“Driver, I’d like a word with you, if you please,” he called, using his Dalrymple accent.
The driver stiffened and turned his head very quickly to watch Ambrose approach. His features were all but lost in the shadows cast by his high collar, heavy scarf and low-crowned hat.
“Sorry, sir, I’m not for hire tonight. Waitin’ for a fare.”
“Are you, indeed?” Ambrose kept walking.
“Aye, sir. If it’s a cab yer needin’ I expect you’ll find one in the next street.”
“I do not require a cab,” Ambrose said. “I merely want to ask you a few questions.”
He was less than ten paces from the vehicle now. The lights inside the carriage had been turned down. The curtains were drawn across the windows.
Out of the corner of his eye he could see a damp patch on the pavement directly below the crack at the bottom of the closed passenger door. Either the nag or the driver had relieved himself during the long wait for a fare, he thought. Not enough volume of liquid for a horse, though, and no taint of the familiar, extremely pungent stench.
“Rest assured, I’ll make it worth your while.” Ambrose reached into his pocket and withdrew some coins.
The driver shifted uneasily. “What is it ye want to know?”
“I’m looking for the man of affairs who keeps an office in that building that I just left. We had an appointment tonight but he failed to appear. Did you happen to see anyone come or go from that address before I arrived?”
He was closer now, only a couple of strides away from the cab. There was something quite troubling about the damp pavement. Why would a cabdriver relieve himself directly beneath the door of his own vehicle when there was an alley not more than a few steps away?
“I didn’t see no one,” the driver mumbled.
Electricity danced through Ambrose. His already painfully alert senses shifted into that intense, near-preternatural state in which even
the slightest movement, sound or shifting of shadows took on great significance.
“What of your fare?” he asked. “You must have seen him recently.”
“Got himself a little doxy in this street. She lives in a room over one of the shops. He went up there about an hour ago. Told me to wait. That’s all I know.”
“Indeed,” Ambrose said, studying the dark pool on the pavement.
He was directly alongside the carriage now. He grasped the handle of the door and yanked it open.
An arm that had evidently been wedged against the door flopped down and dangled grotesquely in the opening. Ambrose saw the shadowy outline of the rest of the body crumpled on the floor of the cab.
There was just enough light from the outside carriage lamp to gleam on the blood that had flowed from the mortal wound in Cuthbert’s chest.
“It appears your fare finished his business somewhat earlier than he intended,” Ambrose said.
Y
er a right stupid bastard, that’s what ye are.” The driver straightened and reached inside his heavy overcoat. “Should have minded yer own business.”
Ambrose already had one foot on the step beneath the driver’s box. He grabbed the handhold with his left hand, rose halfway up the side of the vehicle and rammed the tip of his walking stick into the driver’s belly.
The man grunted and doubled over in pain. The knife that he had just taken out of an inside pocket clattered from his hand and tumbled onto the pavement.
Footsteps pounded from the direction of the alley. Ambrose looked over his shoulder and saw a second man charging toward him. The glare of a nearby gas lamp glinted on the barrel of a revolver.
He jumped back down to the pavement and dove beneath the wheels of the carriage, rolling into the deep shadows on the far side of the vehicle.
The gun roared. The bullet thudded into the wooden panels of the four-wheeler.
Startled out of his dozing slumber, the horse snorted, tossed its head and lurched forward violently. The man on the box, still gasping for air, scrambled about and managed to seize the reins.
“Bloody stupid nag.”
Ambrose got to his feet and vaulted quietly up onto the back of the hackney. He crouched there. His training had taught him that people rarely looked up until they had searched everywhere else first.
“Where are ye, ye bloody bastard?” The second man turned nervously from side to side in an attempt to spot his quarry. He peered under the carriage. “If ye come out quietly with yer hands in the air, I’ll let ye live.”
The hackney jerked violently in response to another lunge from the horse.
“Get that damn nag under control,” the man with the gun shouted at his companion, clearly unnerved by the manner in which events had spiraled out of control.
Ambrose rose and dropped down over the side of the carriage, feetfirst. He struck the man below with his full weight. The impact sent them both to the ground.
“Get outta the way, Jake,” the driver shouted.
Ambrose got to his feet in a quick, twisting move and leaned over to scoop up the gun. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the driver reach into his heavy leather boot.
A second knife. Should have thought of that.
He dodged behind the back of the hackney.
The hurtling blade missed him by inches and thudded into the side of the vehicle.
The second man was on his feet, running toward the front of the hackney.
“Bastard’s got my gun,” he yelled at the driver. He grabbed the handhold on the side of the vehicle and hauled himself up beside his companion. “Get away from that bloody cove.”
The driver loosened the reins. The horse, in a complete panic now, surged forward. The carriage swayed precariously but remained upright.
Ambrose stood in the mist-draped street, aware of the cold thrills of dark energy still flashing through him. He listened to the clatter of hooves and carriage wheels until the sound faded into the night.
E
MPLOYING HIS CUSTOMARY
tactic to find a cab late at night, he walked to the nearest tavern and chose a hansom at random.
Twenty minutes later he ordered the driver to stop in a pleasant little square lined with handsome town houses. There were no lights on in any of the residences.
He made his way around to the alley that lined one row of houses, unlatched one of the gates and walked through the well-tended garden.
He used the head of his cane to rap lightly on the back door.
A short time later the door opened. The sandy-haired man in a dressing gown who responded was approximately his own age, albeit somewhat taller.
Ambrose knew from past experience when he and Felix Denver had put the question to a scientific test in a wide-ranging variety of venues, including several taverns, two theaters and an assortment of public houses, that women considered Felix to be the better-looking of the two.
“I trust this is important, Wells. I’ve got company.”
Ambrose smiled slightly. It was the great misfortune of the ladies of London that Inspector Felix Denver of Scotland Yard was not interested in women in anything more than a friendly, social way. Whoever was upstairs in his bed tonight, that individual was of the masculine gender.
“Sorry to disturb your rest, Felix.”
Felix raised the candle in his hand to get a better look at Ambrose’s face. He grimaced. “I would reconsider the whiskers and mustache, if I were you. They do nothing to enhance your appearance.”
“No, but they do conceal it and that is all that concerns me. I came here because I wanted to let you know that the situation has become more complicated.”
“It always does when you’re involved, Wells.”
He told Felix what had happened in the street in front of Cuthbert’s office.
“All this blood and mayhem merely for the sake of transforming four respectable young women into high-class courtesans doesn’t seem logical,” he concluded. “Larkin is a businessman at heart. He prefers not to take unnecessary risks. There is something else going on here. I can sense it.”
“I suspect that the four girls you and the teacher rescued may be part of a much vaster trade in young women that is being carried on by
Larkin and his new gentleman partner,” Felix said. “If the business is sufficiently lucrative, it would explain why the proprietors are willing to kill to protect it.”
“Have you learned anything new from your inquiries?”
“The responses I got from the telegrams I sent merely confirm what you already suspected. All four of the girls at the castle supposedly died in various tragic accidents. None of the relatives appear to be in deep mourning.”
“Phoebe Leyland’s aunt may be the exception. She evidently made some inquiries of various orphanages after her niece disappeared. I suggest you send someone to speak with her.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Yes.” Ambrose gave it to him and then stepped back. “I am going home. It has been a long night.” He glanced up at the darkened bedroom window. “There is someone waiting for me.”
Felix smiled a little. “Makes a change for you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Ambrose said. “It does.”
C
oncordia gripped the lapels of her dressing gown, turned and paced the length of the library again. She had lost count of how many times she had walked this path in the past hour. Her anxiety increased with every step.
Ambrose should have been home by now. Something terrible had happened. She could feel it in her bones. He should not have gone alone. He should have allowed her to accompany him.
The big house was silent and still around her. The girls had gone upstairs to their rooms hours ago. Mr. and Mrs. Oates and Nan had vanished to their quarters after checking all the locks. Dante and Beatrice had wandered in to join her when everyone else had taken to their beds and were now dozing in front of the low-burning fire.
She came to a halt in front of the old Cabinet of Curiosities and looked at the clock. The hands had only advanced five minutes since she had last checked the time. Another shiver flickered through her. The room was comfortably warm, but the heat from the fireplace was not at
all effective against the small frissons of dread that had been disturbing her nerves all evening.
Ambrose should have taken her with him when he went to meet with Cuthbert. When he returned she would make it very clear to him that he was not to leave her behind again. She was his client, his employer. She had rights in this matter.
Dante raised his head and regarded her intently. She knew that he had sensed her anxiety.
“Has your master told you his secrets?” she asked the dog.
Beatrice opened her eyes.
Both dogs rose and padded across the carpet to where she stood. She bent down and rubbed them behind their ears.
“I’ll wager that neither of you cares a jot about your master’s secrets,” she said. “When this affair is concluded, I will probably never see him again, so why am I obsessed with discovering whatever it is he is intent upon concealing?”
Dante lowered himself onto his haunches and leaned blissfully against her leg. Beatrice showed a number of teeth in a vast yawn. Neither beast bothered to respond to the question.
The clock ticked into the heavy silence.
She opened the front doors of the cabinet and looked at the beautifully decorated box of secrets. The design of the exotically painted and inlaid woods was distinctive, quite unlike any pattern she had ever seen. The carefully worked, exquisitely detailed triangles and diamond shapes had clearly been intended to deceive the eye.
“You are just like this cabinet, Ambrose Wells,” she whispered. “For
every compartment that is discovered, there is another one that remains hidden.”
Phoebe, Hannah, Edwina and Theodora had amused themselves by trying to locate all of the secret drawers. She unfolded the drawing they had left inside the cabinet to mark their progress. It was clear from the diagram that thus far they had identified only twenty-three compartments. The location of each one was carefully marked on the sketch.
She studied the picture for a long moment. Then she examined the interior of the cabinet. There were a lot of drawers left to find.
She drew the tips of her fingers along the surface of one of the intricately inlaid panels, feeling for the invisible crevices that marked some of the drawers, pressing gently to test for the hidden springs and levers that opened others.
Experimentally she opened some of the compartments that Phoebe and the others had explored. Most were empty. A few contained small relics that had evidently been stored in the chest and then forgotten. There was a little unguent jar with Roman markings in one drawer, a ring set with a red carnelian in another.
It would be amusing to discover a drawer that the girls had not yet succeeded in locating, she thought. The search would pass the time while she waited for Ambrose to return.
She set to work.
Twenty minutes later she had failed to find a single new compartment.
“This is a lot harder than one would think,” she informed the dogs.
Dante and Beatrice had returned to the hearth. They twitched their ears but did not open their eyes.
She walked around the cabinet, examining it from every angle, intrigued by the puzzle of the thing. Then she returned to the front and took a closer look at one of the drawers that had already been discovered.
A sudden thought occurred to her. To test it she inserted her hand inside one of the compartments and felt around very carefully with her fingertips.
Nothing.
She went on to explore some of the other drawers. When she came to the one labeled number fifteen on the sketch, her fingertips skimmed across a tiny depression at the very back of the compartment.
She pressed tentatively and heard the faint, muffled squeak of tiny hinges and springs.
Without warning, an entire section of drawers swung open to reveal a second, interior cabinet that had been concealed within the outer one.
“Very clever,” she murmured to the dogs. “I will not tell the girls. They’ll have more fun if they discover this secret for themselves.”
She probed with her fingertips, her curiosity heightened by her small success. When she pushed a series of triangles-within-triangles, a long, narrow compartment slid open.