Marcus slammed the door to the sitting room closed and threw an apologetic glance at John before he raced toward the front door, shouting for help.
“Get everyone out,” he ordered Argus as he ran past the startled butler. “Go and get help and bring back as many buckets as you can find.”
The house descended into chaos. Thea hurried to the kitchens and found the house keeper, the scullery maid and Tilly, and gave each of them buckets and pans before she headed out to the well in the back yard. The women quickly sorted themselves out. Thea and the housekeeper worked the handle of the well and filled the buckets while Tilly, the scullery maid and Argus carried them to the sitting room to Marcus and John.
Marcus counted to three and pushed open the door to the sitting room. He stood back to allow John to throw the water into the room. The wall of heat that met them made them both stagger back and they exchanged a knowing look at the same time that several men appeared in the doorway armed with buckets.
Across the city Rupert studied the back of the small terraced house, aware that once again he was standing knee deep in fetid filth in one of London’s grimiest backwaters. He could only hope to God that it wouldn’t be another wasted effort. This time round though, the information had been gathered by the Star Elite and was as accurate as it was possible to get. His colleagues had remained in post and had continued to watch the house.
Now that Rupert and Jacob had arrived, they were all set to move in on the property that Fornier had called home.
Right now though, Rupert desperately wanted to be back at Ridings where he could share another cosy meal with Thea and, hopefully, secure a future with her. Instead, he was outside, in the cold, putting his life in danger once more. In that moment he made himself a promise that this was going to be his last investigation. He was tired of risking everything and getting very little in return. Notoriety was one thing, but he wanted a future and, as long as that future contained Thea, he knew it would be a bright one.
Somewhere around the docks, several additional men their boss, Sir Hugo, had sourced were lying in wait to move in once Fornier was under arrest. Everyone was in position and waiting for the signal. The two men at the front of the narrow terraced house, and the two men just inside the back yard all moved into action at eight fifteen precisely.
The loud bang of the front door as it was kicked open was all Rupert needed to hear and with one well-placed boot he watched the back door practically crumble to reveal the startled faces of two of Fornier’s pickpocket thugs. They were all Marcus needed to see. He raced into the house before either man had the opportunity to get out of their seats. From the descriptions that Thea had given him earlier, they were the same men who had tried to abduct her. The thought filled him with rage and the knowledge that he could at least extract a little revenge for Thea’s torment was more than enough to ensure that Rupert’s fists landed with more force than was really necessary, and astonishing brutality that left both men out cold on the floor within seconds.
Harry grinned over at him. “You have been practicing old man.”
Rupert rolled his eyes, his attention on their main quarry who was in the front room of the house, yelling his head off in a mixture of French and English.
“Well, well, if we don’t have the latest French scoundrel, Fornier,” Rupert sighed, glad that he hadn’t used the shot in his gun. There was no possible way that Fornier was going to leave this room without either being shackled or dead. The relief that swept through him immediately brought forth a sense of elation that eased his tension and he relaxed into the role he needed to play to ensure that he got the job done.
It didn’t matter how long this took, he was going to get some answers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rupert sighed and made his gun visible. He watched Fornier glance at it before he swept a nervous glance around the room at Jacob, Luke and Harry who had all moved forward to join them.
The Frenchman knew that he was outnumbered and began to grow frantic. He watched Luke move to stand before the front room windows and Harry move to stand with his back against the far wall. Rupert came to a stop a few feet away from Fornier, while Jacob stood just to the side of him. Fornier had no way out unless he was prepared to climb up the chimney and knew it. The cool howl of wind swept through the house and was the only sound to be heard for several long moments while Rupert waited for the helplessness of the Frenchman’s situation to sink in.
“Tell me one thing, Fornier.” Rupert demanded. He had watched Fornier weigh up his options before he suddenly straightened and stared arrogantly back at them. He couldn’t quite decide if the Frenchman was bluffing or had another way out that they didn’t know about. Nobody spoke. They waited until Fornier turned his attention to Rupert, who remained tall and motionless before him.
“Why shoot John Weatherby? What connection is he to you?” Although he kept his stance as relaxed as possible, tension thrummed through him as he waited to see if Thea’s beloved relative was a criminal.
“Who?”
“The man you shot in Mayfair,” he refused to expand on his explanation. He knew from the look in Fornier’s eye that the Frenchman knew exactly who Rupert was talking about.
“It was a warning to you that we French are far stronger and more capable than you think. You took one of ours so we will take one of yours.”
“We took all of yours,” Luke argued. “Beaulieu, Petit, Moreau, Legrand, Laurent, Dubois and Guerin are all now dead. Bernard is answering lots of questions in jail at the moment but he will soon be dead too.”
“Let’s not forget Rousseau. He is also answering questions at the moment,” Rupert added. “So, along with all of your assorted employees, we have outmanoeuvred each and every one of you. Now that we have you, we can all start to enjoy ourselves a little more knowing the country is safe from foreign invasion.”
“You know nothing,” the Frenchman snorted disparagingly. “There are far more people involved in this than you realise. You English, with your wealthy aristocrats and ridiculous empires, what do you know? Your aristocrats cannot run their estates and their businesses by themselves. They need us French to invest their money in, and those who have chosen to support such a worthy cause as ours have enjoyed the money we have earned them. They would be nothing without us. They are so greedy in their big, empty house and posh gentleman’s clubs that they will accept any proposition we put to them. They don’t care about king and country. Nobody does. This is England. You are idiots if you think that this is the end of it,” Fornier scoffed. “Your man in Mayfair was shot because of his association with you.”
“He isn’t with us.”
“He is Star Elite,” Fornier argued. “I have seen him talking to Sir Hugo Dunnicliffe, that boss of the War Office. On several occasions, my men have watched him.” One long finger pointed in Rupert’s direction. “You. You were talking to him only the other night. He is a colleague of yours.”
“Not that it matters, but he isn’t. John Weatherby is a very popular man in the upper echelons of society and he has a lot of connections in high places but, as far as I am aware, is nothing more than an acquaintance of Sir Hugo’s. You shot the wrong man.” Rupert’s eyes met and held the Frenchman’s for several long moments. “You shot an innocent bystander. Not that I should think for one moment that it would mean to anyone like you, Fornier, but I am the one you should have aimed at. If you seriously rely on your men providing you with information, I think that you should have paid them a bit more. Maybe then they would have done a proper job and given you information that would support your so called clause and not hinder it. As it is, you have made more than enough foolish mistakes to prove that you are no match for us. We have now cornered you and there is no way out.”
“If you think that you are going to take me alive then you have another think coming,” Fornier declared proudly.
“Before you go,” Rupert replied sternly. “Why did you try to abduct the woman off the street? I mean,
what is she to you?”
“For a bargaining tool, why else? I know you have been watching us. I have my people out and about on all street corners. We have been watching you watching us, but you are too stupid to realise it. If we wanted to hurt her we could have shot her at any time, but we wanted to use her as leverage to buy us some time to move our operation away from this filth,” he glared disparagingly around him in disgust as though even he couldn’t quite believe just how bad his life had become.
“So you shot John thinking he was Star Elite, and then found out that he wasn’t?”
“I don’t care if he is Star Elite or not. He was shot as a warning. We were going to abduct the woman to use as a bargaining tool and then leave you to your wretched country.”
“We?”
“Me,” Fornier smirked. “I have no intention of taking any of the pick-pockets with me.”
“How have you been able to pay them though? I mean, if you don’t have any money. How have you got them to help you?” Jacob demanded with a drawl. He knew that the vast majority of London’s pick-pockets were a feral lot who would slit their own mother’s throat for a few bob and think nothing of it.
“They were easy to convince. I told them that you had all stolen my wealth and I wanted it back. I gave them a place to hide their stolen goods so they weren’t caught with anything that didn’t belong to them and, in exchange, I promised them at as soon as I had my house back I would furnish them with many gold coins. The ignorant oafs fell for it.”
“They would skin you alive if any of them heard you,” Harry warned.
“Jail is the safest place for you, only for God’s sake don’t tell anyone that you are French, or the other prisoners will skin you alive instead,” Lucas added with a frown. He knew that his words had struck home by the way the Frenchman’s eyes widened and he swallowed harshly.
When the Frenchman lifted a hand toward his gun, Rupert kicked him hard on the forearm. Fornier let out a pained shout and was distracted for a moment. To everyone’s surprise he tried to lunge for the window but was grabbed by Lucas who took him down in a tackle that left them in a heap on the floor. The resulting scuffle was brisk. It took very little time to overpower the spy who swore and kicked as he was carried out of the house by the men who each carried a limb. Once outside, they carried him to the waiting group of men led by Sir Hugo himself where he was quickly ironed and pushed roughly into a waiting jailer’s cart.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the last of the traitors,” Sir Hugo drawled with an air of satisfaction. “Well done, men.” He shook the hand of each man in turn and lifted an arm to signal to the jailers that they could remove the prisoner. The Frenchman swore and spat at Sir Hugo but could do little else while he disappeared from view.
“So, that’s the spy out of the way,” Rupert sighed as he watched the cart turn out of the end of the road. “What about the financier? I have asked John and, as far as he is aware, there is nobody of his acquaintance who would turn traitor to the country. What do we know about the financier?”
Sir Hugo sighed. Although the jubilation was still evident, it dimmed a little with the knowledge that their work wasn’t quite over just yet.
“The financier is definitely a wealthy snob called Van Heisen. He is of Dutch origin and extremely arrogant. He is up to his ears in debt but, when he had money, he chose to invest it heavily in false wineries that were purported to be in southern France. The French used it as a way of getting people to invest in the supposed business. The financiers put money in expecting to have part ownership in a thriving winery. What they actually got were a few barrels of valuable French brandy that in no way repaid them the huge sums they invested. When Van Heisen didn’t get the barrels of brandy that he was promised he refused to give Fornier any more money. When Fornier returned to London, he contacted Van Heisen for money again but was turned away. Van Heisen didn’t tell Fornier that he was up to his ears in debt because he had lost what was left of his wealth in gambling dens.”
“So what about Thea? I mean, why try to abduct her?” Harry frowned at his boss, but it was Rupert to answer him. They had followed the carriage but had lost it around Covent Garden. How it had gotten to Thea, heaven only knew but it was irrelevant now.
“Van Heisen was the last of the investors. Thea was going to be used for ransom because Fornier desperately needed money.”
As the prison cart turned out of view at the end of the road, a thoughtful silence settled over the group of men. To Rupert it felt like the end of a very long saga of confrontation, brutal battles, lies, subterfuge and deceit, which he was very glad to see the back of. Although he enjoyed the work he did, he was looking forward to being able to enjoy some of the comforts life could offer. He glanced at his colleagues who looked relieved and jubilant, yet concerned at the same time.
It was Jacob who broke the silence. “Do we bother with the pick-pockets?”
Sir Hugo shook his head. “Let the locals deal with them. We have bigger fish to fry. The next person we need to arrest is Van Heisen. He is not going to go down lightly and has friends in high places, so we need to be swift but discrete.”
“Do you want him to vanish, boss?” Harry queried. He looked forward to being able to bring the man to justice so that he could enjoy a couple of days off.
“Yes, but quietly, and he needs to go to stay at His Majesty’s pleasure in Bodmin with the others.”
“You don’t want him in London?”
Hugo shook his head. “With his contacts, I cannot risk anyone applying pressure on anyone in order to gain his release. At Bodmin there is no conceivable way he can get word out about his whereabouts.”
Rupert turned his head to study Sir Hugo. “What about John Weatherby? Fornier said he thought he was one of the Star Elite because of his association to you and me. He seemed to know quite a bit about us.”
Hugo looked at him steadily. “Like I said, Fornier knew Van Heisen, who moves in the same circles as John. My acquaintance with John Weatherby goes back several years and is no secret. John Weatherby is by far the finest and most dependable man in London. He is clear of any crimes, I am certain of it, so you need have no worries there. I can only assume that my association with John, and of course yourself, was enough to link everyone together. The house was being watched by Fornier and his pick-pockets as you know, and any one of them would have seen Thea enter or leave Ridings. Unfortunately, her presence in the house made her a target.”
Rupert nodded and felt a heavy weight lift off his shoulders now that Fornier was off to jail. He had no idea what he would have done if John had proven to be untrustworthy and involved in financing the French spies in some way.
“I am placing my trust in you and Marcus, Rupert, to ensure that nothing else happens to John Weatherby or his niece. I understand that you two have a prior acquaintance?”
Rupert nodded, aware that his colleagues were curious. “We were to have been married several years ago but a carriage accident took her away from me. There are several reasons why the marriage didn’t go ahead and, well, I ended up in the army.” He smiled at Sir Hugo and flicked a glance at the others. “You know the rest. Thea moved to Leicestershire to recover from her injuries and we lost contact with each other. Her uncle, John, is her guardian how.”
“You won’t get a finer family than the Weatherbys,” Sir Hugo assured him but accompanied his statement with a warning look. “John Weatherby also has people in very high places, far higher than Van Heisen’s. It is imperative that absolutely nothing happens to him under our watch.”
“When do you want to move in on Van Heisen?”
Sir Hugo sighed and moved closer to his men. He lowered his voice and waited until he had everyone’s attention before he relayed the plans he had drawn up to close this case once and for all.
“He will be at his gaming house tonight. I will take Luke and Jacob and intercept him on his way home. You and Marcus need to remain on watch at Ridings for the next few days, at leas
t until everything settles down again and John is back to full health. I will send word to you when it is alright to leave.” Hugo’s eyes met and held Rupert’s. “Come and see me after this is all done, and we will have that chat.” He didn’t add that he had a few ideas of how Rupert could continue to be involved in the Star Elite without the need to be living for weeks on end in disguise and in considerable danger, but couldn’t discuss it in front of the others, who were silent and watchful as they studied the area around them with cautious eyes.
Half an hour later, Rupert and Harry turned into Mews Road, where Ridings was located. Rupert turned his thoughts to Thea’s reaction when he told her that Fornier, the coachman in the top hat, were now firmly behind bars, along with the two men who had helped try to abduct her.
“Good God, Rupert,” Harry whispered, and grabbed Rupert’s forearm with hard fingers, but Rupert’s attention was already locked firmly on the thick plume of smoke that billowed steadily out of the shattered front room window of Ridings.
His feet began to pound the pavement before he even realised that he had moved. He was vaguely aware of Harry calling to him, but he couldn’t absorb anything except for the horror that threaten to engulf him. He raced toward the large group of people who had formed a human chain that went from the rear of the house directly across the road, across the road, right up to Ridings front door. He didn’t even glance at the buckets that were passed backward and forward. His eyes scanned the line of people and the crowd that had gathered nearby but he couldn’t see Thea, John, Marcus or even Argus for that matter.
Rupert’s heart hung suspended in his chest. Fear made him sick and dizzy. He couldn’t focus on anything but the sheer panic that threatened to engulf him.
“Thea? Thea!” He shouted and began to push his way through the crowd in a desperate search for her. Once in the middle of the crowd, he turned and studied the faces again, this time more closely, in a desperate attempt to find anyone familiar. “Thea?”
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