Unusual callers. The ambassador on edge. Forgeries and an interrupted friendship. Perhaps von Brunnow wasn’t entirely innocent in the matter either.
A boy, no more than ten years old, slipped into the hall. His frame was slight, but his eyes were knowing.
“The men you saw gabbing with the ambassador and then with the stranger by the mews,” Katya said. “What do you remember of that?”
The boy cast a suspicious glance at Vera and Brogan. On the off chance the child was part of the network of informers the DPS utilized, perhaps someone from whom the Dread Master had gotten his information, Brogan slipped a penny from his pocket and spun it casually in his fingers. The boy took note of it but didn’t say anything.
The signal might’ve been the reason the boy moved ahead with his story. It might’ve had nothing to do with it. Either way, the child answered Katya’s question.
“The two men what come ’round now and then were calling on the ambassa’or. He weren’t any happier about it than ever. One of them scoundrels said to ’im ‘Cooperate or your tsar’ll have reason to snatch you away.’ And the ambassa’or says that Tsar Alexander wouldn’t believe the word of a couple of thieves and liars and no-goods. Then the other one says something about how the ambassa’or knows they can make people believe near anything. And the ambassa’or says as how they won’t find anyone to print the things for them they need, especially needing some of it to be Russian. And then the both of them scoundrels just laughed.” Albie shuddered. “Didn’t like the sound of their laughs, so I nipped off, keeping out of sight. Weren’t more’n a few minutes later, I were going out to the mews to ask the coachman if I could brush one of the horses, when I seen these two good-for-nothings was out there whispering to a man with a beard. Katya came by about then. I told her I didn’t like them three men kicking about. She said not to kick up dust over it, seeing as the ambass’or was tied in knots and all.”
“Did you overhear anything the three men said?” Vera asked, remaining admirably calm for a woman who’d just learned her da was consorting with questionable people.
“The one without all his fingers said to the bearded man that they needed the papers in a hurry so they’d have time to slip them into the place they needed to be,” Albie said.
The one without all his fingers. ’Twas, Brogan was certain, Four-Finger Mike.
“The bearded man says he don’t like making trouble, and the other one said he didn’t have a choice, because they knew something about the new man that he’d not want people to know.”
Blackmail. Against the ambassador and Mr. Sorokin. And the forged documents were at the heart of it all.
“What did this other man look like?” Brogan asked. “Not the bearded man or the one with missing fingers.”
Albie took a step back, though he didn’t seem to realize he had. “I don’t ever want to see that man again. Made me feel that frozen sort of scared deep in my middle. I didn’t like him.”
Brogan would wager that was the Mastiff. Mercy and mercy.
“Is there anything else that might help me twig this mess?” Vera asked.
“Molly, she’s a chambermaid here, heard the ambassador mumbling to himself about how it was too late for Lord Chelmsford, that ‘it’ would be discovered soon enough.”
Vera muttered something in Russian that earned her a nod of agreement from Katya. Both women stood, so Brogan did as well. Farewells were exchanged. In a flash, they were on the pavement outside the embassy.
“Papa really is knocking elbows with scabby blokes.” Vera pushed out a forced and tense breath. “I’d hoped we’d twig it weren’t true.”
Brogan hated seeing her look so defeated. “He’s involved, yeah, but from what Albie heard, he’s doing so against his own wishes. And, based on the description Albie and Katya gave of the two men he was meeting with, I know full well who they are. Dangerous and manipulative criminals, the both of them. Your papa is being forced, threatened, and not idly. I’d wager everything I own on that.”
“Do you think you nicking the forgeries from the shop has stopped the scheme?” Vera looked as if she already knew the answer.
He gave it anyway. “They were drafts, not the final version.”
Vera met his eye, her expression anxious. “Where’s the final version, then?”
“If I’m twigging things right—” He paused to add a tiny bit of emphasis to his use of the bit of South London cant she’d taught him, hoping it’d lift her spirits, even if just for a moment, but his efforts didn’t have the effect he’d hoped for. “I’d guess those papers are already in place, waiting to be ‘discovered soon enough.’”
She rubbed at her temples. “And I’d further wager they’re ‘in place’ at Lord Chelmsford’s home, meant to look as though he’d written the letter but not yet sent it. Someone’ll discover it, and when he denies it’s his hand, the ambassador will likely insist the letter is about something they’ve talked over before.”
“Which’d mean Lord Chelmsford is the actual prey in this scheme, and von Brunnow and your da are simply being manipulated to that end.”
He motioned for her to walk alongside him. They’d garner too much notice if they loitered about outside the embassy.
“What can we do?” Vera asked.
We. ’Twasn’t precisely a renewed vote of confidence, but he chose to see it as a good step toward repairing what he’d broken.
“Mister!” a young voice called from behind them.
They both turned back. Albie stood just outside the embassy, motioning toward himself.
“Mister,” he called out again.
Brogan dipped his head to Vera. “Be back in a hop.” He crossed back to Albie. “What’s on your mind, lad?”
“Your penny,” Albie said in a low voice. “Are you needing me to send a message to Mr. Walker?”
The lad was one of Fletcher’s urchins. Who, then, was the Dread Master’s informant at the embassy? So many secrets. ’Twas little wonder Brogan still found himself drowning in them.
“Aye, Albie,” Brogan said. “See if you can’t ask that overgrown urchin you work for if he’ll call on ‘his Irish friend.’”
Albie dipped his head and rushed back inside. No doubt Fletcher would be at Brogan’s flat before day’s end ready to sort through these newest revelations.
Vera stepped up next to him. Having her there, even with the difficulties between them, was a comfort.
“What did Albie jaw with you about?” she asked.