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By Root 762 0

hearing of the ruling cabal. Charles had been called upon to account for the deaths of Dr Seward, Lord Godalming and, incidentally, Mary Jane Kelly. The tribunal had as much to do with deciding which truths should be concealed as which should be presented to the public at large. The Chairman, a warm diplomat who had weathered the changes, took in everything, but gave no verdict, each grain of information shaping the policies of a club that was often more than a club. Geneviève supposed it a hiding place for pillars of the ancien régime, if not a nest of insurrectionists. Aside from Dravot, there were few vampires in the Diogenes Club. Her discretion, she knew, had been vouched for by Charles. Otherwise she assumed the Sergeant would call upon her with a garotte of silver wire.

As soon as they were underway, Charles leaned forwards and took her hands. He fixed her with his eyes, intently serious. They had been together two nights ago, in private. His collar hid the marks.

‘Gené, I implore you,’ he said, ‘let me stop the coach outside the Palace and turn you loose.’ His fingers pressed her palms.

‘Darling, don’t be absurd. I’m not afraid of Vlad Tepes.’

He let her go and sat back, obviously distressed. Eventually, he would confide in her. She had learned that, in many things, Charles’s desires conflicted with his duty. Just now, she was Charles’s desire. His duties lay in directions she could not immediately discern.

‘It’s not that. It’s...’

... the disarray in which Beauregard found Mycroft had an air of the Final Act. At this meeting, he alone was the cabal.

The Chairman toyed with the scalpel. ‘The famous Silver Knife,’ he mused, testing the blade with his thumb. ‘So keen.’

He laid down the instrument and let loose a sigh that set his cheeks wobbling. He had lost some of his prodigious weight and his skin was slackening, but his eyes were still sharp.

‘You’re to be invited to the Palace. Pay your regards to our friend in the Queen’s service. You must not be startled by him. He is the gentlest of fellows. A touch too gentle, if truth be told.’

‘I have heard him spoken of highly.’

‘He was a great favourite of the late Princess Alexandra. Poor Alex.’ Mycroft steepled his fat fingers and rested his chins on them. ‘We demand much of our people. There’s precious little public glory in this bloody business, but it must be done.’

Beauregard looked at the shining knife.

‘Sacrifices must be made.’

Beauregard remembered Mary Jane Kelly. And others, some only names in newspapers, some frozen faces: Seward, Jago, Godalming, Kostaki, Mackenzie, von Klatka.

‘We would all do what we ask of you,’ Mycroft insisted.

He knew that was true.

‘Not that many of us remain.’

Sir Mandeville Messervy awaited execution on a charge of high treason, along with other worthies; the dramatist Gilbert, the financial colossus Wilcox, the arch-reformatrice Beatrice Potter, the radical editor Henry Labouchère.

‘Chairman, one thing perplexes me still. Why me? What did I do Dravot could not have? You let me run through the maze but he was there always. He could have accomplished this all on his own account.’

Mycroft shook his head. ‘Dravot is a good man, Beauregard. We did not choose to burden you with knowledge of his part in our larger plans, lest it interfere...’

Beauregard swallowed the pill without choking.

‘But Dravot is not you. He is not a gentleman. No matter what he did, he would never, never, be invited into the Royal Presences.’

At last, Beauregard understood...

... an engraved invitation had been delivered into her hand by a pair of fully-uniformed Carpathian Guardsmen; Martin Cuda, who pretended not to remember her and kept his head down, and Rupert of Hentzau, a Ruritanian blood whose studied sardonic smile constantly threatened to become a cruel laugh. As the more-or-less permanent Acting Director of Toynbee Hall, she was busier than ever but a summons from the Queen was not to be ignored. Presumably, she was to be commended for her part in ending the career of Jack the Ripper. A private honour, perhaps, but an honour nevertheless.