Berwick shook his head.
“My thanks, Berwick.” Hawkes reached into his pocket for a shilling.
Berwick, to his shock, waved his money away.
“Well, I expect if you live throughthis, you’ll buy me a couple of pints.”
Hawkes, thinking furiously, followed Berwick out the door of the inn, scanning the surroundings for one of the drunk men he’d tipped to keep an eye out for a woman in a blue cloak. And he found him, one building away, predictably enough leaning against a wall.
“Good morning, my friend,” he said politely, and proffered the shilling Berwick had declined. The man’s eyes bulged. “Did you happen to see a young woman get in a hack this morning, very, very early?”
“Oh, aye. ’eard her tell the bloke t’ take ’er to Sussex.”
Sussex? Why would she... what could be in...
And then he knew.
And it had to do with green meadows, and a town with a mail coach, and a place one could pawn a necklace.
Hawkes bolted back up the stairs and found Captain Hardy heading down, which meant at least onething was going his way this morning: it was Captain Hardy he wanted to speak to.
“Hardy... may I have a word, please?”
Hardy paused. Then took one look into Hawkes’s face and wordlessly followed him into Hawkes’s room.
Hawkes told him everything.
Without preamble, swiftly and succinctly, filling in the details of what Hardy likely already surmised. About Brundage, and how he’d probably been behind Hawkes’s capture years ago, and how he’d likely hired someone to stab Hawkes to death when he realized Hawkes wasn’t giving up his investigations. About the antiquities, the contraband cognac, and Vasseur. About what he’d learned since, and about who Mrs. Gallagher really was, and his assignment to find Aurelie, and how she’d been given the necklace, and why he suspected she’d fled Brundage.
And why he thought she’d fled yet again.
He hated admitting this last thing.
Hardy’s expression went darker and darker and then finally, coldly inscrutable.
It was a painful narrative to deliver. He didn’t know how he could have done anything differently about her, or about Brundage, and he thought he would probably always wonder.
“Brundage is a bloody traitor, Hardy,” he concluded, “and I can’t let him get away with it. He’s trying to stop me from proving it. And I’m sorry, but I’ve had some intelligence that suggests they’ll be coming here to search for me. I wanted to warn you. And I need to go find Aurelie now.”
He heard the tautness of urgency in his own voice.
Hardy was silent a moment, studying him, brow only faintly furrowed, and then understanding broke over his face.
“Tell me how you’d like us to help,” he said simply.
“It’s been some years since I’ve worked for the Alien Office. I don’t know how quickly I can roust someone into listening to me. Can you get word to Valkirk? If anyone can apply a little influence... I realize it’s a lot to ask. You have my permission to tell him everything, confidentially. Because if they’re hunting for me, he could be instrumental in getting the dogs called off. I will leave with you the budget books, and you can show him the entries I’ve described. I’ve had a man—a reliable informant and associate, name of Berwick—watching Guthrie’s Antiquities. Vasseur will supposedly make an appearance at the antiquities shop about Wednesday, the day after tomorrow. If he is indeed in Paris at the moment, then a lot will depend on whether he has an uneventful Channel crossing. If I haven’t returned with Aurelie by Wednesday, someone needs to intercept that bastard.”
“We were the reason Valkirk has his new wife, so I suspect he’ll do this for us,” Hardy said, somewhat dryly. “He’s in town for Parliament. I’ll send urgent word to him. I’m confident of a reply.”
Hawkes blew out a breath. “Thank you. I’m going to try to get out of here before they get here.”
BAM BAM BAM BAM.
They froze.
The pounding on that sturdy front door reached them where they stood.
“The sound of a sergeant’s fist on a door, if I’m not mistaken,” Captain Hardy said evenly.
