My Lord and Spymaster

watched Pitney come creeping by with it, clutching it to his bosom. He might as well have been wearing a sign, ‘I am carrying something immensely important.’ ”

“And then?” Adrian prompted.

“Well, she left, don’t you know? Just took her hat off the peg and left, right in the middle of the day, without a word to anyone. I . . . ah . . . took the opportunity to drop a few small matters on her desk. Receipts and so on. There was nothing on her blotter except for . . .” He swished the tail of his coat aside and drew a small letter from his pocket. “. . . this.”

Adrian held out his hand.

“It was what she was writing earlier, obviously. The letter she didn’t want me to see. You can see it’s addressed to her father. Normally, she’d hand letters over to the messenger boy.” Buchanan’s pale blue eyes slid from one man to another. “But she left it there on her desk. I thought that had to be suspicious. Since I was coming here anyway to drop off a few papers for Mr. Whitby, it was quite natural to pick this up and bring it along.”

Adrian kept his hand out. Buchanan held the letter tight, plucking at the corners.

“She meant for it to be delivered, and it had Whitby’s name on it. It could have been that she just forgot to give it to the messenger. She left in a hurry.” Jerkily, he laid it in Adrian’s hand and stood up. “I’ll just go ask Mr. Whitby if he has commissions for me. I’m not . . . Mr. MacLeish may ask me why I was out of the office.”

Adrian inspected the seal of the letter. “You opened it. That was not strictly necessary, Mr. Buchanan.”

“I thought it best. If it had been quite innocent, I wouldn’t have bothered you with it.” Buchanan wiped his fingertips against the cloth of his jacket. “It pretends to be a polite note saying she’ll be late, but the name she mentions is not one of our customers. I’ve never heard of him.”

“Thank you,” Adrian said. “We’ll study it carefully.”

Doyle laid a huge, friendly hand on Buchanan and pushed him toward the door. “We’ll take care of it.”

“If I could talk to Mr. Whitby—”

“Not now. They’ll be wanting you back at work, I expect.”

“I knew you’d want to see this at once. If there’s anything else you need from the files, I can—”

“We’ll let you know. You just keep an eye open.”

The door opened. Buchanan found himself speaking from the front porch. “It’s a French name. I find that significant. She receives letters from France. I’m sure of it.”

Doyle said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t right about that, Mr. Buchanan. Here now, watch yerself on the steps. They just been washed.” He closed the door.

Sebastian waited till Buchanan was down the steps and walking toward Booth Square. “Do you have to use that pig?”

“Men of sterling worth do not spy on their employers for pay. He sells Whitby commercial information to several interested parties.” Adrian frowned and turned the letter over. “I wish he’d stop opening mail.”

“I don’t like the idea of him close to Jess.”

“I doubt she notices his existence. If he ever annoys her, she’ll crush him like a bug. I wonder what devilment she’s up to now?”

“Something mad. She’s out there alone.” Doyle came back to sit heavily on the sofa, his big, solid frame taking up most of it. He looked worried. “I thought I had all the exits watched. I don’t like this.”

Sebastian didn’t like it himself. “She cleans her desk and leaves one letter behind, addressed to her father. She dodges your men and mine and disappears. Do you think she’s leaving England?”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? But I doubt it.” Adrian held the letter up to the sunlight and squinted at it, then unfolded the sheet across his lap. “Let us see what she has to say. ‘Cher Papa.’ That’s Jess being suspiciously French for my benefit. You do like to get in a sly dig every once in a while, don’t you, my girl?”

Probably the letter didn’t mean anything, but right now it was the only clue they had to where she’d gone. “Just read.”

“Her writing’s improved. One of the governesses must have finally accomplished that. When I was being their butler in Russia, she wrote chicken scratches in four languages. ‘Cher Papa. Just a note to let you know I may not be free to see you this afternoon. I go to visit our old friend to seek his advice and aid. He may urge me to stay, and you know how persuasive Monsieur L’Hommemort can be—’ ”

Adrian’s voice cut off, like a knife had slashed through the word.

“Monsieur L’Hommemort?” Sebastian took the letter. “Nobody’s named that. Let me see.”

Adrian whispered, “Oh, damn you, Jess. Why?”

“L’homme mort. The Dead Man.” Sebastian stood up to read the rest. “ ’I will see you soon, one way or the other. Jess. P.S. Please do not be angry with Pitney.’ L’Homme mort. It can’t mean what I think it does.”

“It means exactly and precisely what you think it means. She’s already on her way. Damn the girl.”

“She’s going to Lazarus for help? She’s going to wind up held for ransom.” Jess might come from Whitechapel, but that didn’t mean she knew how to deal with a man like Lazarus.

“It’s worse than that. Sebastian, wait. She was Hand.”

“What?”

“She was Jess the Hand, with all that means.”

Pretty, elegant Jess working for Lazarus? The Hand was one of the inner circle of Lazarus’s gang. “It doesn’t make any sense. She would have been a child when she left London.”

“They are kids, generally. Lazarus picks the young ones. They can be trusted. She went to work for him when Josiah disappeared from England. Then Josiah showed up again, years after everybody thought he was dead. He took Jess back, away from Lazarus and out of the country.” Adrian stood up and pulled his coat off the back of the chair. “Lazarus takes money to leave her alone. But he never gave her up and never forgot. In his eyes, she’s a deserter.”

“And she’s walking right to him.”

“Right down his gullet.”

Doyle took his pistol out of his pocket to give it a check. Adrian was half into his coat.

“Not you,” Sebastian told them. “Just me.”

Doyle understood first. “Because you can get in alone.”

“We can’t fight Lazarus on his own ground. I have to talk her out of there.”

“He’s not going to just let her go.” Adrian picked up the note and began folding it and unfolding it, running his fingernails down the crease again and again. “You have to understand. You and the other captains pay the pence and Lazarus leaves your ships and men alone. It’s different with Jess. She took the shilling from him before she was nine.”

He felt his stomach harden to heavy, cold rock.

“He owns her, Sebastian, body and soul. Remember that when you go charging in there. He owns her.”

Twenty-two

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO GET TO LAZARUS. Sebastian didn’t have time to waste, so he tracked down his shipping manager on the deck of the Scarlet Dancer and dragged him off to the tavern where Kennett Shipping paid its pence. The introduction was made. Sebastian held a brief colloquy with the lean, avaricious youth who sat in the back receiving payment and marking it off in a book. He described, exactly and pungently, what he intended to do to the boy’s anatomy if he wasn’t taken to Lazarus immediately.

He felt no surprise when a thin blade came from behind to rest against his throat. The avaricious youth had a friend. It was the etiquette of these encounters. He repeated his request, and the threat, this time tossing a roll of banknotes on the dirty table. A half-grown girl, filthy and cunning as a rat, was his guide through the maze of streets. Had Jess ever been as miserable and dirty as this child?

He followed her toward what was either the current lairing place of Lazarus, or else a convenient spot to kill someone and dispose of the body. Choose one.

That was how he came to Lazarus.