Some of the tension in her posture eased. She even managed a smile. “You mean to catch cheating as it happens, but he wants to break in and find marked cards or hidden compartments or, I suppose, a very convenient list of victims.”
“That’d be grand,” Brogan said.
Fletcher leaned against the wall near the window. “It’s a right regular shame you didn’t manage to catch the Phantom Fox, Hollis. You’d have precisely the skilled help you need.”
The man didn’t realize the legendary sneak thief was in the room.
Ana stepped closer to Hollis and, in an almost silent whisper, said, “He’s not wrong. I could do it.”
He shook his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’d keep out of the public rooms.”
“Ana.” He pulled her to the side of the room. “Four-Finger Mike doesn’t deal only in thieving children. One of his closest associates ran a vast prostitution ring, and very few of the women caught up in it were there willingly.”
“I have slipped in and out of dozens of houses, some of which were full of people at the time, and I’ve only ever been caught by you. And even then, I still got away.” Her gaze turned almost pleading. “I could do this, Hollis. I could help.”
“If she’s a skilled sneak thief, I think we ought to consider it,” Fletcher said.
Hollis and Ana both jumped, looking over at him.
He gave them a look as dry as the Sahara. “We’re in a tiny room with no other noises. Did you really think we couldn’t hear you?”
Brogan added his thoughts. “Four-Finger Mike won’t be expecting a woman thief.”
“They agree with me,” Ana said. “You’re outvoted.”
“This isn’t Parliament, darling,” Hollis said.
“This also isn’t a dictatorship.” She popped her fists on her hips. “So either you can include me in this and we’ll formulate an approach together, or I’ll simply wait until you’re across the street and I’ll get the information I need from these gentlemen, then do my part without you.”
He eyed the others. “You’d do that to me?”
“The Raven has to be stopped,” Fletcher said. “And you said yourself it’s more than you can do on your own. Four-Finger Mike wouldn’t recognize her, should she be seen. We can’t say that for either of us.”
Hollis paced away. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. But, no matter that the Dread Master had shown some faith in him, he knew he didn’t have the clout to override the others. And he’d learned a little of Ana’s stubbornness.
“This is dangerous.” He said it as much to Ana as to the others, a last effort to change all their minds.
“If we bring down the Raven,” Ana said, “we can likely bring down Four-Finger Mike as well. This neighborhood will be safer for it. The children of London will be safer for it. The women of London will be as well. It is dangerous, yes. But it must be done.”
Fletcher gave a firm nod. Brogan mimed applause.
That was their fate sealed then. Ana would be sneaking into the lion’s den, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“Swear to me you’ll be careful.” He brushed his thumb along her jaw.
“I swear.”
He bent and brushed his lips over hers, a whisper of a kiss, unhurried and light as air. He’d caught her once, and he wasn’t as wily as Four-Finger Mike. If anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.
The gambling rooms at the Thompsons’ place were arranged according to the skill of the players and the height of the stakes. Hollis had begun in the lowest of the rooms—the ground-floor drawing room, sporting three-penny stakes and games dependent more on chance than skill—but he had already moved to the small sitting room on the first floor, four rooms advanced from where he’d begun.
Never in all his time there had he seen the Raven join a game. He’d need to do something to catch the eye of that elusive fellow.
Hollis left every day with more money in his pocket than he’d arrived with, but that hadn’t done the trick. He’d managed some impressive performances in various games. That hadn’t either.
Skill alone wouldn’t do it. He needed to borrow a page from Fletcher and swagger a little. The best game for that, in his experience, was baccarat. Tradition dictated that players could make quite a show out of revealing their cards. Some chose to simply flip them over. Others took their time, bending the cards, drawing out the drama.
Hollis sat at the baccarat table, determined to win handily and with flair. Baccarat involved a great deal of chance, but with six players and a dealer, a great many cards would be revealed. Hollis could track which ones remained in the deck and, thus, which ones were most likely to come up. He’d previously played with each of these gentlemen at other tables. He knew how to read them.
Each card he was dealt, he twisted loosely from one corner to the other, slowly making a pasteboard curl before laying it face up, perched on two corners. The drawn-out approach brought all eyes to him and built tension and expectation.
He played the table as much as the cards. Some of the gentlemen were cautious, making smaller bets, not easily persuaded to wager high. Others, though, needed only a couple of wins to toss caution to the wind. Hollis provided that, building their confidence and, with it, the pot.
No one would be ruined by him. He wouldn’t allow the wagers to reach that level. He simply pushed the game far enough for a few people to wander over and watch.
Hollis assumed an even more roguish posture and watched as the final opponent at the table turned over his cards, adding a small crease as he did. The first was a ten, which could prove either perfect or disastrous. The onlookers and the dealer watched closely as he turned his second card. An eight.
Whispers of excitement echoed around them. Only one pair of cards could beat a natural eight. But Hollis knew which cards were left, and he had a tremendously good chance of holding that pair.
Leaning on the arm of his chair, his posture unconcerned, he began curling back the first of his two cards, slowly revealing it. A ten. He tossed it to the dealer. The room watched and waited.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hollis spotted the Raven standing apart from the onlookers. But he was watching. He was most definitely watching.
Hollis undertook his card twisting with an extra degree of emphasis. The tiniest bit at a time, he wrapped it backward. The crowd bent forward, eager for a glance. Only one card would win.
He saw it before anyone else. Though most players kept their reactions subdued, this was not the moment for subtlety. He saw precisely the card he needed and grinned.
He tossed the curl of pasteboard to the dealer.
“A natural nine,” the dealer declared. “Our winner, gentlemen.”
Hollis stood, offered a dip of his head, and waited as the dealer gathered the impressive pile of coins Hollis had won.
Their host wove toward him, stopping beside him at the baccarat table.
“I suspect, Mr. Darby,” the Raven said, “you may be bored with our games here.”
“A little.” He dropped his now much heavier purse in his jacket pocket, balancing the appearance of triumph with ennui. He had a very specific role to play, after all. “Do you know where I might find more of a challenge? I haven’t a membership at any of the clubs.”
The Raven waved that off. “They’ll not challenge you there. What you need is a game in the front parlor.”
“The front parlor here?” he asked.
The Raven nodded. “Very few are invited to play there. Your brother, in fact, never made it that far.”
“My brother is not the brightest among us.” He offered a nod to the table of gentlemen.
“But you, I would wager, are.” The Raven assessed him. “What do you say, Mr. Darby? A greater challenge. Greater stakes. Greater privacy.”
&n
bsp; “Against whom would I be playing?”
The man’s smile was somehow both oily and sincere. “Only the best.”
“An undertaking on that level deserves an audience one can depend upon.” He set his hands in his pockets, assuming a casual posture. “Allow me to bring my choice of companions, and I believe I will accept the challenge.”
The Raven nodded. “Very well. Choose your support and choose your game. Simply tell me when.”
“Tomorrow,” Hollis said. “In the evening.”
“I look forward to it.”
Hollis put his hat on his head and, with one last nod, turned and left.
Tomorrow evening. His moment of truth.
Watching Hollis knock on the door of the Thompsons’ house, knowing he would soon be challenging a man whose card sharping was at the heart of her own family’s pain, Ana could not be easy. Hollis had assured her he was an excellent cardsman. Fletcher had assured her Hollis was sharp as a razor blade and equally as dangerous when need be.
A turn of the Crow’s cards had destroyed a great many lives. What if Hollis’s was next?
“He knows what he’s about, lass,” Brogan said, standing near her by the window. “And securing permission to bring Fletcher along as a condition of the Raven’s challenge was genius. The two of them together are more formidable than anyone’d likely guess. Everything’ll be grand.”
She stepped away from the window. “Fine words from a man who has filled the belowstairs of my house with police.”
“For when the two of you catch that scoundrel red-handed,” Brogan said. “He’s inside now. ’Tis nearly time for you to sneak over.”
Wallace stepped inside. “There’s a girl here what needs to bend your ear, Miss Newport.”
Odd. “I’ll talk to her in the corridor.”
It was not a student whom she saw there, though. It was Very Merry.
“What are you doing here, child? Your thief master frequents this neighborhood. You could be found out.”
Worry sat deep in the girl’s eyes, but she didn’t turn away. “Mr. Hollis is in that gambling house, ain’t he?”
“He is.”
“Ambrose was talkin’ with another servant what came to tell him things. I heard him say Mr. Hollis is for running to ground a criminal with four fingers, a man who makes children steal for him and who sells children to people who ought not buy children.”
“No one should ever buy children.”
The urchin looked downright cynical. “Fine fantasy world you’re living in, miss. But I’m needing you in the real one long enough to save Mr. Hollis.”
“Save him? He is in danger from this four-fingered man?”
“No, miss. He’s in danger because he thinks that’s who he’s looking for. He’s a bad’n Four-Finger Mike—I ain’t arguing that—and he is connected to all this. But he’s small pickings compared to some.” Fear, blatant and unmistakable, accompanied the girl’s every word.
“Who is it Mr. Hollis ought to be looking for?”
“I was stealing for the man who bought me,” she said. “He’d kill me now if he could find me. It’s what he did to t’others what disobeyed him and tried running off. He’s killed grown people too. Heaps of ’em.”
Mercy. “And this is who Hollis should be looking for?”
“No, miss. He should be running away. Except he don’t know that man’s nearby. He don’t know what he’s actually facing. If he did, he’d run. Least I hope he would.”
Ana bent low, holding the girl’s gaze. “Who is it?”
Very Merry paled. “The one they call the Mastiff.”
Ana had heard Elizabeth and Mr. Walker whispering about someone who went by that name. She’d even heard Móirín mention him in quiet, tense tones. The Mastiff, she had gleaned even before Very Merry’s worrying description of him, was a man any person of sense would be terrified of.
“And he’s at this game?” Ana pressed.
“I cain’t say for sure and certain. But he ’as a keen interest in what’s happening at that house. It’s the reason he had us busting into homes here. He wanted to know who lived nearby and what they lived like. Wanted to know if any of the homes was empty.”
Ana’s heart dropped. “Like this one.”
“I were meant to bust in here, miss, but Mr. Hollis and his friends found me.”
“They found you here?” Why had she not heard about this?
“The Mastiff’ll know where I was caught. He’ll believe that means it’s filled with people. He’ll keep clear of it.”
She pressed a hand to her pounding heart. “Are you certain of that?”
“He don’t waste his own time. He’ll have staked his ground elsewhere.”
Ana mentally checked off every house on that stretch of St. George’s. “All the homes are occupied.”
“I suspect he’s inside the gambling house, miss. But Mr. Hollis will be keeping an eye out for Four-Finger Mike, and I know he’s wary of the Raven. But they’re dribbling babbies compared to the Mastiff.”
How could she possibly get a warning to Hollis when he was inside a home more closely guarded than Buckingham Palace? There was really only one thing for it. When she broke in, she would have to do more than search for papers and evidence. She would have to find a way to get word to him.
Her already risky mission had just turned terrifyingly dangerous.
The Thompsons’ house was not vastly different from her own, which meant the ways in and out were virtually identical. Ana slipped around back and, assuming an air of belonging, moved purposely up the garden walk. She’d scrounged up some clothes that would allow her to blend in amongst the servants.
Her original plan had been to avoid everyone and go unseen. Very Merry’s revelation had changed that. This tactic was riskier, but it was her best hope.
A basket of freshly picked foodstuffs sat near the garden entrance. Ana scooped it up and walked inside as if she had every right to. She made her way up the corridor to the kitchen. The basket found a place near the washbasin. Ana snatched an apron off an obliging nail and tied it on.
Another woman, near to Ana’s age and wearing an identical apron, swooped over to the worktable and took up a tray.
“Lower card room,” the cook barked out.
The maid left with a quick step.
Ana copied her actions and selected a tray of her own.
“East card room. First floor.”
Ana spun and carried her load from the kitchen. Thank heavens these houses were so similar. She didn’t draw undue attention fumbling around looking for the servants’ stairs. The comparative calm of her forward movement allowed her to mentally take note of the comings and goings around her.
She saw only two maids. As she climbed the stairs, she crossed paths with a single footman and a harried-looking woman she guessed was the housekeeper. She’d not spotted a knife boy or a scullery maid whilst she was in the kitchen. For a house this size with such a steady influx of “guests,” she’d expected a larger staff.
The first-floor servants’ landing was empty. Ana stepped out and peeked through the first door she came across. The room was empty. The next room proved the same. Perhaps the staff was small today because the number of games was also small.
After a time, she found what had to be the east card room, no matter that cards were not being played. Men stood about chatting in what, on the surface, appeared to be friendly tones. When she looked more closely, the tension between them became obvious.
Ana set her tray on an end table, then distributed the plates of victuals to be within reach of the scattered gentlemen. As she did so, she unobtrusively eyed the gentlemen she passed. Hollis sat in a corner talking with Mr. Lewiston, whom they’d seen in the park a few weeks earlier. She couldn’t very well drop a warning in his ear with Mr. Lewiston nearby.
/> As she returned to her empty tray, she caught sight of Fletcher, standing near the others but not deep in discussion. This was her chance. Best not give away the game, though.
She stepped near him and dipped a curtsey. “Beggin’ yer pardon, sir. Was you the genn’elman what asked for a dram of brandy?”
Recognition flickered in his eyes for the briefest of moments. “I am, yes.”
“We haven’t four fingers’ worth, sir. Ain’t what we have here. I’d fetch it for you iffen I could. Swear to it, I do. I feel like a massive dog, though, not having what you’re looking for. A dog, I tell you. A giant one.”
He nodded, the gesture just the right degree of dismissive for him to blend in with the Society gents surrounding him. “Understood.” He waved her away.
Did he understand? Truly?
She paused, watching him.
He raised an eyebrow. “Was there more? Beyond the four fingers of brandy and the massive dog?”
“Only that I hope you ’ave a very merry time here today, sir. You and any friends you might have come with.”
“You are a very chatty sort, aren’t you?” He eyed her with annoyance. “I don’t suspect you’ll hold on to a position for too long, running your mouth like you do.” Fletcher looked away, pointedly dismissing her. The man could play a part.
She slipped out, telling herself Fletcher wouldn’t allow Hollis to proceed without all the information she’d given. He cared about his friend, and he would do what needed doing.
So would she.
Using what information Hollis had offered about the house and making a few well-informed guesses, she navigated the servants’ stairs and back corridors to the ground floor room serving as the Raven’s office. The entire floor echoed with emptiness. She wouldn’t have a better opportunity for searching than this.
Ana slipped inside and carefully, quietly, closed the door. That would give her a little warning if anyone came inside.
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