CHAPTER 28
“Maybe not,” Alec interjected into our uneasy silence. “For I also have some information to share.”
I could read from his expression that he’d only just decided to part with it, and that he was still hesitant to do so. I felt my temper spark, though I tamped it down, for it seemed almost inevitable that he should be keeping something from us. He always had held everything but the bare essentials close to his vest.
“About six weeks ago, the War Office received a threat from ‘an anonymous Belgian.’ That’s what he called himself. The letter was filled with a lot of angry rambling, and it was unclear whether it should be taken seriously. So, I was tasked to find out who the sender was and assess the significance of his intentions.” He glanced between Sidney and me, at least having the grace to appear a little remorseful that he’d been deceiving us. “Because in the midst of his incoherent tirade, he’d sworn that ‘the silence of the battlefield would be broken by one last cry of vengeance, that the peaceful would be shaken from their repose, and that the travelers’ displays of false grief would be transformed into cries of anguish.’”
“And you just now decided to tell us this?” Sidney snapped. His eyes blazed with fury.
“The information was classified,” Alec replied. “You served in the army. You know how it works. I shouldn’t even be sharing it with you now.”
Sidney turned away, muttering a curse.
“Now that you’re being so forthcoming,” I drawled sarcastically, equally as frustrated even if I accepted the reasons for his withholding what he knew, “can you tell us if you discovered that sender was Moilien?”
“Until you arrived, I’d had little luck in the matter,” Alec admitted. “Truthfully, it had not been made a priority. I was to pursue it in the midst of my other duties. But then Lord Ryde stopped to ask me those questions on your behalf.” He nodded to me. “And I began to wonder if whatever you were pursuing might be related. You always did have a nose for sniffing out trouble.”
I arched a single eyebrow, not certain I liked having it phrased precisely like that.
His lips quirked, obviously enjoying having irritated me. “So I hung back in Brussels longer than was strictly necessary, hoping to bump into you.”
I glanced at Sidney, whose anger seemed to have devolved into resignation. His eyes gleamed at me as if to say, “didn’t I tell you so?”
Ignoring him, I resumed questioning Alec. “When did you realize we were pursuing the same man?”
“Not until later. I wondered at first if that aviator whose map case you’d stolen could be our man, but when I discovered he was dead, I started to look into those around him. Especially when the town of Havay appeared in his records.”
I’m not sure why I was surprised he’d gotten access to German Army records so quickly, but I was. “And you already knew about the wireless-controlled aeroplane there.”
He nodded.
“But what about that bit about Landau?” I charged, recalling how he’d seemed to point us in his direction.
“All true. I was suspicious of him. But I’m glad you were able to clear up the fact that he’s not involved.”
“So this is real,” Sidney stated in summary. “Moilien means to use those bombs to harm British tourists somewhere near the front.” His face was pale. “But we don’t know precisely where or when.”
“Now you understand what my predicament has been,” Rose told him. “All I can think is that he means to target one of these tours.” She shrugged. “But which one?”
“I heard there are casualties almost daily from unexploded shells,” I said.
Rose nodded.
“Perhaps that’s how he hopes to get away with it. Maybe he already has,” I suggested, knowing even as I said so that couldn’t be right.
“No, he will want the credit,” Alec stated definitively.
How else would the British know? How else would they learn to regret not accepting him?
I exhaled in resignation, spreading my hands flat on the table. “Well, let’s think about this logically. Most of the tours in this area begin in Lille, do they not?”
Sidney suddenly jolted forward in his chair. “A cemetery.” His eyes were wide as he looked at all of us in turn. “He means to hit a cemetery while a group of tourists is there.”
“But how . . .” Alec began, but he cut him off.
“ ‘The peaceful will be shaken from their repose.’ Is that not what the letter said?” He stabbed the table with his finger. “It’s a cemetery. It has to be.”
I reached over to grab his hand. “I think you’re right.” A sick swirling began in my stomach as a new horror began to dawn inside me. “And I think I might know which one.” I pressed a hand to my forehead as the full implication of it slammed into me, and I had to struggle to force my thoughts back into order.
“At the séance, Lord Ryde’s aunt, Lady Swaffham kept asking about a cemetery at Boeschèpe outside Poperinghe. I take it her son is buried there.” I swallowed, meeting Sidney’s eyes. “Moilien’s henchman was at the séance. He heard her mention she planned to visit it. What if he told Moilien?”
Sidney quickly grasped what I was trying to say. “And what better way to draw attention to your grievance than by killing not only British tourists, but also an earl and a lady.”
“That sounds like exactly the type of thing he would go in for,” Alec declared, though neither of us paid him much heed.
The thought of Max being in such danger, and completely oblivious to it, made my chest seize up in panic. He was my friend. Someone who had been there for me when I needed someone most. And yet our relationship was somewhat delicate because of the troubles that had been in my and Sidney’s marriage. I squeezed Sidney’s hand, imploring him with my eyes to understand.
He nodded, squeezing back. “Do you recall Ryde and his aunt’s itinerary? When were they going to be on the tour?”
I pushed the fright away, knowing it would do no good to give it any sway. “Let’s see.” I thought back to what Max had told us. “They departed the same day we did, the eleventh. Three days in Calais and then a day to reach Lille. So the tour would have begun . . .” My eyes widened. “Today!” I pushed to my feet, glancing around me. “We need a guidebook. All the tour companies essentially follow the same route.”
“I do not have one,” Rose replied.
I shook my head. “Of course not.” Then I sprang toward the door, retracing our steps to the stairs.
“I do not know if the bookshops will have one either,” she called after me as I clattered down the stairs.
“I don’t need a bookshop. Just a tourist.”
I burst out through the alley door, no longer caring about stealth. I turned my feet toward the spire of the Church of St. Christopher, anxious to discover whether we were already too late. The sound of footsteps hastening after me alerted me to Sidney’s presence before he reached my side. He didn’t check my stride, but he did reach over to clasp my hand. “I hope we’re wrong. I hope he isn’t going after Ryde.”
I glanced up at him, surprised and yet heartened by his sincere words. I pulled him to a stop, arching up on my toes to press a kiss to his mouth. “I hope so, too,” I whispered.
Then I turned to hurry us onward.
Fortunately, there was a large cluster of people milling about before the cathedral. Several of them clutched books before them, and I directed Sidney to speak to the man in a pin-striped suit while I approached a pair of younger women.
“Pardon me, are you by chance from England?” I asked, as my gaze dipped to scan the pages of the book the woman in the broad-brim hat was holding.
“Why, yes. Yes, we are.”
“Is that the Michelin Guide to Ypres?” I asked.
“Well, no.” She closed the book so that I could see the cover. “But I do have it.”
“You do? Might I look at it for just a moment?”
She exchanged a glance with her friend. “Of course.”
The friend’s eyes scrutinized my matted hair and lack of a hat, for I’d raced out without donning it. I could only imagine what they thought of my ramshackle appearance, but truthfully, I didn’t care so long as I could see their book.
The woman removed it from her shoulder satchel and I thumbed it open to the index page, searching for Boeschèpe. Finding the page with a picture of the cemetery, I flipped backward, discovering it was included in the second day of the itinerary. Max and his aunt would not be visiting it until tomorrow.
I nearly wept in relief. “Thank you,” I replied, passing it back to them.
Ignoring their looks of intense curiosity, I swiveled about to find Sidney. It took me a moment to locate his dark head among the crowd, but I soon spotted him near the cathedral entrance. I hurried over to him, my steps lighter than they had been moments before.
“Tomorrow,” I gasped. “They won’t reach Boeschèpe until tomorrow.”
“Then we’d best reach it first.”
My eyes dipped to the book in his hands. “Did you buy that man’s guidebook? Why?”
“I noticed it has maps and describes the most passable roads. If we’re to navigate our way through that mire without getting stuck, we’re going to need it.”
I studied his wan face and the dark circles around his eyes, realizing that of all of us, he would know best what we were headed into. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, hating that it had come to this. That I had to ask him to step into that hell again. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. That the memories would undoubtedly be thick around him.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. His gaze strayed toward the brick of the church, following it up the edifice toward the roof line. A thin strip of dark stubble he must have missed during this morning’s makeshift ablutions bristled on the underside of his jaw. “It will not be pleasant.”
I reached for his hand, and his eyes lowered to meet mine, stark with shadows.
“Let’s go tell the others what we’ve discovered,” he said.
We returned to the room to find Rose waiting for us.
“Where’s Captain Xavier?” I asked. I didn’t think he’d followed us from the building.
“He asked to use the telephone,” she replied.
Perhaps he was informing the War Office. Maybe there were men they could send to assist us. Or perhaps the Belgian government could be counted on to lend their aid since the cemetery rested on their soil.
Whatever the case, we filled Rose in and then set down to study the guidebook and make our plans. Alec returned some minutes later.
“Lord Ryde was, indeed, staying at a hotel in Lille,” he informed us. “But he left this morning. They expect him back tomorrow night after the tour is complete. He’ll be staying somewhere along the route tonight. Likely in Poperinghe.”
“How did you discover that?” I inquired as he joined us at the table.
“By telephoning the most notable hotels still standing in Lille. There are not many, so he wasn’t difficult to find.”
“That certainly fits this timeline.” I nodded at the guidebook laid open before Sidney.
Alec’s brow furrowed. “Unfortunately, the War Office is not proving so amenable. They found our evidence less than compelling, and without definitive proof that Moilien either has those bombs in his possession or intends to use them at Boeschèpe, they don’t wish to create an incident.”
“Don’t they understand the ramifications if we are correct?” I demanded.
“The most they’ll do is inform the gendarmes in Poperinghe to be on the lookout for a man bearing Moilien’s description.”
“And if he’s wearing his mask?”
Alec shrugged, his expression thunderous.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled, forcing calm through my body. It wasn’t his fault the War Office was being so intractable. “I’ll telephone Landau. Perhaps he has some resources or connections that can help us.” After all, C had told him to help me in whatever way he could.
“Whatever our plan is, whatever our resources, we need to be on the road to Poperinghe within the hour.” Sidney glanced out the window. “We still have plenty of daylight, but it will take hours to reach on these blasted roads.” He smacked the map on the page of the book open to him. “Though we’re going to bypass some of this, and take the road up to Menin, and through Gheluwe before detouring—as they’ve recommended since part of the main road to Ypres remains unpassable.” He glanced at Alec. “Unless you know a better way.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed as if suspecting Sidney of making a dig at him because he hadn’t spent his war in the trenches. “I know next to nothing about it.”
But Sidney did not take the bait. “Then this is our plan of approach. What we do when we get there remains to be seen. I suppose we attempt to locate Moilien and his bombs before he can place them.”
I nodded and turned to Rose. “Do you intend to come with us?”
She glared at me as if in scolding. “I don’t intend to stay behind.”
“Then let’s gather what supplies we need and prepare to leave,” Sidney instructed as he closed the guidebook and rose to his feet.
“I’ll bring the motorcar around,” Alec growled, as if happy to be free of us, at least for a few minutes.
Rose began issuing instructions to the woman who had initially let us into the alley door while I waited for her to lead me to the telephone. She had just turned to address me when suddenly a shot rang out. It had come from the direction of the alley.
I dashed down the steps with Sidney close on my heels, only to stumble to a stop to find Alec lying in the open doorway.
“Son of a . . .” he cursed, grimacing in pain.
I dropped to my knees and crawled toward him. “Where are you hit?” I asked, even as he lifted his hand away from his arm to reveal blood before clasping it back again.
Another bullet struck the wooden doorframe, sending splinters flying.
“Pull him back out of the doorway,” Sidney ordered, as he kneeled and grasped Alec’s legs.
Alec grunted in pain as we unceremoniously hauled him back inside. “I’m not helpless,” he groused as he struggled to sit up.
Sidney pushed him down again, making him utter another foul curse. “Wait until you’re clear of his line of fire.”
Once Alec was safely inside, I expected Sidney to let the door close, but instead he reached for a piece of wood tossed in the corner they must have used as a prop. He jammed the piece between the door and frame, leaving a small gap.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as Rose and an older lad who had come down the stairs after us helped Alec to his feet.
Sidney withdrew his pistol. “I’m not going to give whoever this is the chance to come after us again.” He peered cautiously through the gap, before withdrawing his head again. “I suspect I’m a better shot than he is if the chap was aiming for Alec’s head or heart.” He nodded at the man with blood pouring from his shoulder.
“Looks like he got close enough to me,” I snapped and then cringed as a shot struck the stone of the building outside.
But Sidney was not even fazed, and I realized I was seeing him as he had been in the trenches. Focused, determined. As much as I wanted to yank him away from that gap in the door, I knew he was correct. Better to face this man now than have him shoot us in the back later.
“We need a diversion,” he declared.
I hurried to follow the others up the stairs to wherever they were leading Alec. “Rose, where are those boys you hired to run interference?”
She glanced down at me in surprise. “Some of them are in the kitchen. Or they were.” She nodded down the passage to the left as we came to the top of the steps.
I strode swiftly down it, listening for the sound of voices. Through the door at the end, I found four boys greedily stuffing their faces as an older woman clucked around them, dishing out more food.
“We need your help,” I declared without preamble.
They all turned as one to stare up at me, their cheeks bulging with food as they chewed, but none of them seemed the least interested in moving from their chairs. Having grown up with three brothers and an innumerable number of their friends, I knew how to get their attention.
“It’s dangerous. I’m quite certain I shouldn’t be asking you.”
The tallest one swallowed quickly, his dark eyes avid with interest. “We’ll help, madame.”
The others nodded eagerly and I bit back a smile of triumph. “Excellent. Here’s what we’re going to do.”