“Don’t have it. Don’t know precisely what it is.”
“I am generally amused by your bluster. Not just now, though.” Nonetheless, he lowered his pistol and made a point of looking around Crocker’s study. The tidiness of the space was in perfect contrast to the man. Crocker’s cravat was limp and slightly twisted, his shirt bunched around his waist, and there was a button missing on his waistcoat. His study, however, had no item out of place. The furniture was set at conversational angles and none of it held papers, books, or ledgers. There was room to walk in every direction without bumping into a stack of newspapers or tripping over a footstool. The vases, all four of them filled with expensive hothouse flowers, did not have to share a tabletop with mismatched porcelain and jade figurines and other odd collectibles. There were no decks of cards under the chairs or teacups and saucers lining the windowsill. No decanters were left out on the drinks cabinet, and the evidence that Crocker smoked the occasional cheroot or cigar was confined to the stale, smoky fragrance that lingered in the air.
“You welcomed Mrs. Christie rather warmly, I thought.”
“Why shouldn’t I? She’s a right piece of God’s handiwork and has a mouth what knows how to pleasure a man. You’re familiar yourself.”
Griffin saw his former mistress’s back stiffen. At her sides her hands curled. “Have a care, Crocker, else she will launch herself at you. Don’t depend on me to pull her off, nor to wager that you’d emerge the victor. She says she’s not your partner, and neither is she in your debt, but something about her way of saying doesn’t sit well with me. I thought you might entertain me with your version of the truth, but I’d like to see Olivia first. Sir Hadrien would like to see her brother. Explanations, as diverting as I’m certain to find them, will have to wait.”
Crocker held up his hands in advance of his attempt to explain, his broad features suggesting confusion and innocence. “You mistake the matter if you think I know what you’re talking about. You seem to be suggesting something that is beneath me.”
“Since you’d crawl on your belly in the sewers if it would put a copper in your pocket, there’s nothing that’s beneath you.” He raised the pistol, used it to nudge Mrs. Christie and Sir Hadrien a bit to each side, then kept it level on Johnny Crocker’s barrel chest. “Show me where you’re keeping Olivia.”
Crocker shifted his weight, unfolded his arms, and held fast to the lapels of his frock coat. He took Griffin’s measure, calculated the likelihood that he would use the pistol, and equally important, the likelihood that he would miss. The probability of the first was extremely high, the latter, extremely low. Johnny Crocker decided he could afford to cooperate.
“Do you have the ring?” he asked.
Ignoring the question, Griffin said, “Take me to Olivia.”
Crocker shrugged his massive shoulders. “As you wish.”
Griffin stepped back and out of the way so that all three could precede him. He explained to Crocker in his calm and careful voice what he would do if there was the least interference from the staff. Crocker simply nodded and took the lead.
They used the servants’ stairs to enter the bowels of the house. The narrow passage confined their movements and made it easy for Griffin to keep them contained. When they entered the servants’ hall, Crocker sent the cook and all three helpers out. A maidservant came into the hallway from one of the adjoining rooms, her arms extended and laden with laundry. A word from Crocker had her reversing her direction immediately. The hall was silent and still after that.
“Show me,” Griffin said quietly.
“This way.” Crocker turned the corner and stopped in front of a heavy oaken door. “Wine cellar. I have to get the key from inside my coat.”
“Go on.” Griffin noted the door was barred as well as locked. The combination was good for keeping people outandin. He felt more confident that he was being shown where Olivia and Alastair had been secreted.
Crocker removed the bar, set it aside, then used the key. They all stepped back as the door opened toward them and stayed rooted to the floor as the foul stench escaped the room.
Mrs. Christie gagged and stuffed her fist against her mouth. Sir Hadrien quickly found his scented handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. Crocker grimaced but stepped into the room, encouraged by the pistol pressed momentarily against his spine.
Griffin called for Olivia in the same moment she heaved the contents of the slop bucket into the crowded doorway.
Mrs. Christie pressed her hands against her stomach as she doubled over. Violent retching noises erupted from her followed by the remains of her breakfast. The delicate lavender scent in Sir Hadrien’s handkerchief was obliterated by the sprinkling of body waste that attached itself to his hair, face, and clothing. At the center, where Olivia’s aim had been most true, Johnny Crocker received no mere sprinkling, but a full shower of the bucket’s foul contents.
“Christ! Christ Jesus! Holy Mother of God!” He slapped at his face with his hands, trying to wipe the worst of it away. The taste of it was in his mouth; the odor clung to the inside of his nose. There was no ridding himself of it. He gagged also, staggered forward, and bent at the waist. He never saw Olivia swing the empty wooden bucket back, around, and over her shoulder, so he didn’t know when it reached its full height. The momentum carried it forward; Olivia supplied the direction. The impact with his head shattered the bucket and dropped him to his knees in the filth he was trying to escape.
Griffin could not recall that he’d ever thought much about the height and breadth of Johnny Crocker’s shoulders, nor the way the man filled the space across a threshold. He thought about it now, and was grateful. Except for a few scattered droplets, Crocker’s considerable mass had been an almost perfect bulwark.
Griffin stood slightly to one side in the doorway, allowing more light from the kitchen and the hall sconces to enter the wine cellar. He could see Olivia holding the rope handle of the shattered bucket. Two wooden staves still dangled from it. She was all of a messy piece, slightly soiled, a bit worse for the wear with her hair tousled and rents in her gown, but she was unbowed by the experience in any way that mattered. It was anger that flushed her face, not exertion or fear. She had a warrior’s stance, not the still, guarded posture of prey. That she was armed only with the remnants of a slop bucket, well, he was hard-pressed to keep his lips from twitching.
He used the pistol to wave her over. To her credit, she didn’t hesitate. When Crocker made a weak attempt to catch her skirts as she passed, she sharply slapped at his hand with the bucket staves like a governess disciplining an unruly charge. Griffin was not proof against that gesture. He was grinning as she came abreast of him.
Before she could comment, he moved her into the hall behind him. She came up on tiptoe as she pressed herself against his back. He heard her whisper her brother’s name, and for the first time, he became aware of Alastair’s presence in the cellar. Her brother was standing against the wall of wine bottles, his arms and legs spread wide as though he were holding back the tide of grape, when in truth he was being held up by it.
“Over here, Alastair,” Griffin said. When Alastair didn’t move, Griffin raised his voice. This time he managed to talk over the oddly syncopated retching of Olivia’s three victims, and penetrate the fermented fog that clouded Alastair’s thinking.
Alastair’s head swiveled slowly toward the door. He grinned somewhat lopsidedly, then drew himself up almost straight and pushed away from the wall. He managed to grab the neck of a wine bottle in each hand as he did so and lightly tapped his father on the shoulder as he half sauntered, half stumbled past Sir Hadrien’s heaving frame.
“Foxed,” he announced, still smiling stupidly as he slipped by Griffin. “Couldn’ help myself.”
Griffin shrugged. “It’s a wine cellar.”
“That’s whatIsaid.” Alastair struck the butt ends of the bottles together to punctuate his point.
