Henry produced a smile. “In truth, I cannot wait to learn why you have come to call.” He gestured toward the chair Guthrie had risen from. “Please, have a seat and enlighten me.”
Guthrie sat and waited for Henry to do the same before saying, “It’s about Tremaine.”
Henry’s interest increased several notches. “What about him?”
“I thought ye should know that I asked ’im to call on me about a week ago at me place of business. In St. Giles.”
Taken aback, Henry stared at him for a moment before asking the obvious question. “Why?”
Guthrie’s mustache twitched and his eyes brightened. “Turns out ’e’s lookin’ to settle a business transaction quickly and I figured I might be able to ’elp.”
Henry leaned forward in his seat and met Guthrie’s gaze directly. “What sort of business transaction?”
“The sort that involves a buildin’ he ’opes to acquire—a ’ospital as a matter of fact.”
Henry’s insides clenched and his hand gripped the armrest. “A hospital.”
“Tremaine’s already lookin’ fer a buyer.”
Henry recalled seeing Guthrie in Mayfair a few days earlier. He must have been meeting with Robert after all. “Is that why you went to see him last week at his home? To discuss the logistics?”
“That’s precisely it.”
Henry’s cravat felt too tight all of a sudden, his lungs constricted by his vest and his jacket, even as he struggled to maintain a calm demeanor.
A knock at the door brought a maid into the room. She set the tray she was carrying on the table between Henry and Guthrie, poured two cups of coffee and departed. The door closed with a click. Henry reached for his cup without bothering to add the milk he generally used. He took a sip and set it aside.
If Robert was already looking for buyers, it meant he was confident about the case. Far more than Henry was comfortable with.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Guthrie shrugged. “Because I believe you and I can help each other take Tremaine down.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Have another sip of yer coffee, Lowell, and try not to be so shocked.”
Henry raised his eyebrows but did as Guthrie suggested. How could he not be shocked when Carlton Guthrie, the Scoundrel of St. Giles and London’s most notorious crime lord, was presently suggesting a collaboration between them.
“I don’t follow. What do you stand to gain?”
Guthrie sighed as if bored with the notion of having to explain. “Suffice it to say that I feel indebted to ye and yer brother. Ye took out my greatest rival last year. With Bartholomew gone, I can finally rule St. Giles in peace.”
“You fancy yourself the king of sin, do you?”
“If ye like,” Guthrie said with a grin. “But that’s besides the point, I believe. Thing is, Tremaine’s a right bastard who deserves to rot in hell fer the rest of his days, andye, Mr. Lowell, can make sure that ’appens.”
Astonishment was too mild a word to describe what Henry was presently feeling in response to Guthrie’s words. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, ’e’s a murderer, ye know. The coldest sort there is.”
“What?”
Leaning back in his seat, Guthrie shifted his weight as if trying to make himself more comfortable. His face conveyed no hint of the morbid subject he’d just addressed. Instead, he looked like a man about to embark on a great adventure.
“Five years ago,” Guthrie began, “I was doin’ me nightly rounds of St. Giles, makin’ sure all was in order an’ such, when I ’eard a scream. I ran in the direction from which it came to discover a young woman lyin’ in the street. She’d been stabbed, an’ the man who’d done it ’ad taken off. Probably because ’e heard me comin’.”
A chill swept the length of Henry’s spine. He dreaded where this was going because he already knew.
