Chapter 23
For two nights Ives and Padua waited. Two nights Gareth held vigil in the alley. For two nights nothing happened. On the third day, Ives made a decision on a matter he had been debating. He rode to the Home Office, and called on Strickland.
“Do you want to catch a whale?”
Strickland’s eyes lit. “Hell, yes. Nothing would advance my career faster. Do you have one in your sights?”
“I do. Bringing you into it comes with conditions, however.”
Strickland grimaced. “A lot of lawyer talk is coming, isn’t it?”
“Some. I will be relying on your friendship more than any formal terms, however. That, and your word as a gentleman.”
“You had better let me hear those conditions. I am suddenly uneasy.”
“I have reason to think that Belvoir’s accomplices will be making themselves known tonight. You are welcome to join me when they do.”
Strickland eyed him. “And the condition?”
“If I am wrong, you never speak of what you see or hear.”
Strickland thought that over. “That is a damnable condition.”
Ives shrugged. “Have it your way. Do not say I did not offer.” He turned to the door.
“Now wait. Give a man a minute to think things over.” He did. “How bad might things be if you are wrong?”
“No worse for you than for me.”
“I don’t find that reassuring, for some reason.”
“Your choice is simple, as is mine. We can let a man stand trial for crimes that far surpass his guilt, or we can attempt to bring the real culprits to justice. Remember justice? It is why we do what we do. This is England, and the word used to mean something here.”
Strickland flushed. “Do not preach at me. I’ll not sit for it when I know in my gut you are up to something that you shouldn’t do.”
“You are right. I should not preach. I will instead appeal to your baser desires to further your career.”
Strickland’s face reddened more. “What must I do?”
“Go to Langley House at eight o’clock this evening. My brother Gareth will be there. He will tell you what to do.”
* * *
They waited again, but it was different this time. Padua sensed something in the air, a pending excitement. Ives remained more alert, listening to every sound that came through the walls.
“Mrs. Lavender took ill after dinner,” Padua reported. “She seemed fine, the servants said, then later complained of a malady of the stomach.”
Ives looked over from where he sat, looking at nothing, thinking. Waiting. “Was Emily Trenholm at that dinner?”
“Perhaps so. It was said Mrs. Lavender was relieved Emily would be able to stand in at the office.”
Ives stood and went to the door. He looked out, then closed it. “I think it will happen differently from what we expected. I do not think the man we seek will come to this door.”
“Then how?” She had accommodated her nerves to the idea Ives would be right near her when that man arrived.
“If Emily has taken Mrs. Lavender’s place, I think he will walk in the front door, like a patron.” He raked his hair with his fingers. “I will return in two minutes. If anyone comes here, do not leave the chamber. Put them off if they try to call you away.”
He slipped out, leaving her to worry. This was far worse than waiting the last time. Her stomach churned. She experienced a wave of relief when Ives returned. He took a look at her and crouched near her chair so he could see her face.
“You do not have to do this. We can find another way.”
“What other way is there? I must do it. If I do not, I will have nothing to use to bargain for my father.”
“I do not like to think of you afraid.”
“A little fear will not harm me. Deep in my heart, I am not as fearful as I may appear either. I know you will not be far away. I know they are not so stupid as to harm me.”
He grasped her hand. He stood and bent down to give her a kiss, but froze when a scratch on the door interrupted.
Ives stepped out of sight, pressing to the wall. Shaking, Padua opened the door a crack.
A servant girl stood there. “Emily asks that you come down, miss. To the office. She is having trouble with a patron over payment. With Mrs. Lavender gone, she wants your help and advice.”
Padua almost said to tell Emily to have Hector throw the patron out, before she realized this was the other way Ives had expected.
“Tell her I will be down very soon. I need to make myself presentable.”
The servant girl walked away. Padua closed the door.
“Agree to nothing right away,” Ives said. “Even if he wants to give you two thousand, bargain for more to keep him talking.”
“But what do I say if he wants to know where the equipment is? I have claimed to know, but I don’t.”
He appeared torn. “Say it is in that cellar.”
“Is it?”
“It was. There is still some paper and bad money there.”
“Now you tell me?”
“If you did not know, you would not have to lie. Questions might have come from others besides the man you will meet tonight. Scold me later if you want.”
She would definitely do that.
She closed her eyes, to compose herself. She did not need to do anything to her person. She already was presentable. She had dressed tonight to look like a prosperous business owner, not an impoverished schoolteacher.
Ives tapped her shoulder. Before he opened the door, he gave her a kiss.
She battled excitement and fear as she walked down the stairs. She wanted to sound poised and in command, and sought that voice inside herself. She would think of them as students, she decided. Students who had not learned their lesson for today.
Hector stood guard by the door. Before going to the office, she approached him. “Is Mrs. Lavender faring better?”
He turned black, worried eyes on her. “Not worse, at least. I thought the food, maybe—no one else is sick.”
“Send for a physician, Hector. Tell him that her food may have been tainted or poisoned.”
The whites of his eyes showed more at the last word. Hector angry was a sight to behold. “Who?”
“I do not know. Send for the physician, then keep your ears open.”
* * *
Padua entered the office without asking permission. Emily was not Mrs. Lavender, after all.
She found Emily in a têtê-a-têtê with a man. Not especially tall, he wore riding clothes and his face was unshaved. Close-set round eyes peered at her from his narrow face. He gave the impression of having ridden a good distance recently.
Emily snapped her mouth shut upon Padua’s intrusion. She appeared older and harder up close. Sitting in her window, one might think her attractive. Now deep lines by her mouth marked her character. A sharp chin gave her a belligerent appearance.
“Is this the gentleman who is objecting to the fees?” Padua asked.
“Not objecting as such,” Emily said. “He wants to use a bank draft.”
Padua remained standing, and noted how the man did not stand, too, as a polite man would. “We do not take bank drafts, sir. In all the years here, Mrs. Lavender never has. There can be no exceptions.”
The man just looked at her. Judging. Assessing.
“If your business is concluded, sir—” Padua began.
“Not yet concluded, Miss Belvoir. You’ve something I want, and it is not one of those whores you sell.”
“I cannot imagine what that might be.”
“Of course you can. You sent for me. I am not pleased about that, so let us settle matters quickly.”
Padua looked pointedly at Emily.
“She can stay,” he said. “Although she has been nigh useless to me recently.”
“I found your men a place to store it all, didn’t I?” Emily snapped.
“Aye, the chamber of an idiot who left it in plain sight for anyone to see. You were supposed to keep an eye on it too. You just watched as they carted it away.”
“What was I to do? Object? Say it was mine, and the magistrate couldn’t have it?”
“You could have taken the next trunk when it came, instead of telling my boys that the constables had visited. You scared them off to hell knows where, without them leaving so much as word of where they had the press. That has cost me plenty.”
Emily jabbed her thumb toward Padua. “I got Mrs. Lavender to talking about that partner of hers and I learned about this one here, didn’t I? So you could write and let her know her father was in prison, so’s he might tell her what he knew.”
Padua interrupted. “My father is not an idiot.”
The man looked at her, astonished. Then he burst out laughing. “Defending him, are you? Now that is pretty coming from a daughter willing to sell him out for two thousand.”
“I am glad that we are turning the conversation in the correct direction. Did you bring it with you?”
He leaned forward. His eyes narrowed. “I’ll see you dead before I hand you two thousand.”
* * *
Ives almost burst in the door on hearing the threat. Strickland’s firm grasp on his arm stopped him.
Out in the anteroom to the office, Lance spoke. “They are closed today, gentlemen. An illness. See yourselves out, will you? Hector is occupied.”
“Why is Aylesbury here?” Strickland whispered.
“He insisted. Who am I to refuse a duke?”
“He has a pistol on him, I hope you know.”
“Does he? I’ll be damned.”
Ives and Strickland bent their ears to the door again.
“You will do no such thing,” Padua said. “It is not in your interest to harm me. I have your equipment. I have your plates and your paper, and a large amount of printed notes. If you get it all back, you can continue on. Two thousand is a small price for the fortune you will make.”
“I don’t pay for what is already mine. All I needed to know was you were here, and wanting to bargain, for me to figure out where it all was.
I should have guessed. Or this fool of a woman should have known.
They were working right here, under your nose, and you did not realize it, Emily. Is your brain going soft?”
“I’m not here often. I’m never in the garden at night, being as how I am busy. No one is, considering the trade here.”
“Two thousand,” Padua repeated. “For that I return your belongings, and I will not object if you continue using that cellar. Except for the unfortunate development with my father, the plan your men used worked very well.”
“Not his men,” Emily mumbled. “He made them bring him in, then took over. Didn’t you?”
“Be silent, you old whore.”
“Threatened to bring the government down on them if they didn’t agree.”
Ives stiffened. Ever since he began listening, something had struck him as oddly out of place about the conversation. He suddenly knew what it was.
He glared at Strickland. “That is Crippin in there. I swear, if you or anyone else is trying to trap Miss Belvoir I will—”
Strickland waved his hands. “He is not working for us in this. He isn’t!”
“That is what you said when I caught him outside Langley House.”
“He wasn’t then either. I kept telling you that.”
“Here is how it will be, Miss Belvoir,” Crippin was saying.
“Right now I’ve my men looking into that carriage house.
I think we will find everything there, just as the others left it.
There is no way a woman, even an like you, could carry a press out of there, or a box of plates, or a large amount of paper.
I won’t be needing your permission to continue use of the cellar either.
I’ll be telling them that matter that you tried to sell me more notes that you found on your father’s property.
The authorities trust what I tell them, you see.
My information should put you in the dock beside that old fool. ”
“Have you heard enough, Strickland?” Ives asked.
Strickland nodded.
“I certainly have,” Lance said.
Ives pivoted. Lance stood at his shoulder. He pulled a pistol out from under his coat. “I’ll carry this visibly, so we don’t waste time with fisticuffs and such.” He looked down pointedly at Ives’s clenched hand.
“Let’s do it, then.” Lance pressed down the latch, threw open the door, and marched in with the pistol pointed upward, held high near his head.