Where The Heart Leads (32 page)

“You’re the mistress here?” Stokes colored faintly; judging by the woman’s attire, the question stood an excellent chance of being ambiguous.

She raised impressively arched brows, but nodded. “I am.”

When she volunteered nothing more, just looked at him expectantly, Stokes went on, “I’m looking for a Mr. Alert.”

The woman didn’t reply, waiting for Stokes to explain a connection, then realizing, she said, “There’s no one of that name here. Indeed, I can’t say I’ve ever heard the name.”

From Grimsby came a muttered, “Strewth. Knew I should never have trusted the shifty beggar even that much.”

Stokes glanced back at Grimsby. “If you’re still certain this is the house…?” When Grimsby gave an emphatic nod and grumbled “I am,” Stokes went on, “Then we’re still left with one question.”

Turning, he looked at Miss Walker; her maid had reappeared, peering over her shoulder. “A gentleman calling himself Mr. Alert has been using your back parlor to meet with this man”—he waved at Grimsby—“and one other, on a number of occasions in recent weeks. I would like to know how that came to be.”

The confusion on Miss Walker’s face was clearly genuine. “Well, I’m sure I don’t know how that could be.” She glanced at her maid. “We haven’t had any…incidents, have we? No instances of the parlor garden doors being left unlocked?”

The maid shook her head, but she was now frowning.

Barnaby and Stokes both saw it. Stokes asked, “What is it?”

The maid glanced at her mistress, then said, “The armchair by the hearth in the back parlor. Someone’s been sitting there, on and off. I straighten the parlor before I leave at nights, and sometimes the cushion is dented the next morning.”

Stokes looked his puzzlement. “But Miss Walker…?”

Miss Walker turned an interesting shade of pink. “I…ah…” She darted a glance at her maid, then confessed, “I’m usually in bed by the time Hannah leaves, and I sleep rather heavily.”

Hannah nodded. “
Very
heavily.” There was disapproval in her eyes, but no hint of prevarication.

Barnaby understood, as did Stokes, that they were telling them that Miss Walker was, as many like her were, addicted to laudanum. Once in bed, dosed, she wouldn’t hear an artillery shell exploding in the street.

“Perhaps,” Barnaby suggested, “this man, Mr. Alert, might be known to your…benefactor.”

Stokes took the hint. “Who owns this house, Miss Walker?”

But Miss Walker was now alarmed. She tilted her chin. “I’m sure that’s none of your business. He isn’t here, and you don’t need to bother him over a matter like this.”

“He may be able to help us,” Stokes stated. “And this is a matter of murder.”

Barnaby inwardly groaned. Mentioning murder predictably didn’t help. Miss Walker and the maid were now thoroughly frightened and refused point-blank to reveal anything at all.

There was a shuffling on the pavement, then Griselda joined them; she tugged Stokes’s sleeve.

When he looked at her, she said, “Riggs. The gentleman who owns this house is the Honorable Carlton Riggs.” She glanced past Stokes. “He comes into the shop sometimes to buy bonnets and gloves for Miss Walker.”

Stokes looked back at Miss Walker and raised a brow. She colored, but then nodded. “Yes. Carlton Riggs owns this house—he has for years, for longer than I’ve known him.”

Stokes inclined his head. “And where is Mr. Riggs now?”

Miss Walker blinked at him, then glanced at Barnaby. She clearly recognized him as one of the ton. “Well, he’s on holidays, isn’t he?” She looked back at Stokes. “It’s the off-season for town. He went up north to his family’s house three weeks ago.”

The cemetery that ran alongside the St. John’s Wood church was a dark and gloomy place at the best of times. At eleven o’clock on a foggy November night, the moldering monuments interspersed with old gnarled trees cast more than enough shadow to conceal two men.

Smythe stood under the biggest tree, in the middle of the plot, and watched Alert stroll casually, with the aura of an eccentric gentleman out to take the air, toward him.

He had to give the man points; he was cool under fire. As was their custom, Smythe had left a message with the bartender at the Crown and Anchor in Fleet Street, but this time his message had been rather more than his usual few words. He’d asked for an urgent and immediate meeting, and warned Alert in no uncertain terms against going to their usual place—the parlor in number 32, St. John’s Wood Terrace, a few blocks to the north—nominating the cemetery instead.

As he’d expected, Alert had been intelligent enough to heed his warning. As he’d also anticipated, he wasn’t happy about it.

Halting before Smythe, Alert snapped, “You’d better have a damned good reason for asking for this meeting.”

“I have,” Smythe growled.

Alert glanced across the cemetery. “And why the devil can’t we meet at the house?”

“Because the house, in fact the whole street, is crawling with rozzers just waiting for you and me to show our faces.”

Despite the poor light, Smythe sensed Alert’s start, but he didn’t immediately respond.

When he did, his voice was even, flat—deadly. “What happened?”

Smythe told him what he knew—that Grimsby’s school had been raided and they’d lost Grimsby, Wally, and five of the boys. Smythe was quietly furious on his own account—the opportunity to pull off a whole string of burglaries of the caliber Alert had described didn’t come around but once in a lifetime; quite aside from the money, he would have made his name, which would have kept him in good standing for the rest of his life. He was angry, but his fury was nothing compared to Alert’s.

Not that Alert did anything more than take two paces away and rest a fist on the edge of a gravestone. It was the rage that screamed in every line of his body, in the stiff, brittle tension that rode him, the violence he contained, that he battled to suppress, that set the very air—and Smythe’s instincts—quivering.

And set him thinking. Such fury suggested Alert was quite possibly desperate to have the buglaries done.

Which, in Smythe’s view, augered well. For him.

He couldn’t do the burglaries without the information Alert had thus far withheld, but perhaps Alert would now be more amenable to running the enterprise Smythe’s way.

“Do you have any idea who—” Fury vibrated through Alert’s voice; he cut himself off and drew a huge breath. “No. That doesn’t matter. We can’t allow ourselves to be distracted—”

Again he broke off. Swinging around, he took three strides in another direction, then halted, lifted his head and breathed deeply again, then he swung to face Smythe. “Yes, it does matter. Or might matter. Do you have any idea who or what brought the police down on Grimsby’s head?”

“Could’ve been anyone. Remember that notice? We were on borrowed time as it was.”

Alert grimaced. “I didn’t realize it might happen so fast. We only needed another week.” He fell to pacing again, but this time with less heat. “Were you there when they grabbed Grimsby?”

“For a bit. I didn’t hang around, especially as I had two of the boys with me. I got there just after the rozzers had gone in—I only stayed long enough to be certain what was happening. I left before they brought Grimsby out.”

Alert frowned. “Was there anyone else there with the police?”

“I didn’t see anyone…well, except for the lady from the Foundling House. I expect she was there for the boys.”

“Lady?” The man known as Alert halted. “Describe her.”

Smythe was observant; his quick description was enough to identify the lady. Who was indeed a lady. Penelope Ashford. Damn that meddling shrew! Her brother should have sent her to a convent years ago.

But Calverton hadn’t, which had left her free to interfere with his grand plan. To jeopardize it. He certainly wouldn’t put it past the infernal female to have been behind the raid on Grimsby’s school.

His earlier fury tugged at his mind, along with the fear that fueled it. He’d had another visit from his cent-per-cent, but this time, rather than catch him at one of his haunts, the damned usurer had come to the house! To his place of work!

The message couldn’t have been plainer; if he didn’t clear his debt as promised, he’d be ruined. And the depth, breadth, and completeness of that ruin had now assumed epic proportions.

Under the tree, Smythe shifted, drawing his attention. “Like I said, I’ve two of the boys with me—or rather I’ve left them locked up tight. As it happens, they’re the best two by far, even though they’re the ones Grimsby had for the least time. They’re nimble and quick, and I can keep them in line well enough. I’ll need to teach them more—much more if we want to use them to do your jobs—because now we’ll need to get them clean away every time.”

Their original plan had involved leaving the boy used for each house inside the house once he’d passed out the lifted item; the boy would have orders to wait for an hour before attempting to leave—usually the
most dangerous stage and the one where the boys were most likely to be caught—but by then Smythe, Alert, and the liberated items would be long gone.

Alert grimaced; Smythe had explained his procedures well enough for him to understand that with only two boys they couldn’t afford to lose them. He grunted. “I suppose, with only two, if you lose one, the other—seeing his own fate demonstrated—would run away rather than keep working.”

“Precisely. The boys need to be clever or they’re no use to me, but if they are…” Smythe shrugged. “These two are clever, but at heart they’re still East End boys. They’ll do what I tell them, as long as they feel safe enough.”

Alert paced. “How long will you need to train them well enough to use?”

“Now I’ve only got the two to concentrate on…four days.”

“Once they’re fully trained, will you be able to do the eight houses all on one night, as we’d planned?”

“No. No chance. Even four in one night is pushing it with only two boys. They get tired, they make mistakes, and you lose all your work.”

Alert thought it over, balancing Smythe’s concerns against his own knowledge of how the police would react once they learned of the burglaries. Any of the burglaries, the thefts he’d planned.

Drawing in a huge breath, he stopped pacing and faced Smythe. “Two nights. We can’t stretch it over more. Four houses on each of two nights. We can order the houses so the more difficult are at the end of the list. That way your boys can grow more experienced with the easier houses before having to face the more demanding—we’re less likely to lose them that way, and if we do, it’ll be toward the end of our game.”

Smythe considered, weighing the pros and cons—the most weighty being that he wanted to do the jobs—then nodded. “All right. We’ll do the eight over two nights.”

“Good.” Alert paused, then said, “We’ll meet here, three nights from now. Until then, keep yourself and those boys out of sight.”

An entirely unnecessary reminder; Smythe suppressed his instinctive reaction and evenly said, “That might not work, depending on when you want to do the jobs.” When Alert frowned, he continued, “I
told you before—I need at least three days to study the houses. Given we’re doing so many, even if they’re in the same area, I’d prefer longer, but if I have to I’ll do the scouting in three days. But I won’t go in unless I’ve had at least that long.”

Alert hesitated, then his hand went to his pocket. Smythe stilled, but it was only a piece of paper Alert pulled out.

He looked at it, then held it out. “These are the houses, but the families are still in residence. Once they leave, and we’re ready to do the job, I’ll give you the list of the items we need to lift from each house, as well as details of where in each house the item to be lifted is located.”

Taking the list, Smythe glanced at it, but it was too dark to make out the words. Folding it, he put it in his pocket. “Still just the one item from each house?”

“Yes.” Alert’s gaze sharpened on his face. “As I explained at the outset, with these particular items, one from each house is all we need. You’ll be rich beyond your wildest imaginings with just one—eight items all told. And”—his voice lowered, becoming more steely, more threatening—“there are reasons why, in these instances, only that one item must be taken. To indiscriminately filch anything else will risk…the entire game.”

Smythe shrugged. “Whatever you say. I’ll check out these houses and train the boys—then once the coast is clear, just give me your list of items and we’ll do the deed.”

Alert studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Good. I’ll see you here three nights from now.”

With that, he turned and walked out of the cemetery.

Smythe remained under the tree and watched until Alert disappeared among the monuments. Smiling to himself, Smythe set off in a different direction.

He patted his pocket, reassured by the crackle of paper inside. He’d been waiting to get something on Alert—something that would identify the man; he didn’t like doing business with people he didn’t know, especially when they were toffs. When things went wrong, toffs had a habit of pointing at the lower orders and claiming complete innocence. Not that Smythe expected to be caught, but having a little something up his sleeve to either ensure Alert’s silence, or alternatively to trade if things got sticky, was always reassuring.

Now he had the list of houses—houses Alert knew contained a very valuable item, and more, that he knew well enough to describe that item and where it was located in detail.

“And how would you know that, my fine gentleman?” Grinning, Smythe answered the question. “Because you’re a regular visitor to every one of those houses.”

Eight houses. If he ever needed to identify Alert, a list of eight houses with which the man was intimately familiar would, Smythe felt sure, do the trick.

I
nvestigations are often like pulling teeth.” Barnaby reached for another crumpet from the tray before Griselda’s parlor fire. “Painful and slow.”

Munching on her own crumpet, Penelope swallowed, then humphed. “A slow torture, you mean.”

Barnaby grimaced, but didn’t deny it.

Three days had passed since they’d raided Grimsby’s school; despite the best efforts of everyone involved, they hadn’t heard so much as a whisper about Smythe and the boys he’d spirited away. Jemmie and Dick were still out there somewhere, hence their somber mood.

Griselda slipped from her chair and retrieved the teapot she’d left on the hearth. Prosaically, she refilled their mugs. “How are the boys settling in at the Foundling House?”

“They’re doing very well.” Penelope had spent most of the previous two days smoothing the boys’ way and dealing with the formalities of assuming the guardianship of the two extra boys they’d found. “Of course, being rescued in a police raid on a notorious East End burglary school means they’ve become heroes of sorts, but one can scarcely begrudge them their moment, and it has made finding their feet among the other boys easier.”

It was Saturday afternoon. She’d come to ask Griselda if she’d heard anything from her East End contacts, which, unfortunately, she hadn’t. They’d settled in to console themselves with tea and crumpets by the fire in her parlor, then Barnaby had arrived; he’d looked for her first in Mount Street, and been redirected to St. John’s Wood by the redoubtable, unruffleable Leighton.

The day after the raid, he—Barnaby—had hied off to Leicester-shire to speak with the Honorable Carlton Riggs, in the hope Riggs might know who Alert was. As both Barnaby and Griselda knew Riggs by sight, they’d known he wasn’t Alert himself—Alert was, apparently, very fair-haired.

All very well, but instead of immediately and comprehensively satisfying her and Griselda’s curiosity the instant he’d appeared, on spying the crumpets Barnaby had declared himself in dire need of sustenance, refusing to say a word about his findings until his hunger was assuaged.

Which had led her to make a tart comment on the wretched slowness of their investigation, which had resulted in his comment about pulling teeth.

Curled up in one corner of the sofa, she watched him polish off the crumpet. “That’s your second.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You aren’t going to faint—so talk.”

His lips curved in a teasing smile. He reached for his mug, sipped, then sat back in the other corner of the sofa.

She looked at him expectantly; drawing breath, he opened his mouth—only to close it as a sharp knocking sounded on the front door.

Penelope closed her eyes and groaned, then quickly opened them and sat up. “That must be Stokes.” Griselda went past her to the stairs. “Perhaps he’s learned something.” She glared at Barnaby. “Something useful.”

If he’d made any advance, he would have been eager to share it.

Stokes climbed the stairs two at a time, then came to an abrupt halt at the top as he saw them. Penelope smiled and waved. Smiling herself, Griselda welcomed him, then led him to join them.

Subsiding into the armchair opposite Griselda’s, Stokes accepted the mug she offered him. He reached to snag a crumpet, but Penelope shot from the sofa and grabbed the plate. Stokes looked at her in surprise as she retreated to the sofa, shielding the plate within one arm. She caught his eye. “Report first. Then you can eat.”

Stokes looked from her to Barnaby, then shook his head. He sipped his tea, then sighed. “You may as well hand over that plate. I’ve nothing to report—nothing positive anyway.”

Penelope sighed, too, and stood again to put the plate back down on the hearth within Stokes’s reach. “Nothing?”

“Not a peep. Smythe has gone to ground. He’s not been seen at any of his regular haunts. The locals are helping as much as they can. We found where he’d been staying, but he’s moved—God knows where to.” Stokes helped himself to a crumpet.

“The watch on the house in St. John’s Wood Terrace,” Griselda prompted. “Have they seen anyone?”

Stokes shook his head. He chewed, then swallowed. “No one’s been near the place. All I can think of is that Smythe must have been somewhere outside in Weavers Street—he saw us take Grimsby and knew Grimsby would tell us about the house. Smythe knows how to contact Alert, so Smythe warned him off and went into hiding, taking the boys with him.”

Stokes looked at Barnaby. “Did Riggs have any clue?” He didn’t sound hopeful.

Which proved just as well.

“Not the slightest inkling.” Barnaby’s voice altered, slipping into mimickry. “Indeed, the notion that someone was using the back parlor of his love nest to meet with criminals in the dead of night positively
appalled
him.”

Penelope snorted.

“Exactly.” Barnaby inclined his head. “Riggs was
that
sort—pompous and blustering. I asked who else knew about the house, which of his friends he’d entertained there. The list was too long to contemplate. He’s had the place for over a decade and never made any secret of it to his male acquaintance. And of course, that means their gentlemen’s gentlemen, and his man’s friends, and various other servants, and so on and so forth—which is to say, there’s absolutely no way forward via Riggs.”

They didn’t all sigh, but it felt like it. A general moroseness settled over the room, until Griselda glanced around and said, “Buck up. We’ll keep looking. And the one good piece of news is that if we’ve heard nary a whisper about Smythe, that means he’s actively hiding, which means he’s most likely still looking to use the boys for his burglaries, which means he’ll keep them safe and well fed. By all accounts, he’s one to keep his tools in prime condition.”

Penelope blinked. “So he’ll take good care of them because it’s in his own best interests?”

“Exactly. So there’s no sense imagining they’re in danger of being knocked about, or spending their nights shivering under a bridge somewhere. Smythe will most likely take better care of them than Grimsby. He wanted eight, but now he’s only got two—he’s not going to risk them.”

Both Barnaby and Stokes slowly sat up; both were frowning.

“He’s still planning to do these burglaries, isn’t he? The ones with Alert.” Stokes looked at Barnaby. “I assumed he’d give it up after we raided the school.”

Barnaby nodded. “I assumed the same. But as Griselda so sagely points out, he hasn’t given up the plan—because if he had, he’d just let the boys go, and with so many in the East End eager to claim that reward, we’d have heard of it by now. And he would let them go—they’re no threat to him yet, and entirely unnecessary baggage—unless he has a use for them, and the only use would be…” Eyes lighting, he raised his cup in a toast. “The game is still on.”

Stokes leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees. “So what’s his plan—which houses, and why?”

“It’s not Smythe doing the planning, at least not the where, when, or what for. That’s all coming from Alert. He’s providing the details, Smythe is providing the expertise. And Alert, we know, is a gentleman.”

Penelope raised her brows, wondering what that last fact might imply.

After a moment Barnaby continued, “I’ve been thinking about what Grimsby said about Smythe needing so many boys because he was to hit a whole string of houses in one night.” He looked at Stokes. “That’s not Smythe’s—or any burglar’s—usual modus operandi. The ‘all in one night’ is being dictated by Alert. But
why
? Why would a gentleman insist on a series of burglaries being done all in one night?”

Stokes stared back at him. Eventually he offered, “The only thing I can think of, as Grimsby also said, is that they’ll get no trouble from the police if the whole series—and one assumes there has to be some reason behind doing a series of burglaries in the first place—is done in one night. Once a burglary is discovered, it takes a day, more usually two, to organize more men on patrol, that sort of thing.”

Barnaby nodded. “Which leaves us with two points. One—correct me if I err, but increased police patrols and so on would only happen if the houses burgled are in Mayfair.” When Stokes nodded, Barnaby continued, “That confirms what we’ve suspected given Smythe’s need for burglary boys—that these burglaries are of a series of houses in Mayfair.
However,
to my second point, his insistence on the burglaries being done all in one night suggests that once the burglaries—even one of them—are discovered, the outcry will be significant, enough to make any further burglaries in Mayfair too risky.”

Stokes’s face blanked. “Hell.”

“Indeed.” Barnaby nodded. “The only scenario that makes sense of Alert’s plan—a string of houses in Mayfair that must be burgled all in one night—is that the items to be stolen are
extremely
valuable.”

Stokes focused on Barnaby. “Any chance of us getting the word out through the ton—putting households on alert? Possibly identifying households that have extremely valuable items of the sort a boy could lift?”

Barnaby looked at him, then glanced at the window and the louring sky beyond. “As to your first question, Parliament rose on Thursday. It’s now late Saturday afternoon.” He met Stokes’s eyes. “We’re too late for any general alert—most ton families will have left town by now. More than that, in the current political climate I don’t think it would be wise for Peel to suggest, however obliquely, that the police weren’t able to protect the mansions of Mayfair from the depredations of one burglar.”

Stokes pulled a horrendous face and looked away.

“As for identifying households containing smallish items that are extremely valuable,” Penelope said, “the entire ton is littered with such things. Every house in Mayfair would have at least one, and in many cases more than one.” She grimaced, looking from Stokes to Griselda, then back again. “I know it seems absurd, but generally those things have been in our families for generations. We don’t think of them as valuable, but as Great-aunt Mary’s vase that she got from her Parisian admirer. That sort of thing. The vase might be priceless Limoges, but that’s not why it’s sitting on the corner table, and it’s not how we think of, or remember, it.”

“She’s right.” Barnaby met Stokes’s gaze. “Forget any idea of
identifying which houses.” He grimaced. “While we might now know the sort of item Alert is after, that sadly doesn’t get us much further.”

After a moment, Stokes said, “Perhaps not. But there is one other thing.” He looked at Barnaby. “If, as seems certain, Alert’s plan was designed to avoid police interference, then Alert, whoever he is—”

“Knows a damned sight more than the average gentleman about the workings of the Metropolitan Police.” Barnaby nodded. “Indeed.”

After a moment, he went on, “We can’t find Smythe, and we can’t identify the houses he’s targeting well enough to set any trap. By my reckoning, that leaves us with only one avenue worth exploring.”

Stokes nodded. “We go after Alert.”

She’d told herself it was frustration, disappointment, and simple impatience with the investigation that had driven her to seek distraction—but the truth was, she’d missed him.

Later that night, Penelope lay propped in Barnaby’s big bed. He lay beside her, on his back, one arm crooked above his head. The glow of candlelight fell over them. She let her gaze wander, and smiled with, she had to admit, possessive delight.

For the moment at least he was hers, all hers, and she knew it.

Reaching out, she laid one hand on his chest, then slowly slid it down—over the heavy muscle bands, down over his ridged abdomen to the indentation of his navel, then lower, to that part of him that always seemed eager for her touch. That despite their recent couplings, still grew beneath her hand.

The fact sent a sense of power shivering through her.

Not that the rest of him—all of him—hadn’t been glad to see her. Even though they’d made no assignation, when she’d knocked on his door earlier that night, he’d been waiting to open it; Mostyn had been nowhere in sight. He’d escorted her upstairs to his bedroom and locked the door behind them—all with an intent alacrity that had warmed her. That had set her heart pounding, set her senses stretching in anticipation.

She’d turned into his arms—all but flung herself at him—and simply let her hunger free. Let it burn. For him. And he’d reciprocated. They’d wrestled, as they always did, control first his, then hers, then
his again. He’d finally pinned her, naked, beneath him on the bed, and joined with her in a frenzy that had left them both wrung out, deliciously sated.

Content again.

It had seemed that he’d missed her, too.

That had been the first time. The second…she had an excellent memory; she could recall in vivid detail the various positions described in the esoteric texts she and Portia had studied years before in their drive to educate themselves on all aspects of life. Those texts had been quite illuminating.

And clearly accurate. When she’d risen up on her hands and knees and asked whether they could try it that way, he’d been stunned—for all of a heartbeat. Then he’d been behind her, and inside her, joining with her through long, deep, excruciatingly controlled thrusts; he’d demonstrated very thoroughly just why that position had featured in most texts.

Afterward, they’d collapsed in a tangled heap, mutually sated to their toes.

Now…after the heady glow of aftermath had faded, she’d been left with a pervasive warmth, her body thrumming with a steady, purring content and a quiet joy she hadn’t known it was possible to feel.

She was lightly, gently, stroking his chest, fascinated as always by the contrasts. Her hand looked so tiny, so puny, against the muscled, inherently powerful expanse; he was hard to her soft, heavy to her slight, large to her small—yet they seemed, in so many ways, complementary.

And not just physically.

On the surface, interludes such as this were all about satisfying physical cravings, yet before and beneath, what gave rise to the cravings in the first place and what, in achieving true satiation, was the more powerful and dominant hunger assuaged, was very definitely not physical. At least not for her.