully placing the edge of the blade at the line of Constance’s scalp, she let the tip slowly sink in.

61

PENDERGAST SHUFFLED ALONG, CHAINED hand and foot, as the three guards escorted him back to his cell. Their ascent had been briefly interrupted by a surge of noise and activity erupting from below, but when it grew fainter, the guards resumed forcing him up the stairs heading back to the iron room.

“You’re an arse-dragging cove, aren’t you?” one of the guards said, giving Pendergast a shove with his rifle. “Here, get a wiggle on.”

Pendergast stumbled and fell to his knees, then laboriously got to his feet.

“For Jayzus sake—”

They were now opposite the door to the third-floor room Pendergast had barged into on his way down. Just at that moment, the cuffs fell almost magically from Pendergast’s hands, and with that he whirled around, snatching a revolver from one guard and, continuing his pivot, shooting him and the man beside him, ending up facing the third man, barrel planted in his ear. Taken utterly by surprise, the guard froze.

“Live or die?” Pendergast asked quietly.

The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Live.”

“Drop the gun.”

The man did so.

“Unlock these leg irons.”

With shaking hands, the guard knelt and did as instructed. Pendergast kicked off the irons, picked up a candle and matches from a nearby table, then rummaged through the pockets of the two dead guards until he found a penknife. Keeping an eye on the remaining guard, he used the knife to split the candle lengthwise, then—carving away excess wax—he extracted the wick. He slid the wick under the doorsill of the room he’d entered earlier, wedging it in place with the penknife. Then he lit the end of the wick, which would act as a fuse to the chamber, now full of explosive gas: a result of the torchlight stopcocks he’d managed to twist open in the moments after he broke into the room on the way to see Leng. He watched long enough to ensure it was burning steadily, the wick inching down toward the doorsill. He hoped they could escape the mansion before the improvised bomb went off—it all depended on how quickly, or slowly, that candlewick fuse burned.

Then he rose, keeping the gun trained on the guard. “Walk ahead of me. Unlock the door to our room.”

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