Drake frowned as she linked her arm in his and started them walking toward the brewery gates. He noted the particularly belligerent tilt to her chin, the set of said chin, and the militant glint in her eye… He shrugged and faced forward. “I suppose we have time for a quick foray to the Sawyers’, given their house is so close.”
She tipped her head his way. “Thank you.”
They halted beside the carriage. Drake penned a note to Sebastian and Michael while Louisa scribbled out a copy of the list of twelve merchants to whom Cook and Mellon had delivered.
Drake had had the forethought to bring along two young grooms for the purpose of ferrying messages; he sent one off to St. Ives House with his note and the copied list of merchants, while Louisa tucked the original list back into her reticule.
Drake wondered how it was that all the lists in this affair seemed to end up in one reticule or another, but forbore to comment. Instead, he handed Louisa into the carriage and told Henry to drive to Barnham Street.
CHAPTER 52
Three minutes later, Henry drew the carriage to a halt in Barnham Street, just around the corner from Tooley Street.
Drake helped Louisa down to the cobbles. Side by side, they walked down the street toward the house Jed Sawyer had shared with his wife.
Louisa had been surveying the houses ahead. She put a hand on Drake’s arm and slowed him.
He halted and looked at her questioningly and saw a frown in her eyes.
“I wonder…” Then her face cleared, resolution plainly taking hold. She tapped his arm and stepped away. “Can you please stay there? Far enough back so whoever answers the door can’t see you. I want to try something else first.”
He had no idea what she was about, but obediently remained where he was. At that time of day in a street such as this, not even she was likely to find danger.
Instead of continuing to the Sawyers’ door, Louisa stopped before the steps of the narrow house next door. She paused as if rehearsing her words, then reached out and rapped smartly on the door.
Drake leaned against the wall beside which he’d halted and swiftly surveyed the street. A few children played at the far end, but at that moment, there were no women at any doors, and no curtains appeared to be twitching.
He heard the Sawyers’ neighbors’ door open and returned his gaze to Louisa; from where he stood, he couldn’t see whoever had answered the door, and they couldn’t see him. He was, however, near enough to hear the exchange that followed and appreciate Louisa’s performance.
“Good morning.” Louisa now held her reticule before her, both hands clasped about the top in a supplicatory manner she would never normally affect. She smiled brightly at whoever had answered the door. “I do hope you can help me. I represent the Athena Agency—we place respectable men and women with households in Mayfair. Your neighbors”—with a tip of her head, she indicated the Sawyers’ house—“have filed an application with us, and we’ve had interest shown from the household of the Marquess of Winchelsea. That’s what brings me here, you see—I need to check the character references the Sawyers have given us.”
Louisa’s features arranged themselves into an expression of embarrassed contrition that, if he hadn’t known it to be entirely spurious, would have fooled Drake. Lowering her voice, she confided, “But now I’m here, I find I’ve brought the wrong application.” She brandished what he suspected was the list of merchants they’d got from the brewery. “Of course, I meant to bring the Sawyers’ application—they had listed as referee one of their relatives who I know lives close by.” She glanced rather warily at the Sawyers’ door. “I don’t like to knock and ask the Sawyers directly.” She gave a tittering laugh. “No one likes to admit to such a silly mistake. So”—she opened her eyes wide and trained them on whoever stood at the door—“I wondered if you knew where the Sawyers’ nearest relative lives? If I have to go all the way back to the Agency—it’s in Knightsbridge, you see—I won’t be able to complete their application today, which won’t please the Winchelsea housekeeper.”
“Well, we can’t have that. Sure as eggs are eggs, it’s the Morgans you’ll be wanting, miss.” A large woman stepped out onto the stoop. She pointed down the street. “Just continue down to Crucifix Lane at the end there, and the Morgans’ house is two…no, it’s three doors from the corner on the right.”
“Thank you so much.” Louisa’s face positively radiated gratitude. “You’ve been a great help.”
“Aye, well.” The woman heaved her massive shoulders. “It’s what neighbors are for, ain’t it?”
With further expressions of thanks, Louisa took her leave of the woman. Without glancing at Drake, she started walking in the direction of Crucifix Lane.
Drake waited until he heard the woman shut her door, then he strode swiftly after Louisa.
He caught up with her just around the corner in Crucifix Lane. She’d halted and was waiting for him. Curious, he asked, “What gave you the idea of asking for nearby family?”
“You did.” She looped her arm in his, and they strolled on very slowly. “At our meeting in the library on Saturday. You said that Sawyer’s family might have hidden him—and I realized that seeking refuge with family would have been the most obvious thing for him to have done.” She tipped her head so her hair brushed Drake’s shoulder. “I realize that by ‘family’ you meant his wife, but that wouldn’t have worked. The garrotter could simply have kept watch on his house.”
They drew level with the third door on the right, and she halted. “It would be difficult for Sawyer to hide at his home, but he wouldn’t want to leave his wife and flee to the country, either. And if his wife went with him, not only would that signal to everyone that he was alive, but they would probably lose their house. I thought it most likely he would want to lie low and wait for this business to blow over—somewhere close and with people he trusted to hide him and keep it a secret.” She met Drake’s eyes. “So with family nearby.”
He recalled her sudden abstraction at that point in Saturday’s discussion. He nodded, then looked at the Morgans’ door. “Now what?”
“Now you lead the way. I’m sure you can convince the Morgans that you know they’re hiding Sawyer and that he needs to speak with you.”
Drake humphed, but didn’t disagree. He had a very well-developed line in intimidation. He lowered his arm, but caught her hand in his and, towing her behind him, approached the Morgans’ door.
As it was Monday, Morgan was working. It didn’t take Drake long to impress on Mrs. Morgan that she needed to convince her cousin—having established that Jed Sawyer was her first cousin—to come to the door and speak with him.
Left on the doorstep, his boot wedged in the door so it couldn’t be closed, Drake listened to the heated argument inside. He’d already decided that Jed Sawyer had to have had his wits about him to escape the fate that had befallen his three coworkers. Consequently, the fact that someone had traced him to the Morgans and, courtesy of Mrs. Morgan’s actions, now knew he was there would sink in soon enough.
Two minutes later, a tall, lanky man came out of a room at the rear of the house and, with obvious trepidation, approached the door. When he drew close enough to see Drake clearly, Sawyer frowned, but hung back in the shadows of the narrow hall. “What do you want?”
Drake straightened from the doorframe against which he’d been lounging. “You would be wise to continue to lie low.” As he’d anticipated, that advice paradoxically reassured Sawyer. The apprentice wasn’t that young, but at Drake’s question, Sawyer confirmed he was apprenticed to Mike Jones, one of the master coopers at the Phoenix Brewery.
“Of course, Mike’s dead now—or so my wife heard.” Sawyer looked glum. “I guess I’ll be out of a job by the time this blows over.”
“I doubt it.” Drake watched Sawyer closely, but the man seemed exactly as he appeared. “We believe the matter will come to a head over the next few days. After that, once we’re sure we have the killer who murdered your t
hree friends behind bars, you’ll be able to return to the brewery. I’ll even put in a good word for you with Flock, although he seemed genuinely saddened to lose you as well as the other three.”
Sawyer blinked. “Is that right?” He stood a fraction straighter.
“Of course,” Drake continued, “you being able to return to your job and your home depends on us catching the killer. How did you get away from him? Did you see him?”
Sawyer had relaxed his vigilance. Readily, he shook his head. “No—it was in the fog. I used to meet up with Mal Triggs on my way in. He would wait for me in a little pocket in Vine Yard, then we’d cut through a ginnel that joins up with Stoney Lane and go in through the main gates.” Sawyer paused, his face tightening. “That morning—it was Thursday last—I was early. I stopped at that little pocket where Mal usually waited, but he wasn’t there, and I couldn’t see anything in the fog—pea-souper, it was. I waited, but Mal didn’t show. I started to walk on, but then…” He blanched. “I heard creeping footsteps coming up behind me and…well, I just knew. Mike and Cec hadn’t been in the day before, and no one knew what had happened to them. They were supposed to be on second shift, but they disappeared on their way to work…” His gaze fixed unseeing on the stoop, Sawyer swallowed. “I just took to my heels, and I didn’t stop running until I was safe indoors. Then later, I came over the fences and down the back alleys to Jenny’s.” He looked curiously at Drake. “I figured no one would think to look for me here, and my Suzie visits Jenny all the time.”
Drake nodded reassuringly. “I doubt anyone else will think to look here.” He glanced sidelong at Louisa, then looked back at Sawyer. “But as I said, I would strongly suggest you remain inside until I send word that it’s safe to resume your life.” Drake drew his card case from his pocket, extracted a card, and handed it to Sawyer, who received it and read the inscription with something like awe. “I’ll send another card like that with any message, so you’ll know it’s from me and it truly is safe to emerge.”
Sawyer nodded.
Drake waited until the man had tucked the card carefully away, then said, “Now, I need you to tell me what you and your three friends—Mike Jones, Cecil Blunt, and Mal Triggs—did on Monday night.” When Sawyer’s head came up, alarm flaring in his eyes, Drake continued, “We know you were hired to do something by a gentleman whose real name was the Honorable Lawton Chilburn—he had a scar from his lips to his jawbone.” Drake drew a line on his own face.
Sawyer blinked slowly.
“We also know that you were told that the action was part of a plot the Chartist hierarchy had approved.” Drake trapped Sawyer’s eyes. “That wasn’t true. The man with the scar and the man who’s been killing your friends are, indeed, running a plot, but they wanted to get Chartists involved so that the movement would be blamed for it.”
Sawyer looked stunned, then devastated. “Oh God. We thought…we all thought it was for the cause. We’d never have done it if it hadn’t been approved. But the militia leaders told us…”
“Sadly, all three militia leaders, all of whom met Chilburn, have turned up dead. Killed, we believe, by him in order to ensure they could never identify him or speak to anyone of the plot if they became suspicious.”
“They’re dead, too?” In his shock, Sawyer stepped closer to the door.
Drake felt Louisa shift from where she’d been standing, largely hidden from Sawyer by Drake’s greatcoated bulk and, he’d presumed, keeping an eye on the reassuringly quiet street. “Unfortunately, yes,” she said. “But Mr. Beam from the association has been helping us.”
Sawyer blinked rapidly, assimilating Louisa’s presence as well as her information.
“If you want to help us and avenge your friends—the three from the brewery as well as the militia leaders—then you really do need to answer Lord Winchelsea’s questions.” Louisa slanted a look at Drake. “We need to learn the truth as quickly as we can.”
Sawyer stared at her for a moment, then the lanky man nodded and drew himself up. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.” He looked at Drake. “We—me and Mike—were waiting in the brewery for Cec and Mal when they brought the barrels of gunpowder over from Shepherd’s in Morgan’s Lane. Earlier, that fellow—Major Sharp, he told us he was called—had explained what he wanted us to do, and he’d given Mike the money for the oilskin. Mike and I got busy lining the ale barrels while Cec and Mal fetched the gunpowder. When they rolled in, we broke open the gunpowder barrels and tipped the stuff into the oilskin-lined ale barrels. Then Mike and I sealed the ale barrels with the oilskin bags inside up tight.”
Sawyer frowned. “We thought Major Sharp was supposed to come and check over the work, but he hadn’t exactly said he would, and when he didn’t turn up…” Sawyer shrugged. “The others got busy stamping the barrels—the ale barrels that now contained the gunpowder. They said as I could go, so I left—I knew Suzie would be waiting up for me.”
“The stamp that was put on the barrels,” Louisa said. “What stamp was it?”
“It was the one for Hunstable’s warehouse—Mike said that was the stamp Major Sharp said had to go on all those barrels.”
“So the barrels were delivered to Hunstable’s,” Drake said.
Sawyer shrugged. “I assume so, but I don’t rightly know for certain.”
“Was there another mark put on the barrels?” Louisa asked. “One for an eventual customer?”
His gaze growing distant, Sawyer frowned. After several moments, he nodded. “Now you mention it, Mike did have another stamp waiting on his bench to go into the brazier.” Sawyer looked at Louisa. “For heating it up, you see, to burn the mark into the wood.”
“Which customer’s stamp was it?” Both Drake and Louisa said the words in unison. They glanced at each other, then looked back at Sawyer.
But the lanky man grimaced. “I’m sorry. I can’t say. I didn’t see the stamp itself—it was lying on the bench facing the other way, and I left before Mike got to using it.”
Disappointment warred with relief over having got at least one definite step forward. Drake nodded to Sawyer. “Thank you—that’s all we need to know.”
Sawyer grasped the edge of the door, but kept his eyes on Drake’s face. “That was gunpowder we were handling—illegally and all. Will I be up before the beak for that?”
Drake shook his head. “The authorities now know that you and your friends—and others, too—have been taken in by this group. You were led to believe things that weren’t true, and as you’re helping us to unravel the plot, and it’s those behind it we’re actually after, I can’t imagine the police or anyone else thinking to come after you.”
Louisa nodded in affirmation. “But you definitely should remain indoors until Lord Winchelsea sends word it’s safe to go about again.”
“I will.” Sawyer started to close the door. “And thank you, my lord. My lady.” With awkward bobs, he closed the door.
Drake and Louisa exchanged a glance, then as one, turned and started walking quickly back to the carriage.
On the way, Louisa wrestled open her reticule and hauled out the list of merchants again. She ran her eyes down it. “As you might expect, Hunstable’s is on the list of deliveries Cook and Mellon made.” She glanced sidelong at Drake. “They delivered to Hunstable’s on Friday morning.”
Drake swore. He gripped her arm, and they hurried along even faster. “So we missed the barrels by just a few hours.”
Louisa kept reading. “Hunstable’s Warehouse is on Chatham Square. That’s at the north end of Blackfriars Bridge.” She glanced at Drake. “We can call in there on our way back to Grosvenor Square to change for the funeral.”
He nodded curtly. “Precisely my thoughts.”
The carriage lay ahead. Less than a minute later, they were in it, and Henry was heading for Blackfriars Bridge.
CHAPTER 53
A s they rattled over the bridge, Louisa looked down and across and spotted the large warehouse with “Hunstable’s Win
es and Ales” blazoned above a pair of double doors that stood open to a wharf at which flat-bottomed river barges lined up to off-load barrels, kegs, and crates of bottles. One barge was currently unloading. A reed-thin individual in clerk’s garb was standing to one side of the doors, marking off barrels on a list as the bargemen carried them past.
Louisa tugged Drake’s sleeve and pointed. “The bargemen carry the barrels inside. If Chilburn or whoever it was bribed Cook and Mellon to deliver the gunpowder barrels to Hunstable’s, they wouldn’t have had to bribe anyone else to get the barrels into the warehouse.”
Drake had glimpsed what she’d seen. He faced forward. “I’m now more concerned with learning for which customer those barrels were destined—and if the damned gunpowder is still in the warehouse.” After a moment, he added, “Pray God it is.”
“One step at a time,” she counseled.
They’d reached the end of the bridge, and the carriage swerved sharply to the right, turning into a graveled yard before the street-facing façade of the same large warehouse.
Before the carriage had properly halted, Drake opened the door and swung down. Louisa didn’t wait for him to help her out, but in a froth of skirts and petticoats, scrambled out after him.
She shook down her skirts and looked up at the warehouse as, grim-faced, Drake strode for the warehouse doors. There, too, a handsome sign proclaiming the premises as housing Hunstable’s Wines and Ales was mounted above the open double doors.
Their arrival had not gone unnoticed. As she hurried to catch up with Drake, a dapperly dressed, middle-aged man with a beaming smile wreathing his face walked out to meet them. With Drake approaching at pace, the man halted and bowed. “Sir. Madam.” Straightening, he fixed a look of inquiry on Drake. “How might we at Hunstable’s be of service, sir?”
Drake returned Hunstable’s look levelly and told him, omitting only to mention that the “contraband material” hidden in the doctored barrels of Bright Flame Ale was gunpowder.
The Greatest Challenge of Them All Page 32