Part 21 (2/2)

”If you gave him the money, then it was a gift. He's allowed some personal money, even with his vow of poverty.” I hoped he didn't know how much money, because I didn't know the limit, either.

He sipped his espresso and said in an even voice, ”I have the records to prove it wasn't a gift.”

”I'm not going to get in the middle of that,” I said. ”It's between you and the Franciscans. Leave me out of it.”

”I want the book.”

”Talk to Father Xavier.”

He set down his cup and reached for the folder on the table, spinning it around and shoving it across to me. ”Have a look at this.”

I opened the folder. A check with a lot of zeros after a number, a substantial amount of money, made out to cash.

”Keep it. For your trouble.”

”I don't want your money.”

”It's not for you. It's for the Adams Morgan Children's Center. I know you're trying to get that place fixed up. That ought to take care of it.”

I felt like he'd knocked the wind out of me. The money would easily pay for fixing up the children's center, with some left over for clothes and other necessities.

”No,” I said in a faint voice. ”You can't do that-”

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees and an earnest look on his face. ”I'm not the bad guy here, Sophie. Kevin was at my mother's bedside when she died two years ago. A brain tumor. Her last days were h.e.l.l and Kevin was a living saint. Why do you think I offered him financial a.s.sistance for his research? I wanted to repay his kindness, that's all.”

I stared out the window at the enormous green roof and central dome of the British Museum and, in the distance, the bare brown branches of the trees in Russell Square. Last night in the Coburg Bar, Victor had said he resented the way Jaine treated Kevin. But now Edward Jaine insisted his charity came from grat.i.tude, a touching story about a debt to his dying mother.

One of them wasn't telling the truth.

”Why were you and Kevin arguing at the Austrian amba.s.sador's residence the night before he died?”

He straightened and picked up his espresso, finis.h.i.+ng it off and setting the cup down again with a sharp little click. ”I don't know what you're talking about.”

I closed the folder and pushed it over to him. ”I can't accept this. And I can't help you. As I said, this is between you and the Franciscans. I'm sorry, Mr. Jaine. I think we're done here.”

I reached for my camera bag and started to get up.

”Leave here without telling me where the book is and I will ask my lawyers to explore the possibility of bringing criminal charges against you.”

I caught my breath. ”On what grounds?”

”You've stolen a valuable item that belongs to me. It's worth millions.”

”I didn't steal anything.”

”Good luck proving that. I can make your life a misery.” He tapped the folder again. ”One last chance. Take the money, use it for those kids, and tell me what I want to know, or I'll see to it that you regret it.”

I swung my camera bag over my shoulder and hoped he didn't see how badly my hands were shaking.

”I already do,” I said, and left.

17.

I could feel Edward Jaine's eyes on me as I walked across the restaurant and punched the elevator call b.u.t.ton. The door slid open and I stepped in.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Now what?

The exit to the restaurant brought me outside to a small landing at the top of a flight of stairs overlooking a busy intersection. Just across the street was the Tottenham Court Road tube station. The morning fog had burned off and the raw chill of the past two days was gone. For the first time since I arrived in England, the sun was s.h.i.+ning. I pulled out my phone and discovered I'd missed a call and a text message.

The text was from Nick: Still trying to raise my buddies. Be careful.

I texted back: Don't worry, I'm fine. Call me after you get in.

The call was from the Connaught. A woman at the front desk gave me the message. ”A man who said he was the secretary to Archduke Victor Haupt-von Vessey rang here. The archduke asked if you could meet him today at noon at the Anchor pub in Bankside.”

How odd that he didn't call me himself. Maybe Victor wanted to talk about how it had gone last night when he told Yasmin he wanted to postpone the wedding. Except the Anchor pub, as famous as it was, was on the other side of the Thames. It seemed like an odd place to meet.

The woman added, ”The secretary asked me to pa.s.s the message along and ring him back if you couldn't make it. Otherwise, he'll expect you.”

”I can just call the archduke myself. Or the secretary.”

”Unfortunately that's not possible,” she said. ”The archduke is in a meeting. The secretary is with him.”

I glanced at my watch. It was only ten thirty. Maybe Victor's meeting was in Bankside. ”I can be there at noon.”

”Well, then, I guess that's settled. The secretary said it was only necessary to call if you couldn't make it, otherwise the archduke will expect to see you at twelve.”

I leaned against the railing, watching the people on the street below. No one looked up or even noticed me. I ran down the stairs into the Underground station, took two trains, and half an hour later got out at London Bridge on the south side of the Thames. There was still almost an hour to kill before meeting Victor.

I've always liked the hustle and bustle of this grittier part of the city, the industrial docks, wharves, and warehouses that tie it to the river, its ancient history dating to the pagan Romans, its rowdy reputation for entertainment as the site of brothels, animal-baiting pits, and playhouses like Shakespeare's Globe during the Tudor era. The notorious Clink Prison was there, and for centuries, the only entrance across the Thames to the City of London was at Southwark Cathedral, which was recorded in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book.

I left the Underground at the Borough Market exit and wandered past the quiet shuttered stalls. Then I walked up the street to the cathedral, where I left a twenty-pound note in the poor box and made my way along the Queen's Walk, the busy pedestrian promenade that followed the river from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge.

If I turned left, I'd be heading toward the Globe Theatre and the Anchor pub, where I was supposed to meet Victor. Instead I turned right toward Tower Bridge and, across the river, the ma.s.sive fortifications of the Tower of London itself.

Yesterday Alastair told me that for more than a century the leather seed pouch belonging to the Dutch sailor Jan Teerlink had been locked away in the Tower. More than likely it had been put in some dark cool room deep within the complex, a sprawling fortress of multiple rings that enclosed thick-walled buildings and dozens of smaller towers. Wherever it had been, at least a few of the seeds had been preserved well enough to be regenerated two centuries later, producing plants that were now healthy and thriving at the Millennium Seed Bank.

What place back home had conditions comparable to the Tower of London, somewhere Kevin's seeds could languish undisturbed for two centuries? A building? A cave? If Dolley Madison had gotten them out of the White House before the British burned the city in 1814, the odds were good they had also been transported to somewhere nearby in Virginia along with everything else that left Was.h.i.+ngton. So why hadn't anyone discovered them during the last two hundred years? Either they were so well hidden they couldn't or wouldn't be found, or whoever had them in his possession didn't know what he had.

By now I'd walked as far upriver as the futuristic egg-shaped gla.s.s-and-steel City Hall not far from Tower Bridge. At night it was lit up with concentric rings of lights that reminded me of a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p about to depart for its home planet. I stayed near the bridge taking photographs of the skyline and the river until it was time to walk to the Anchor. The Queen's Walk had become busier and more bustling in the last half hour. A jostling lunchtime crowd spilled out of City Hall and other nearby office buildings to join tourists and anyone else who wanted to enjoy the warm early spring suns.h.i.+ne.

The Anchor pub sat in a cobblestone plaza overlooking the river, a sprawling redbrick building with fire-engine-red windows and doors, a big gold anchor hanging above the entrance, and a macabre history as the site of a pit where the bodies of those who died of the plague had been dumped. William Shakespeare had drunk and dined at the Anchor, as had Charles d.i.c.kens, Samuel Johnson, and Samuel Pepys.

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