Page 13 of The Lady and the Secret Lord (The Duke’s Men #3)

A cold wind blew when Phoebe and Jones descended from yet another cab at the East London Gas Lighting works. It was the fifth day of their search. Phoebe had noted the day in her diary with a pang, but not without hope. Andrew had been missing a full year.

Mr. Pritchard’s trench ran along one side of a rough-looking street, with buckets and tubs heaped in piles between the ditch and a row of old dwellings looking on in sagging disapproval of the upheaval in their midst. Phoebe supposed it was the landscape of progress, of London changing. Somewhere the dig would encounter the old Roman road through the area.

Most of the workers were in the trench itself, which was braced open by four-by-four boards at regular intervals like the rungs of a horizontal ladder. A ridge of dirt and stone lined the other side of the trench, where traffic passed. A dozen men, with sleeves rolled up over brawny forearms and mud caked on their boots and trousers, swung picks and thrust shovels into the ditch. Somewhere nearby a pot of soup sent oniony fumes into the air.

The superintendent of the works when they found him, was not inclined to help. He was a man with a schedule, and he was not going to hunt up his workers’ employment records. He wanted Jones and Phoebe gone. He threatened to call the police, until Jones explained that he was the police, and that Leary was wanted to help them with an inquiry. When the superintendent objected to Mrs. Kendall’s presence, Jones said she was a witness. The man stopped sputtering, but he did not offer to help. Then Jones asked if the superintendent would prefer to have his friend, the Duke of Wenlocke, called to the site. The name had a magic effect on the superintendent, and left Phoebe wondering about how her detective came to have friends in high places.

Jones immediately gave Phoebe orders. She gritted her teeth. Now was not the time to argue about who was in charge.

“Walk east on the other side of the ridge. Keep your eye on faces, and keep walking, even when you see Leary. Just drop this.” He handed her a short stake with a white flag attached.

Phoebe took the stake and readied herself to peer at faces, under hats, and behind beards and dirt to find Leary. She was sure, looking at the rag tag group of men on the site, that Leary did not look at all like his former self. There was a danger, too, that if she lifted her veil, Leary might recognize her and bolt. Jones had stationed a constable at either end of the trench out of sight in anticipation, but there were side streets where Leary could easily disappear.

Behind her she heard Jones say, “Go.”

She began to walk. Vehicles passed on her left. A man driving a donkey cart shouted for her to get out of the roadway. She kept her gaze on the trench, waiting for the men to look up. Then they began shouting and waving at something coming at them. She concentrated on the faces. And there was Leary, haggard and dirty, his eyes dark smudges in his drawn face. He looked starved. She dropped the stake and kept going.

Jones passed her going down the trench, leaping easily from one cross bar to the next. A little way beyond the dropped stake, he turned around, reached Leary, and hauled him out of the trench onto one of the cross bars.

“A word with you, Mr. Leary,” Jones said.

Leary tried to wrench out of Jones’s hold, lost his footing, and nearly fell into the ditch. Jones pulled him back and hauled him over the ridge of piled earth to Phoebe.

Phoebe lifted her veil. “Mr. Leary, can you help us find Andrew?” she asked.

“My lady.” Leary stopped struggling, puzzled recognition in his haggard face. “I don’t know where he is. How did you find me? My sister, is she safe?”

Jones gave Leary a shake. “We’ll protect your sister if you let us, but you have to tell us what you know about the boy’s disappearance.”

Leary twisted to look at Jones. “You don’t know the league.” Leary laughed a bitter laugh. “They… kill people.”

“The Benevolent Assistance League?” Jones asked. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

“They’ll find me,” said Leary.

“I know a place,” Phoebe offered.

*

The offices of Greenwood’s Almanac surprised Robin. As Mrs. Kendall, Lady Phoebe Marchmont had been walking the streets of Soho, but he had not imagined that as her undisguised self she ever left her elegant West End neighborhood. Greenwood’s offices next to the Castle Coffee Company warehouse occupied a street corner near the river in a decidedly East End neighborhood.

Once Mrs. Kendall threw back her veil, everyone in the place seemed to know her, and to be amused at her black attire. An elderly Spaniard named Arturo led them through a side door into a curtained alcove with a stove and chairs around a table.

Leary sank into a chair, his elbows on the table, his hands cradling his head.

“First,” Robin began.

Mrs. Kendall put a hand on Robin’s arm. “First,” she said, turning to Leary, “where is Molly? May we bring her and her boys here to you, Mr. Leary?”

Leary’s head came up. “She won’t trust anyone.”

“Then we will go together.”

“After you tell us about the boy’s disappearance,” Robin insisted. He met Mrs. Kendall’s gaze and held it. He wasn’t going to bend on this.

Arturo reentered with a tray of coffee and fresh rolls. He set the tray on the table and withdrew, pulling a curtain closed around their alcove. Mrs. Kendall poured the coffee.

Leary began to speak. He told them about losing a bank position for attending a radical meeting.

“When I couldn’t get papers from the hiring agency, I went to Shattuck’s store. I thought I could trade my watch for a gown for Molly and shoes for the boys. Shattuck offered me coffee. He told me to hold onto the watch. He could help me to a position that would be opening up soon and get me the papers I needed. He said I would need a new name, but not to worry, the work was honest.

“He said, You look like a young man who could use a benefactor. It was a fancy word. I laughed at it. I’d definitely not had a benefactor before, but Shattuck said he knew where to get one. He told me he knew an organization that helped young men get going again when they’d been knocked down. He told me that it was a private philanthropy. I thought maybe it was all lies, but he gave me a gown for Molly and shoes for the boys, and I said I’d come back.”

Leary fell silent staring into his coffee mug. The story squared with Robin’s theory about Shattuck’s role in recruiting willing tools.

“They lure you in, you know,” Leary said. “They tell you that from time to time you have to do something for the league itself, just to repay your benefactor’s generosity. But don’t worry about it. Just do your job.”

“And what did they ask you to do?” Robin asked. Now Leary was getting to the heart of the matter.

Leary raised his eyes to Mrs. Kendall. “They wanted me to find certain letters. Letters in the dead lord’s desk. They said the letters were proof that the boy was… a bastard.”