The Poisoner's Game

Chapter 10

A.

Nothing seemed to add up in the way I had first expected it to. Either Lady Margaret was incredibly skilled at lying or telling the truth. She had none of the traits of someone I would expect to correspond, let alone work with the Poisoner. He was well-known to leave behind a string of stunning women around the continent from opera singers to the wives of diplomats. No one would put Lady Margaret in league with those women with her tanned complexion, freckles, and misbehaved hair. Yet, when her grey eyes sparked with anger something about her look became regal. I shook my head. Get your head out of the gutter, man.

I reviewed the facts; Lady Margaret received a letter from someone who could not be her grandfather as he believed she died as a child warning her about the Poisoner. My father intercepted correspondence between Lady Margaret and the Poisoner, proving they were in league with each other. Neither of those facts could be true together, meaning I needed to find the lie first from my father.

The sound of voices coming from the closed door to my father's study, stilled my pacing. My mind tumbled through carefully laid paths to approach my father, none of them seemed quite right.

The door creaked open, I stood at attention to the side of the room. A fair-complexioned Persian man dressed in a silk patterned shalvar, a long tunic that reached past his knees, exited the room. A sarband turban covered his head, made of thick maroon fabric and interwoven with golden stitches. His dress reminded me of those I'd seen worn by the locals while stationed in the Gulf. His groomed beard traced his jawline and transitioned into a thin mustache with pointed tips His dark eyes took in my presence, but ultimately ignored me.

He gripped my father's right hand and with his other hand held my father's elbow. In a soft voice, he said, "Motevajjeh am."

Both my father and the man inclined their heads, eyes shut, and their right hands to their chests.

My father responded to the man as they stepped away from each other, "Be salamat."

The man inclined his head once more and bit his index finger briefly. I remembered it to mean, "God forbid," a widespread practice among the merchants whenever Navy men debarked. He looked at me again and turned away.

I watched the man until he rounded the corner, wondering what journey my father had sent him on. My father only ordered and never made requests.

"Alexander, enter. I do not have all day." My father's gruff and commanding voice brought me from my thoughts.

I nodded and entered the study. My father sat behind his desk and shuffled his papers together. He rolled up a map and put away the little statuettes of ships, people, and battalions, sweeping them away with a negligent hand. I noticed the word, "Afyūn," the Persian word for opium, inscribed in black across the top of one of the papers before my father added it to the pile.

He looked up at me over his gold octagon spectacles. "Speak up."

I cleared my throat, as he continued to organize his desk. "There have been some developments in the Poisoner case."

My father stilled his hands, but only for a moment. "Yes?"

"Who is Heman Claxton?"

My father didn't skip a beat. "A man of business, he ceased his activities fourteen years ago when the Poisoner left for the continent and has been a recluse ever since."

"What activities?"

My father paused watching my face judiciously. "He was involved with the Indian cotton trade in the early '30s, but his background before then is unknown. In the 1840s, he focused his attention to," he paused again, "shipping and made smart, but risky investments." My father cracked his knuckles against the desk, which told me that there was a lie embedded in what he just said.

"Investments?" He didn't answer. "You know Mr. Claxton."

"That is none of your concern." He returned his gaze to his paper.

"It seems as though nothing is ever, 'my concern.' You brought me out of the bloody Navy, out of my career, to run errands for you."

My father stood, shook out the paper and put it on the table. "There are things about this case that you do not need to know. I gave you your objectives, and I expect you to follow them." Silence filled the space. "Or did the Navy teach you nothing? You were only to have contact with the girl. Gain her trust and her connection to the Poisoner."

I watched him, clenching my jaw and holding my fist at my side. We said nothing for minutes.

"It's of no significance now, Mr. Claxton is dead. He died within hours of your visit yesterday." He opened another newspaper, this one in French.

"He's dead?" I whispered, once again assailed by guilt while none burdened my father.

"Yes." He barely looked up from the paper. "Mrs. Watts, his housekeeper, quickly confessed. My men found a bottle of blue mass in her possession. It was only a matter of time before his mind began to leave him."

"I think it already had." I swallowed back a painful lump in my throat.

My father's eyes followed the trade routes on a map of China. He pinched his nose. "What did he tell you?"

"He believes, I mean believed, that Lady Margaret's parents were murdered."

"Of course, they weren't. The old fool had spent too many years infused with mercury." My father's knuckles cracked loudly in the quiet space.

"But it's a strong lead..."

My father interrupted me, "No. I need you to investigate the girl not the ravings of a demented old man. Perhaps, the Poisoner killed Mr. Claxton to protect the girl and whatever information the man could have divulged if you hadn't been enraptured by his sad story." His steely eyes pierced me with doubt.

"As you wish, your grace." I gritted my teeth, but I wasn't ready to give up the lead just yet. No matter what my father said.

He relaxed in his chair upon my pronouncement. "Mrs. Watts wouldn't tell us who commissioned her to do it, but I think we can both guess who it was. She was taken into police custody yesterday evening. I've recently found out that she hung herself using the bed sheets in her room. It wasn't suicide. Her neck had been broken before she was slipped into the noose." My father looked me straight in the eyes as if daring me to refute him. "We have not told the family the cause of his death, and neither should you."

"Fine. I would like to see the correspondence between the lady and the Poisoner. It'll help me with the case."

My father cracked his knuckles again. "I do not have it at the moment but once C.I.D. returns it, you can have it though I doubt it will give you any information."

Part of me didn't believe the documents existed but I left my father to his lies, wishing only for escape. I settled on my horse, deciding om a ride to St. Katharine's docks to clear my head. The idea that the sea was only a ship away could soothe any encounter with my father. But tonight, the salt air tinged with coal did nothing to alleviate the gnawing in the pit of my stomach

My father's mistrust of women, or rather his remembrance of my mother, clouded his judgment. I wondered if it would cloud mine.