“Put it down,” said a cold voice.
He froze, then jerked around.
He had never much cared for Sir Louis Derrydene. During the six years since last he had seen the baronet, the pasty cheeks seemed to have become even more inclined to sag, the small mouth looked paler and tighter, the tendency to corpulence was more pronounced. But the hand holding the horse pistol was steady as a rock, and there was no doubting that death shone from the hard dark eyes.
“Well, well,” drawled Rossiter. “So my father’s trusted friend has crept from his hole.”
A faint flush lit the flabby cheeks, but Derrydene repeated softly, “Put… it… down.”
“Why? It will look so nice with”—he ventured a wild guess—“with six.”
And he had struck home! He saw Derrydene’s white hand jerk, saw the small mouth fall open, the little eyes widen with shock, and knew it was now or never.
The half globe was still in his left hand and it was quite heavy. He hurled it straight at Derrydene’s face and in the same instant flung himself to one side. His conviction that the baronet would not hesitate to shoot was verified. The pistol bloomed smoke and flame. The retort was deafening, but Rossiter had moved very fast, and the ball hummed past him. Teeth bared with rage, Derrydene sprang, flailing the pistol at his head. Rossiter ducked, evading the blow. Derrydene snatched for the jewelled figure. He was bigger and heavier than Rossiter, and surprisingly strong. Reluctant to hit an older man, Rossiter panted, “Let go! I don’t want to—hurt you.”
Derrydene’s response was to again smash the pistol at his face. He jerked his head aside, and the weapon grazed his temple. Locked in a desperate struggle, they reeled about the room, sending chairs and small tables flying. Rossiter knew that time was running out; the shot had certainly been heard. At any instant Derrydene’s people would be in here. He tore free and retreated. The baronet charged him. He swayed aside and gave a helping hand. At speed, Derrydene encountered the wall, and went down heavily.
Feet were pounding along the hall. Rossiter scooped up the little blue figure, and raced for the window.
“You’re… dead,” choked Derrydene, gobbling with frustrated fury. “You damnable… interfering fool. You’re a… dead man!”
Rossiter called, “Can’t stop to chat. Sorry,” and was over the sill and sprinting across the back lawn.
Someone howled, “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
“Not today,” muttered Rossiter, and zigzagged. Two shots thundered out. He felt a tug at his right elbow, then the wall was before him. He cleared it with astonishing ease and not so much as a pang from his many bruises.
***
The clock on the dingy wall of this dingy room emitted a staccato rattling sound, then chimed once, a second chime being added after several intervening seconds, as if in afterthought. Glaring at it, Gideon stamped back to the bench where Naomi waited.
“Two o’clock!” he growled. “We have been here nigh on two hours! Derrydene has likely already been in touch with his solicitor and fabricated some cock-and-bull story to conflummerate the authorities. Such as they are!”
“If he is not on his way back to Moscow,” said Naomi.
He swore under his breath. “I vow that clerk was very well to live. He reeked of ale! I wonder if he even sought the magistrate, or is fallen asleep t’other side of that door.”
He began to pace up and down again. Naomi watched him lovingly. When she’d heard the first shot she had thought for one ghastly moment that he must have been slain. Lady Derrydene had run, screaming, down the hall, and she had followed, dreading what they might find. As they’d passed the dining room, two more shots had rung out, and she’d caught a glimpse of Gideon soaring over the wall with an easy grace that had set her fears at rest. She had stayed long enough to determine that although he was practically apoplectic with rage, Derrydene was relatively unharmed. Then, she had quietly slipped away, sending a lackey to call up her carriage. Gideon had joined them at the next corner, and rode beside the carriage to Bow Street.
A watchman had guided them to this unfortunate chamber. He had listened, goggle eyed, to Gideon’s terse demands that constables be at once sent to apprehend Sir Louis Derrydene. Muttering that he must “fetch someone in authority” he had gone away, to reappear with a clerk. The clerk had explained that the magistrate was busied with another case, and that it would be necessary to first take down “the particulars.” Not all Gideon’s rageful insistence on the necessity for speedy action had moved this stolid minion of the law, and he had laboriously written out his report, then gone in search of the magistrate.
Disregarding the constable who sat by the outer door, Gideon strode to the inner door and pounded on it angrily. “Hey!” he shouted. “Have you all expired in there?”
“Now then, sir,” protested the constable, running over, much shocked. “You cannot be a’doing of that in here! I speck as his honour’s at his luncheon and you’ll just have to wait.”
“Ihavebeen waiting! Two confounded hours! And the lady—” Gideon returned to sit on the bench beside Naomi and take her hand. “My poor love,” he exclaimed contritely. “You must be starving hungry! I’ll call up your carriage and have you taken home. This idiotic magistrate will probably—”
“Do you refer to me, Captain Rossiter?”
The dry voice came from a stringy little man with a grey face and a grey and greasy wig, who had taken a seat behind a battered desk against the rear wall, and was surveying them through a dirty quizzing glass.
Gideon sprang to his feet and hurried to the desk. “Sir, I presume that you have read my statement and seen the evidence I handed your clerk. There has already been much time lost, and you must make haste, else this scheming rascal will—”
“I have here,” interrupted the magistrate, turning his quizzing glass on the various items before him and peering at them near-sightedly, “one letter; exceeding brief and of little significance. One engagement book containing entries of no interest. And what appears to be a child’s toy. I find it little short of incredible that on the strength—or perhaps I should say the weakness—of these objects, you expect me to take seriously the allegations you have made ’gainst a respectable and titled gentleman.”
“Good God, man!” burst out Rossiter. “Did you not read my statement? It took that block of a clerk the better part of half an hour to—”
“Now then, sir,” intervened the constable, again coming forward and looking shocked. “You mustn’t talk to the magistrate like that there. You must call him ‘your honour’ and you must be respeckful when—”
