Ives stiffened. Ever since he began listening, something had struck him as oddly out of place about the conversation. He suddenly knew what it was.
He glared at Strickland. “That is Crippin in there. I swear, if you or anyone else is trying to trap Miss Belvoir I will—”
Strickland waved his hands. “He is not working for us in this. He isn’t!”
“That is what you said when I caught him outside Langley House.”
“He wasn’t then either. I kept telling you that.”
“Here is how it will be, Miss Belvoir,” Crippin was saying. “Right now I’ve my men looking into that carriage house. I think we will find everything there, just as the others left it. There is no way a woman, even an Amazon like you, could carry a press out of there, or a box of plates, or a large amount of paper. I won’t be needing your permission to continue use of the cellar either. I’ll be telling them that matter that you tried to sell me more notes that you found on your father’s property. The authorities trust what I tell them, you see. My information should put you in the dock beside that old fool.”
“Have you heard enough, Strickland?” Ives asked.
Strickland nodded.
“I certainly have,” Lance said.
Ives pivoted. Lance stood at his shoulder. He pulled a pistol out from under his coat. “I’ll carry this visibly, so we don’t waste time with fisticuffs and such.” He looked down pointedly at Ives’s clenched hand.
“Let’s do it, then.” Lance pressed down the latch, threw open the door, and marched in with the pistol pointed upward, held high near his head.
CHAPTER24
The house swarmed with constables. A few other men, not officially there, huddled in the office. Crippin and Emily Trenholm waited in the dining room under the watchful eye of Lance and Hector. The young ladies had all retired.
“Look what I found,” Strickland announced. He led a small parade in from the garden. Bringing up the rear, Gareth kept a pistol trained on the two men they escorted.
“Put them to the dining room, with the others,” Ives said.
Strickland stuck his head into the office. He closed the door, and came over to Ives. He whistled a little tune of astonishment. “Did you send for Sidmouth?”
“Lance did. As a courtesy, he said. Peer to peer.”
“I wish I could have read the message he sent.”
“As I recall, he wrote something about the immediate danger of both Sidmouth’s reputation and that of the Home Office being engulfed in excrement. He gave him one hour to arrive, or he would feel obligated to next write to the prime minister, and the prince regent, lest a scandal that would shake the government erupt.”
Strickland chuckled. “Sidmouth looks stricken. One of his own agents takes over a counterfeiting ring—you must admit, that is rich. I think I will go join him and my colleagues from the Home Office, and enjoy the show.” Strickland walked to the door of the office. He dropped his smirk before entering and replaced it with a pensive frown.
Lance and Gareth came out of the dining room. “Hector is in there. No one is going anywhere. He has his knife,” Lance said. He looked at the office door. Loud voices penetrated. “He came?”
“Oh, yes,” Ives said.
“I should go help them. They are bound to miss the obvious solution unless I point it out.”
“They are not stupid, Lance. They will see it.”
“The problem is no one will want to voice it. It will sound too much like what it is. A compromise of honor to avoid humiliation and scandal.”
“Perhaps a little scandal would do them good. Rein them in. Crippin was inevitable. Eventually men given leave to disobey the law will do it without permission.”
“Neither they, you, Miss Belvoir, or the realm can afford that. Lest Strickland be thinking such nonsense, too, I had better be Aylesbury.”
He strolled to the office door, opened it, and made his ducal presence known. “Gentlemen,” he said as the door closed behind him. “This is a fine mess, isn’t it?”
“Where is Miss Belvoir?” Gareth asked.
“She went above, to see Mrs. Lavender. She is worried that an innocent was harmed by our scheme.”
