If he had—well, if he had, the Jacobite rebellion might have succeeded, Culloden might not have happened, I should never have gone back through the circle of stone…and I and Brianna would likely both have died in childbed and been dust these many years past. Surely twenty years should have been enough to teach me the futility of “if.”
Jamie had been considering, meditatively rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“It might have been,” he said at last. “Given a proper market for the coins and gems—ye ken such things take time to sell; if ye must dispose of them quickly, you’ll get but a fraction of the price. But given long enough to search out good buyers—aye, it might reach fifty thousand.”
“Duncan Kerr was a Jacobite, wasn’t he?”
Jamie frowned, nodding. “He was. Aye, it could be—though God knows it’s an awkward kind of fortune to be handing to the commander of an army to pay his troops!”
“Yes, but it’s also small, portable, and easy to hide,” I pointed out. “And if you were the Duke, and busy committing treason by dealing with the Stuarts, that might be important to you. Sending fifty thousand pounds in sterling, with strongboxes and carriages and guards, would attract the hell of a lot more attention than sending one man secretly across the Channel with a small wooden box.”
Jamie nodded again. “Likewise, if ye had a collection of such rarities already, it would attract no attention to be acquiring more, and no one would likely notice what coins ye had. It would be a simple matter to take out the most valuable, replace them with cheap ones, and no one the wiser. No banker who might talk, were ye to shift money or land.” He shook his head admiringly.
“It’s a clever scheme, aye, whoever made it.” He looked up inquiringly at me.
“But then, why did Duncan Kerr come, nearly ten years after Culloden? And what happened to him? Did he come to leave the fortune on the silkies’ isle then, or to take it away?”
“And who sent the Bruja now?” I finished for him. I shook my head, too.
“Damned if I know. Perhaps the Duke had a confederate of some sort? But if he did, we don’t know who it was.”
Jamie sighed, and impatient with sitting for so long, stood up and stretched. He glanced out the window, estimating the height of the sun, his usual method of telling time, whether a clock was handy or not.
“Aye, well, we’ll have time for speculation once we’re at sea. It’s near on noon, now, and the Paris coach leaves at three o’clock.”
* * *
The apothecary’s shop in the Rue de Varennes was gone. In its place were a thriving tavern, a pawnbroker’s, and a small goldsmith’s shop, crammed companionably cheek by jowl.
“Master Raymond?” The pawnbroker knitted grizzled brows. “I have heard of him, Madame”—he darted a wary glance at me, suggesting that whatever he had heard had not been very admirable—“but he has been gone for several years. If you are requiring a good apothecary, though, Krasner in the Place d’Aloes, or perhaps Madame Verrue, near the Tuileries…” He stared with interest at Mr. Willoughby, who accompanied me, then leaned over the counter to address me confidentially.
“Might you be interested in selling your Chinaman, Madame? I have a client with a marked taste for the Orient. I could get you a very good price—with no more than the usual commission, I assure you.”
Mr. Willoughby, who did not speak French, was peering with marked contempt at a porcelain jar painted with pheasants, done in an Oriental style.
“Thank you,” I said, “but I think not. I’ll try Krasner.”
Mr. Willoughby had attracted relatively little attention in Le Havre, a port city teeming with foreigners of every description. On the streets of Paris, wearing a padded jacket over his blue-silk pajamas, and with his queue wrapped several times around his head for convenience, he caused considerable comment. He did, however, prove surprisingly knowledgeable about herbs and medicinal substances.
“Bai jei ai,” he told me, picking up a pinch of mustard seed from an open box in Krasner’s emporium. “Good for shen-yen—kidneys.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, surprised. “How did you know?”
He allowed his head to roll slightly from side to side, as I had learned was his habit when pleased at being able to astonish someone.
“I know healers one time,” was all he said, though, before turning to point at a basket containing what looked like balls of dried mud.
“Shan-yü,” he said authoritatively. “Good—very good—cleanse blood, liver he work good, no dry skin, help see. You buy.”
I stepped closer to examine the objects in question and found them to be a particularly homely sort of dried eel, rolled into balls and liberally coated with mud. The price was quite reasonable, though, so to please him, I added two of the nasty things to the basket over my arm.
The weather was mild for early December, and we walked back toward Jared’s house in the Rue Tremoulins. The streets were bright with winter sunshine, and lively with vendors, beggars, prostitutes, shopgirls, and the other denizens of the poorer part of Paris, all taking advantage of the temporary thaw.
At the corner of the Rue du Nord and the Allée des Canards, though, I saw something quite out of the ordinary; a tall, slope-shouldered figure in black frock coat and a round black hat.
“Reverend Campbell!” I exclaimed.
He whirled about at being so addressed, then, recognizing me, bowed and removed his hat.
“Mistress Malcolm!” he said. “How most agreeable to see you again.” His eye fell on Mr. Willoughby, and he blinked, features hardening in a stare of disapproval.
“Er…this is Mr. Willoughby,” I introduced him. “He’s an…associate of my husband’s. Mr. Willoughby, the Reverend Archibald Campbell.”
“Indeed.” The Reverend Campbell normally looked quite austere, but contrived now to look as though he had breakfasted on barbed wire, and found it untasty.
“I thought that you were sailing from Edinburgh to the West Indies,” I said, in hopes of taking his gelid eye off the Chinaman. It worked; his gaze shifted to me, and thawed slightly.
“I thank you for your kind inquiries, Madame,” he said. “I still harbor such intentions. However, I had urgent business to transact first in France. I shall be departing from Edinburgh on Thursday week.”
“And how is your sister?” I asked. He glanced at Mr. Willoughby with dislike, then taking a step to one side so as to be out of the Chinaman’s direct sight, lowered his voice.
“She is somewhat improved, I thank you. The draughts you prescribed have been most helpful. She is much calmer, and sleeps quite regularly now. I must thank you again for your kind attentions.”
“That’s quite all right,” I said. “I hope the voyage will agree with her.” We parted with the usual expressions of good will, and Mr. Willoughby and I walked down the Rue du Nord, back toward Jared’s house.
“Reverend meaning most holy fella, not true?” Mr. Willoughby said, after a short silence. He had the usual Oriental difficulty in pronouncing the letter “r,” which made the word “Reverend” more than slightly picturesque, but I gathered his meaning well enough.