Bonfire Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

stirred but did not waken, and I did not like to leave her. I lay awake for awhile listening to the mournful sobs and the chains. In desperation, I put the pillow over my ears and finally slept, waking only when Portia elbowed me sharply in the ribs.
    “What the devil are you doing in my bed?” she demanded. “Did you try something immodest with Brisbane and he turned you out?”
    I rubbed my eyes. “I have yet to find anything Brisbane would consider immodest,” I informed her. “I stayed with you because you were drugged last night!”
    “Drugged!” She attempted to sit up, then collapsed against the pillows with a groan. “I think you may be right. I feel as if I’d been run down by a coach and six.”
    I fixed her with a firm look. “Did you take it yourself? A powder or something to help you sleep?”
    She rolled her eyes heavenward. “No, I did not. I sleep perfectly—you know that.”
    “Yes, but I did wonder...” I hesitated. The loss of her beloved partner was still fresh enough to sting. She had turned rather too often to drink in the months after Jane’s death, but I had thought those days were beginning to pass. If she thought to drug herself into oblivion, this was fresh trouble.
    She gave me a sad, sweet smile. “My dearest ninny, no. I will confess to enjoying my wine as much as the next fellow, but I have never had recourse to more exotic pursuits. Unlike your husband,” she added with a touch of asperity. She was not wrong. Brisbane’s fondness for the occasional pipe full of hashish was well-known to her. What was not generally known was my own appreciation for it. Still, it was a pleasure of which we partook only rarely, and I knew neither Brisbane nor I had packed any of the stuff for our trip into the country.
    “What was it, then?” I asked. “If you didn’t take it of your own volition and you did not drink more heavily than the rest, what did you take, and how was it given?”
    She thought a moment then shook her head. “There’s no way to know. I ate and drank everything the rest of you did, but several of the dishes were brought individually from the kitchens and all the wine was poured out of our sight. A simple sedative could have been slipped into any of the food or drink.”
    I glanced around the room, my eyes lighting on a beribboned box of chocolates sitting upon her dressing table. I rose and went to it. It was a generous box from a famous London confectioner. An identical box had been left upon my dressing table, but I had yet to open it.
    “Where did you get these?”
    “They were on the dressing table when I arrived,” she answered with a yawn.
    I opened the box. Several of the chocolates were missing. “When did you eat these?”
    “Just before we went down to dinner. I was a little peckish after the journey.”
    “You must have been. Nearly half of these have been eaten!”
    I took out the nearest chocolate and inspected it carefully. There was nothing remarkable about it, but the next yielded better results. I showed Portia where the bottom of the chocolate bore the telltale prick of a needle. I looked over the rest of the chocolates, and of those left in the box, well over half of them had been handled, and all from the centre of the box.
    “But why?” Portia asked, mystified.
    I shook my head. “I don’t know yet. But I mean to find out.”
    * * *
    I left Portia and went to rouse Brisbane. While he looked over Portia’s chocolates, I inspected my own. Half of those bore the same suspicious mark.
    “Filled with a sedative, too, no doubt,” I said, passing them to Brisbane. “But why in the centre of the box?”
    His voice was distracted. “Think of what happens when you go to choose a chocolate from a fresh box. Most people go directly to the centre.”
    “Yes, but why not adulterate them all just to be safe?”
    He considered this a minute. “Haste. If you only had a limited time to prepare them, you would inject the chocolates most likely to be