might not have—but the people he’s very likely now dealing with would have no scruples in disposing of you if you threatened to butt in.”
“If what you say is true,” Deverell put in, “they’re probably having trouble keeping Duke up to scratch. That would certainly fit.”
“The weasel,” Jonathon said. “Duke has a…well, a valet I suppose. A manservant. Cummings.”
“That’s the name he gave me.” Deverell raised his brows. “About as clever as his master.”
“So,” Charles said, straightening away from the mantelpiece, “what now?”
He looked at Tristan; they all looked at Tristan. Who smiled, not nicely, and rose. “We’ve learned all we need to this point.” Settling his sleeves, he glanced at Charles and Deverell. “I rather think it’s time we invited Duke to join us. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
Charles’s grin was diabolical. “Lead the way.”
“Indeed.” Deverell was already at Tristan’s heels as he turned for the door.
“Wait!” Leonora looked at the black bag, sitting beside the chaise, then raised her gaze to Jonathon’s face. “Please tell me you have all of A. J.’s journals and her letters from Cedric in there.”
Jonathon grinned, a trifle lopsidedly. He nodded. “The purest luck, but yes, I have them.”
Tristan turned back. “That’s one point we haven’t covered. How did they catch you, and why didn’t they take the letters and journals?”
Jonathon looked up at him. “Because it was so cold, there were hardly any passengers on the mail coach—it got in early.” He glanced at Leonora. “I don’t know how they knew I was on it—”
“They’d have had someone watching you in York,” Deverell said. “I take it you didn’t change your schedule immediately after you got Leonora’s letter and rush off?”
“No. It took two days to organize bringing my time away forward.” Jonathon sank back on the chaise. “When I got off the coach, there was a message waiting for me, telling me to meet a Mr. Simmons at the corner of Green Dragon Yard and Old Montague Street at six o’clock to discuss a matter of mutual interest. It was a nicely worded letter, well written, good quality paper—I thought it was from you, the Carlings, about the discovery. I didn’t really think—you couldn’t have known I was on the mail coach, but at the time it all seemed to fit.
“That corner is a few minutes from the coaching inn. If the mail had got in on schedule, I wouldn’t have had time to organize a room before going to the meeting. Instead, I had an hour to look about, to find a clean room, and leave my bag there, before going to the rendezvous.”
Tristan’s unnerving smile remained. “They assumed you hadn’t brought any papers with you. They would have searched.”
Jonathon nodded. “My coat was ripped apart.”
“So, finding nothing, they put you out of the picture and left you for dead. But they didn’t check what time the coach pulled in—tsk, tsk. Very slapdash.” Charles strolled toward the door. “Are we going?”
“Indeed.” Tristan swung on his heel and headed for the door. “Let’s fetch Mountford.”
Leonora watched the door close behind them.
Humphrey cleared his throat, caught Jonathon’s eye, then pointed to the black bag. “May we?”
Jonathon waved. “By all means.”
Leonora was torn.
Jonathon was obviously drooping, exhaustion and his injuries catching up with him; she urged him to lie back and recoup. At her suggestion, Humphrey and Jeremy took themselves and the black bag off to the library.
Closing the parlor door behind her, she hesitated. Part of her wanted to hurry after her brother and uncle, to help with and share in the academic excitement of making sense of Cedric and A. J.’s discovery.
More of her was drawn to the real, more physical excitement of the hunt.
She debated for all of ten seconds, then headed for the front door. Opening it, she left it on the latch. Night had fallen, the darkness of evening closing in. On the porch, she hesitated. Wondered if she should take Henrietta. But the hound was still in the kitchens of the Club; she didn’t have time to fetch her. She peered across at Number 16, but its front door was closer to the street; she couldn’t see anything.
There were three of them ahead of her; what danger could there be?
She hurried down the front steps and ran quickly down the front path.
They were, she assumed, going to pluck Mountford from his hole—she was curious, after all this time, to see what he was really like, what sort of man he was. Jonathon’s description was ambivalent; yes, Mountford—Duke —was a violent bully, but not a murderous one.
He’d been violent enough where she was concerned….
She approached the front door of Number 16 with appropriate caution.
It stood half-open. She strained her ears but heard nothing.
She peered past the door.
Faint moonlight threw her shadow deep into the hall. Caused the man framed in the doorway to the kitchen stairs to pause and turn around.
It was Deverell. He motioned her to silence, and to stay back, then he turned and melted into the shadows.
Leonora hesitated for a second; she’d stay back, just not this far back.
Her slippers silent on the tiles, she glided into the hall and followed in Deverell’s wake.
The stairs leading down to the kitchens and the basement level were just beyond the hall door. From her earlier visit following Tristan around, Leonora knew that the double flight of stairs ended in a long corridor. The doors to the kitchens and scullery gave off it to the left; on the right lay the butler’s pantry, followed by a long cellar.
Mountford was tunneling through from the cellar.
Pausing at the stairhead, she leaned over the banister and peered down; she could make out the three men moving below, large shadows in the gloom. Faint light shone from somewhere ahead of them. As they moved out of her sight, she crept down the stairs.
She paused on the landing. From there she could see the length of the corridor before and below her. There were two doors into the cellar. The nearer stood ajar; the faint light came from beyond it.
Even more faintly, like a
Tristan, Charles, and Deverell came together before the door; although she saw them move, assumed they were talking, she heard nothing, not the slightest sound.
Then Tristan turned to the cellar door, thrust it open and walked in.
Charles and Deverell followed.
The silence lasted for a heartbeat.
Thuds. Bangs. Stifled shouts and oaths. It was more than just a scuffle.
How many men had been in there? She’d assumed only two, Mountford and the weasel, but it sounded like more…
A horrendous
She gasped, stared down. The light had gone out.
In the gloom, a figure burst out of the second cellar door, the one at the end of the corridor. He turned, slammed the door, fiddled. She heard the grating sound of an old iron lock falling into place.
The man ran from the door, raced, hair and coat wildly flapping, up the corridor toward the stairs.
Startled, paralyzed by recognition—the man was Mountford—Leonora hauled in a breath. She forced her hands to her skirts, grasped them to turn and flee, but Mountford hadn’t seen her—he skidded to a halt by the nearer cellar door, now wide-open.
He reached in, grabbed the door, and swung it shut, too. Grabbed the knob, desperately worked.
Into a sudden silence came a telltale grating, then the clunk as the heavy lock fell home.
Chest heaving, Mountford stepped back. The blade of a knife held in one fist gleamed dully.
A thud fell on the door, then the handle rattled.
A muffled oath filtered through the thick panels.
