by Amanda Quick
The first man heaved himself up into a sitting position at the foot of the stairs. He appeared dazed, but it was obvious that he was recovering rapidly from the stunning blow he had taken from Tobias’s booted foot. He scooped up the knife that had fallen from his hand and gripped one of the banister supports. He started to haul himself to his feet.
He studied the two men locked together in silent, deadly combat on the hall floor. It was clear that he was seeking the right moment to go to his companion’s assistance.
Lavinia raised the iron candlestick aloft, praying that the man at the bottom of the staircase would not look back.
Down below, Tobias and his assailant heaved and rolled violently once more. One of them grunted hoarsely. Lavinia could not tell which man had cried out in pain. Rage and fear flashed through her.
She reached the second step from the bottom and swung the iron candlestick with all of her strength.
At the last instant, the man sensed the threat behind him. He started to turn and put up an arm to protect himself.
But he was too late. The candlestick glanced heavily against the side of his head and struck his shoulder with a jolting force that Lavinia felt through her entire body. The villain staggered back against the wall. The knife clattered on the bottom step.
For a shocked second Lavinia and the man stared at each other. Then she saw the blood flow from the gash on the side of his head.
“Bitch.”
Enraged, he lunged at her with both hands, but his movements were awkward and unsteady.
Lavinia grabbed the banister and used it to lever herself up several steps. She raised the candlestick on high again, preparing to deliver another blow. The man saw the weapon and hesitated, swaying in the light.
Tobias appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looming in the shadows, his face an icy mask. He grasped the first man’s shoulder, spun him around, and slammed a fist into his jaw.
The man yelled, reeled around, and lurched blindly toward the door. The second man had it open and was already outside.
The pair fled into the fog. Their boots rang hollowly on the paving stones for a moment and then they were gone.
Heart pounding, Lavinia examined Tobias from head to toe. His neckcloth had come undone in the scuffle. There was blood on it and on the front of his greatcoat.
“You’re bleeding.” She picked up her skirts and hurried down the steps.
“The blood isn’t mine.” With a gesture of distaste he snagged the trailing end of the cravat and tossed it aside. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She stopped on the step above him and touched his face anxiously. “Are you certain you’re not hurt?”
“Quite certain.” He frowned. “I told you to bolt yourself in Maggie’s room.”
“Those two men were trying to kill you. Surely you didn’t expect me to just wait quietly in another room while they went about their business. I would remind you yet again, sir, that we are partners in this venture.”
“Damn it, Lavinia, you could have been seriously injured.”
Maggie chuckled above them. “Appeared as how the lady did ye a favor, if ye ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” Tobias said.
Maggie cackled.
“I suggest that we conduct this quarrel at some other time,” Lavinia said crisply. “We have business here, in case you have forgotten.”
He rubbed his jaw somewhat gingerly. “I have not forgotten.” He looked up at Maggie. “Do you know those two men?”
Maggie shook her head. “Never saw ’em before. A couple of footpads that spotted ye in the lane and decided to follow ye into the hall, I expect.” She gestured grandly toward the open door behind her. “Come on up, if yer still in a mood to ask questions.”
“Yes.” Tobias climbed the steps behind Lavinia. “I’m very much in a mood to ask questions.”
They followed Maggie into a dingy little room furnished with a cot, a washstand, and a small trunk. An open bottle of gin stood on a table.
Lavinia handed the iron candlestick back to Maggie and sat down on a stool near the cold hearth. Tobias went to the window and looked down into the lane. She wondered if he was hoping to spot the two men who had attacked him. There was little chance of that, she thought.
“We wish to ask you about a man named Oscar Pelling,” he said without turning around. “We understand that he purchased your services during the past few days.”
“Pelling. That bastard.” Maggie speared the candle on the stick and set it on the table. She lowered her thin frame onto the bench and poured herself a glass of gin. “Aye, I took him on as a client for a time, but never again. Not after what he did the last time.”
“What, precisely, did he do?” Lavinia asked.
“He did this, that’s what.” Maggie turned her head so that her face was fully illuminated by the glow of the candle. “Haven’t been able to work for the past few days because of him.”
Lavinia saw for the first time that the area around Maggie’s eyes was badly discolored and bruised. “Dear God, he struck you?”
“Aye.” Maggie gulped some gin and put down the glass. “A girl has to be flexible in this business, but there’s some things I won’t put up with and that’s a fact. No man who raises his fists to me is allowed back in this room, I don’t care how fine a gennelman he is.”
Tobias had turned away from the window. He watched Maggie with a riveted expression, eyes narrowed and cold. “When did Pelling strike you?”
“The last time he came to see me.” She screwed up her face with the effort of trying to remember. “Think it was Wednesday last. No, it was Thursday. He’d behaved himself right enough on his first few visits. A little rough, but nothin’ out of the ordinary. But that last time he had himself a rare fit of rage.”
“A fit?” Lavinia repeated carefully.
“Aye. I thought he’d gone mad. And all because I teased him a bit.” Maggie poured more gin into the glass.
“Why did you tease him?” Tobias asked.
“Well, he’d come here later than usual, ye see. Almost dawn, it was. I’d just gone to bed. I looked out the window when he knocked and I could tell straightaway that he was in a foul temper. Almost didn’t let him in. But he’d been a good client. Always payin’ a little extra by way of a thank you. Rich as a nabob, he is.”
She paused to swallow more gin.
“You said you teased him,” Lavinia reminded her gently.
“Just tryin’ to put him in a better temper. But it only made things worse. He beat me somethin’ dreadful, he did. And all the while, he kept saying all sorts of terrible things about women. How they had snakes in their hair and how they turned men to stone with their eyes.” Maggie shuddered. “Like I said, he went mad. Don’t know what would have happened to me if my friend upstairs hadn’t come down to see what all the commotion was about. When she pounded on the door, he stopped hitting me.”
Lavinia recalled the terrifying ordeals Pelling’s wife, Jessica, had revealed while in a trance. “Thank God your friend came downstairs when she did.”
“Aye. The bastard like to have killed me.”
“What did Pelling do after your friend interrupted the beating?” Tobias asked.
“Just turned and walked out the door as casual as ye please. Like he’d done nothing more than have some of the usual sport. To tell ye the truth, he seemed in a better mood afterward. Not cheerful, but more calm. Hasn’t come back since, thank the Lord.”
Tobias looked thoughtful. “You didn’t say exactly what you teased him about.”
“It was nothin’, y’know? Just a little thing.” Maggie wrinkled her nose. “Still can’t understand why it set him off.”
“What was the little thing?” Lavinia asked.
“His cravat,” Maggie said.
Lavinia felt her blood run cold in her veins.
At the window, Tobias did not move. She sensed the hunter in him catching the scent of the quarry.
“What
about Pelling’s cravat?” he asked very softly.
“Well, he wasn’t wearin’ it that last time, y’see,” Maggie said in her gin-thickened voice. “Properly dressed, he was, like he’d just come from his club or a fancy ball, but no cravat.”
Lavinia met Tobias’s eyes. Impossible, she thought.
“It looked odd,” Maggie said. “Like his valet hadn’t dressed him properly. So I teased him about being so eager to visit me that he had started to undress before he arrived. Asked him if he’d lost his bloody neckcloth somewhere along the way. That’s when he went mad with his rage.”
Twenty-seven
“I KNEW THERE HAD TO BE A CONNECTION.” To bias pulled himself up into the hackney behind Lavinia and slammed the door. “There had to be a link between Hudson and Pelling. It was just too much of a coincidence that both men linked to you showed up in London at the same time.”
The fierce, hawklike anticipation in his eyes was unsettling. It was at times like this that she was most keenly aware of the dangerous edge that was always just beneath the surface of the man. She did not fear him at these moments; she feared for his safety. When his blood was up he was inclined to take risks.
The new revelations called for logic, she thought. Not immediate action.
“We must proceed slowly and carefully,” she said. “I admit that the fact that Pelling lost his cravat the night that Celeste was strangled with one is an exceedingly strange coincidence. But what possible connection could there be between Pelling and Celeste?”
“I suspect that for some reason Pelling, too, is after the Medusa bracelet. It would appear that he hired the Hudsons to steal it for him. Perhaps he became Celeste’s lover. Regardless, she went to meet him that night and he murdered her, either because they quarreled or because he believed that he no longer needed her to help him get the brace-let.”
“And realized too late that she had hidden the artifact before she met him at the warehouse?”
“The logic holds,” Tobias said with satisfaction.
She held up her hand. “Not entirely. Only think for a moment, Tobias. If Howard knew about Pelling’s involvement, then he must know that Pelling is the killer. Why would he hire us to find Celeste’s murderer if he already knew his identity?”
“Because Hudson is after the bracelet, not justice for his dead wife. He must have realized the fact that Pelling doesn’t have it, so he set us on the trail, hoping that if we turn over enough rocks, we’ll find the bloody antiquity before Pelling does.”
She spread her hands. “But why would Pelling want the bracelet in the first place?”
“Is he a collector?”
She thought back to the handful of conversations she’d had with Jessica Pelling. “To be honest, I do not know. The subject never arose. All I can say with any certainty is that he is wealthy enough to afford to collect rare antiquities.”
“I think I know someone who can answer the question for us.”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, VALE AND JOAN DOVE walked out of the mansion onto the terrace where Tobias and Lavinia waited together with Emeline and Anthony. Emeline had fetched Lavinia’s cloak a few minutes earlier and brought it out to her.
Vale took in Tobias’s disheveled appearance in a single cool glance. His brows climbed. “Anthony informed me that you wished to consult with me but that you were in no condition to enter the ballroom. I see what he meant. Do you mind if I ask what happened?”
“It’s a long and somewhat boring story,” Tobias said.
Lavinia gripped his arm very tightly. “Actually, two men tried to murder him.”
“Obviously they did not succeed,” Vale said. “My congratulations, sir.”
Tobias glanced at Lavinia. “I had some help from my partner.”
Vale inclined his head. “The two of you clearly make an excellent team.”
“Indeed,” Lavinia said firmly.
Vale turned back to Tobias. “What can I do for you?”
“Tell me if you know whether or not Pelling is a collector of antiquities,” Tobias said.
Vale did not answer immediately. Lavinia got the impression that he was running through some private logic of his own.
“Not to my knowledge,” he finally said very slowly. “It is possible, of course. I certainly do not claim to be acquainted with every serious collector in England. But I am not aware of Pelling having a scholarly interest in relics. He has made no bid to join the Connoisseurs.”
Lavinia’s spirits plummeted. She realized that she had been holding her breath. So much for Tobias’s brilliant theory, she thought. She glanced at him to see how he was taking the bad news.
To her surprise, he appeared undaunted.
“Hudson wants the Medusa bracelet for reasons that have nothing to do with a scholarly interest in antiquities,” Tobias said. “Perhaps Pelling is also obsessed with it for some unknown reason.”
Lavinia frowned. “Maggie said that Pelling went mad for a while the night he came to her room after the murder. If he is not entirely sane, he may want the bracelet for reasons that no one can comprehend.”
“Unfortunately, we have no evidence,” Tobias said. “I doubt that there is much we can do about Hudson at this juncture, but Pelling is a killer and must be stopped. If you’re willing to help, Vale, it may be possible to lure him into a trap. Perhaps he can be persuaded to incriminate himself in front of two men whose oath would be unquestioned.”
“I assume I am to be one of the witnesses,” Vale said. “Who is the other?”
“Crackenburne.”
Vale looked thoughtful. “It might work. How do you intend to set your stage?”
Tobias smiled slowly. “With the assistance of Mr. Nightingale.”
Vale and Tobias exchanged glances.
“With luck we have time to bait and set the trap tonight,” Tobias said.
Even in the shadows there on the terrace, Lavinia could make out the cold pleasure of the hunt in the eyes of both men.
BUT TOBIAS’S PREDATORY ANTICIPATION dissolved a short time later when he sent a carefully crafted message regarding a very private auction to the inn where Pelling was staying.
The response came back immediately. Oscar Pelling had packed his bags and departed sometime after midnight. No one knew where he had gone.
“ONE OF THE MORE ANNOYING ASPECTS OF THIS matter,” Lavinia observed over a glass of sherry just before dawn, “is that Mr. Nightingale demands to be paid for his time, in spite of the fact that the scheme was unsuccessful. And we seem to be running short of clients to cover our expenses.”
Twenty-eight
TOBIAS ARRIVED FOR A LATE BREAKFAST THE following morning in a mood that boded ill for everyone around him.
Anthony, looking no happier, followed him into the breakfast room.
Emeline’s initial start of pleasure at seeing him faded to a look of deep concern. “Oh, dear, something else has gone wrong.”
Lavinia lowered her cup back down onto the saucer.
“What happened?” she asked.
Tobias took his customary chair and reached for the coffeepot. “They have both vanished.”
“Both?” Lavinia searched his face and then glanced at Anthony for assistance.
“It is not just Pelling who has disappeared. We called at Dr. Hudson’s rooms a short while ago. He is gone also.” Anthony hesitated politely, one hand on the back of a chair. “May I sit down?”
“Yes, of course,” Emeline said quickly.
Lavinia raised her brows. “Forgive us for our little lapse in manners, Anthony. It is just that we have grown so accustomed to Tobias’s charming way of making himself at home. He no longer waits upon an invitation, as you can see.”
Tobias ignored the pointed remark. He poured coffee for himself and handed the pot to Anthony. “I have concluded that those two footpads we encountered last night must have reported their failure to Pelling. He no doubt realized that if we knew enough to interview Maggie, we were getting too close. He may
have passed the warning along to Hudson. Or perhaps the damned mesmerist came to the conclusion on his own that it was time to leave.”
Emeline looked at him. “Where do you think they went?”
“No way to know yet.” Tobias surveyed the dishes on the table, an irritable Minotaur eyeing sacrificial offerings. He settled upon the tray of eggs. “I doubt if either of them would dare return to their former residences. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they are on their way to the Continent. Perhaps Hudson will elect to return to America.”
“They certainly will not be showing their faces in London in the near future,” Anthony said with some satisfaction.
“The fact that both men decamped together proves once and for all that they were, indeed, associates in this affair,” Tobias said.
“Not necessarily.” Lavinia took a bite of egg and gave him a quelling look. “Howard may well have left Town because he was intimidated by your attitude when you called upon him the other day. After all, you more or less threatened him, did you not?”
Tobias shrugged. “More, not less.”
Anthony glanced at him. “You did not mention that you had talked to Hudson. What did you say to him?”
“It was a private matter.” Tobias caught Lavinia’s eye while he piled eggs on his plate. “Nothing that need concern us this morning.”
Mrs. Chilton bustled in with a fresh plate of eggs. “Getting to be quite a crowd out here in the mornings. We’ll have to see about increasing our order with the dairymaid.”
Lavinia cleared her throat. “Large quantities of eggs and milk are costly.”
“I’m sure we can afford a few extra eggs,” Emeline said quickly.
“Whitby mentioned this morning that he is not using the usual number of eggs lately,” Tobias put in helpfully. “I’ll instruct him to send some to you, Mrs. Chilton.”
“Very well, sir.” Mrs. Chilton started back through the door. “I’ll go and fetch some more toast.”
“And jam,” Tobias added. “We’ve run out again.”
“Aye, sir. More jam.”