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Back Cardinal Black Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. One: Into the Storm
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Two: London Calling
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Three: The Malignant Seven
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Four: Squirrels and Cats
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Five: Revelation
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. About the Author

Matthew drew a long breath and let it slowly out. His ribs protested. “I do,” he answered. “It seems to me there’s no other choice. Two dead men on the floor with an invitation to the admiral’s house, and we two alive to go in their places. And I have to say, after all the preparations we’ll have to make, it had better be the admiral’s house and not just someone who likes to play with ship’s wheels!”

“Now that would be an evil trick of Fate, wouldn’t it? Speaking of Fate, we’ll have to be careful going in and out. Our next-door neighbors are the Turlentorts.”

“Wonderful! Well, we can’t risk them seeing us. Your charm may have worn off them by now and they would go directly to the manager,” said Matthew. He spent a moment roaming in thought before he spoke again. “If there’s any chance the book is in that house, we have to go. But even if we can somehow get the book and get out of there, we still have to find a chemist who can decipher the formulas.”

“Correct,” Julian said. “But first things first.”

“Right.”

“And the very first thing,” Julian contended, “is to drag those bodies somewhere out of sight and out of mind. I don’t want my Grand Suite marred by such trash on the floor. Then I plan to stretch out on that sofa and sleep for a few hours like a newborn, and you can either have the bed here or go back to twenty-six.”

“I think I’d best stay out of the hallway.” Even so, Matthew didn’t care for the idea of sleeping in a majestic bed with two corpses rolled up in a tapestry and set in a corner like cordwood.

“Let’s get to it, then,” said Julian. “I’m very near passing out.”

By the time they dragged the bodies into a small closet off the bedroom both men were spent to rags. Julian staggered off to the sofa and Matthew crawled into the bed without taking off a single item of clothing. Rummaging through the trunks and cases would have to wait, for Matthew had no strength to lift a lid. Knowing the dead men were curled up about ten feet from him had no effect on the willingness of his brain to go blank, and he knew not what dreams—or nightmares—might come ravening after him in the darkness of his own refuge, but blessedly so to sleep with the fireplace cackling like a crone’s laugh.

Thirteen

Thirteen

“No!”