The Black Mask Read online

  He reached out with his dry hand and twisted the key in the front of the sandalwood box. The lid opened slowly, as if by clockwork.

  Drawn forward without realizing it, Rose left her chair to peer into the velvet-lined depths. “Oh.”

  “Stand aside, old girl.” Rupert flipped the lid fully open with his thumb. “By George! Is that it?”

  Reaching in to grasp the contents, he suddenly pulled his fingers back. “I say!” he exclaimed, shaking his hand vigorously. “Something bit me!”

  Chapter Two

  “Rupert!” Rose started forward, her heart like a cold lump in her breast.

  Rupert looked at his hand curiously, turning it palm up. “No, it’s all right. Not a mark on me. But I swear...”

  “Ah,” the attorney said, taking up the box. “I neglected to set the thief catcher back. Very clever device,” he added, twisting a small section of inlaid brass. “It seems the former owner liked to smear poison on a blade set into this little swinging arm. Should anyone attempt to steal the contents, the blade would cut the thief s hand.”

  “And you let my brother... Rupert, are you certain you’re not hurt?”

  “Devil a scratch, Rose. Don’t fuss. I’m sure the blade has been taken out. Hasn’t it, Mr. Crenshaw?”

  For a heart-stopping instant, Mr. Crenshaw crinkled his brow and studied the ceiling. “Oh, yes, certainly. That is ... yes, certainly. There’s nothing to fear. Come and see.”

  With some trepidation, Rose took the richly ornamented box in her hand. When she opened it fully, the sight within wiped away the memory of her brother’s near miss.

  Cut like a pyramid, the strawberry-red ruby jutted up from a nest of purple-shaded smaller rubies. Though of impressive size, as big as the top joint of Rupert’s thumb, the depths of the main stone were foggy, the color weakened by a white web of inclusions. As every stone was set in bright yellow gold, all the colors clashed instead of mingling. Rose had never seen anything so ugly. It was as if some craftsman had set himself the task of making the most hideous piece of jewelry possible. And it was hers, all hers.

  “What’s it worth?” Rupert asked.

  “I have no information about that, Mr. Spenser. Of course, your sister should have some competent authority appraise the jewel as soon as possible. Rundell and Bridge, for example. Or, if you wish to know at once, Sir Niles has a very fine understanding of precious stones. I believe they have been his hobby for several years.”

  “Aren’t you going to try it on?” Rupert urged.

  Rose took the ring from its faded velvet slot. It slipped on easily, too easily. Whoever had owned the Malikzadi before must have had the hands of a prizefighter. By pressing her fingers together, she could keep the ring on the top of her hand instead of slipping around to her palm. It seemed to squat on her middle finger like a warty red toad.

  “It’s not very practical for day wear,” she said.

  Her brother laughed shortly. “Speaking for myself, I’d prefer you didn’t wear it at all. Great gaudy pieces of jewelry went out with Charles the Second.” He stepped to the door. “Let’s have Alardyce in. He’s an expert, you know, and we could do worse.”

  “No, Rupert,” Rose said, but not quickly enough.

  It seemed Sir Niles would be only too happy to serve the Spensers by looking at the Malikzadi. Before Rose could slip the ring off, he took her fingers in his and bowed over the ring. His fingers were warm and dry, his nails beautifully kept. Though his touch achieved the impersonal, the continuation of his hold made Rose feel oddly trapped. With a strong tug, she freed her fingers, leaving the ring in his possession. He brought out his quizzing glass for closer inspection.

  “Indian manufacture, of course. Probably cut in Bombay. Very finely cut, even the smallest stones. Twenty-four-karat gold, which accounts for the color. The beadwork between each stone is really quite remarkable.”

  “So it’s valuable,” Rupert said, peering eagerly over Sir Niles’s shoulder.

  “A few hundred pounds, perhaps, to a collector.”

  “Such as yourself, Sir Niles,” Rose said, narrowing her eyes.

  “Not at all, Miss Spenser. I possess all I desire of the Indian ruby. No, the poor color and clarity condemns it. A pity, as otherwise the size and cutting of the stone would recommend it. So much effort wasted over so poor a specimen.”

  “Well there’s one good thing to remember,” Rupert said, with the air of one who can find good in any situation. “At least the Black Mask won’t come calling on you, Rose.”

  “The Black Mask?” she repeated.

  “Spenser, there’s no need to frighten your sister,” Sir Niles said, his drawling voice sharpening.

  “Oh, I’m not afraid,” Rose said. Was there a maiden in London who hadn’t secretly thrilled to hear the whispered tale of the daring thief no lock could stop? The Countess of Hopewood had awakened to find a huge figure of a man, clad all in black, rifling her dressing case. When pressed on why she did not scream for help, the countess had confessed to believing that she dreamed, for surely no mortal man could be so massive. The count had not been pleased.

  ‘You have more cause to be frightened than I, Sir Niles. I hope your jewel collection is in a safe place.”

  “I keep those items too precious to lose in a locked box under my bed, Miss Spenser. No thief would think to look there.”

  “Perhaps not. But the Black Mask seems a most unusual thief.”

  Two nights ago, the house of a man grown hugely rich on cotton manufacture had been raided and his newly purchased and very vulgar diamond-headed cane had been stolen. The thief wasn’t seen, though a beggar, sitting on a curb, later gave witness that a black shadow had stooped over him and left the countess’s emerald diadem in his lap. Not knowing how to turn such a piece into cash money, he turned it in at Bow Street, collecting a considerable reward.

  The Black Mask, it seemed, had a passion for equality, as well as for jewelry.

  “Have you heard the latest?” Rupert asked of no one in particular.

  “What is it?” Rose forgot to be cold and blasé in front of Sir Niles.

  ‘That fellow he robbed—Curtis, was it?”

  “Curtman,” Sir Niles supplied.

  ‘That’s it. Curtman. Turns out the fellow was nothing but a cursed slave trader, selling the poor devils to plantation owners. Had any number of ships moving, all the while pretending to ship cotton. They say he’ll be up before the beak come tomorrow, and dashed well serves him right.” He glared around as though daring anyone to contradict him. “I know this Black Mask fellow is nothing but a common thief, but this time I say jolly well done!”

  “But what did the Black Mask have to do with Mr. Curtman’s slaving?” Rose asked.

  Mr. Crenshaw obligingly answered. “The, er, gentleman in question was unwise enough to entrust to a secret strongbox his collection of accounts pertaining to the acquiring of his fortune. It seems in the course of his other activities, the thief discovered this cache.”

  “How?” Rose asked, agog.

  “It’s believed one of Curtman’s servants must have betrayed the secret, though they all deny it stridently.”

  “There, you see, Sir Niles,” Rose said triumphantly. “If he could find this person’s secret lockbox, he could find yours.”

  “Very true. I shall invent a new hiding place at once.”

  Tell her who got the papers,” Rupert said, chuckling, as he drew out his snuff box. He didn’t wait for Mr. Crenshaw. “The prime minister!”

  “The prime minister?”

  Mr. Crenshaw coughed, disapprovingly. “The incriminating documents were, so it seems, laid under Lord Liverpool’s eyes at breakfast when his butler attempted to pour him a cup of tea. There was no tea in the pot, only the papers. A deplorable thing to happen at breakfast. They say poor Lord Liverpool suffered from indigestion the rest of the day.”

  “However did the Black Mask put the papers into the teapot?” Rose asked, smiling at Mr. Cren
shaw’s belief in the sacredness of breakfast.

  “No one knows that either,” he said. “But it does show that the fellow in question suffers from a rather juvenile sense of humor.”

  “Of course,” Sir Niles said, “slavery itself is not yet illegal. Only the actual trafficking in slaves.”

  Rose turned cool eyes upon him. She had no wish to be fair to Mr. Curtman, and thought it very like Sir Niles to see the immoral side of what was a very plain issue.

  “An excellent point, Sir Niles,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “And this Curtman was clever enough not to transport his slaves in ships of British registry. Nonetheless, I think even if he should escape fining—which, at a hundred pounds a head for each slave mentioned in his very complete records, is no bagatelle—Mr. Curtman will find life most unpleasant in London.”

  Rupert sneezed and laughed at the same time, a bizarre sound. To be sure,” he said, bringing out an overlarge handkerchief. “There’s not a hostess will receive him, and his marriage to Miss Stonebridge has been broken off.”

  ‘The daughter of ‘Liberator’ Stonebridge?” Rose asked. “I met her only last week. She’s a sweet, sweet girl.”

  “She’s better off,” Rupert said, sneezing. “This Curtman was giving money to the antislavery cause with one hand while making money from slaves with the other hand. That’s the kind of hypocrisy we fought the French over, and here it is right in London. Why, the very thought makes me want to shout!”

  “Poor Miss Stonebridge.”

  “She’s better off,” Rupert repeated. “If it were you, Rose, being made up to by such a cursed hypocrite, I’d hang the fellow before I’d let him marry you. The Black Mask did the girl a good turn.”

  “I’m sure she’ll come to see that in time,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “Now, er, regarding your inheritance ...”

  “Oh, yes,” Rose said, embarrassed that they’d wandered so far from the point. “We are, I’m afraid, wasting a great deal of your time, sir, over a very minor matter.”

  “Not at all, Miss Spenser. Besides,” he said with what in another person would have been a mischievous glance over his spectacles, “it is Sir Niles’s time.”

  Rose, willing to acknowledge when she was in the wrong, offered Sir Niles her hand once more. “I apologize, Sir Niles. You have been more than kind.”

  “A pleasure to be of service. May I?” He slipped the side of his hand under her sensitive fingertips. She felt her face heat. She’d held hands with men during dances a hundred times or more, but something about the way Sir Niles touched her seemed strangely intimate. Surely it must be all on her side, since his eyes remained cool and remote while he slid the Malikzadi on her middle finger. Besides, he would never do anything so impolite as flirt. “Rundell and Bridge would be happy, no doubt, to make it fit your finger comfortably.”

  “Oh, I shall never wear it. I am not fond of rubies— or indeed of any jewelry. I wear pearls.”

  “One day perhaps you will change your mind. Only a woman can bring out the true beauty of a fine stone.”

  “I like pearls,” she said, determined to be contrary. She gave him a too bright smile. “Thank you again, Sir Niles, for your assistance and your opinion.”

  “Both are always at your service,” he said, bowing.

  Rose hated how Sir Niles always contrived to have the last word. She could hardly concentrate on the rest of Mr. Crenshaw’s legalities as she tried to think of something polite but crushing to say to Sir Niles the next time they met.

  Half an hour later, when the Spensers had gone, Sir Niles entered Mr. Crenshaw’s office again. The attorney looked up from his endless paperwork. “Are you satisfied, my boy?”

  “I confess I feel better.” Sir Niles, his affectations laid aside for the moment, dropped into the chair recently occupied by Rose Spenser. He smiled at the exhalation of fluff even as he leaned his head back. Sprawling there, the attorney could see the lines of fatigue under his eyes and the pale, almost transparent skin at the temple.

  “You may feel better, Niles, but you look like the devil. Did you sleep at all last night?”

  “No. I was a trifle busy.” Gone was the drawling, ironic voice. He spoke crisply, his words falling quickly from his lips. “The rooftops of London are not made for swift or easy travel. But that is where my path lies.”

  “Surely you’ll stop now. Curtman is finished. Beringer is proving very hard to catch. As for the other...”

  Shaking off his exhaustion like a dog coming out of a lake, Niles sat up, looking as alert and bright as though he’d had a blissful night’s sleep. “He’s as guilty as they are. I won’t let him escape. No, and not Beringer either. He left a letter for me. He’s ready to swallow the hook.”

  Mr. Crenshaw leaned forward, trying to force Niles to look at him. But the younger man dug his finger into one of the slits in the ancient fabric of the chair, enlarging the hole, his entire attention apparently consumed in the task. “There’s no proof in his case. No weaknesses like Curtman’s record. No bait to use as in Beringer’s case.”

  “I can think of one way to trap him.”

  “Niles.” Mr. Crenshaw managed at last to make Niles look up. The blue eyes regarded him with affection, but Crenshaw knew how easily that blue gaze could set into intractability as hard as flint. He’d known Niles Alardyce from boyhood and he had always been just the same. Easygoing, kindly, gentlemanly, but capable of a resolution second to none. Not even those he loved best could alter his purpose once he’d decided on a course of action. Only his mother, perhaps, and she had died too young.

  “Niles, I can’t help you anymore,” Crenshaw said, using the only weapon he had against that iron will. “This business with the prime minister, that cuts too near the bone. If they’d caught you, they would have shot you as a suspected assassin. The scandal...”

  “He was the only one who’d expose Curtman pitilessly. The others would want to take care of him quietly. Liverpool’s no Wellington, but he knows right from wrong.”

  “I won’t help you get yourself killed.”

  “I sympathize, Crenshaw.”

  “You’ll stop, then? Stop with Beringer.”

  Niles shook his head. The confident expression he wore worried Crenshaw. He’d seen it too many times, and it always presaged heart palpitations in anyone who became entangled in one of Niles’s schemes. Niles never seemed to feel any qualms. He left those to other people. Niles had only ever worried about one person. Was, it seemed, still worried about him even now.

  “Christian wouldn’t want you to risk your life for a quixotic quest.”

  Niles laughed shortly. “He’d be the first to urge me on to greater folly, Crenshaw, and you know it. Next to Christian, I always looked like a demmed respectable citizen.”

  “I cannot persuade you to give it up?”

  Niles shook his head, but seemed more interested in extracting one feather at a time than in answering his man of affairs’s questions.

  The attorney sighed and changed the subject. “A charming young couple, the Spensers,” he said. “The boy is a trifle immature.”

  “No more so than some others I could name. Like most young men on their first visit to London, he has a certain amount to learn. A pity the lessons so often come at a price.”

  “He gambles?”

  “Incessantly. And badly.”

  “From what he said, I infer you hold some of his debts?”

  “Almost all of them.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Better me than a Captain Sharp. There are many who see such a fellow as no more than pigeon for plucking.”

  ‘You have taken him under your wing, then. Why him in particular? There are a great many young country fellows in the city at any time. You’ve never shown any interest in protecting their feathers from plucking.”

  Niles flicked at few feathers at the attorney. “Perhaps he reminds me of the son I never had,” he said flippantly.

  “Or the brother-in-law?” the attorney s
uggested slyly.

  Crenshaw congratulated himself on surprising the unflappable Sir Niles. For a moment, the brilliant blue eyes stared at him, frozen. Then the handsome, high-nosed face thawed as a chuckle broke from his lips. “Is it that I am being obvious?”

  “I have known you a very long time. May I say I am glad to see you are considering doing your duty by your name and rank?” Crenshaw wanted to express his relief that Niles still had a heart, but there were some subjects one did not raise with a client, however long guarded and well loved.

  “You go too fast. Miss Spenser is the merest acquaintance; nothing more.”

  “Yet you protect her brother from the consequences of his folly?”

  “Someone has to. He’s not equipped for the task.”

  Mr. Crenshaw drummed his fingernails on the desk. “Miss Spenser is a very lovely girl.”

  “Yes, I suppose she is. I, however, admire Miss Spenser for her independence of mind. She is one of the few who have not fallen under Sir Niles’s rather stuffy spell.”

  “She doesn’t like you.”

  “She doesn’t like Sir Niles. She has never met me.”

  Chapter Three

  “I simply don’t understand you, Rose. Everybody else likes Sir Niles.”

  One thing about Rupert, Rose thought. He was tenacious. Let him grab hold of a subject, and he’d shake it to death like a terrier with a rabbit. “Then he hardly needs my approval.”

  “But he’s really the best of good fellows. Not at all high in the instep.”

  “I would say that is exactly what he is. Proud, superior, and overweening.”

  “Just because he isn’t falling over himself to set up as one of your flirts.”

  Rose, heedless of the interested housemaid sweeping the steps, turned sharply toward her more than usually aggravating younger brother as he stepped down from the carriage. “I do not have ‘flirts.’ Of all the vulgar...”

  “Please yourself. I suppose Manbridge wasn’t flirting with you last night at Lady Welsh’s?”