His face paled and his mouth opened and shut twice before he gasped out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go away.”
“There are those who know about David and are willing to keep silent. For a price.”
“Name your price. Just go away.” He didn’t seem angry. He kept glancing around and the red creeping up his face appeared to be embarrassment at the danger of being seen with me.
“A pound.”
“And you’ll never come back.”
“It’s a deal. What was your deal with Drake?”
“Damnation. You learned about this from him, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” I wasn’t about to tell him his wife had told me.
“I don’t know what he told you or why he put you up to this, but I wish he and you would just stay away. This is embarrassing for a man in my position.”
“So you’ll pay me the pound?”
“Gladly.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a gold sovereign as a coach stopped behind me. “I’ll take three of the flowers.”
We made the exchange. Then a man stopped next to Merville and said, “Going inside?”
The Duke of Blackford. I peeked up from beneath my hat brim and saw his eyebrows rise. My disguise was a failure. He’d recognized me.
Over my heartbeat banging like a drum, I heard Merville say, “Yes,” as he marched back into the building carrying the flowers.
Blackford gave me a shilling and a smile as he took one of the flowers out of my limp grasp and then walked inside.
All I could think was to disappear before he told Merville he’d been tricked by the Archivist Society. Clutching the coins in one hand, I hurried away, yanking off the shawl and balling it up in my other hand. I was certain Merville wasn’t Drake’s abductor. He was too happy to take any easy path to keep scandal from his door. And Dutton-Cox seemed to have no worry over what Drake might have known or seen concerning his daughter Victoria’s death.
Therefore, Drake must not have been blackmailing Blackford about her death, either. So why was Drake blackmailing the duke and Dutton-Cox? I was becoming increasingly certain I’d have to travel to the wilds of Northumberland to learn the answer from the duke’s sister, Margaret. I did not want to make that trip.
But first, I’d have to travel to Hounslow.
Chapter Twelve
IT wasn’t until the next morning that I had time to follow up on the information Edith, or Anne as I’d learned she was, had told me. Truthfully, I didn’t expect to learn anything, and Hounslow felt nearly as far away as Northumberland.
I walked to the Embankment station on the Metropolitan District Railway, preparing for a long, smoky trip out to Hounslow. I entered by the wide, concrete stairs to the platform and was immediately reminded why I seldom rode on the railways beneath London. The platform was dimly lit due to the thick air and I expected the train cars to be crowded and dingy with coal exhaust from the engines.
At least I didn’t have long to wait before the train arrived. I was fortunate to find a seat, wedged between a woman with a holdall on her lap and a man trying to read a newspaper. The windows were closed. With luck, no one would open them until we were aboveground and in the countryside. The white smoke from the engine hid the tunnels in a fog that broke apart as we sped along the tracks, but we couldn’t escape the stench of sulfur seeping in from the train’s boiler.
Once aboveground, passengers opened the windows and fresh air replaced the stale. The Heston and Hounslow station wasn’t far from London, but it still retained its soot-free village skies along with its village appearance. I walked along Hounslow’s main street searching for a hansom cab. When I didn’t have any luck by the time I reached the Hanworth Road, I turned in at a stable.
“Hello?” I called out, walking forward. The stable seemed to be empty except for two horses.
“Looking fer someone?”
I turned around and found my retreat blocked by a short man holding a pitchfork. His clothes were battered and dirty from his cap to his boots, except for a clean, light blue woolen scarf wrapped around his neck.
I backed up a step, keeping my gaze on the scarf rather than the menacing pitchfork. I hoped someone else was nearby. “I’m looking for a conveyance to take me to Nicholas Drake’s house about a mile and a half to the south.”
“You want a conveyance?” He cackled with mirth. “What’s wrong with your feet?”
“Nothing, but I don’t wish to show up muddy at my brother’s house.” Until that moment, I hadn’t decided who I was going to be and how far from the truth I planned to travel.
“Drake’s your brother?”
“Yes.”
“If it’s Drake you want, you’d best go down the street to the police station.”
What was this odd little man up to? “Has Nicholas been locked up? What’s the charge?”
“You might say that. And it’s a charge we all have to face.” Chuckling to himself, the man shoved the pitchfork into the hay in an empty stall.
I hurried outside, afraid I’d feel the tines in my back at any moment. The police station was two blocks back up the road I had followed from the railway platform. I walked at a quick pace to the redbrick building and entered the lobby. The sergeant’s counter was across a well-scrubbed pine floor from the door. A gray-haired uniformed constable leaned on the other side of the barrier.
“I’ve been told you’re holding Nicholas Drake here,” I began.
“You’ve come to collect the body?” the man asked, straightening.
“What? Nicholas Drake is dead?” Was it an accident, or had his abductor succeeded?
I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because the constable called for one of his mates and came around the counter to me. “Are you all right, miss?”
“What happened to Nicholas Drake?” I demanded.
“Are you Mrs. Drake?” he asked.
“No. I’m his sister.”
“We didn’t have any leads on his family, so it’s a good thing you came by here today.”
I had failed. The Archivist Society had failed. But how did Drake die? I wanted to beat the information out of the constable, who was asking more questions than giving answers. “What happened to Nicholas?”
“If you’ll come back here with me, we’ll find you a cup of tea and talk about this,” he said in a soothing voice, but he watched me warily as if he expected me to become hysterical.
I nodded and followed him to an office down a long corridor. He had me sit on a hard wooden chair while another uniformed constable brought me a hot cup of tea. I took a sip and found there was too much sugar in the tea for it to be an unfortunate accident. They must have feared I’d wail and cry copious tears, but I’d already decided I’d learn more by being calm.
“Are you all right, miss?” the first officer asked.
“Quite. What happened to my brother?” They needed to tell me this instant what had happened or I’d scream, and not from grief.
“There was a fire in his house last night. Since his house sits on its own, well, no one could reach the building until it was burned through and ready to collapse.”
“You found his body inside?”
“When we could get into the rubble this morning, we found the body of a man. We believe it’s your brother.”