I pressed my walking stick to the floor and rose. “Send Pickett’s things to South Audley Street, please. The sooner, the better.”
Pomeroy gave me a mock salute. “Yes, sir, Captain, sir.”
So he’d done during the Peninsular Wars when he’d thought I was being a high-handed fool. I’d been in command of him there. Here, I was nobody.
“Thank you.” I forced a cordial nod and carefully slid out of the tiny room. “Good day.”
“Good luck to ye, Captain,” Pomeroy boomed behind me. “You’ll be needing it this time, I’m thinking.”
Brewster joined me as I left Bow Street for Russel Street. I waved off Denis’s coachman who’d started for us from Covent Garden market, electing to make my way to Grimpen Lane on foot.
I wanted very much to read Pickett’s letter to Denis, but I reasoned that Gibbons might not have yet returned to the Curzon Street house from Seven Dials. I might as well rest in my old rooms for a few minutes.
“Well met, Captain Lacey.” My landlady, Mrs. Beltan, greeted me as she emerged from her bakeshop below my rooms. “High time you ceased flitting about the world and visited me.”
“Haven’t had many moments to myself since I returned,” I told her apologetically.
Which was more or less true. Since we’d returned from Rome, Donata had me accompanying her to different gatherings every night, as the Season had already begun. Gabriella had come home with us, her fiancé returning to his family in France for a while, and I’d wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.
“See that you gain some,” Mrs. Beltan chided me good-naturedly. She insisted Brewster and I took mugs of coffee and a cruller each.
“Thank ye kindly,” Brewster said to her. “None better in London, Missus.”
“Go on with you, now.” Mrs. Beltan flushed at Brewster’s charm and turned to greet her next customer.
We carried our repast to my cold rooms upstairs, and Brewster had me sit while he lit the fire. I sank into the armchair in which I’d spent many a lonely evening upon my return from the Peninsular War, wondering if my life would be worth getting on with. An injured officer with no money or prospects, who’d barely avoided losing his commission in scandal, hadn’t much to look forward to.
If I’d known then that I’d be married to a beautiful widow, reconnected to the daughter I thought I’d lost, and the father of a new daughter as well as a hearty stepson, I’d never have despaired.
“Who has a key to the Seven Dials house?” I asked Brewster as he climbed to his feet. He sank into the straight-backed chair I used at my desk, its wood creaking with his bulk.
“Besides His Nibs?” Brewster lifted his cruller he’d set on the table beside him. “Gibbons. Probably Mr. Floyd, what keeps the accounts and notes on the art His Nibs collects. Mr. Denis ain’t free with handing out keys.”
“He also employs plenty of former thieves who could easily pick a lock,” I said.
“True. But he knows about locks and don’t use the flimsy ones most folk do, like the ones on your wife’s house.”
This information gave me a qualm. “Have you been assessing our house for its prospects?”
“I’ve reformed,” Brewster assured me. “But if I needed to get into your house because you or your family was in danger, I could do it, sharpish.”
“I am pleased to hear it,” I said, though I decided I’d have Barnstable consult with a locksmith. “Even so, experienced lock pickers could open Mr. Denis’s doors.”
“True. But none of them would.”
I agreed that a person would be foolish indeed to break into Denis’s home and try to rob him.
“You seem to believe Mr. Stout might not be trustworthy,” I reminded him.
Brewster shrugged. “I don’t know him, do I? I was working for you when His Nibs picked up Stout in Rome. I know nothing about him. How did he latch himself onto His Nibs and convince him to cart him back to London?”
A question I’d been pondering. “Denis would never bring home someone he didn’t trust. Robbie seems to think Stout is all right.”
“Huh. Robbie don’t mind most men, because he knows the instant they annoy him, he can put his fist through them. Blokes understand that, so they’re respectful to him, like.”
I had to concede his point. “I would like to speak to Stout, in any case. Do you know where he’d go to ground?”
“No idea. Gibbons might. Gibbons is a cold cove, but he knows the most about what goes on in His Nibs’ household.”
