“Anyway,” Zach continued, not ready to dissect why he hadn’t told his brothers. “I think Plunge wasn’t telling the truth in that room up there.” He pointed to the stairs they’d just walked down. “Something was off about the entire scenario. There was nothing remotely sexual about what I saw. All three players were fully dressed, and the woman on the bed looked like she was ready to leave, in a jacket and bonnet.
“They could just be getting warmed up.”
“Don’t. Seriously, Nathan, I just threw up a bit in my mouth at the thought of Plunge doing that.”
“Some people enjoy doing things a bit differently from others,” Nathan added.
“Really, shut up,” Zach said.
“Do you think Madame Lucienne could in any way be involved in all of this, Zach? By this I mean she’s an accomplice to whoever is working for Falcon?”
“How can she be? She’s with Plunge and not living at 11 Leander Lane. It doesn’t ring true for me that she’s one of Falcon’s people. Unless Plunge is bad too, which I can’t believe, as we’ve known him for years.”
“But no one is aware of us and what we do,” Nathan said reasonably. “Madame Lucienne could have gotten into Blackhall’s that night and stolen those papers. She could be working at Falcon’s side, not as an underling.”
He didn’t want to believe that either.
“You go around the front to see if either Plunge or Madame Lucienne leave, and I’ll stay here,” Zach said to his brother.
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
“Nathan, I will be fine and can fight as good as any of you. Go. We need to know if she’s involved.”
“And Plunge.”
“That man can’t put his shoes on the right feet,” Zach said.
“I told you I thought he might be playing a game, and to me this proves it.”
“Go,” Zach urged his brother.
“All right. I’ll locate one of the others and then return to you.”
“Because I am so incapable, clearly?”
“Exactly.” Nathan disappeared.
Zach stayed where he was, watching the stairs. He did not have long to wait before he had company. Two people appeared.
“I saw them downstairs, but we must hurry.”
“Did you see all of them?”
A man and woman were descending the stairs and speaking French.
“I don’t understand why he keeps popping up?” the woman said.
Zach was sure he knew that voice, which he did because it belonged to Madame Lucienne, but the shiver of awareness had him wondering if he’d met her before, without her veil? Zach moved slightly, which angled him to face the bottom of the stairs.
“Sssh now,” the man said. “In case there is someone below.”
Plunge came in to view first and then Madame Lucienne. His voice had in no way sounded like the simpering Lord Plunge society met each evening.
“Well now, you’d not be taking one of the lady birds home, would you?”
Four men appeared from Zach’s right. Dressed in the clothes of working men, he could smell the sprits they’d been drinking.
“Step aside,” Plunge said in a hard voice that surprised Zach so much he didn’t react as the men stepped closer and surrounded the couple.
