Today's Reading
Drake rushed Howe so fast, the man barely had time to uncross his arms before Drake shoved him bodily and opened the back door. He registered a bare kitchen, then found a short staircase up to the ground floor. There were no furnishings in the house, and the light he'd seen out front had been doused.
He took it all in as he reached the main hall, but he could hear the carriage departing even as he wrenched the front door open.
Black and unmarked, the enclosed carriage with a single, dark-coated driver departed at breakneck speed, careening out of the square into the main thoroughfare.
He didn't know if it was the elusive M or another conspirator who'd flown, but he had one of them at hand, and he meant to get all he could out of Amos Howe.
Stomping back to the kitchen, he found Howe heading toward the mews. "Don't make me chase you," Drake shouted. Then he lifted his revolver, pulled back the hammer, and hoped Howe heard the click.
The thief turned back to him. "I 'ad nothing to do with those letters."
Drake approached, keeping his eyes on the man's hands. Howe looked defeated again.
"Tired of all of it, if you must know," he mumbled as Drake clapped shackles around his wrists.
The thief was making this so easy that a shiver of warning trickled down Drake's back.
He led Howe back inside. This time, he noticed the button Howe must have pushed. A black button in a gold-plated case attached to the frame of the kitchen threshold. A white-painted wire ran along the door frame and disappeared behind kitchen furnishings.
"You alerted him." Drake shoved the man into the kitchen and used his belt to lash Howe's handcuffs to the kitchen's grand enamel-glazed iron stove.
"Stay put." Drake met Howe's gaze as he finished the knot. "This is your last chance to tell me how many men I'll face upstairs."
Howe shook his head. "Not a one, Inspector. Came for a delivery, then you appeared, and it all went tits up."
"A delivery?"
"When 'e wants me to deliver something, I meet 'im." Howe shrugged. "Then take it where it needs to go."
"Like a letter threatening the Prince of Wales?"
Howe swallowed and ducked his head again. "Wanted nothing to do with that, I tell ya."
Drake didn't believe him. Not a single bloody word.
But even if he'd believed Howe was telling the truth, he had to know for sure.
So he searched every room. Each empty, unfurnished room. The townhouse was as clean as if it was set for sale or had just been leased. Where there were built-in cupboards, drawers had been left open. Closet doors stood ajar. And the clatter of his own footsteps was the only sound he heard as he checked every inch of the structure. He even released the ladder hidden in an upstairs hallway ceiling to access the attic, but it contained only dust and a skeletal framework of wooden beams.
He slammed a fist against one of those solid beams.
Hell and damnation to false leads. There'd been far too many in this case.
Perhaps Howe had known he was being followed, and his surprise in the back garden had all been feigned. And if Howe had been aware, then the menace known as M had too.
And led him to an empty townhouse.
He let out a weary sigh, and fatigue washed over him. But he sucked in a breath to fill his lungs and fire his brain. There was still much to do this evening.
First, he found a cab. Then he hauled Howe into it. Just as he was about to climb inside himself, he heard a mournful howl from the back of M's empty townhouse.
...
