Prehistoric Clock Read Free Page B

sat.
    “Lord Embrey, might we enquire as to the reason for your tardiness? I recall this is not the first time.” The hawkish, crookbacked chairman, the Rt. Hon. Lorne Wallingford, a member of the Whig cabinet, didn’t look up from the documents arrayed in front of him.
    “You may enquire, yes.”
    “I see. And may we now also proceed, if Your Lordship deigns to stand accused?”
    Hateful old Quasimodo. “Pray proceed, sir, if you have the gall to accuse face-to-face.”
    “Very well. Let us begin,” Crookback said, to much rustling of paper around the tables. “On March seventh last year, your father, the Marquess of Embrey, and your uncle, Lord Fitzwalter, were executed after being found guilty of treason against the Crown. Their crimes were perpetrated in the Benguela region of Angola, West Africa, and those actions led to a vicious assault by our enemies on the construction of our second Leviacrum tower—an assault which, I must remind you, cost the lives of hundreds of British servicemen and women. Lord Embrey, you have been summoned by this committee to answer the charge of aiding that assault by means of direct correspondence with your father and uncle, assisting in the redeployment of British regiments from Benguela, and by contacting elements of the rebel Coalition forces personally. ”
    Embrey shot out of his seat at that last remark. “ What? Since when? What is this? I demand an explanation.” Hushed chatter throughout the assembly suggested this was a pre-emptive gambit, something Wallingford and his cronies had cooked up in private. In other words, a hatchet job. Remembering his promise to keep his composure was the only thing stopping him from chinning the old bastard, crookbacked or not.
    “I have before me signed documents proving your collusion, sir. No further explanation is needed. Professors Talbot and Vaughn-Britton, two noted forensic document examiners, are willing to testify under oath that it is indeed your signature. They are waiting in the next room. I will summon them in due course, but first I would like to read the documents aloud to this committee so that it might better gauge the gravity of your complicity in these events.”
    Embrey thrust an adamant finger at the chairman. “You dare spit one more word of fiction. I’m warning you.”
    Forged letters? Handwriting experts? Throwing an insane charge of treason at him? It was so eerily reminiscent of Father’s and Uncle Ralph’s travesty of a trial at the Old Bailey that he shuddered. His knuckles and fingertips gripping the table’s edge turned white. He lifted them and watched his moist fingerprints fade to darkness. Would his family name, his great and noble lineage, be next? He stepped to one side. An atavistic call to flight rang through him from head to toe—it urged him to take the quickest possible exit.
    “Lord Embrey, the sooner you take your seat and cooperate, the sooner you will have your opportunity to rebut these charges. Bear in mind, sir, that this is only a preliminary hearing and no official criminal indictments have entered the judiciary. Our job is merely to ascertain the veracity of these documents…and your own evidence, of course.” Crookback leaned across to confer with his colleague, a much taller, fat man with a double chin.
    How did these sons of bitches get away with stunts like this? Embrey stepped farther from his chair.
    “Lord Embrey,” Double Chin said, “I must remind you that until these hearings are satisfactorily resolved, you must not leave London.”
    “Who put you up to this? The Leviacrum Council?”
    “I beg your pardon!”
    “You’ll rot in hell for this. Mark my words, you unconscionable bastards .” Embrey thumped the table with a livid fist. So much for composure.
    Crookback whispered something to the monocled clerk, who rushed for the door Embrey had entered through. This couldn’t end well. Two police constables guarded the front of Grosvenor House, and Wallingford