“Enough,” Christopher agreed, “to allow it to be a believable cargo. We realized they were using lace”—he glanced at Ellen and smiled—“because of Ellen’s experience when her aunt insisted on buying some from the village millinery-cum-haberdashery.”
When Drake’s and Louisa’s eyes swung her way, Ellen explained the oddity of finding such lace at such a low price in a small village shop.
Louisa asked the price, and when Ellen told her, her brows flew high. “Yes, indeed—that’s quite astonishing.”
“Quick of you to make the connection,” Drake said approvingly.
“Because of that,” Christopher continued, “we decided to pressure the milliner’s source, which was her husband, using a ruse of wishing to purchase a great deal of lace.”
“Enough for a tiered wedding gown,” Ellen put in.
“Yards and yards.” Louisa nodded. “So what happened?”
“The first thing that became clear was that the milliner herself knew nothing about the true source of the lace—she thinks her husband purchases it from a warehouse in London.”
Louisa shook her head. “Would that were possible, but it isn’t.”
“So Ellen assured us, and when she pressed for more lace than the milliner had on hand, the husband was pushed into consulting his source, who proved to be the publican of the local inn.”
The door opened, and Pendleby appeared. “Dinner is served, sir. My lord, my lady.”
“Thank you, Pendleby.” Christopher pushed to his feet and gave Ellen his hand. As she gripped it and rose, he said to Drake, “We can continue this over Mrs. Hambledon’s roast.”
They settled about the dinner table, with Christopher at the head, Drake at the foot, Toby and Ellen on one side, and Louisa facing them.
They’d consumed the soup and Pendleby had removed the plates before Drake looked up the table and asked, “Did you pressure the milliner’s husband today, or was that yesterday?”
“This morning—we got back from Lydd too late to take any further action yesterday.” Christopher picked up the knife and fork Pendleby had placed beside him and commenced carving the sizeable haunch of beef that had been placed ceremonially before him.
“It’s been a busy day.” Toby took up the tale to allow Christopher to concentrate. He summarized how they’d identified Hardcastle, the publican, as the receiver of the lace-bound notes and how, subsequently, they’d prodded him to rush to move the notes out of the inn.
“What a brilliant plan,” Louisa said, and Drake inclined his head in approbation.
Toby grinned and looked at Ellen. “That was another of Ellen’s ideas. And,” Toby continued, with a sideways glance at Christopher, “if it hadn’t been for her hanging back in the woods, closer to the church, Hardcastle might well have escaped with the notes.”
“As it was,” Christopher said, sawing at the roast as if that required all his attention, “Ellen ended up throwing herself into Hardcastle’s path and getting him to chase her all over the churchyard until Toby and I emerged from the tunnel Hardcastle had taken from the inn and saved her.”
He glanced up, and he definitely wasn’t smiling as he looked pointedly at Ellen. After a second, he switched his gaze to Drake. “In the end, however, in very large part thanks to Ellen, we caught Hardcastle and succeeded in securing the notes.”
The change in Drake was marked enough for them all to notice. “Good work!” While the words were mild enough, the emotion behind them was anything but. “I’m exceedingly glad that we have the counterfeit notes in our hands.” As Pendleby halted beside Drake to offer the platter of roast beef, Drake arched a brow at Christopher. “Where are the notes at present?”
“In the safe here.”
While they ate the main course, then moved on to desserts of pudding and trifle and platters of cheeses and fruits, Christopher, Ellen, and Toby recounted what they’d learned from Hardcastle.
Drake concluded, “He’s revealed less than we would have liked, yet enough for us to move forward.”
“Speaking of moving.” Louisa set down her napkin. “As we’ve finished doing justice to Mrs. Hambledon’s fare”—she smiled at Pendleby—“and do pass on our compliments, Pendleby—then perhaps you gentlemen can take your brandies or whiskies in the drawing room so we can continue our discussion in greater comfort.”
As Louisa pushed to her feet, Drake leapt to draw out her chair.
Ellen watched as the patently powerful nobleman hovered over his, relatively speaking, diminutive wife, and battled to hide a smile.
With Christopher and Toby flanking her, she fell in behind the couple as they led the way to the drawing room.
Once settled in the more comfortable chairs, with Louisa semi-reclining on the sofa, her feet resting in her husband’s lap, they returned to the matter at hand.
“This mastermind of yours”—Christopher stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles—“has been remarkably careful over who knows what.”
Drake nodded. “That’s been our problem all along—even when we ran the counterfeiter to earth, he had no real idea of the identity of the man who’d hired him. And although we suspect that someone at Goffard Hall is involved in distributing the notes via the card parties, as yet we have no firm evidence as to who, exactly, is involved.”
Drake’s dark gaze fixed on Christopher, then shifted to Toby and Ellen. “The link via the French smugglers to Hardcastle and from him to a lady who presumably hails from Goffard Hall is our only solid evidence tying a particular person from the Hall to the mastermind’s scheme. Your efforts thus far have put our investigation on much more certain ground in terms of taking the next step and identifying and capturing the contact at Goffard Hall.
“However,” Drake said with a sidelong glance to meet his wife’s eyes, “before we start discussing how to take that next step, I should explain why I’m so set on using the trail from Goffard Hall onward to trap the mastermind himself.”
Louisa nodded decisively. “Indeed, you should. Explain, I mean. Otherwise, it sounds as if you’ve simply got a bee in your bonnet over hunting down the mastermind, especially now that we have the counterfeit notes in hand.”
Drake faintly grimaced and looked at the other three. “The authorities—by which, in this case, I mean me, two of the more senior Whitehall mandarins, the Prime Minister, three of his senior ministers, and last but by no means least, the Queen and the Prince Consort—are severely exercised by the likelihood that the mastermind is a peer. Even if he isn’t quite that, from the description we have, it seems likely he’s highly placed in society. Just how high he and his connections lie is the principal source of anxiety.”
Christopher frowned. “I’m not sure I follow. Yes, it’s regrettable, but we’ve had bad apples high on the tree before.”
Drake inclined his head. “However, in this case, our bad apple—the mastermind—has, whether he’s aware of it or not, put himself in the hands of those who command various criminal enterprises on the Continent. It was through them that he learned of, and was put in contact with, the counterfeiter. He—the counterfeiter—was one of their best, indeed, the best. That alone testifies to the level of interest the mastermind’s scheme held for the criminal families of Europe. Now, however, from the point of view of those underworld lords, through my men following the mastermind’s trail and seizing the counterfeiter, the mastermind has cost them a prized asset.”