The Secrets of Lord Grayson Child by Stephanie Laurens

Chapter 13

Izzy and Gray didn’t dally over breakfast the next morning.

They arrived at the printing works at fifteen minutes before eight o’clock to find a line of people, mostly younger men, lined up outside the door. Some were delivery boys, including, at the head of the line, the three who had been too late to get their orders filled the day before, but others weren’t.

Izzy was grateful Gray was there to escort her up the steps and shield her as she unlocked the door. Those waiting seemed restless, but after Gray bent a warning glance on them and said, “The door opens for business at eight o’clock and not before,” all remained on the pavement, apparently resigned to more waiting.

Inside the printing works, they discovered that the Lipsons had also come in early. Lipson Senior reported, “No sign that anyone’s tried to break in.”

“That’s a relief.” She stripped off her gloves.

Lipson nodded toward the door. “We’ll have delivery boys coming in as well as those with information. Do we just deal with them one at a time, regardless of what they want?”

She considered, then cast a glance at Gray. “That might be best.”

He nodded. “Otherwise, you’ll get arguments over who’s been waiting longest and so on.”

Maguire and Mary appeared at the front door, and Tom Lipson went to let them in.

Izzy waved at the pair as they entered, then walked briskly into her office. After hanging up her coat and bonnet, she took her place behind the desk. Gray lounged in the chair before it, as had become his wont. Determined to get through the backlog of invoices, she buckled down.

The other staff arrived in a steady stream; she was distantly aware of the voices and greetings. From their tone, she deduced that everyone was eager to see what came from all their hard work.

She prayed that something would.

At precisely eight o’clock, Littlejohn called, “Ready?” When an agreeing rumble came in reply, he said, “Right, then. I’m opening the door.”

From where Izzy sat, she could see Baines hovering just outside the office. With him and Littlejohn in attendance, jostling in the queue that formed before the counter would be kept to a minimum.

Izzy paused in her scribing and, straining her ears, listened as Mary and Lipson dealt with the three delivery boys who were desperate to get their hands on more copies of the paper. Once the trio had been sent running back to their masters with their respective loads, several would-be informants fronted the counter, and the task of winnowing the grain from the chaff began. After listening for a minute and verifying that the early birds weren’t offering any worms worth considering, Izzy returned to her work.

The occasional clatter from deeper in the workshop confirmed that Lipson had the other staff busy with their usual chores of putting the boiler and press to rights, cleaning and oiling and getting the beasts ready to roll again next week, as well as cleaning and re-sorting all the used type.

After a while, Gray, who, from the comfort of the armchair, had been watching the activity in the foyer, reported, “You’ve had quite a few delivery lads wanting more papers turn up.”

“Hmm.” Having finished converting yesterday’s delivery slips into invoices, while waiting for Littlejohn to appear with some useful informant to be interrogated, Izzy distracted herself by updating her tally of copies sent out.

When Digby arrived with more delivery slips, she smiled and took them. After flicking through the slips, she said to Gray, “If the reorders keep coming in at this rate, the edition, both first and second printing, is going to sell out.”

“The hue and cry concept certainly seems to have sparked London’s interest.” He continued to watch those coming through the door. “Here’s hoping something comes of that.”

“How are things going out there?”

“All very ordered. The line outside is moving steadily. People are coming in, reporting what they’ve come to share and leaving their details, then departing. It’s going remarkably smoothly.”

“No doubt due to the repressive presence of Baines and Littlejohn.”

“Very likely.”

The steady stream of people gradually waned.

Gray saw Baines cross to the counter. After speaking with Littlejohn, Baines walked into the office.

Izzy looked up and waved him to the other chair before the desk. “Anything of interest?”

Baines slumped into the chair. “Bits and pieces—quite a few names we didn’t know, but at this point, most seem innocent enough.”

With a soft huff, Izzy returned to writing out the most recent invoices.

By a quarter to nine, the line outside had dwindled to nothing, yet interspersed with the delivery lads still turning up to beg more copies, people—males and now the occasional female—were coming in, most hesitant, curious, and cautious, to offer up what they knew.

At nine o’clock, the bell over the door tinkled, but it was the firm footstep that followed that had Gray looking up. “Drake’s here,” he told Izzy.

Baines glanced around, but didn’t know who “Drake” was.

Drake glanced at the counter, but made straight for the office, his stride discouraging any interception.

Gray rose to his feet, and Baines lumbered to his and turned to face the door.

The instant Drake walked in, Izzy greeted him. “Winchelsea.” She waved at Baines. “Allow me to present Inspector Baines of Scotland Yard, who’s in charge of the investigation.”

Drake nodded to Baines. “Inspector.”

His eyes wide, Baines bowed and mumbled, “My lord.”

Gray offered his hand, and Drake grasped it. “Child.”

Blandly, Izzy inquired, “Were we expecting you?”

Drake grinned at her. “You didn’t think I’d miss this, did you?”

She softly snorted. “I’m more surprised that Louisa isn’t here.”

“You should be. She was most put out that she had an engagement she didn’t dare ignore.”

A tap on the door frame had them all looking that way.

Glancing warily at Drake, Littlejohn came in, a list in his hands. “We’ve got several more names of people in the photographs.”

“Excellent!” Izzy set aside her invoice ledger and spread over the desk the pages with the photographs attached.

Littlejohn handed her the list, explained how it was organized, then with another glance at Drake, left to return to his duties at the counter.

Quickly and efficiently, Izzy added the names to the relevant sheets.

Drake rounded the desk to read over her shoulder.

When she finished, she glanced up at him, frowned, caught his eye, and imperiously waved him away. “Go, sit, and stop looming.”

Gray heard Baines softly gasp, understandable given the man didn’t know who Izzy was.

Drake merely grinned and obeyed, compounding Baines’s confusion. Returning around the desk, Drake focused on Baines. “I suggest we retreat, Inspector.” Drake waved toward the pair of armchairs before the window. “It’s possible our presence might inhibit the tongues of informants, and in the circumstances, we don’t need that.”

Baines obediently trotted after Drake.

The pair had barely settled in the armchairs when Donaldson tapped on the door frame and proceeded to steer Digby into the room ahead of him.

Lipson followed on Donaldson’s heels.

Normally irrepressibly cheerful, Digby looked uncomfortable over being the center of attention and, glancing sidelong at Drake, definitely overawed.

Surreptitiously, Gray signaled Drake and Baines to stay back.

Izzy smiled, simultaneously reassuring, welcoming, and inquiring. “Digby?”

When, wide-eyed, the lad glanced back at Donaldson and Lipson, who had halted just inside the room, Lipson nodded encouragingly and rumbled, “Digby has information we think might prove useful.”

“Excellent!” When Digby turned back to her, still smiling, Izzy waved to the empty chair before the desk. “Sit down, Digby. You can be the first informant so his lordship and I can practice how to ask the right questions.”

The notion of helping with something calmed Digby somewhat, and he came forward and carefully sat, his gaze flicking from Izzy to Gray and back again.

“Now.” Izzy clasped her hands on the sheets with the photographs. “What is it that you noticed, Digby?”

“Well, ma’am, I didn’t really have a chance to look closely at the pictures, not to study them like, until just now, when Mr. Lipson let me sit and read all the articles.”

Izzy nodded. “And what did you see?”

Digby peered at the sheets trapped beneath Izzy’s hands. “It’s that I recognized one of the men in the photograph of the coffeehouse in Fleet Street.”

Izzy rifled through the sheets, located the relevant one, and spread it on top of the others. “Show us.”

Digby half rose, scanned the print, then hovered his fingertip above the image of the tall, well-dressed gentleman standing before the coffeehouse, apparently talking to a shorter, more rotund man. “It’s this man here,” Digby said. The tall man was the most prominent person in the photograph. “Mr. Quimby must’ve taken this photograph on Friday, sometime during the day, and you remember, on Friday, I left a few minutes early and passed Mr. Quimby in the lane?”

When Digby looked questioningly at Izzy and Gray, they nodded.

“Well,” Digby went on, “a few steps later, when I was almost at the corner where the lane meets Great Coram Street, this geezer—gentleman—comes around the corner.” Digby sat and looked at Izzy. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time—he was just a gent walking down the lane—but what are the odds of him being in one of Mr. Quimby’s photographs taken that day and then being just a few yards behind Mr. Q as he made for the back door of the workshop?”

“What odds, indeed.” Gray made his tone admiring. “That’s an excellent piece of information, Digby.”

Drake, trailed by Baines, had silently left the armchairs and drawn closer. Now, Drake crouched beside Digby’s chair, not too close, and in an entirely unthreatening tone, said, “Tell us what happened, step by step. You said you left earlier than the others?”

Digby’s eyes, now huge, flicked assessingly over the terribly elegant gentleman. His tone wary—the lad clearly had excellent instincts—he replied, “Aye. Mr. Lipson said we were done and I could get on home. He knows me ma and sister wait on me for supper every night.”

Drake’s features softened, and he nodded encouragingly. “So you went out of the back door before any of the other staff.”

“Well, the other staff use the front door. It was mostly me and Mr. Q used the rear door, because it’s closer to our homes, see?”

Drake nodded his understanding. “So you closed the door behind you and walked up the lane.”

“And I saw Mr. Q walking down it. We passed and nodded like, and I walked on toward Great Coram Street. I was nearing the corner when the gent turned onto the lane.”

“Tell me,” Drake said, “when the gent turned onto the lane, do you think Mr. Quimby would have reached the workshop door and gone in already, or would he still have been in the lane?”

Digby paused to think, but the answer came quickly and with certainty. “He would’ve still been in the lane. Don’t see how he could’ve reached the door by then, not unless he’d bolted, and I would’ve heard that.”

“Good point.” Drake glanced at the photograph, now lying exposed on the desk. “It was evening—already dark. Are you sure that’s the man you saw?”

“Aye, I’m sure.” The simple statement rang with conviction. “He wasn’t wearing a hat, and there’s a streetlamp at the corner, see, and when he turned onto the lane, the light fell full on his face.” Digby nodded at the photograph. “I’m sure as eggs are eggs it was him.”

“Good.” Drake fluidly rose.

Despite Drake’s impassive expression, Gray suspected he was thinking furiously. “That’s Duvall, isn’t it?”

Tight-lipped, Drake glanced at Gray, then nodded. “I’ve checked, and he works at the Board of Trade.” Reaching across, Drake picked up the photograph of Duvall and scrutinized it anew. “I’m damned if I recognize the man he’s speaking with.”

Gray rose and looked over Drake’s shoulder at the shorter man in the photograph. While also well-dressed, the man was older than Duvall, possibly by as much as ten years. He had a distinctly round head to go with his rotund figure and was wearing an expensive-looking coat with an astrakhan collar. Like Duvall, he was carrying a cane. After a moment, Gray said, “To my eyes, our mystery man doesn’t look English.”

“Possibly not even British,” Drake added. “However, if our suppositions are correct, then Duvall had to kill Quimby because Duvall was desperate to prevent this photograph—which shows him actively consorting with our mystery man—being widely seen.”

With his long fingers, Drake flicked the photograph. “We need our mystery man’s name.”

A heartbeat of silence greeted that statement, then the bell over the door tinkled.

Along with Drake, Gray looked across the foyer, expecting to see the latest crop of hopeful youths.

Instead, three older workers shuffled through the door and stood hesitantly in a group just inside.

Growing weary of not being able to see what most others could, Izzy rose and rounded the desk to stand beside the armchair Digby still occupied. Like everyone else, the lad had twisted around to stare at whoever had come in.

Izzy followed the others’ gazes and realized why the sight was holding everyone silent. The three men were of quite a different ilk to those who’d been arriving throughout the morning with nothing more than inconsequential snippets. Aside from all else, they hung back, mangling felt caps in their hands, and seemed unwilling to even approach the counter.

Eventually, Tom Lipson appeared from behind the counter and walked over and inquired what the three wanted.

One cleared his throat and gruffly said, “We saw the notice in The Crier, and we’ve come to speak to I. Molyneaux.”

Tom nodded and guided the men to the counter, where Mary and Littlejohn spoke with them. No one in the office said a word; they were all straining their ears, trying to distinguish the men’s rumbling answers to the sergeant’s questions.

A minute later, Baines, who was the only one in the office with sight of those behind the counter, came alert. “Looks like we might be about to learn something more.”

Seconds later, Littlejohn appeared in the doorway. “You might want to hear what these gentlemen have to say.”

Izzy nodded. “Show them in, Sergeant.”

She turned to Digby. “Go with Baines and his lordship for the moment.” She shooed the three back toward the windows, then whirled and returned to her chair, noting that Lipson Senior and Donaldson had backed into the corner by her filing cabinets in an attempt to make themselves inconspicuous.

Gray had already signaled to Drake to bring up one of the chairs from the windows to add to the pair before the desk.

After lining up the three chairs, Gray stepped back to lean against the bookshelves to Izzy’s right.

She looked toward the doorway as Littlejohn ushered in the three workers. She smiled invitingly. “Good day. I’m Mrs. I. Molyneaux, the owner of The London Crier.” She waved to the chairs. “Won’t you come in and sit down and tell me what information you have to offer?”

Unsurprisingly, the three were somewhat taken aback to learn that a woman was the owner of the paper. But after a momentary hesitation, when her inviting smile didn’t fade, they shuffled forward and, caps still clutched tightly, sorted themselves into the chairs, sitting upright and definitely not relaxing.

“Now”—Izzy clasped her hands on the desk and kept her smile in place—“I believe you’ve already given your names and addresses to my assistant, so all that remains is for you to tell us what you know.”

The men exchanged glances, apparently settling on the man in the middle as their spokesman. He looked at Izzy and cleared his throat. “It’s like this, see. We’re dray drivers for the big papers along Fleet Street, and yesterday afternoon, we was having our tea—”

“Early like, it was,” the man on the spokesman’s left put in. When the other two looked at him, he said, “Just saying. Quality like her might not understand why we was having our dinner at that time. They don’t, do they?”

The spokesman acknowledged that wisdom with a nod. “Aye—right enough.” Looking at Izzy, he explained, “We start at four in the mornin’—have to be up afore that, o’course—so we has our tea midafternoon, ’bout three o’clock or so.”

Izzy nodded. “I understand.”

“So then, we was having our tea in the coffee house we always go to—the Quill and Feather. We always sit at a table near the back corner—it’s quieter there—and we saw two of the gents in the picture that shows the outside of the coffeehouse.”

Everyone else in the room came alert.

Izzy unpinned the photograph of the coffeehouse from its sheet and handed it across the desk. “Which two men, exactly?”

She held her breath as the men studied the photograph, then the spokesman leaned forward and said, “These two.” His wide fingertip indicated Duvall and his friend. “The tall gentleman and the round one.”

“Thank you.” Izzy took back the photograph and glanced at Drake, who had drawn closer. He’d seen the men make the identification, and really, they couldn’t ask for a clearer result. Izzy looked at the men. “We’re definitely interested in anything you can tell us about those men. What did you see them do?”

The spokesman waggled his head. “Not so much what they did as what we heard ’em say.” When Izzy held her tongue and looked encouraging, he went on, “They was sitting at a table in a little nook just past us—leastways, they were when we noticed them. Seems like they came in while we were eating. Thing is, that nook acts like a funnel for sound. Although they probably thought they was speaking low, we could hear ’em plain as day. And while we was eating, we weren’t talking, so we listened—all three of us.”

Izzy nodded her understanding. “And what did you hear?”

Everyone other than the three men held their breath.

“Well, for a start, the tall one”—Izzy held up the photograph, and the spokesman pointed again to Duvall—“he was as English as anyone could be, but the other chap, the dumpier one, he was a foreigner.”

All three men nodded portentously.

Gray pushed away from the bookshelves and stood by the side of Izzy’s desk. “Why are you sure he’s a foreigner?”

“Spoke with an accent, he did,” the spokesman said.

The man on his right, who had yet to speak, shifted and said, “Not German or Prussian but maybe Flemish?” When Gray and Izzy looked at him, the man colored and said, “What with the exhibition that was on, we’ve all got used to hearing lots of accents, and I reckon that fellow was Flemish.”

Gray nodded in acceptance. “So what did they discuss?”

Via shared glances, the men gathered their thoughts, then the spokesman said, “Most of the time, they was talking about some place they called ‘the installation’ at Victoria Park Terrace. Not Victoria Park, mind, nor even Victoria Park Road, but Victoria Park Terrace. They said that more than three times, very specific.”

Drake had stiffened at the mention of the place.

Gray shot him a glance. “You know what that is?”

Drake came forward to stand beside Gray, effortlessly capturing the three men’s attention. He looked at the trio. “Are you sure that’s what they said? The installation at Victoria Park Terrace?”

Slowly but surely, all three nodded.

“We noted it particular like,” the spokesman said. “Fixed our attention, it did. We’ve been dray drivers all our lives, delivering all over London, and we know there ain’t no Victoria Park Terrace. Not in town, leastways.”

Drake nodded. “That’s correct. What did the men say about the place in Victoria Park Terrace?”

Once again, the men—picking up on Drake’s escalating tension—exchanged glances, then the spokesman volunteered, “Sounded to us like they was planning on demolishing it, whatever it might be.”

The man on his right added, “Seemed like whatever was there was going to need explosives to move, so it must be some big old place.”

“They mentioned explosives?” Drake’s diction had grown so clipped it could cut.

The dray drivers stared at him and simply nodded.

Gray almost expected Drake to explode into action, he was so on edge, but instead, he kept his reactions rigidly contained and, in formal language, thanked the men for coming in and sharing their information and suggested the three should return with Littlejohn to the counter and confirm their names and addresses were correctly noted, as they would definitely be receiving some part of the reward.

Relieved and pleased, the men readily rose, bobbed politely to Izzy, then went out with the sergeant.

Drake’s gaze swung to Digby, and he nodded at the lad. “You’re in line for a share of the reward, too. Without your eyewitness account, we couldn’t connect Duvall to Quimby’s murder.”

Izzy signaled to Lipson to shut the door. The instant the latch clicked shut, everyone looked at Drake, who was standing staring at a point on the floor and transparently thinking at a rate of knots.

“So what does all that mean?” Gray asked. “What’s going on?”

“I wish I knew.” Drake raised his head and glanced at the circle of avidly interested faces. “The house in which the under-Channel telegraph cable terminates is located at one end of Victoria Park Terrace in Dover.”

Baines pointed at the photograph. “So these two—Duvall and his friend—are planning to blow up the new telegraph to the Continent?”

Drake looked nonplussed. “So it seems.”

Izzy frowned. “But why?”

“That’s my question, too,” Drake said. “I’m not sure what that would accomplish, other than being a dashed inconvenience for a short time.”

“I know very little about cabling and so on,” Gray said, “but surely they would simply lay it in again—connect it up again?”

“So one would think,” Drake replied.

The bell over the door jangled; it had fallen silent with the passing hours, so even muted by the closed door, the sound drew everyone’s attention.

Izzy again came out from behind her desk to peer through the glass panel in the office door and saw a burly man in an overcoat step into the foyer.

At a guess, he was in his early forties. He paused, taking in the three workmen at the counter, talking with Mary and Littlejohn. The newcomer scanned the area, saw the office, and before any of the staff appeared to question him, walked toward the office door with the stride of a man who knew where he was going.

Curious, Izzy went to the door and opened it. She halted in the doorway, fixed the man with a commanding look, and inquired, “Can I help you?”

The man stopped a yard away, briefly glanced past her—no doubt taking in Drake, Gray, Baines, and the others visible inside—then refocused on her. “I’m looking for I. Molyneaux. I’ve information about the dead photographer’s photographs.”

She arched her brows. “And you are?”

“Neil Hennessy, ma’am.” He fished out a card from his waistcoat pocket and handed it over. “I’m senior reporter with The London Courier.”

Izzy went on full alert. The London Courier was a major daily paper, not a competitor but a far larger enterprise. More, she knew of Hennessy’s work; he was an experienced ace reporter, known for exposing the secrets of powerful men. She verified the information he’d given was what the professionally printed card declared, then cast a questioning glance at Drake.

At his nod, she returned her gaze to Hennessy, met his eyes—he wasn’t much taller than she was—then with a swish of her skirts, stepped back, turned, and beckoned him to follow. “Come in, Mr. Hennessy. Please have a seat.”

She reclaimed her chair behind the desk and indicated Hennessy should avail himself of one of the armchairs before it. From the corner of her eye, she saw Littlejohn slip into the room in Hennessy’s wake and quietly shut the door.

After taking in the small crowd gathered in the room, his gaze lingering for a moment on Drake, Hennessy walked to the central armchair and sat.

The instant he looked at her, she said, “I presume you’re here because you’ve recognized someone in the photographs.”

“I have.”

Rather than ask whom, she unpinned and gathered the seven photographs and, across the desk, offered them to Hennessy. “Show us, if you would.”

He leaned forward, took the stack, then sat back and sorted through them. “This one.” He flashed the photograph of the coffeehouse. “And”—setting aside the other photographs, he pointed to Duvall—“that man.”

When he fell silent, she prompted, “And your information?”

Hennessy glanced at Drake and Gray, then looked at her and said, “I know his full name and occupation, the name of the man he’s speaking with, and I have some insight into what they might be planning. But before I divulge anything”—his gaze shifted briefly to Lipson and Donaldson before returning to her face—“I want an agreement. I want in on this story, whatever it is.”

Drake shifted menacingly, but she held up a staying hand, and he stilled—something Hennessy didn’t miss.

Eyes narrowing, she studied the reporter. “You’ve been in this business long enough to know how it works. Given how much trouble these villains have brought to The Crier and how much effort we’ve put into our hue and cry edition, it’s only fair that if there is any story to be broken, we break it first.”

“You publish on a Friday,” Hennessy replied. “I’ll agree not to publish my piece until Friday as well.”

“Saturday,” she shot back.

Drake was fast losing patience; he stirred, but it was Gray who stepped to the side of the desk and asked Hennessy, “Is your contract with The Courier exclusive?”

The question made Hennessy blink, then think. Eventually, he admitted, “It’s not.”

“In that case”—Gray glanced at Izzy in question—“why not write your story, under your byline, and publish it on the front page of The Crier?”

That was a viable suggestion—very viable. She immediately offered, “Usual rates with a ten percent bonus.”

Gray added, “With all the extra distribution that will accrue to the sequel to The Crier’s hue and cry edition, there should be more than enough copies sold for you to reap full glory. Indeed, if your story is published in The Crier, there’ll be no competition at all. And of course, it never hurts to demonstrate to your present employer that you aren’t entirely dependent on him.”

Hennessy’s brows had risen, then risen further during Gray’s little speech. After a long moment staring at Gray, Hennessy looked at Izzy. “I assume you’re I. Molyneaux, the owner?”

She nodded. “I am.”

Hennessy hesitated, then asked, “Is that agreement acceptable to you? Including the usual rates plus ten percent?”

To have a reporter of Hennessy’s caliber publish on the front page of The Crier… Taking care not to appear overeager, she nodded. “I’ll accept those conditions.” She arched a brow at him. “Do we have a deal?”

He sat forward and extended a meaty paw. “We do.”

She shook his hand, then Drake rather caustically said, “Now we have the formalities dealt with, please enlighten us as to what you know of the gentlemen in question.”

Despite the polite phrasing, that was a demand. Hennessy promptly said, “The taller man’s name is Henry Mitchell Duvall, and he works as an undersecretary at the Board of Trade. He told me as much, and I confirmed it. He’s too far down the pecking order to have access to the minister, Labouchere, but on the other hand, Duvall seems to know the ins and outs of various projects. Details not many people know.”

“Go on,” Drake directed.

Hennessy threw him a careful glance. “Duvall approached me—” He broke off and drew a notebook from his coat pocket, flipped it open, flicked through several pages, paused, read, then said, “Last Monday. At the Hound and Whistle—the pub I favor in Fleet Street.” Hennessy looked at Drake and Gray. “Anyone with a story knows to find me there.”

Gray and Drake nodded in understanding. Drake asked, “And did Duvall have a story to sell?”

“Not so much sell as give, in the hope of using me to get his story to the masses. He was offering information for free”—Hennessy glanced at Izzy—“and that always makes me suspicious. I wasn’t sure I believed him, so I took the information, but I haven’t done anything with it yet—well, until today.”

Hennessy’s expression hardened, and he spoke directly to Izzy. “What Duvall had to say boiled down to this. The materials that make up the telegraph cables the government is laying beneath the Channel to various countries on the Continent—for instance, the cable recently laid from Dover to Calais—are highly unstable and dangerous. Much more dangerous than the government wants anyone to know.” Hennessy glanced at the others. “The implication I was supposed to draw was that the telegraph station itself, where the cables are supposedly most exposed, constituted a very real danger to the populace at large.”

Drake swore beneath his breath and tensed as if to leave, but Hennessy held up a hand. “Before you race off, there’s more you might want to hear.” Hennessy fixed Drake with a level look. “You’re Winchelsea, aren’t you?”

Tight-lipped, Drake nodded.

“Then you’ll want to hear the rest.” Hennessy looked at Izzy. “I hadn’t done anything with Duvall’s information because I didn’t trust it, but when I read The Crier and saw that picture”—Hennessy nodded at the photograph of the scene outside the coffeehouse—“I thought I recognized the man Duvall was speaking with. So I spent this morning asking around, and it turns out that gent is a very dangerous character. Monsieur Henri Roccard, a Belgian, he’s said to be—whispered to be—the principal London contact for several of the major crime families on the Continent. He’s the man those families ask to arrange for any ‘business’ they want done in Britain to be carried out.”

Hennessy glanced at Baines and Littlejohn, then looked at Drake. “My informants tell me the authorities have suspected Roccard of being behind several murders, but as the victims are usually criminals and he’s always at a good distance from the crime, he’s never been fingered for anything himself. Some of his men occasionally disappear, sent back to the other side of the Channel to be replaced by fresh faces.”

Leaning forward, Hennessy peered at the photograph of Duvall and Roccard talking before the coffeehouse. “Putting together what I can see here with what Duvall told me, I’d say Duvall is taking his orders from Roccard.” Hennessy glanced at Drake. “I’ve also heard that Duvall is hopeless at the tables and is very deep in debt.”

Drake, Gray, and Izzy exchanged glances, then she said, “I assume we’re all thinking that, operating under orders from Roccard, Duvall is planning to blow up the Dover telegraph station.”

Tersely, Drake nodded. “Because the European crime families want to prevent the British authorities being able to exchange information virtually instantaneously with their counterparts on the Continent.”

Hennessy’s eyes had widened. “I hadn’t heard about blowing anything up, but that makes sense. If the police on this side have a criminal fleeing in a boat to France, they can just telegraph to Calais, and the gendarmes will be waiting when the villain fetches up on the other side.”

“Even more pertinent,” Drake said, “is the interception of all sorts of smuggling and the traffic of villains and stolen goods both ways.” He paused, then added, “The telegraph opened for business—at least official business—in mid-October. Over the past months, the police and other authorities have been actively using the service, exploring the possibilities. I understand they’ve disrupted several long-established schemes over recent weeks. And I can confirm several more undersea links are planned, connecting Britain with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland.”

“Well, there you are, then,” Hennessy said. “None of the criminal fraternity are going to like that. It sounds like they’re using Duvall as their means to strike at the telegraph and get things back to the way they were. From all I’ve gleaned, those at the head of the families are old and conservative—they don’t like anything changing.”

Drake nodded. “The telegraph threatens the crime families’ futures, so they’ve devised a plan they hope will turn the population against the entire idea of the telegraph. You can imagine the mayhem.” Drake dipped his head at Hennessy. “If they could get the likes of The Courier to push a story of how dangerous the telegraph is to life and limb, and then one of the stations blows up, we’ll never get a working telegraph network within England, let alone across the sea.”

Izzy straightened. “It’ll be the Luddite uprisings all over again.”

“Well, then.” Baines tugged down his waistcoat. “I guess we’d better get along and have a word with this Mr. Duvall.”

Drake met Gray’s, then Izzy’s eyes and grimaced. “Much as I’d like to have a chat with Duvall, my first priority has to be to report this in all the right quarters and ensure word is sent to Dover, warning them to be on guard.” He paused, then added, “I’d better warn those building the official Dover telegraph station as well.”

Hennessy frowned. “Isn’t that—the official office—where the telegraph station in Dover is?”

Drake shook his head. “Not yet. They were in a hurry, so ran a line from where the cable makes landfall at South Foreland to the nearest suitable building they could lay their hands on. That happened to be a private residence at the southern end of Victoria Park Terrace.”

Gray saw Donaldson—who, with Lipson, had until then stood silently and listened—shift and frown. The quality of that frown prompted Gray to ask, “What is it?”

Donaldson glanced at Gray, then looked at Drake. “I hail from Dover. The southern end of Victoria Park Terrace…are you saying that Duvall and his friend are planning to blow up a house that’s more or less in the shadow of the Dover guns?”

Drake pulled an unusually expressive face. “That’s how it looks, and you can imagine the chaos such an explosion will cause.” His expression sobered, and he shook his head. “There’s no help for it—I’ll have to remain in town to ensure the necessary warnings are issued to all the right places.” To Gray, he said, “I’ll see who I can find and send them down to help keep an eye out in Dover, in case Duvall slips through our fingers here in town.”

“But,” Gray said, “what are the odds Duvall will have seen The Crier by now?”

“Indeed!” Izzy rose to her feet. “Will he run, do you think?”

“Or,” Hennessy said, pushing out of the armchair, “will he attempt to carry out his mission before he runs? His target’s in Dover, after all.”

Drake softly swore. He stared unseeing at the desk for a moment, then said, “We can’t take the risk of assuming he’ll just run. In fact, we have to assume he’s either on his way to Dover already—which means I have to get to Whitehall and get an immediate warning sent to the Dover telegraph station—or he’s rushing around in town, getting his explosives together before heading down. It depends on how advanced in his planning he was. Our best-case scenario is that he hasn’t read The Crier and is still in town, obliviously whiling away a normal Saturday.”

Drake looked at Baines and Littlejohn. “Can I leave it to you to lay Duvall by the heels?”

Baines, Littlejohn, and everyone else—including Digby—grimly assured Drake he could.

“We’ve more than enough to take him up for Quimby’s murder,” Baines pointed out. “We’ll get straight along to his house. It being Saturday, if he hasn’t taken flight already, most likely he’ll be there, and we can ask him to come along with us to the Yard.”

Drake nodded. “When you get him there—if you get him there—keep him there. If anyone makes noises about releasing him on any grounds whatsoever, refer them to me.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

Littlejohn had been leafing through his notebook. He raised his head. “Where does he live? Anyone know?”

They all looked at each other, then faintly exasperated, Drake said, “Come with me. I have to go to Whitehall. We can stop in at the Board of Trade, and I’ll persuade someone to tell us.”

Drake made for the door, and everyone rushed to follow.

Gray saw Donaldson summon Digby with a jerk of his head and hurry out. Gray fetched his and Izzy’s coats and her bonnet and helped her on with her coat before shrugging into his.

Her reticule dangling from her wrist, still tying her bonnet strings, she hurried into the foyer, where Drake was impatiently waiting. He saw them and turned to the door. “Let’s go.”

Drake held the door for Izzy and Gray and followed them out. Baines, Littlejohn, and Hennessy were on their heels as, with Drake and Izzy, Gray strode quickly down to Bernard Street.

A clatter of footsteps behind them had him glancing back to see Donaldson and Digby hurrying to catch up while carrying a tripod, camera, and canvas satchel.

Their procession reached Woburn Place, and between them, they hailed three hackneys. Drake, Izzy, and Gray crammed into the first, Baines and Littlejohn shared the second, while Hennessy went with Donaldson and Digby in the third.

With Izzy tucked snugly beside him, Gray spent the time to Whitehall reviewing all they’d learned. The more he thought, the more concerned he became. Had Duvall seen The Crier? So much depended on that. Ironic that the very publication that had brought them the information regarding Duvall might also alert him to impending exposure and push him into enacting his plan.

In Whitehall, Drake directed the jarvey to pull up at the curb outside one of the numerous government buildings. All three carriages halted, and everyone spilled out. Gray called to the jarveys to wait, and he and Izzy followed Drake into the building, which housed the Board of Trade.

Watching Drake wield his power among bureaucrats was a lesson in just how high in the pecking order he stood. In just a few minutes, he’d extracted Duvall’s address from a clerk, along with the information that Duvall hadn’t been rostered to work that day.

Drake turned to Gray and Izzy. Baines, Littlejohn, and the other three gathered around. “He lives in lodgings at Number sixteen, Adam Street. That’s south of the Strand, within easy walking distance of Whitehall and also Fleet Street.” Drake glanced round the circle of faces. “I’ll have to leave it to you to hunt him down. My first port of call has to be the telegraph office here, to send a warning to Dover. I’ll then have to make the rounds, alerting others in Whitehall as to what’s going on.” He met Gray’s eyes. “After that, I’ll see who I can find at Arthur’s and send them down to watch and wait at Dover.”

Gray understood that meant that Drake would recruit some of the younger members of their set—Drake’s brothers or Cynster cousins-in-law—who occasionally acted as his agents.

Apparently, Izzy understood that, too. “Excellent idea.”

“We’d best get off, then, and find this blighter.” Baines turned toward the street.

“Good luck!” Drake called as Gray, Izzy, and the other three followed Baines and Littlejohn down the long hall.

Without looking Drake’s way, Gray waved. When they reached the entrance, he glanced back, but Drake had vanished.

Gray led Izzy down the steps and helped her into the lead hackney. “Adam Street,” he called to the jarvey. “South off the Strand.”

The jarvey saluted with his whip. As soon as Gray sat, the jarvey set his horse trotting, heading for Trafalgar Square.