“I appreciate that.” She shifted her gaze toward his cup. “Would you like me to fill that for you?”
His shoulders sagged with relief. “Would you?”
“Certainly.” She approached him and extended her hand, her fingers brushing his as she took it from his grasp.
The contact was brief, yet it filled his blood with starlight and made every nerve ending purr with pleasure. “Thank you.”
She only nodded, her entire face now flushed with color, and hurried from the room. When she returned moments later, Peter had opened the nearest window despite the rain and was smoking the last half of his cheroot.
“Are you beginning to appreciate fresh air?” she asked, her voice teasing as she set the cup on his desk.
“Possibly.” There was merit to it, he supposed, though he had a far more compelling reason. “If I’m to be completely honest, I did it for you.”
“Really?”
“You brought me coffee. I opened the window so you won’t have to suffer the smell of my smoking.”
“Hmm…” A broad smile provided him with the ‘thank you’ she left unspoken. “Any news from Mr. Croft?”
The question shifted the conversation back to the serious subjects at hand. “Not yet. I mean to visit him on my way home.”
She settled into one of the two chairs across from his and watched as he dropped the last of his cheroot in a crystal dish before closing the window and taking his seat. “Can you spare the Runners you’ve sent out across Town on his behalf?”
“I have to. Anything less would be unacceptable.”
“I realize you think so, and I’d not disagree if the missing person were anyone else. However, I’m sure Mr. Croft’s connections will meet with more success than your Runners. And once he finds out where his wife is, I’m not sure law enforcement should be anywhere nearby.”
He held her gaze, the meaning behind her words echoing musings he’d had, though he’d never dare voice them out loud. As chief constable, he had to uphold the law for all citizens. There could be no exceptions. Yet he knew that if it were Gabriella in Mrs. Croft’s place, he’d want the satisfaction of murdering the man who’d taken her.
“As far as I am concerned,” he said, choosing his words with care, “I have done what was required of me. I’ll speak with Croft and see what he thinks. Chances are, it may make sense to recall the Runners so we can focus all our efforts on finding the active killer.”
“Would you like to review what we’ve learned so far?”
He picked up his cup and sipped his coffee. The temperature was perfect — hot without any risk of his burning his tongue. Setting the cup aside, he gave Gabriella his full attention. “We have two corpses, both of them men the exact same age. Both found with their throats slit and with their cravats shoved into their mouths. Shillings were placed beneath both their tongues, each coin minted in 1815. Beyond this, we’ve learned after yet another visit to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich this morning that these men knew each other well. They served in the same unit.”
“In reference to which it’s important to note that they fought together at Waterloo. A battle that happened the same year in which the coins were minted.”
“Quite right.”
Gabriella dropped her gaze to the papers scattered across Peter’s desk. “Are the records we’ve borrowed from the barrack’s archives among those?”
Peter smoothed away the papers that lay on top — notes and sketches from the first murder — and gathered the ones Gabriella referred to. “Right here.”
He slid them toward her and she picked them up, began leafing through the collection of files. Each belonged to a soldier who’d served alongside Warren and Orwell. Men they were in the process of issuing warnings to in case they too were in the killer’s sights. “I can review all of these tonight if you like. See if I can find a connection between the victims and an event that led to them being targeted. It could make it easier for us to stop the next murder, in case the killer hasn’t yet finished.”
“We can do it together. If we divide the files between us, we’ll—”
“You are going home to sleep,” she told him firmly.
He frowned. “I can’t leave you to do all the work.”
“There will be more for you to deal with tomorrow, I’m sure. But if you read through these now, exhausted as you are, I’ll only have to review it afterward anyway. To make sure you didn’t miss an important detail.”
His instinct was to argue, though he knew she was right. Hadn’t he been struggling to focus since before she came to find him? “Fine. I’ll do as you suggest, if only for a few hours.”
“Until tomorrow morning,” she insisted.
“We’ll see.”
