Toxic Diamonds (The Adventures of Xavier & Vic Book 8) Read online

“But we cannot delay the assessment of the body. Is there nothing we can do to protect ourselves?”

  David grimaced. “We could strap an oxygen tank to your back and have a rubber factory create you a non-porous rubber suit, I suppose, but it would be the devil to do in such short notice.”

  “What about a suit of canvas that is then dipped in rubber?” Claire suggested.

  “That would be better,” David replied. “However, it would still take days to create.”

  Tubs spoke up. “What if we place the fellow back in the carriage and drive it somewhere where no one lives and move him on the grass? Then you can remain upwind while you study him. And if we opened the doors of the carriage, we could freshen it out as well.”

  David shook his head. “That won’t work for the dead body. Your plan requires the wind to constantly blow in one direction. But winds can be most erratic. One gust in your face and you’ll all be unconscious. While this solution can be used to air out the carriage, it is not reliable enough to risk Xavier and Vic.”

  “But what if we wore masks?” Xavier persisted.

  “I don’t know of any masks that seals tight enough to the face to make this plan viable.”

  Xavier cursed softly then looked at Vic, as if expecting her to think of something.

  Seriously? If David couldn’t think of something, how could she? Yet, clearly, Xavier expected her to, so she gave the matter thought.

  “David,” Vic asked. “Have you come up with a solution for the basement?”

  He smiled. “That I have. We’ll use activated charcoal to absorb the hydrogen sulfide. All we have to do is set trays of the activated charcoal on the floor of the basement and leave it until the stench is gone. Then we can retrieve the trays. We can do the same for the carriage. The problem is it will take days to make the amount of activated charcoal we’ll need.” David looked hopefully to Dr. Connors. “Most hospitals keep a supply on hand for poisonings.”

  Connors grimaced. “We do, but not in the quantities this will require. I will ask for the supplier and contact him directly.”

  “Don’t bother. Claire and I can get the activated charcoal,” David said. “She’s very familiar with the suppliers.”

  Vic smiled at David. “So we’ve a solution for the basement using the activated charcoal trays. Since the dead body is already in the basement, can’t we just let the charcoal cleanse the air and then examine him?”

  David nodded. “Yes, we can.”

  “Excellent, then. Let’s get started.” Xavier focused on Davy. “Drive Marybell out of London to an empty field. Be sure to open the downwind carriage door first, then the upwind. But swallow some activated charcoal before you do, just to be safe.”

  “I’ll also unhitch Marybell from the carriage and move her further away from the poison before I open up the carriage.”

  “That’s an excellent idea,” David said. “Just be sure you walk her into the predominant wind direction. An acre away should be fine.”

  “David and Claire, I believe you have activated charcoal to purchase. How long will that take?” Xavier asked.

  Claire responded. “That depends. We will require a two-inch layer over the entire floor. If that quantity is not readily available, it could take up to three days to obtain. Someone should measure the width and length of the basement so we know exactly how much we need.”

  “I’ll do it,” Tubs said, and hurried out.

  Claire knew damn well that Tubs was the only one who could safely enter the basement, but she still refused to speak to him or even acknowledge his presence. Vic sighed. She might have become a reformist, but only to change others. She hadn’t changed her bad habits at all.

  Xavier held out his hand to Vic. “I am certain the rest of you have your normal chores to attend to. Vic and I will be upstairs if you need us.”

  Chapter 4

  Vic and Xavier hurried upstairs. Well, Vic hurried. Upon realizing Xavier hadn’t fully recovered from his near death and was falling behind, she rushed back to him and slipped her arm around his waist as he climbed the stairs.

  When he neared the top of the stairs, gasping for breath, he complained. “I am seriously thinking about quitting the service.”

  He meant his work for Internal Affairs, but she knew he loved his country too much to abandon it. “They change ministers all the time,” she offered. “Perhaps we can wait Barringbarn out.”

  Xavier sighed heavily. “One can only hope.”

  Once in their bedroom, he helped her undress, and she did the same for him. “Do you know how much I love you?” he asked.

  She nodded. “As much as I love you. Now let’s have some fun, because I’m pretty sure the rest of this day will be pure misery.”

  “Probably true,” Xavier agreed.

  When Vic leapt into the center of the bed, naked and hungry, Xavier wasted no time joining her.

  In the midst of a delightful climax, someone knocked on the door.

  Xavier paused in their lovemaking. “Any chance you locked the door?”

  Vic grimaced and shook her head.

  Xavier sighed, kissed her hard on the mouth, then extracted himself and rolled off the bed. He snared his robe and stormed to the door. Opening it three inches, he snapped, “What?” before he’d even seen who waited on the other side.

  “I apologize sir,” Gregory replied. “But the Minister of Internal Affairs has placed himself in your library. Given his recent proclivity to steal the keys to our house, I assigned Fagan to ensure he remains in a chair and touches nothing while he waits.”

  Xavier had a great desire to hug the old man. He couldn’t wait to see the outrage in Barringbarn’s eyes when he was downgraded to a five-year-old child prone to stealing.

  “We’ll get dressed and attend to the fellow in short order.”

  When he turned back to chide Vic for lollygagging about when the minister awaited them downstairs, he discovered she was already dressed and brushing her hair. She had also laid his best suit on the bed.

  “Why the bloody hell do I need to wear my best suit?”

  Vic grinned. “If he is here to fire you, then we’ll already be dressed to go out and celebrate. If he is here to give us a better task, then we can celebrate that instead.”

  When they entered the library, Barringbarn was bellowing at poor Fagan. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Well, I do,” Vic announced as she entered the room. “And Xavier does, will that do?” She then turned to Fagan. “You may escape now.”

  The young man wasted no time leaving the room.

  The moment the door closed, a full out tantrum blew. “I gave you the simplest of orders. Follow the spy, log everyplace he goes, then bring him to me so I could interrogate him!”

  Xavier sat at his desk since Barringbarn had taken his reading chair.

  Vic sat in her chair and narrowed her eyes as she responded. “After leaving your house, he went straight to a pub. Stayed until two, then stumbled through some of the poorer, odoriferous streets of London, finally reaching a warehouse on the docks. I’ve no idea if he planned to enter the warehouse, since someone shot him in the leg.” Vic spoke to Xavier. “It was possibly the young lady who shot him.”

  Xavier frowned at her suggestion.

  “In any case, by the time we reached him, he was dead.”

  The minister stood and stormed towards Xavier, slamming his palm on the desktop. “Bullocks! First of all, young ladies do not walk the streets so late at night, and they certainly do not carry weapons. Secondly, why did you not stop her? Thirdly, no one dies from a leg wound. Fourthly, why am I just hearing about this now? And fifthly, where is his body?”

  Vic rolled her eyes over his stupid need to count every issue. “Well, she’s our only known suspect, unless you poisoned him with hydrogen sulfide before you sent him off to the pub.”

  “Hydrogen sulfide? I’ve never heard of it,” the minister stammered, then paused. “Is that what you think killed him?”

&
nbsp; By the worry in his voice, she suspected Barringbarn knew what hydrogen sulfide was. “Yes, and it almost killed Xavier and my entire staff.”

  “Nonsense,” Barringbarn snapped. “At worst, you would have endured a sore throat and a rash.”

  “Not at the potency of this gas. Your boy was and still is a serious health hazard to London,” Vic replied.

  “Then he is alive? Why did you not return him as I requested?” Barringbarn demanded.

  Vic stared up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “Because we have been struggling to survive in the aftermath of this fiasco. You clearly have a misconception as to the danger of this gas!”

  “And I can have you thrown in jail or worse for disobeying my orders!”

  “Vic, leave us,” Xavier said as he gripped her shoulder. “I’ll deal with this.”

  “Good luck on that,” Vic muttered and stormed from the room.

  “I don’t want that boy working on any future cases,” Barringbarn declared.

  “He’s very bright and amazingly intuitive.”

  Barringbarn paced back and forth. “Not that I’ve seen. Now bring the spy to me.”

  “Your spy, if he was such, is dead. We’ve yet to be able to examine the body to determine cause of death, but given that I fell unconscious just by being in his proximity, I’m not going out on a limb when I declare cause of death was by hydrogen sulfide, delivered in a toxic dose.”

  “You can’t know that for a fact. It’s possible he bled out from the bullet shot.”

  “That would not explain the toxicity of his body,” Xavier countered.

  “You should have delivered the body to me at once.” Barringbarn snapped.

  “Then everyone in your house would have died, including you. I have engaged two experts in the matter. The body is lethal and will remain so until we can contain the gas.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?”

  “By placing activated charcoal in the basement.”

  “Will that work?” he asked in surprise.

  “Evidently. And had you given the boy a supply of activated charcoal, he might have survived as well. But maybe you wanted him dead.”

  “I didn’t want the boy to come to harm. But he did possess an irrational anger towards my son.”

  “Why?” Xavier asked.

  “Jealousy, I suppose. He overheard that my son is temporarily in charge of Scotland Yard.”

  “Where’s Stone?” Xavier demanded.

  Barringbarn grimaced and turned away. “He went on vacation, I believe.”

  Xavier glared at the man as he paced back and forth. “Stone has never gone on a vacation in his entire life. And do you know why?”

  “I have no interest in the man’s personal life.”

  Xavier replied with deadly intensity. “Because running a massive police force and dancing to the whims of the Queen, the Parliament in general, and specifically, the House of Lords, leaves no time for vacations.”

  “Well, he did, so it must not be as difficult of a job as you claim.”

  “And where, pray tell, did he go?”

  “We don’t know,” Barringbarn muttered.

  Xavier rose and slammed his fist upon his desk. “This is utter cock and bull. Director Stone would never go on a vacation, but if he were forced to, he would have let me know. So, I ask you again, where is Director Stone?”

  Barringbarn threw his hands into the air. “He stopped coming to work a week ago. We sent out agents to his home, but no one is there.”

  He stormed towards Barringbarn. “Bloody Hell! And you didn’t think Vic and I might not have been of use finding him?”

  “I sent very good men to investigate!”

  “To watch his house, you mean.” Xavier paced back and forth then finally stopped in front of Barringbarn. “Allow me to state, categorically, that you are the worst Internal Affairs minister Britain has ever had.”

  “That attitude is exactly why you weren’t called in. And quite honestly, I blame Victor for the change in you. When we first met, you would jump at my every command.”

  Xavier gave that a moment of thought. “I did, because all the previous ministers had been competent. But I soon discovered you hadn’t a clue what to do. And to prove this point, I’m assuming you gave Barns strict orders not to let us know or work on the case.”

  “Barns doesn’t know anything about my secretary’s death,” Barringbarn snapped.

  Xavier looked up at the ceiling. “I was discussing the case of our most valuable missing director. My God man! Do you realize how hard it is to find a trail a week later?”

  “He’s probably gone on vacation, or perhaps he quit. Barns doesn’t seem to be enjoying the position either.”

  Xavier stormed up to the minister. “Do you know how many years it took me to make Stone into a fabulous director? Barns is a bright young man, but he is not ready to fill Stone’s shoes. No one is!”

  “Well, perhaps you should spend your time training him, because my men believe Stone has been permanently removed.”

  Suddenly the door burst open and Vic stormed in. “Does that mean you believe him dead or that you’ve got him locked away somewhere? For it sounded like the latter to me.”

  “How dare you!”

  “No, sir! How dare you not tell us when a man a hundred times your worth goes missing!”

  “Rein in your cub, Xavier,” Barringbarn warned.

  “I am not anyone’s cub. I am his equal partner. And as of now we have a case worthy of our finest efforts.” She turned to Xavier. “Are you with me?”

  Xavier smiled at her. “Indeed I am.” He rang a bell which quickly brought their highly efficient butler into the library. “Gregory, please see Mr. Barringbarn to the door.”

  “Hold on! I need to see the body!” Barringbarn demanded.

  Xavier shook his head. How many times did he have to tell the idiot the body is deadly, even when dead? “Gregory, will you ask Tubs to lead Barringbarn to the basement of our office? I have forewarned him that he will fall unconscious from the stench, but he clearly doesn’t believe me. However, so I can be saved from endless paperwork as to why the Minister of Internal Affairs died in my basement, have Tubs stand by to rescue him. He should then drop him in the back yard where the man can recover in private without too many people thinking him drunk. Then have Tubs join us at Scotland Yard. And once you’ve managed all that, call Jacko and tell him we desperately need him on a matter that is life and death.”

  He then smiled at Vic. “Let’s go find our missing and worthy of saving, Director Stone.” At the door, he turned to Barringbarn. “And if you have truly tucked the man away, I would suggest you give me the location at once.”

  Barringbarn’s face grew tomato red. “I have already told you. I don’t know where he is!”

  Vic studied the man’s face of worry and anguish. Her eyes narrowed. “You kidnapped him so your son could be director, but then someone stole him from you…and the dead kid was supposed to find him, only you couldn’t trust him since he hates your son, so you had us follow him.”

  Barringbarn stared at her in horror.

  Vic rolled her eyes. “I don’t read minds, I read facial expressions. You definitely had Stone, but someone else stole him away from you. Interesting…”

  She then looked up at Xavier. “He’s worthless. Let’s work this without him.”

  When they left the room, Tubs waited in the hallway.

  Vic gripped his arm. “Tubs, come with us. If the fool ignores Xavier’s warnings and goes to the basement, we’ll just move his body to the countryside later. We need to find Stone.”

  The Minister of Internal Affairs stormed out of the library, having heard Vic’s comment. “Xavier, you seem to believe you are irreplaceable, but let me assure you, no one is.”

  Xavier gave him a nod. “I am counting on that.”

  Once the fool left the house, Xavier turned to more important matters. “We’ll need to engage Samson to go among
the various Crime Lords in case they have Stone.”

  “Good idea,” Tubs said. “There’s been a lot of trouble at the docks in the last week. I was beginning to think London was collapsing under its own growth.”

  Arroo, their blood hound, burst into the room from the servants’ hall. Soon after, Sara arrived with her son, Ham, and Vic’s son, Cannon.

  “We wanna come,” Ham declared. “We can smell.”

  Arroo, their bloodhound, barked in agreement.

  Thankfully, her three-year-old son, Cannon, no longer growled or barked. Instead, he stared intently into Xavier’s eyes, as if trying to mesmerize him.

  Determined to move matters along, Vic observed, “If we need to follow a trail, these are your pups.”

  Xavier huffed. “They can’t go in alone.”

  “True.” Vic replied, then gripped Sara’s arm. “But an actress, three pups, and her sister could create great chaos.”

  Xavier gave Vic a wink. He, better than anyone, knew how well she could create chaos.

  “Tubs, while disguises don’t work on you, you excel at lurking in dark shadows. If you think you can sneak in while Vic creates chaos, try to get in the file room on the third floor and see if you can determine what Stone was working on before he went missing. Otherwise, lurk about outside.”

  Xavier then focused on Sara. “Since you’ve never been to Scotland Yard before, no one will recognize you. Just wait for Vic to return in her disguise and do what she says.”

  Vic smiled at Sara. “You and the boys will no doubt arrive before us. Wait for me in the carriage. Xavier and I have to stop off at his other house to put on our disguises. Then we’ll arrive at Scotland Yard and lodge a complaint that no one but the director can fix. When we reach his office, find something of Stone’s to give the pups his scent.”

  “Excellent!” Xavier stated. “But be warned. If Barringbarn spent this much effort to keep us out of the loop, entering Scotland Yard won’t be easy. There will be people who are posted about with the sole job of stopping us from entering. But I’ll lay odds they’ll only be looking for Vic and me and we’ll be in disguise.”

  Chapter 5