He shook his head. ‘I have not the mathematical brain for inventing them or decoding them. I can apply them when I have to and decode with a key, but anyone can do that.’
‘You work for Thomas Salmond and his office,’ James said. ‘I thought that intelligence work was the province of Sir Thomas Reece’s group.’
‘It is,’ de Hautmont agreed. ‘But sometimes checks and balances are necessary.
‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?’ I said, suddenly dredging the phrase up from somewhere. ‘Who guards the guards?’
‘You know your Juvenal.’ Luc sounded impressed. I tried not to look smug and to recall who Juvenal was.
‘Exactly,’ the Count said. ‘So, will you tell me what you are doing that leads to armed ambushes in the heart of St James’s?’
Chapter Eighteen
It took almost an hour to work right through everything. There was no getting away from telling the Count that Talbot and Coates had been lovers, but we stuck to the story of first learning that from the valet Bromley and added that letters found in their rooms had confirmed it. I’d given those to James to destroy.
James said that he had been making enquiries into their hidden lives through a friend of a friend and de Hautmont seemed to accept that. Otherwise we told him everything.
‘I can confirm that you are correct about one thing. Herr Dettmer is an agent in the pay of the Prussians.’
I gave a crow of triumph. Luc looked decidedly sour. His enquiry agent was going to be hearing about this, I was sure.
The Count smiled. ‘We know all about him. He is very discreet, makes a lot of notes about industrial processes and economic matters and we leave him be. If we make an issue of it then there will be repercussions for our own agents in Prussia. If he goes near a dockyard or barracks, then that is a different matter.’
‘There, I knew I was right.’ I couldn’t resist a smirk.
James rolled up some paper and threw it at me. ‘But does it implicate him in this affair? I don’t think so.’ Neither did anyone else, even me.
‘How do they connect, these two deaths? The men were lovers, that we accept. But there is always coincidence.’ The Count frowned at the boards, then lifted a hand when Luc started to speak. ‘But my instinct tells me that they are linked.’ He pulled at his lower lip with thumb and forefinger. ‘Whatever this is, it has its root in the Home Office, I am sure of it. But the murdered man had nothing to do with the place – I am sure he never set foot there. If Coates had been murdered and then Talbot had hanged himself then that might be easier to understand.’
I didn’t point out that we’d been there, thought that. The Count was absorbing a lot of information with impressive speed and he needed to process it.
‘The attacks seem reckless to me,’ I said, thinking out loud. ‘I don’t know what it is normally like in London, but are residents of Albany frequently attacked on their doorsteps and are there drive-by shootings often in the West End?’
All three men went quiet, digesting drive-by shootings. I had become so used to saying what I liked with three of them that I had forgotten that the Count didn’t know when I came from. ‘Er… That’s what it was, wasn’t it? They drove by and shot at us?’
‘They overtook us in a small closed cart, the kind market traders coming in from the country use,’ said Garrick. ‘They started to shoot from it, then stopped when we ceased firing to reload and escaped in the commotion. I doubt the cart will tell us anything, but I am having it checked.’
I didn’t ask who was doing the checking. Garrick seemed to have a small battalion of relatives and friends I became only aware of when something slightly underhand needed doing.
‘And no, such things are not common,’ James said. ‘An attack within Albany is reckless and shootings like this on the streets in this part of Town are unheard of. In fact I don’t think I’ve heard of anything quite like it anywhere.’
‘They were reckless but they were professional,’ Luc said. ‘I was hit by a cosh, not a stick or a stone. The shooting took place in a spot that was well-judged to stop the carriage, especially when you consider that they could not plan ahead.’
‘But the attack on Talbot was not professional,’ I pointed out. ‘That was a weapon that just came to hand and far more violence was used than was needed.’
‘True. Let’s leave Talbot aside for a moment. Who, connected with the Home Office, has the resources to employ professional criminals and yet the lack of discipline for reckless attacks?’
‘The Reeces?’ I ventured. ‘We found other men connected with the Home Office who may have been in Albany that day, but they don’t crop up anywhere else. Elliott, would be my guess.’
‘Not his uncle?’ James challenged. ‘He’s got more power, more money.’
‘But he’s cold, practical, efficient. Look at the way he humiliated Elliott over the challenge to fight the Count. He stopped the danger to his nephew cold, in the most direct way. He taught Elliott a lesson, cut the ground out from under the Count’s feet, restored order in the department swiftly.’ I shivered. ‘I think if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead.’
‘So why would Elliott Reece want to attack us? It has to be because of Coates and Talbot – we’d hardly crossed his path before, had we?’ James
looked at his brother.
‘No. I knew him by sight, that’s all.’