“I know that Joshua claimed a fancy cove hired him,” replied Charlotte. “Did he say what he looked like? Or describe any detail that might identify him?”
The ex-soldier narrowed his rheumy eyes. “Why are ye asking?”
“Because I work fer someone who wants to see that justice is done.”
A mirthless laugh. “As if anyone gives a rat’s arse whether people like me and Joshua ever get a whiff o’ justice.”
Charlotte eyed him with an unblinking stare.
“Wot’s ye got te lose?” whispered Greasy Hair. “Magpie’s money can at least buy ye a mug o’ ale te raise in salute te your dead friend.”
Ferret Face dropped his gaze. “The varlet didn’t see me in the shadows—my feet were aching, and so I wuz sitting wrapped in a blanket wiv my back up against the wall. But oiy got a look at him as he left the alleyway after making his devil-cursed deal with Joshua.”
“Describe him,” said Charlotte.
“Tall. Broad-shouldered. A fancy pair o’ boots that looked soft as a doxy’s bum . . .”
That fits Taviot, she thought, feeling a flutter of excitement stir inside her rib cage.
A shrug. “Can’t say I noticed anything else.”
“What about the color of his hair?” she pressed.
The ex-soldier scrunched his face in thought. “Brown,” he answered. “A reddish shade, like strong tea.”
Damnation. “Not black, with threads of silver?”
He shook his head. “Naw. As he turned te leave, he passed through a blade o’ moonlight.” A grimace. “Brown hair . . . and Satan-dark eyes that made my blood run cold.” His mouth thinned. “I warned Joshua that no good would come of dealing with such an evil-looking cove.”
“Thank you.” Charlotte passed over payment to both men and slipped away into the night while they were still eyeing their good fortune. She had been generous despite her disappointment. It had, she supposed, been naïve to expect that Taviot would have sullied his hands with wielding the actual knife that helped put gobs of filthy money in his pocket.
In some ways, that made him even more despicable.
“You may have had your co-conspirator perform the recent murders. But you are guilty as sin for both the past and present litany of deaths,” Charlotte whispered to herself.
“And it’s only a matter of time before Wrexford and I make you pay for your perfidy.”
CHAPTER 21
“Not so fast, Wrex,” whispered Sheffield. They had entered a cavernous space, and the earl was leading the way, the blade of lantern light flickering over the intricate mechanisms of the machines flanking the center walkway.
“These are precision lathes,” explained Sheffield. “Whatever technical innovations Maitland is crafting here, these machines must be making the components. So it stands to reason that there might be some diagrams left out on the worktables, showing what the devil they are doing.”
“Good thinking, Kit.” Wrexford gave himself a mental kick for missing the connection, reminding himself not to let emotion cloud his judgment. He stopped and allowed the light to probe into the shadows between the lathes.
Sheffield let out a grunt of satisfaction on spotting a trestle table and stool set against the wall. Their hopes, however, proved short-lived. It appeared that Maitland and his supervisors ran a tight ship—none of the worktables yielded anything more substantial than a few errant crumbs of bread.
“The villains are being careful,” observed Wrexford. “I take that as a good sign. Let’s keep looking for Maitland’s office.”
A corridor led from the lathes to the rear of the building. They passed several more work areas—a carpentry shop, a storage room for rope and pulleys—before a last turn brought them face to face with two closed doors. Wrexford tried the one on the right.
Its latch lifted without protest.
“Nothing but lading bills and lists of deliveries,” he muttered after searching through the papers atop the bare-bones wooden desk. Its drawers were empty, and save for a straight-back chair and pair of open wooden crates shoved up against the wall beneath the lone window, there was nothing else in the room.
Nothing.
And yet he could smell it. Malevolence tainted the air, its sour, sulfurous odor swirling up from the bowels of Hell. Some clue to its source was here, and by God, he was going to find it.
