“Runners have authority to pursue fugitives anywhere in England,” Spendlove answered with as much irritability. “So, yes, all of them.”
“I will not be going with you,” I stated firmly. “I have a family and other commitments.”
“Yes, I do know your lady wife will have my head on a platter if I don’t return you home when you’re expected.” Spendlove’s tone held derision. “You’ve given me enough to go on, I’ll grant you that. I’ll clear them all, whittling down the list until only Mr. Denis remains on it.”
“Do as you like.” I was finished being cordial. “Let me out anywhere, and I’ll make my own way home.”
Spendlove banged on the coach’s roof. The trapdoor snapped open, and the coachman peered wearily down on us.
“Stop here,” Spendlove commanded. “You have the conveyance, Captain. I’ll walk.” The coach halted once the driver found a space to guide it out of traffic, and Spendlove pushed open the door. “Mind you bring that diary you pinched from Pickett’s rooms. And anything else for that matter.”
I’d already decided I would, and the reminder to obey him grated.
Spendlove jumped down and slammed the door. I wasn’t certain if his abandoning the carriage was a sneer at me for being unable to walk the distances he could, or simply a way to stick me with the fare. Spendlove never looked at my leg or walking stick, and he tossed a coin up at the coachman once he’d climbed down, so perhaps neither was the case. Spendlove could be disagreeable without trying very hard.
We were in Cheapside, near the heart of the City. Spendlove strode westward down the thoroughfare, soon lost among the carts and carriages that choked the road. His absence was like an unpleasant murk lifting.
“Where to, guv?” the hackney driver asked me with a little less belligerence.
“Curzon Street,” I said. “Number 45.”
Chapter 22
I pondered what we’d learned as the coach made its slow way to Mayfair, passing Newgate Prison on the way. Let Spendlove pursue Pickett’s friends and discover why he’d bought the guns for them. Being fixated on Denis, Spendlove wasn’t convinced the Bedfordshire men had anything to do with it, but he would want to cover every contingency so he could poke holes in any defense in court.
I no longer thought the guns were important, nor were the gentlemen Mr. Pickett had purchased them for.
From what everyone I’d spoken to had told me of Pickett, he’d been excitable and melodramatic. Possibly, after the Cato Street men’s arrests and the subsequent tales the newspapers had poured out about them every day since, he’d convinced himself that one of his friends had a connection with them. Perhaps he’d feared that one of the Bedfordshire gentlemen had promised one or more of the shooters Pickett had ordered to them.
If one of them truly had, Spendlove would pry that information from him, but I knew in my heart that none of the men on the list had anything to do with the Cato Street Conspiracy.
No, I believed the purchase of the guns at all was the most significant event. Spendlove should be talking to Cudgeon, the gunsmith, instead, but I’d leave him to discern this for himself.
I tipped the driver well for putting up with Spendlove once we reached Curzon Street and approached Denis’s front door.
Gibbons opened it before I could knock. “He can’t speak to you now,” was his greeting. “He has another visitor.”
“I will wait.” I removed my hat and tried to enter, but Gibbons wouldn’t budge. “It is important,” I said in irritation.
Gibbons regarded me with his usual stoniness but at last stepped back and admitted me. “Reception room,” he said curtly.
I knew where that was but before I could make for it, I heard a light voice above me. I halted in surprise.
Denis, in a neat suit, with every hair in place, stood on the first landing, contemplating the painting of the milkmaid. Next to him, in a modest brown gown and a plain white cap—a little like the one the milkmaid wore—was Lady.
“I do see,” she was saying. “The light from the window is almost a character itself, a fitting illumination for a scene of strength. I once had occasion to travel to the Low Countries and was fortunate enough to view his painting of a lady reading a letter. He used a similar technique with the window and light for that one as well.”
“He enjoyed quiet, domestic scenes,” Denis stated. “I have tried to acquire more of his works, but they are rare, almost unknown.”
“The one I was shown belonged to a wealthy gentleman in Delft. Perhaps you could persuade him to sell it to you.”
“I would be very grateful to him if he would,” Denis said with the barest hint of keenness, which I’d learned meant he was avid to act right away.
“Excellent. I will provide his address. Though I warn you, it was many years ago. He might have moved his residence or passed away.”
Denis shrugged minutely. “I will make inquiries.”
Though I longed to continue observing this tableau, Lady glanced over her shoulder at that moment and spied me watching, openmouthed, below.
