quotation was not as apt as I would have expected, but confirmed your identity. You decoded my message with help from Mr Babbage – my men have told me how you visit him. Now all that needs to be done is give the location where our ransom should be placed. I’m sure Mr Babbage can manage that alone.”
“I still don’t see why we need her.” The younger man who’d grabbed her on the jetty jerked his thumb at her. “I say she’s a liability. The ransom for the cathedral is enough.”
“Enough!” The blond man spoke quietly but with such venom that the other two men shrank back. “Nothing is enough, I’ve told you that before. I can never be recompensed for what I’ve been denied.” He looked at her, and she felt herself flinch. “I should have had the privileged life you’ve led – even more so. My father, the Duke, refused to acknowledge his by-blow, though. My mother told me everything. So I am making him and his kind pay – but on my terms.” He tossed back the last of his wine and went to the decanter for a refill. “As for why Miss Byron is here – I’ve sent a strong message: ‘Look at what I can do. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”. Ozymandias should be my middle name.’”
“Where did you learn to cipher?” Ada asked.
“Oh, I had a good education, the best. But I was bored, and found other things to interest me.”
“I have been tutored at home. And now,” she declared standing up, “I demand that you return me there.”
Her adversary flung his head back and laughed. “What if I decide to keep you? No one would be surprised. Mad George Byron’s daughter run off with an adventurer – only to be expected.”
Ada felt her throat grow tight. “My father,” she began, when suddenly she heard a voice from behind.
“Miss Byron, are you all right?”
“Robert!” He stood, pale and swaying a little, in the doorway to the second room.
“Get him,” the blond man ordered. As the other two men stood, Ada jumped up and ran to Robert.
“Leave him alone,” she said, standing protectively in front of him. “Haven’t you harmed him enough?”
“Not nearly enough,” growled the bearded man. “He should’ve died for his pains.”
“But someone did die,” Robert said. “That young man. You sent a message to the White Hart for him to come here. Why? Tell me that, before I follow him into the Thames.”
“He disobeyed me. He was supposed to hand my coded message to the speaker that night, to send the police searching after Radicals. At first he said he’d done so, but then we found out he was too frightened so he’d planted it on a policeman – you – to get rid of it. He’s learned his lesson now.”
“So that paper was never meant for me,” Robert said. “It was just chance. You chose that meeting to throw suspicion on the union men or the Irish.”
“Or even a latter-day Guy Fawkes. Now, get rid of him.” The blond man flicked his fingers and Ada braced herself, just as the sound of wood splintering, shouts and the blasts of whistles came from below.
“Quickly, out the back way. Bring her, kill him.”
Ada felt Robert’s arms take hold of her and together they struggled against the bearded man. She found a strength she didn’t know she possessed as she kicked out. But in the next moment the police had stormed up the stairs to their rescue and the blond man had shoved past them to escape through the back window.
*
“I have ordered up some meat and potatoes, and here’s some porter to drink.” Clark was smiling. Ada had heard him say several times, “A very good outcome indeed. Very good indeed.”
She sat beside Robert on one side of the grate, where the flames of a generous log fire gave as much light as the few candles around the room. Charles Babbage was on the other side, legs stretched out in front of him. They were in an upper floor private room of an eating house in the Strand. News had been sent to her mother that she was safe and would be home soon. She had been waiting for Clark’s restless energy to subside, but her questions could no longer wait for him to settle. She swallowed some of the bitter drink, her first taste of porter, coughed, and said, “You found me because of the message Rob— Constable Duckett