“Dead? My God—dead?” Rolly Spade-Filbert had dashed into the barn and forced himself between the other men. “The ladies at Number 17 told me where you were. How could this happen?”
Adam stumbled to his knees. He had to drag Verbeux aside to get to Desirée. Other hands came to his aid but he neither knew nor cared who they belonged to. He pushed them all away and gathered her into his arms.
“Adam,” she said. “I fell because he fell and knocked me down.”
He touched her face, brushed back her still-loose hair and looked at her closely. “You…You’re hurting, my love.” Her face twisted. The wound on her neck was nothing, a scratch that would heal—if only she lived.
Sir Robert would not be forced aside. He felt Desirée’s pulse and put his ear to her chest.
“I say.” Spade-Filbert bent over Verbeux and poked his back. “From what Lady Hester said—granted she was hysterical—but I thought this one came with the rest of you. What’s happened to him?”
Verbeux moaned.
“Best thing is to make them cast up their accounts,” Sir Robert said. “Could be the stuff’s so old it’s lost its potency.”
Verbeux rolled onto his back and raised a hand in the air. “Too late. Let us be. The Egyptians…They knew their poisons. I can’t see properly.”
“Can you open your eyes, old chap?” Rolly asked.
Adam kissed Desirée’s cheek and said, “How do you feel? Is the pain bad.”
“No,” she said. “He got a lot more of it than me.”
Verbeux had opened his eyes and Rolly said, “How about now? Can you see now?”
Dark eyes rested on him. “Through a film,” Verbeux said. “I’m fading.”
Adam and Sir Robert reached for the fallen paper at the same time.
“Watch out for this one,” Verbeux said, pointing at Rolly with a finger that wavered. “He didn’t care how he did it, but he wanted to be accepted by the Etrangers. He wanted to move in their circles and have access to their money. He’s in more trouble than Lucas Chillworth. He thought he’d get what he wanted by helping me. It’s too late to get me, Chillworth, but he’s still alive. He’s the one who carried the Princess into that house. He paid the boy to lie about the cat.”
“He’s delirious,” Rolly said, standing back. “You can see that. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
Adam licked his finger, touched it to the residue of powder on the paper and tasted it—and wrinkled his nose. Sir Robert did the same and they both looked at Desirée. Her own nose was still wrinkled but she managed to grin at the same time.
Without a word, Jean-Marc took a few grains and passed the paper to Ross. It didn’t take long for each man to rest a finger on the end of his tongue.
Verbeux had thrown himself to his back again and writhed in earnest now.
There was a yell, and Adam saw that Evans had caught Rolly on his way to the door and doubled him up with a punch to the belly. The under-butler folded Rolly’s arms behind his back, snatched up some of the rope Adam had discarded and used the longer pieces to lash Spade-Filbert’s thumbs together with knots that grew tighter each time the man tried to yank his hands apart. Such a howling followed as Adam had never before heard from a grown man.
The assembled men closed into a circle around Verbeux. Adam pushed to the center and landed the first punch. He picked the man up by the shoulders and threw him down again with enough force to raise dust.
Desirée’s laughter brought a smile to every mouth but Verbeux’s and Rolly’s. “It’s salt, Verbeux,” she said through her chuckles. “Salt, much more valuable a long time ago than it is now.”