CHAPTER 8 #2
“No! That, is, we knew each other at Cambridge, but I hadn’t seen him since then until our paths recently crossed at a tavern near Covent Garden. We fell into conversation and . . .” Gannett made a face. “After several tankards of ale, he asked me to write that god-benighted note.”
Ah—perhaps they were getting closer to the real culprit. “Did he say where he was living?”
“No, but . . .” He gulped in a shallow breath. “But he seemed on very friendly terms with the tavernkeeper. Ask at the Crown and Scepter on Cross Lane off Cattle Street. The man may have the information you seek.”
“I know the place,” confirmed Sheffield. “It appeals to ruffians and reprobates.”
The trail seemed to be growing clearer, the scent stronger. But as for the miscreant’s motive, Wrexford wanted to confirm they weren’t barking up the wrong tree.
“A last question—has Hollis ever shown himself to hold radical political ideas?”
Gannett blinked away the beads of sweat clinging to his lashes. Or perhaps they were tears of relief. “Good God—yes! He was always ranting about the ills of society, and how the monarchy and the Church stood in the way of creating a true utopia.”
His gaze shifted and suddenly he pointed into the gloom. “Just ask Kirkland!”
Wrexford spun around and spotted the dark-on-dark silhouette of a figure standing deep in the shadows. And yet he’d been sure the corridor was deserted just a few minutes ago when he’d slammed Gannett up against the wall.
The man stepped forward, bringing with him a flutter of chill air as he fumbled with the fall of his trousers.
That explained it, thought the earl. The back alleyway would serve as a pisspot for the patrons.
“Come, Kirkland, you knew Hollis during our undergraduate days! Tell them how he was expelled as a troublemaker,” pleaded Gannett. “Remember how he was always rattling on about the rights of the common man and the oppression wrought by church and state?”
“No,” replied Kirkland. He turned to the earl, and the weak light of the sconce caught the haughty curl of his well-shaped mouth. “I remember no such thing.”
“But you must!” exclaimed the gamester, terrified that his alibi was slipping away.
Kirkland expelled a martyred sigh. His face was handsome, with chiseled features—and the look of arrogant boredom that Wrexford so loathed in his peers. He appeared to consider the plea for a long moment before drawling, “I suppose the name rings a faint bell.”
With a careless tug, he pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves that matched the burgundy color of his coat. “And yes, as you say, the fellow was a thoroughly dirty dish.”
“You see!” said Gannett quickly. Grasping to keep hold of the chance to throw the blame on someone else, he added. “Now that I think of it, Carruthers knew Hollis too. He’s throwing dice in the next room—let’s go ask him if he knows the bloody bastard’s address.”
“There seems little to lose,” observed Sheffield.
“If you gentlemen will excuse me . . .” With a brusque nod, Kirkland brushed past them. “I must be going.”
Wrexford watched him walk away. The man looked vaguely familiar . . . but then, he had likely met every donkey’s arse who moved within the beau monde’s privileged circle.
“A conceited coxcomb,” muttered Sheffield, sensing the earl’s interest. “He gambles often and deeply, though usually in fancier places than this one. Not that he has much success, but his purse always seems full.” A grimace. “A generous father, I suppose. Which is bloody unfair.”
“Aye, bloody unfair,” agreed Gannett. “Fortune ought to favor—”
“We’re wasting time,” cut in Wrexford. “Let’s see if Carruthers knows where Hollis resides. If not, we’ll head on to the Crown and Scepter.”
As he expected, the visit to the dice table brought no luck.
Against the squawking of Gannett, Wrexford took the precaution of paying the owner of the gambling hell to lock the gamester in a storage closet for the night.
However unlikely a villain the man now appeared, the earl wasn’t willing to risk making a lethal mistake.
* * *
The tavern was, as Sheffield had said, a dingy, dirty hole in the wall that catered to a rough crowd. The owner pretended to know nothing of Hollis, but a fistful of guineas soon loosened his tongue, and they were given an address.
“It’s not far away,” said his friend as they exited through the back of the building. “Follow me.”
Wrexford felt his pulse quicken, their loping footfalls over the uneven cobbles echoing the rush of blood through his veins.
After a quick traverse through a twisting alleyway, Sheffield stopped at the head of a narrow lane and motioned at a brick building on their right.
Pulling the two pistols from his coat pockets, the earl hurriedly checked the priming and handed one over. “I’ll lead the way from here,” he whispered.
Clouds scudded over the moon, hiding their approach to the rickety entranceway. He slid a thin knife from his boot, prepared to pick the lock. But a touch to the iron keyhole showed it was broken.
The door swung open with a tiny groan.
Up the stairs he went, swiftly and silently taking the treads two at a time. It was dark as Hades, and on reaching the top floor, Wrexford was forced to feel his way along the wall to find the latch to their quarry’s lair.
It, too, yielded to the pressure of his palm . . .
Which stirred a sudden prickling at the nape of his neck.
Taking hold of Sheffield’s arm, he quickly positioned him on one side of the door. Then, after drawing back the hammer of his weapon, he kicked in the door, and ducked low.
Nothing. No shot exploded from inside. Indeed, the room was dark and unnaturally still.
Wrexford waited for another moment before cautiously edging over the threshold.
After several steps, his boot hit up against a smashed chair.
He reached down and felt broken glass on the floor.
The odor of lamp oil swirled up from the planks.
“Damnation.” He found a fallen candle and struck a flint to the wick.
The spark of light revealed a scene of chaos.
A table and three other straight-back chairs had been knocked to flinders.
The small desk lay overturned, the contents of the drawers strewn helter-pelter through the puddles of oil.
Feathers from the slashed bed pillows had fallen atop the debris, the downy curls looking absurdly delicate against the splintered wood.
The flickering flame also showed a number of pamphlets strewn over the floor. Though the ink was already turning illegible on the paper, Wrexford easily recognized the symbol and headline.
The Workers of Zion. They had come to the right place.
Sheffield found another candle and lit it. Just as he was about to speak, Wrexford held up a warning hand and went very still.
The sounds were barely discernable—a ghostly creaking from the unseen rafters, a faint whoosh of air through the crack in the window . . .
A whispery groan, rhythmic in its rise and fall.
Muttering another oath, the earl moved into the alcove off the main room. A man lay spread-eagle on the floor, his breath going in and out with a labored gurgle.
Crouching down beside him, Wrexford held the candle closer to the sound and saw why. A deep slash cut across the man’s throat, leaving the windpipe half-severed. Blood had turned his shirtpoints scarlet.
As the light touched his face, the man’s eyes fluttered up, resignation pooled in the dark and dilated pupils.
Perhaps he could see the specter of death moving inexorably closer and closer.
“Hollis?” asked Wrexford.
A tiny nod.
“Who—” he started to ask, but seeing Hollis was trying to speak, he quickly stopped and leaned closer.
The man’s lips were moving—a zephyrous stirring of air tickled against the earl’s cheek. But no words came forth. Just a deathly wheezing, low and horrible to hear, from the ruined windpipe.
Wrexford untied his cravat and carefully wound it around Hollis’s throat, hoping to keep the Grim Reaper at bay for a little longer.
“A-Ashton.” Hollis finally managed a sound. “Didn’t . . . k-kill . . . Ashton.”
“Do you know who did?” he demanded.
Hollis moved his head ever so slightly, setting off a sputtering cough.
The devil take it—the man is choking on his own blood.
“I . . . I know . . .” Another cough. “Find . . .”
“Here, let me make you more comfortable.” Pulling off his coat, the earl pillowed the dying man’s head to help him breathe.
Hollis grimaced. “Find . . . find . . .”
“Find who?” pressed Wrexford, trying to keep a rein on his frustration. Placing a hand on Hollis’s shoulder, he gave a squeeze, willing him to hold on.
Exhausted by his efforts, the man let his eyelids fall shut. Pain twisted his features. The Reaper’s scythe was cutting ever closer. Wrexford could hear the last gasps of breath dying in Hollis’s lungs.
Think, think! Grasping at straws, he mentally ran down the list the widow had given him.
“One of Ashton’s investors? His assistants,” he suggested.
A flash of emotion in Hollis’s eyes seemed to say no. “F-Find N-Nevins . . .” Lifting a hand, he fluttered a wave at the main room. “Numbers . . . Numbers will reveal everything.”
“Who’s Nevins? And what numbers?” coaxed Wrexford.
No response.
“Damnation—don’t die yet,” he muttered, sliding his hands beneath the man’s head and trying to win him a few more precious seconds.
Hollis opened his eyes. His lips formed the faint whisper of an ‘H’, but in the next heartbeat it was gone.
“Bloody hell.” The earl leaned back from the corpse and stared at his gore-covered fingers. If only the carriage had rattled over the cobblestones just a little faster, if only the tavernkeeper hadn’t played coy in his haggling . . .
If only he had never walked through the stinking, scum-smeared alleyways of Half Moon Gate.
Sheffield touched his shoulder, bringing him out of his brooding. “I wouldn’t second-guess yourself, Wrex. Guilty men are wont to proclaim their innocence right down to their dying breath.”
“On the contrary.” Wrexford slid his coat free from beneath the dead man’s head, grimacing at the blood saturating the soft melton wool. Tyler would likely faint over the task of trying to clean it.
“During the Peninsular War, I saw far more hardened criminals than Hollis shuffle off their mortal coil,” he went on. “When faced with meeting their Maker, most men want to make a clean breast of it.”
“So you believe him that he didn’t do it?” asked Sheffield.
“Yes.” A gut reaction. But according to Charlotte, he should learn to trust his instincts.
“But if Hollis didn’t kill Ashton . . . who did?”
Wrexford’s mouth thinned to a grim line.
“I haven’t got a clue.” He looked around at the ransacked room and swore again. “And we’d need the Devil’s own luck to find anything useful here.”
He rose, and out of frustration kicked at one of the overturned desk drawers. The savage crack of it exploding into shards was so satisfying that he swung another kick at the second one.
Crack. The base panel split apart, revealing a small hidden compartment in the false bottom. The guttering candles showed a pale glimmer of paper caught in the splinters.
Crouching down, Sheffield quickly eased it free. “Satan be praised,” he murmured as he took a quick glance. “Have a look.”
Numbers.
Wrexford studied a page full of what looked to be a random jumble of numerals. “Rooms like these are rented furnished,” he pointed out. “We’ve no idea how long this has been in the drawer.”
A list of debts, an inventory of some sort—bloody hell, it could be anything!
“True,” replied Sheffield. “But perhaps we’ve gotten very lucky.”
“It wouldn’t be luck, Kit. It would be a miracle,” retorted the earl. Nevertheless, he carefully folded the paper and put it into his pocket.