As Zan sent Simkins back to the kitchen to get tea, Caradon dispatched his driver with a message to the captain of one of his cargo ships, The Conquistador, to meet him at 42 Warden Street instead of the usual meeting place at the docks of Amanthus’ sea port. After her request for tea, she managed to herd her patron back into the sitting room. Or perhaps he let her herd him. She was slowly beginning to figure out what the man might be thinking or at least she hoped so, but he still boggled her.
“There are no other injuries?” she inquired as she took the seat beside him and scrutinized the bandage on his arm. It appeared that Simkins had did an adequate job. There were no bloodstains.
“No. The wound has stopped bleeding.” He looked down at her hands. “What is that?”
“Oh?” She looked down at the direction of his gaze. She dropped the black rosary into her lap and then began tugging her gloves off her hands and putting them on the nearby table. “I suppose their ruined. Mrs. Philomon would be furious.”
“I don’t mean your gloves. The bit of jewelry. I’ve never seen you wearing any except for your father’s jade pendant.”
She held up the string of black beads with the strange cross dangling at the end. The light from the window threw silver highlights which made the stones gleam. Caradon’s eyes narrowed speculatively as he contemplated the rosary. “I haven’t been wearing it. I found it on the floor of the laboratory. It’s completely destroyed. The laboratory, that is.”
“Those housebreakers were after something, I suppose.” His lips thinned as he took hold of the end of the string of beads and Zan let go so it fell into his palm like a coiled snake. “Have I ever told you how I found my father after his death?”
She tried swallowing, but her mouth was dry. “No.”
“It was a day similar to this one except it was raining. It was almost a year ago.” A coldness had seeped into his voice and his eyes had taken a hard look as he stared down at the black rosary. She hunched her shoulders as she felt a shiver at his tone. “Peter Caradon, Earl of Gasmere and Queen’s ambassador to the Far East, was deeply entrenched in the political goings on of foreign governments. He had been recalled back to Amanthus before my birth by the Queen for certain reasons. Perhaps it was strategically important since Amanthus is sometimes called the gateway between the east and the west, but who knows. My father never confided to me any of those reasons.”
“Did your father still had ambassadorial duties or did he become a foreign correspondent instead?”
“He still kept the title of ambassador. At any rate, shortly after I met him, he and I struck a deal of sorts. In my business, traders must be knowledgeable about the state of different countries in order to keep an orderly flow of goods and profit. If I were to find any bit of useful gossip or rumor about the state of affairs of, say, a country of interest to the Queen, I would pass it on to my father.”
“And what did you get in return?”
His fingers closed over the rosary. “He wondered why my mother saddled me with his family name. And all he ever called me was by my first name.”
She cocked her head, examining his intense, far away look. “You didn’t get anything in return, did you? You expected to spend time with a father you never knew while growing up and hoped that he would acknowledge you. Instead, he didn’t do that, did he? He rewarded you with your information by granting you control of his fortune after his death, but he never acknowledged you as his son. He used you.”
“What do you know about it?” he said suddenly furious. He turned on her and shoved her back to the couch. She held her breath as he snarled at her, showing sharp teeth. “You’re not illegitimate.”
There was a cough and he let go of her, sinking back onto his side of the couch. Simkins was standing at the table with the tea tray and as the butler put the tray down on the table, he gave Zan a worried glance. And then he shot Caradon a disapproving frown. “Are you all right, Miss Hu?”
“I’m fine Simkins. Mr. Caradon is just a bit overwrought from all the earlier excitement. And please thank the cook for me for making these tarts on such short notice.”
“They were to be for tonight’s dessert, but Boreas thought you might like them now. He’s planning a cake for tonight’s dessert instead,” Simkins replied.
She nodded. “There’s also the matter of the laboratory. It’s a dreadful mess down there.”
“The rest of the staff and I will get right to it. Where would you like the materials that you had requested earlier? I had them stored at the back of the kitchen.”
“That is indeed fortunate, isn’t it?” she murmured to herself. Then louder, she said, “Thank you, Simkins. If I need anything else, I’ll call you straight away.”
The butler nodded and left. Zan turned to pour the tea. As she handed Caradon a cup, she said, “You are right. I do not know exactly what it is like to be in your shoes. But I do know that I would be absolutely devastated if I had a parent reject me.”
“I apologize for my outburst. The subject of my parentage is a touchy subject with me.”
“I’d imagine, especially with your cousin and his family taunting you about it all the time.”
He grinned. “Well, they can taunt, but I at least hold their purse strings.” He took a sip of the tea. “Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, my last visit with my father. It was raining and all of his staff had the day off. He was to have answered the door himself, but there was no reply to all my knocking.” He was frowning again as he looked at the rosary in his hand. “When I finally got inside his residence, I found him in the bath tub. I took him to his bedroom and dressed him. And I noticed a burn mark, here.” He turned his hand and rubbed against the inside of his wrist. “The mark was a cross inscribed inside a circle.”
“Like that rosary,” said Zan.
He nodded. “I don’t think this is a coincidence. My father was also a patron to your uncle when he had been alive. Do you know what this symbol means?”
“I have no idea. At first, I thought it was religious. It is a cross and this is a rosary, but I’ve never seen a rosary like this one before.”
“It’s a sign that some of the pagan worshippers of the Temple use. Not all of the worshippers, I think, only a subset. Unfortunately, I haven’t discovered this group’s name or where they meet other than along with the other old religion followers at the Temple.”
“So you know what they do at the Temple?” she said. “You knew what sort of things they called up the previous night?”
A strange smile quirked at his lips. “You saw, then? Of course. You were racing out of there like a pack of hell hounds were at your heels.”
“Oh!” She reddened, reminded of her weakness. “I did not have hounds at my heels. I was startled, that’s all.”
“If you say so.” He held up the strange cross to his eye. “You found this in your laboratory which you say is in ruins. How much of your equipment do you need to replace?”
“Some delicate instruments are completely destroyed as well as some supplies—especially much of my glass equipment.”
“I can supply the funds for the replacements.”
“Thank you,” she murmured.
“I’m your patron, remember? I should be responsible for such things. How will I ever see any results if the inventor I’m patronizing doesn’t have her supplies?” He put down his tea cup and leaned closer to her. “Tell me, Zan, what were those housebreakers looking for in your laboratory?”
She took a sip of her own tea and tightened her own fingers on the cup. Should she tell him? Before, she had been extremely unsure of him. She glanced at the bandage on his arm and heard herself say, “They were after my uncle’s notes.”
“You said that your uncle had destroyed them shortly before his death.”
“I did. I thought he did. But I found his notes in his safety deposit box at the bank. I didn’t know that he had kept them there. He had made some notes on an improvement on his last machine. I remember what he had written down but,” she paused as he cocked his head, frowning. Did she want to tell him her hunches? Did she want to tell him what she suspected about her uncle’s research—that he was not only trying to control and produce electrical energy, but possibly other kinds of energy as well? Or did he already suspect? “I never told anyone about my uncle’s notes except for Mr. Garrou and Mrs. Felis-Ackert earlier today. But I know they wouldn’t send anyone to steal from my laboratory. They are fashion connoisseurs. They don’t care a wit about machines. At least not much anyway.”
“One shouldn’t think too highly of one’s friends,” he said. “You did tell them so they are suspect.”
“Someone else could have found out. I know my staff is loyal to me, but they could have said something in some gossip to some of their acquaintances that could have been picked up by whoever was responsible for this.”
“If that is the case, the list of suspects could be nearly limitless.”
She placed her tea cup next to his and rubbed her temple. “That could also mean that you were after my uncle’s notes. You were rather keen about my uncle’s last research, weren’t you?”
“Zan, if I were after your uncle’s notes, would I hire a pair of ruffians to instigate a violent burglary and get myself shot?”
“Miss Hu?” She looked up to see Simkins in the doorway. “There is a Captain Isidro Ramon here to see Mr. Caradon.”
“Mr. Caradon is expecting him,” she told her butler. She turned back to Caradon who had slipped the black rosary into a pocket. “I don’t know what you would do if you had known about my uncle’s notes before the burglary,” she said lowly, “but I do know that you would be far too intelligent to have gotten yourself shot.”
She felt his eyes on her as she got up and headed out of the sitting room. In the hallway, she saw a tall swarthy man in a dark blue uniform—the Captain, she assumed—and turned back toward the laboratory with Simkins.
Simkins coughed to catch her attention. “The cook has some soup warming for you…”
She halted at the door leading to the basement. “Tell cook to prepare another place for dinner.”
“Miss Hu?”
“And tell Mrs. Philomon and Isadora to prepare the guestroom.”
“Mr. Caradon is staying?” said her butler, alarmed.
She simply gave him a look. “I’ll be in the laboratory cleaning.” And she opened the door and descended the stairs.
