He and Rawleigh bellowed together, “Or-der!”
And bizarrely, the ruckus cut off like a tap.
“Rescuing a lady in distress!” Rawleigh declared.
“Hurrah!” cheered the drunks.
Rawleigh and Sammy brandished their fashionable walking canes like swords, and Constance, taking a firmer hold of Rawleigh’s arm and a very deep breath, tugged him briskly toward her still-waiting hackney.
“Charge!” yelled Rawleigh, and they all did, even the gentleman balancing a friend on his shoulder.
Several hats bounced down the steps and were crunched underfoot or leapt over. Constance’s hackney driver, looking terrified, brandished his whip.
“The Crown and Anchor, if you please!” Constance commanded, and dived inside the cab. Rawleigh, Sammy, and a complete stranger piled in after her, and she heard a thud as someone else landed beside the driver.
The driver gave in to the inevitable and urged his poor horse forward at a decent clip, no doubt to prevent the arrival of anyone else to his vehicle. Through the window, Constance saw the shouldered man fall off onto the roof of a waiting Black Maria. Another cheer went up as several men dived inside it and clambered onto the roof. Pinster jumped onto the driver’s box, dragging the alarmed but determined constable with him.
Someone bolted out of the police station at last.
Hysterical laughter caught in Constance’s throat.Oh dear, what have I done?
*
For authenticity, Solomondressed in David’s rough seamen’s clothing. Regarding himself doubtfully in his bedroom mirror, he adjusted his posture, the tilt of his head, the friendliness of his normally cool gaze.Nowhe looked more like his brother.
A shadow darkened the doorway.
David stood there, looking at him. “It should be me.Ishould go. Or we both should.”
“There can’t be two of us. They would know it was a trick and scarper. And it can’t be you just in case the police arrest you before we have the proof.”
“They could arrest you for being me.”
“But I have proof of who I am and connections who can speak for me. Even in these clothes, I am Solomon Grey. This is the only way.”
“You were always a stubborn little—”
“So were you,” Solomon said, his lips twitching. He met his brother’s gaze in the mirror. “What did we quarrel about that day?”
David shrugged. “It’s always bothered you, hasn’t it? I never thought it was your fault. It wasn’t. Nor mine, though that conclusion was harder to reach. We can’t change the past, Sol.”
Only David—and Constance—had ever called him that. He swallowed. “No. And the future will be better. Once we catch this miscreant.” Solomon strode purposefully to the door, snatching up David’s waxed wool jacket on the way.
“Are you sure she’ll bring the police?” David blurted. “Canshe?”
Solomon smiled. “Constance can do anything.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Drayman and hiscompanions lurked in the shadows surrounding the Crown and Anchor, which was far too lit up for his liking. There were no streetlamps in this dingy corner, but since the murder, there were two lanterns and a policeman placed on the rubbly little square of waste ground to the side of it.
The policeman paced miserably, occasionally thumping his hands together for warmth.
Drayman nudged his companions. “Take him inside and make sure he stays there. Then come back out.” He already knew Johnny was not inside the pub, for he’d already been in to look. He’d no intention of allowing Johnny over the door either, for there should be no witnesses but his own to this murder.
Draymen’s companions grunted and brushed past him, emerging into the faint light emanating from the Crown and Anchor. They did a fair job of pretending to see the peeler for the first time.
“Here, mate, what you skulking over there for? Freezing yourself to death!”
