Today's Reading
PROLOGUE
Bedford Square, London
September 29, 1896
Detective Inspector Benedict Drake crossed his arms to fight off a shiver. A thick fog had settled over the city and put a vicious bite in the air. He'd asked the cabbie to let him out a block away, and now he'd taken up his watch, waiting in the midnight darkness for movement in the townhouse across the square.
His heartbeat roared in his ears, and he fought the urge to run across the street, rip open the front door, and finally lay his hands on the man he'd been hunting for weeks.
But this criminal was wily and unpredictable.
Drake understood that patience would serve him best, but it was bloody hard to remain still.
The man who'd entered the townhouse ten minutes ago was a petty thief, but his connection to the master criminal was clear. It was why Drake had become Amos Howe's shadow, trailing the man to gambling dens, brothels, and loathsome pits where animals fought for the pleasure of drunken men. On a few occasions, he'd considered following other leads, despairing that this particular conspirator would ever take him to the one who mattered most.
But while he might struggle with patience, tenacity was his bedrock. He never lost the scent once he'd found a trail, and intuition paired with cold, hard logic rarely failed him.
And logic told him that Howe had just led him to the heart of this criminal enterprise. The fashionable townhouse the thug had slipped into a quarter of an hour ago wasn't his. Howe had made his name in the darkest alleys of the East End, and all the haunts he frequented were in those streets.
The mastermind of the blackmail scheme resided here. Drake knew it in his bones.
He slipped his revolver from his pocket. Violence was never his preference, but he suspected the blackmailer, known only as M, would have firearms at the ready.
He couldn't be certain how many might await him inside, but he would face them alone.
This case had been classified at the highest level of security, requiring the greatest discretion, and he'd been handpicked by his mentor because of his reputation for succeeding where others failed.
Tonight would be no different.
The townhouse wasn't located in the most fashionable of London squares, but it was elegant and well lit. Someone of consequence resided here at the edge of Bedford Square.
But was that someone bold enough to blackmail the heir to the British throne?
The letters had come in red-stained envelopes, the words on them cobbled together from newspaper clippings or scrawled in a spidery hand that was barely legible. The blackmailer claimed to have letters and photographs of Prince Edward VII that, if made public, would spell scandal for the Crown.
Drake didn't much care how the prince spent his leisure hours, but the royal family cared a great deal about avoiding scandal.
And so he waited until waiting seemed fruitless.
After half an hour had passed, Drake stepped out of the concealing trees and bushes of the square and made his way into the mews behind the row of townhouses. As he approached the gate of the house Howe had disappeared into, he was met by growls and then the rapid, panicked barks of a guard dog he'd somehow failed to spot. As the creature strained forward on the chain that tethered him, Drake could see he was a poorly looking fellow—matted hair, scrawny body, and eyes that telegraphed fear rather than ferocity.
"You've nothing to fear from me," he whispered to the canine, trying for the same gentle tone his sister used with the strays she was addicted to bringing home.
The dog barked once more and then cocked an ear.
"That's right, boy. Nothing to be afraid of." But as soon as he took a step forward, the dog growled low in his throat. The creature knew what was expected of him, even if whoever owned this townhouse mistreated him.
"You're doing a good job," Drake admitted, and then noticed a light flick on beyond the house's back door. He retreated into the shadows as the dog's barks flattened to a whine.
The back door swung open, and a man's silhouette filled the space.
...
