Chapter 44
“Do you trust this Mr. Rouncewell explicitly?” Mrs. Annesley asked. Even knowing her surname was an assumed one, Richard could not bring himself to think of her as Mrs. Bird. There had been enough upheaval for one day without adding another complication.
“Yes. He is a good man—a man without a price.”
Mrs. Annesley clasped her hands together and looked out of the carriage window. “Such men are rare, Colonel.”
Unfortunately, she was right. Otherwise an operation such as Mrs. Finchley’s could never have succeeded. Life should be precious, priceless. But there were too many who would not hesitate to trade life for a fortune without a second thought.
Turning away from the window, Mrs. Annesley relayed, “Too many runners and even a couple of the magistrates are under Mrs. Finchley’s thumb. They have relatives who have benefited from her services.”
Richard understood her concern. “I shall speak only with Rouncewell. Once he sees your list, he will know whom to avoid and whom to approach.”
Mrs. Annesley handed the papers to him. “Here, you keep them.”
They saw Rouncewell leaving the office just as their carriage clattered to a stop. “I must catch him!” Clutching the list in his hand, Richard jumped onto the pavement and chased after his friend.
Rouncewell must have heard his hasty approach, for he spun around, fists raised. He dropped them to his side immediately once he recognized Richard. “You gave me a fright, Colonel.” His expression turned grave. “What has happened?”
Richard shoved the list at his friend. “We have enough evidence to prove that Mrs. Finchley is the head of an extensive operation trafficking children, from newborns sold to wealthy families to older children taken for ransom or sold into slavery. The inconvenient births are”—the word tasted bitter and awful crossing his tongue—“murdered.”
Rouncewell clutched his stomach and grimaced as his eyes read down the page. “I have only recently heard of the practice. ‘Baby farming’ they’re calling it. Monsters, the lot.”
“If we can charge Mrs. Finchley with the crimes she has committed, then we might be able to discourage the practice. My father is watching her residence with Darcy and Nick to ensure she does not attempt to escape, but we dare not apprehend her without the involvement of the law.”
“I will summon a couple more constables.”
Richard grabbed his arm. “Only men you trust. She is a slippery one; her reach is far.”
With a nod, Rouncewell bounded back inside the office.
Mrs. Annesley and Miss Rothschild paced on the pavement near the entrance with the colonel standing between them and the street.
Their carriage had to continue around the square or risk the angry shouts and jeers from all the conveyances it obstructed.
Richard prayed Rouncewell would have his men ready by their carriage’s return.
They were so close, any delay was unbearable, as was their risk of exposure.
A flower girl with chapped cheeks, a shift too light for the coming winter, and shoes that clapped against the sidewalk as she scurried over to them pressed a posy of daisies she had probably plucked from nearby Hyde Park against Richard’s hand.
She was no taller than his elbow. Following her was an older girl, better dressed, with bunches of flowers in a handbasket.
“Two bundles a penny, primroses! Sweet violets, penny a bunch!” she called out.
The little girl scowled and pressed, looking up at Richard with a fierce determination that undid his resolve not to part with a coin. “These is the finest daisies to be found in town, sir! Halfpenny a bunch!”
“Those weeds? I saw you pick them at the park.” The girl with the basket held up a posy of vibrant violets. “These come from a flower shop and will not wilt before you give them to your lady.”
The little girl slid her grip up the stalks of her drooping daisies, holding them upright. She nudged her wilted daisies against his hand, as though to remind him of her continued presence.
Stooping over and dropping his voice so as not to be overheard, Richard pulled a few pennies out of his pocket—enough for her to eat that day. The girl’s eyes widened, and she licked her lips. “I only have the one little bunch, sir.”
“And I shall give you these coins for your daisies so long as you promise me you will go directly to the baker and buy yourself some bread.”
“I could get a meat pie!” Quick as a flip of the whip, she shoved the flowers into his hand, grabbed the coins, and ran.
Richard watched her, content that her belly would soon be full. It was a small consolation when he knew she would only wake hungry on the morrow.
He held up the flowers, inspecting them. The daisies around the edge were wilted from the heat of her little hand, but the three or four daisies in the middle were in fine shape. Tossing the worst into the street, he joined the ladies.
Mrs. Annesley tapped her foot and watched the entrance of the Bow Street office intently. She gave no indication she had even seen or heard the flower girls. Miss Rothschild, on the other hand, smiled wider the closer he drew to her. Her sunny reception warmed Richard from top to bottom.
“You paid too much for those flowers,” she observed.
Richard’s face warmed with something other than pleasure.
He had not intended to be overheard, to show her how easily he was manipulated by a small child with ill-gotten flowers.
He tried to think of something clever to say, but the warmth in Miss Rothschild’s eyes melted him inside, and he found no words at all. Certainly not clever ones.
Dumbly, he held the daisies out to her, wishing they were roses or lilies or something more elegant.
He had not thought it possible for her smile to brighten, but Miss Rothschild’s emerald eyes sparkled as she reached out to take the flowers, her fingers brushing lightly over his and nearly knocking him over with the force of her touch.
He widened his stance to avoid falling and making a worse fool of himself.
“How did you know that daisies are my favorite flower?” She took the largest bloom and tucked it into the buttonhole of her redingote.
The others, she pressed into a book she pulled out from her reticule, beaming at Richard all the while and making him feel like he had truly done something grand and heroic.
Before Richard could compose an adequate reply—or any reply at all, for that matter—his father’s carriage stopped along the pavement, and Rouncewell joined them with two other constables. “You lead the way, Colonel, and we’ll follow,” he said, hopping into a hackney behind them.
Right. Back to Mrs. Finchley. Richard handed the ladies into their conveyance, and by the time they reached Bloomsbury, he had convinced himself that Miss Rothschild’s smile had not been as brilliant as he had imagined.
Father handed the ladies out of the carriage while Darcy paid the constables’ fare. “Three carriages arriving in a string,” Father grumbled. “We will have drawn some attention.”
“You have not seen anything out of place?” Richard asked.
“No, but I am concerned. Nick approached a maid seen leaving Mrs. Finchley’s residence, and when he asked if her mistress was in, the maid scurried away. He is afraid he spoke too forcefully or that his presence scared her, but I fear it is something else.”
Their corps crossed the street, Father taking the lead with Richard beside him.
The first sign that something was amiss was at the door. The knocker had been removed.
Then the butler opened the door before Father’s knuckles touched against the painted wood. “I regret to inform you that Mrs. Finchley is not in.” His stuffy voice belied sharp eyes that took in every detail of his mistress’ callers.
Prepared for such a reply, Father handed the butler his card, which only served to make the man stand stiffer. Smoothly, Father asked, “When do you expect her back?”
“I cannot say, Your Lordship. She gave no instructions.”
Nick nudged himself between them. “Not in, me eye! Stand aside, mister, unless ye want me to stomp over ye.”
The butler shifted his weight ever so slightly behind the door but otherwise held his ground.
Darcy spoke. “You can have no doubt why we are here, and who these men are.” He motioned to the constables behind him. “If you are protecting your employer, you shall be held in contempt of the law.”
The butler swallowed hard. With a sniff, he straightened his shoulders, though Richard noted how he managed to take one more step behind the protection of the door in the process.
Nick saw his opportunity and stepped into the opening, half in and half out, and thoroughly confounding the butler by preventing him from closing the door.
“Sh-she departed,” he gasped. “I do not know where or when she plans to return, and that is the truth.”
Rouncewell disappeared around the back of the house. He would check the butler’s story with the other servants.
Richard leveled his glare at the man, using his most authoritative tone, the one he spared for those insubordinates in danger of stepping out of line. “When precisely did she depart?”
“Th-three”—the butler cleared his throat—“days ago.”
“Three days!” Miss Rothschild gasped. “She could be anywhere by now.”
Richard turned back to the butler. He knew more, and Richard would ensure he learned what that was. Tossing a look at Nick, who seemed to grow in the doorway, towering and glowering at the shrinking butler, Richard asked, “Where do you think she went?”
Another half step behind the door. “I-I cannot be entirely sure. B-but it is my belief, she may be on h-her way to-to Ireland. More than that, I really cannot say.”
Rouncewell returned. “The cook and the groom report that the lady of the house departed three days ago, leaving no instructions for her return.”
It matched what the butler said.
Drat. Richard clenched his teeth.
“Lord Matlock—” began Nick.
“For the final time, I am your uncle,” Father snapped.
Nick made to object, but Father raised his hand. “You once lamented that you were in my debt. Well, I have settled on a satisfactory recompense. You address me properly as a nephew ought to, and I shall consider your debt erased. Now, what were you going to say, Nephew?”
Richard tugged his hair. Father and Nick’s bickering would not produce Mrs. Finchley. Where would she go? If they split up, they could ask at the port towns, but she might have already left England.
“Our jurisdiction is London. If she has fled from the country, there is little we can do to capture her,” Rouncewell admitted. “I am sorry, but there are few men willing to chase a criminal so far without guarantee of a reward. Most are thieves themselves.”
That was it! It was such a simple solution, Richard wondered why he had not thought of it sooner. “I know such a man.”