She slowly eased back the pistol from Stoughton’s temple. Its pressure had left a redOimprinted on his skin.
“You had better pray that this time you are convincing,” added Wrexford.
“Sloane used one of the back rooms of the clubhouse to make his first copy, but after that, Canaday decided it was too risky to continue working here. He arranged for a place somewhere in the stews. That was when Sloane suddenly took a turn for the worse.”
“Where?” demanded Wrexford.
“I don’t know!” Stoughton edged to his end of the sofa. “But St. Aubin does. I know that he and Holworthy were involved in a scheme to steal books from Cambridge University.” A triumphant glitter flashed in his eyes as he looked at his companion. “And I overheard the reverend demand that Canaday share the space with him as he, too, needed a private place in which to work.”
“Lies!” insisted St. Aubin, but the arrogance was fast leaching out of his voice. “The sniveling rat is just trying to save his own skin.”
“Canaday tried to say no.” Stoughton was speaking in a rush. “But Holworthy had discovered what the baron was doing with his paintings and threatened to expose it.”
That explained a good deal, thought Wrexford. And yet . . .
“What sort of work did Holworthy need to do?”
“He didn’t say, though he spouted some habble-gabble about how Canaday would be sorry he had turned down the chance to discover the secret to immortality. It involved some sort of religious nonsense—he was babbling about philosophy and stones,” responded Stoughton. “Ask St. Aubin! He was up to his neck in whatever intrigue the reverend was up to.”
God Almighty, has the last piece of the puzzle finally fallen into place?
“Yet more lies!” St. Aubin’s face blazed scarlet in anger, but beneath the color an ashen tinge was creeping along the ridge of his cheekbones. His voice was now brittle as broken glass.
“I think Stoughton is telling the truth this time.” Wrexford gestured with his own weapon at St. Aubin. “What say you, Sheff? You look tired of holding the bastard. Shall we just have the lad blow his brains out and be done with it? We know all we need to know.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” insisted St. Aubin. “I didn’t steal the books for Holworthy. I’ll tell you who it was, but in return, you must promise—word of a gentleman—that you’ll release me unharmed.”
“Very well, you have my word.” Wrexford slowly smiled. “But we both know that despite our gilded pedigrees, neither of us are gentlemen, so my word isn’t worth a vial of piss.”
St. Aubin sucked in a shallow breath. The pulse point at his throat was racing erratically.
“Still, if I were you, I would take the gamble that I keep my pledge. After all, what do you have to lose? Stay silent and the lad gets to scratch his itchy finger for sure.”
St. Aubin slanted a furtive look at Charlotte, who had stepped back into the yawing shadows cast by the table lamp. Tangled in the tentacles of dark and light, her silhouette had an otherworldy menace to it. And then all of his bluster leaked out in a ragged exhale.
“Lowell,” he whispered. “I stole the books for Declan Lowell. He knew I could get access through my brother to a special library archive at Cambridge.”
“Which college?” asked Wrexford, though he was sure he knew the answer.
“Trinity,” answered St. Aubin, confirming the surmise.
An institution whose illustrious alumni included Sir Isaac Newton.
“But I can’t tell you for what purpose,” he hurriedly added. “Lowell gave me two titles and paid me very well. I didn’t ask why.”
“What titles?” demanded Wrexford.
“A manuscript by Newton and a chemistry manual by someone with an unpronounceable name.”
“Eirenaeus Philalethes?” suggested the earl.
“Yes—that sounds right.”
“I think you’re lying about not knowing what he was working on,” said Wrexford flatly. “And without that piece of the puzzle your information is worthless to me.”
“I’m not!” St. Aubin was beginning to sweat. “Yes, Lowell and I were friends, but he was becoming increasingly obsessive and . . . well, I knew of his penchant for violence. It’s a great secret, but as a student, he caused the death of a fellow student in one of his laboratory experiments. The scandal was covered up by his family—and Lowell left the country for a year for it to blow over.”
He swallowed hard. “Somehow Holworthy learned about his skills and hired Lowell for some sort of bizarre alchemy experiment to transmute the soul! But I swear to God that’s all I know. Whatever he was actually working on was knowledge I didn’t care to have.”
