Page 12 of Blackmailed (The Browns of Butcher’s Hill #2)

The silly man would not come to the front door for fear someone would see him or hear of him asking for the daughter of the house.

Virginia smiled as she made her way down the halls and the stairs to Shellington’s kitchens.

She paused at the last step. Phillip was there, leaning against the tall table where Mrs. Barkley was directing several helpers in their tasks, every one of the young girls smiling shyly when meeting his eyes, some giggling and almost all blushing.

Mrs. Barkley was under his spell as well, handing him a tart just out of the oven.

Even two of their male servants, busy polishing boots and cleaning her father’s clothing, were listening and laughing at whatever Brown had said.

“Mr. Brown? Will there be any tarts left for my dinner?” she said as she entered the kitchen. “Oh no. It’s fine, everyone! I’m only teasing!”

Phillip turned to her and smiled. “Miss Wiest. Sorry to impose, but I have a question for you.”

“Would you like to join me in the parlor for coffee and more tarts?” she asked.

“At the rate he’s eating them, there won’t be any tarts for your dinner!” Mrs. Barkley said with a laugh.

“I’ve only had three.” Phillip smiled and turned to Virginia. “No need for any trouble. If I could just speak to you quickly, I need to get back to the cannery.”

Virginia peered into the herbal room, and he followed her inside. He pushed the door closed until it stood just a few inches open. She glanced at him.

“Miss Wiest. Virginia. I would like to ask you something, but I can’t tell you anything about why I’m asking.”

“Go ahead, Phillip. I won’t hound you for explanations even if I want to.”

“What do you know about the Ladies’ Organization for the Benefit of Baltimore City?”

“The Ladies’ Organization?”

He nodded. “What do you know about it?”

“I can’t remember the last time I attended anything there. My Aunt Essie went often when she lived in Baltimore.”

“Do you know what they do? Do they raise money for the poor and such?”

She shook her head. “Not so much any longer the last time I heard anything about it. Essie said they used to do significant fundraising for all sorts of charities years ago.”

“What do they do now?”

“It’s more like a ladies’ social club now. They have a reading group and have the occasional play on their stage for their members. I still get a notice of their calendar a few times a year.”

“Like a men’s social club? Drinking and arguing and playing cards?”

She laughed. “I don’t know. And although I’m very curious, I will not ask you why you wish to know.”

He stepped a little closer to her and glanced over his shoulder. Then, turning back to her and picking up her hands from her waist, he kissed her cheek. “I’ve got to get back before I’m missed.”

Virginia felt her cheeks heat. “I’m very happy to see you, even for a few moments.”

He smiled at her and opened the door. “Thank you, Miss Wiest.”

“Of course,” she said.

Phillip headed toward the back door he’d come in, but not before picking up another tart from Mrs. Barkley’s cooling rack.

Phillip was banking the fires, setting the grates, and checking the doors when a knock sounded in the kitchen, and he heard a faint call. He was down the two stone steps as Eliza was coming out of her room. Uncle Patrick stuck his head out of his bedroom door.

“Is someone hollering for you?”

“I think,” Phillip replied and looked at Eliza, pulling a robe around her shoulders. “Better get in your room until we know who it is.”

Phillip pulled the bar, opened the door, and peered out into the night. “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Mr. Brown,” a small voice said.

Phillip looked down and saw one of the Shoeman children looking up at him.

“Get in the house,” Eliza said. “It’s pouring down rain.”

The young boy stepped over the threshold tentatively. “My ma told me to come here and get you. My pa is hurt.”

“Hurt? Let me get my boots. Did your ma say what happened?”

“She don’t know. She sent me over to Miss Dolly’s to take him some bread and cheese, but I couldn’t find him. Then I heard a moan and saw him laying in the mud. He was bleeding!”

“I’ll take the boy home and meet you at Dolly’s,” Patrick shouted as Phillip raced upstairs for his boots and knives.

Phillip hurried through the darkened neighborhood until he came to Lombard Street. He kept to the shadows until he was near the building, his eyes searching the ground and down a thin opening between the shop and the neighbor’s. “Willis,” he whispered.

“Here,” he heard and followed the voice down the opening.

“How bad are you hurt?” he asked.

“Got knocked on the head is all. Just need to sit for another minute.”

“Are they inside?”

“Three of them, I think. Went in the back door. I heard the woman screaming up on the second floor.”

They both stilled at a hiss in the alleyway. “Hey. This way.”

“It’s Patrick,” Phillip said to Shoeman. “Can you get yourself home? Patrick took your boy home that your wife sent to get me.”

“I can get there. But I’m going to sit a few more minutes.”

Phillip stepped past Willis toward the alley, walking sideways as his shoulders would not fit across the opening.

He found his uncle, who nodded toward the back door standing open.

Phillip glanced in the hallway, seeing no one in the dim interior with little moonlight from the overcast night sky.

He went in and quickly turned up the stairs to Mrs. Irving’s apartment.

As he neared the door, he heard her crying.

“Stop the tears, woman! Just tell us where the rest of Colfax’s stash is, and we’ll be gone. Maybe we won’t even tear this place to shreds or set it on fire with you tied to your chair,” a man said and laughed. Another man laughed too.

Shoeman said three, but Phillip had two of them here, and he wasn’t going to let them threaten this woman any longer.

He signaled Patrick behind him and charged up the last few steps, racing across the room and toward the man standing beside a terrified Dolly Irving.

He heard the crunch of bone when Patrick swung his cosh at the other man’s head, dropping him to the carpet.

Phillip tackled his man and landed on top of him, crashing into a chair as they fell.

He swung his fist as soon as the man’s back hit the floor, stunning him as his head connected with the wooden floor.

Phillip turned him over and tied his hands behind his back with the rope he’d brought.

He turned to help his uncle but did not see what he’d hoped.

“Be just as happy to blow his brains all over this pretty carpet,” the third man said as he held a gun to his uncle’s head.

“Put the gun down. You’re beat. Take your men and get out of here,” Phillip blustered. Patrick was eyeing him, and the man holding him was looking at his partners on the floor.

“Not so fast. I ain’t going nowheres. I need to know where her partner put the rest of the stash. She can tell me, or this here old man can die.”

“Settle down,” Phillip said, watching the gun in the man’s hand. “The way you’re waving that pistol around, you could shoot one of your friends by accident.”

Phillip saw a dark shadow creeping into the room behind the man holding Patrick hostage. Phillip hurried to keep the man’s attention on him. “Who do you work for? You sure they want a murder to come back on them? I doubt it. Bosses don’t want any police looking any closer than?—”

The man pointed his weapon at Phillip and then all over room, gesturing wildly. Dolly gasped upon seeing Willis coming up behind the man holding Patrick. He pointed directly at her and swung around, pushing Patrick away as he did, aiming at Willis.

“I thought you was down, boy. How ’bout I put you down for good?” He swung his gun around, firing randomly. Window glass shattered, and Phillip could hear neighbors shouting.

Willis dropped to the floor, and Phillip charged the man, slamming the hand holding the gun into the brick wall at his back until he dropped the weapon.

Willis scrambled and grabbed it while dodging the man’s kicks and Phillip’s efforts to contain the gunman.

Phillip wrangled the man to the floor and tied his hands and feet.

Patrick untied Dolly Irving’s hands from the back of her chair, and she slumped onto the table, rubbing her wrists.

“What do you want to do, Mrs. Irving?” Phillip asked. “We’ll get rid of these men. I think I hear some riders now. If it’s the Baltimore police, we’ll stay and help you clean up, but if it’s the Pinkertons, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Go.” She glanced up at him. “Go. You saved my life. Go, before there’s more trouble.”

Uncle Patrick, Willis, and Phillip hurried down the stairs, pushing and dragging the three men.

One was able to run away without a backward glance at his friends, the other two tied up and unconscious.

They dropped those two at the end of the alley and split up, staying in the shadows as they went.

Phillip went around to Lombard Street and saw the riders nearly at Dolly’s door.

Pinkertons. He must send Sarah to see Dolly and find out exactly what she’d told those men.