way down.
Charismo rolled his eyes. “Oh, now look, there is blood on Tibor’s special desk. I shall be exceedingly glad when you are dead, Miss Savano. I had hoped to interrogate you as I did the boy, perhaps learn how the world has turned since my day, but now I think I shall forgo that pleasure and proceed directly to the endgame.”
Chevie spat blood on the rug. “What about your queen? How would she feel about all these murders?”
“Old Vic?” said Charismo. “I do not care a fig for Her rheumatic Majesty, beyond the fact that her patronage secures my status. At any rate, she will die confused at the dawn of the new century, and her daughter the following year, which will ring the closing bell on the house of Hanover.”
“And what of your precious Duke of Westminster?”
Charismo laughed bitterly. “That old coot will be gone before Christmas. Would that he should survive another twenty years, as it is extremely convenient to have the ear of the richest man in Britain. But no, the outdoor life will sow the seeds of bronchitis, and that shall do the duffer in.”
Charismo knelt and tousled Chevie’s hair. “Do you know, I would have preferred to have kept you alive. We could have spoken of the future. I have so many plans. One, for example, is that I could change the course of wars. Imagine how different World War One would be if the Germans were warned not to torpedo the Lusitania. America would never enter the war, and by 1918 England would be a German colony, with Tibor Charismo very nicely placed in its court. That is just one of my many ideas.”
“You’re mad,” said Chevie, trying hard to keep Charismo’s attention on her.
“Mad, delusional, comatose. Who cares? I am happy, and I intend to remain happy for as long as possible.”
Charismo dinged a service bell on his desk and Barnum entered, still a little sulky from his recent dismissal.
“Oh, you wants me back in the room, does you, master?”
“Don’t be petulant, Barnum. Your boxer’s countenance does not suit the expression.”
“Very good, master. What’s the drill with these two? I was thinking a quick stab over the kitchen sink, for to catch the blood, then into a sack and roly-poly down the embankment.”
Charismo tick-tocked his letter opener, considering this. “No, Barnum. I want these two to disappear entirely. Not so much as a hair left.”
“Then there are two avenues we can advance along. One, I has an old army pal with a pig farm by Newport. Pigs will eat from crown to toe, brain and bone, makes no differ to a pig.”
“I think not,” said Charismo. “The last time you tramped pig dung all over my carpets. What is our second choice?”
“Burning,” said Barnum simply. “I chop ’em in the kitchen and feed ’em slow into the furnace. Takes a few days and is grisly labor, but once the job is done, all the king’s horses couldn’t put these two bad eggs together again.”
Charismo giggled. “Nicely put, Mr. Barnum. You do make me smile. The furnace it is, but do your stabbing business in the kitchen.”
“Very good, master,” said Barnum, and he slung Chevie over one shoulder. “Can you manage for an hour while I make a start on the butchering?”
“You go ahead,” said Charismo magnanimously. “I shall be perfectly fine. . . . Oh, perhaps you might bring some more cakes when you have finished cutting. Tibor is peckish.”
“More cakes. Of course, master.”
Charismo winked at Chevie. “Master. I get shivers, every time.”
To Tibor’s utter surprise, Chevie had enough spirit for one last comment. She looked the WARP witness directly in the eye and said, “You talk too much.”
A statement not just of opinion but of fact, as it would turn out.
Barnum swung Riley by the belt in an arc toward his other shoulder. However, as soon as the manservant’s hand was free, the poisoned boy somehow found the strength to roll off and land on Charismo’s chest.
“Murderer!” he slurred. “You killed my family.”
“Eeek!” said Charismo. “Get him off me, Barnum. He could have lice.”
Had Riley been more alert, he might have been able to land a painful or even fatal blow, but in his drugged state it was all he could do to squirm a little and pat Charismo’s chest like an infant.
“C’mere, boy,” said Barnum, and he reclaimed his prisoner with strong fingers, tossing him back onto his free shoulder.
“Take care, Barnum,” said a shaken Charismo, checking his mask. “Even