He looked at Gervase. “Regardless of what happens here today, I’ll be on my way to Cornwall this afternoon.”
Gervase’s face hardened. “Madeline and I won’t leave here until we find Ben.”
Dalziel nodded. “I’ll help in whatever way I can, but this might be our last chance at catching this man and I can’t let it pass.”
“We’ll have to find Ben first,” Madeline said.
Dalziel nodded again, more curtly. “I’ll put all the forces I can muster at your disposal before I leave-”
“No, you don’t understand.” Her voice held a hint of suppressed humor, enough to make Dalziel frown at her.
“What don’t I understand?”
She knew she was supposed to be intimidated by that voice, by his chilly diction, but she now had his measure. She held his gaze calmly. “The Lizard Peninsula is large-you won’t be able to watch all the beaches, nor will you be able to monitor access to the peninsula itself-there are too many ways to reach it, including by sea. To catch your last traitor, you’ll need to know which beach he’ll be heading for. And until we find Ben, you won’t know that.”
Dalziel’s frown didn’t lift. “But we know which beach the brooch came from.”
She nodded. “Indeed. But as Edmond-another of my brothers-pointed out, it’s more than likely Ben will lie.”
The frown evaporated; frustration took its place. After a moment, Dalziel flung himself back into his chair. “Haven’t you taught him not to lie?”
She inwardly grinned at the disgruntled grumble. “I have, but the lessons don’t take well with Ben. Perhaps when he grows older. Regardless, at present, he lies quite beautifully-he’s so…”-she gestured-“fluent, even when I know he’s not telling the truth, he makes me think I might be wrong.”
Dalziel stared at the floor, then grimaced. “All right.” He lifted his head; his eyes pinned Christian, then moved to Gervase. “So how are we going to locate the whelp?”
Suppressing a smile, Madeline turned back to the desk. She completed the last of Christian’s notes while around her a wide-ranging discussion of how to scour London, especially the slums, raged.
Dalziel was making plans to contact various commanders in the Guards as she laid the last note on the pile. She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to twelve. She turned to Christian, intending to suggest he send for the footmen they’d told her Gasthorpe would provide, when the knocker on the front door was plied-not just once or twice but with persistent, repetitive force.
The three men broke off, turning to the door. It was shut, muting sounds from the front hall below, but the knocking had stopped.
Ears straining, Madeline listened…heard a light, piping voice politely ask…
She was out of her chair, past Dalziel and flinging open the library door before any of the men could blink. Sweeping to the stairs, her heart in her mouth, she paused on the landing, looking down into the hall, to the group before the front door. Then she grabbed up her skirts and rushed headlong down.
“Ben!” She couldn’t believe her eyes, but there he was; she saw the relief that washed over his face as he glanced up at her call, disbelieving her presence as much as she had his.
Reaching him, she swept him into her arms, hugging him wildly, only just remembering in time not to lift him from his feet, bending over him and clutching him to her instead, her hands patting over him.
“Are you all right?” His clothes were dusty and disarranged, rumpled and soiled, but not torn or filthy.
He nodded; he was clutching her quite as fiercely as she was clutching him. But then he pushed away; reluctantly she forced herself to ease her hold. He looked up into her face. “There was this man-”
He broke off as he noticed Gervase, who had come down the stairs, Dalziel and Christian at his back. Ben smiled, a trifle shy. He nodded to Gervase. “Hello, sir.” His gaze traveled on to rest on Dalziel, then Christian; his eyes widened, then he looked up as Gervase neared.
Smiling, Gervase laid a hand on Ben’s shoulder and lightly squeezed. “You’ve no idea how glad we are to see you. But how did you get free-and how did you know to come here?”
Ben looked into his face. “You told me, remember? When we were fishing, you told us about your club in London. You said it was in Montrose Place. When those horrid men pushed me out of the carriage in an awful street”-he glanced at Madeline-“it was smelly and dirty and the people looked mean, I found a hackney cab.”
Turning, he pointed to the heavyset, frieze-coated individual watching the proceedings through the open front door. “Jeb’s hackney. I told him I was a friend of yours-Lord Crowhurst of Crowhurst Castle-and if he brought me to your club in Montrose Place, then the people here would pay him twice his fee.”
Looking up at Gervase, Ben made his eyes huge. “You will pay Jeb double for bringing me here, won’t you?”
“Not double. Triple. With a tip.” Dalziel moved past Gervase to the door, fishing in his coat pocket. “Indeed, quadruple the fare is not too much in the circumstances.”
Jeb looked beyond awed. He took the coins Dalziel handed him, stared at them. “’Ere-this is way too much.”
“No,” Dalziel said. “Believe me, it’s not. If I had my way you’d get a medal.”
Jeb looked uncertain. “All I did was drive ’im here from Tothill. It ain’t even that far.”
“Nevertheless. You did your country a great service today. If I was you, I’d take the rest of the day off.”
“Aye.” Jeb shook his head, studying the largesse in his palm. “I might just do that.” He bobbed his head, started to turn away, then looked back, weaving to look past Dalziel and Gasthorpe at Ben. “Anytime you come back to the capital, nipper, you keep an eye out for Jeb.”
Ben beamed his huge, little-boy’s smile. “I will. Good-bye. And thank you!”
“Seems it’s me should be thanking you,” Jeb mumbled as he headed off down the path to the street where his mare stood patiently waiting.
Dalziel turned back to the group in the front hall.
Ben looked up at him, curious and intrigued. “I don’t know you.”
Dalziel smiled at Ben; Gervase blinked. It wasn’t the sort of smile he was accustomed to seeing on his ex- commander’s face. Boyishly charming wasn’t the half of it.
“You don’t know me yet, but you will.” His gaze on Ben’s face, Dalziel waved to the stairs. “Let’s go up to the library and you can tell us all-all the gory details of your kidnap, confinement and escape.” Effortlessly, with no more than a look, he drew Ben to him and turned with him to the stairs. “Have you breakfasted yet?”
“No.” The thought of food brought Ben up short; he started to turn to Madeline.
“No matter. Gasthorpe-you’ve met the redoubtable Gasthorpe, haven’t you?”
Ben shot a shy grin at Gasthorpe, who had shut the door and was now waiting by the side of the hall for his orders.
“Gasthorpe,” Dalziel continued, with just a touch on Ben’s shoulder steering him up the stairs, “will bring sustenance suitable for your years. You can eat while you set your sister’s mind at rest.”
Ben glanced back at Madeline, but seeing her following in his wake with Gervase beside her, meeting her encouraging if misty-eyed smile, he grinned, looked ahead, and happily trooped up the stairs.
When they were all in the library, comfortable in armchairs set about the hearth, while Ben wolfed down the cheese and ham sandwich Gasthorpe had provided, Gervase caught Christian’s eye and saw his own bemusement reflected there. It was patently clear who had elected himself Ben’s interrogator.
For one moment, Gervase wondered if he should resent Dalziel’s claim, but he wanted Ben to look upon him as an unthreatening, always trustworthy friend, and acting as an interrogator, even in relatively mild fashion, wasn’t a good way to nurture such a connection. So he sat back and watched, quietly fascinated, as his ex-commander displayed a side of himself none of his ex-operatives had imagined he possessed.
Sitting opposite Ben, who was ensconced in the chair between Madeline’s and Gervase’s, Dalziel exuded the sort of blatant confidence guaranteed to fix a boy’s attention; the command that confidence concealed was subtle, yet still there, giving his performance a near-irresistible edge.
He waited with feigned patience until Ben had finished the sandwich and drained his glass of milk before commencing, with an easy, encouraging smile. “Now-let’s start from when you were sitting on the bench outside the inn in Helston. The man who approached you-what did he say?”
Wriggling forward in the chair, Ben dutifully replied, “He asked how to get to the London road. He said he had to meet a man with a carriage there, and was lost, and time was running out. He offered me a shilling to show him
