“Search every cupboard and drawer. Gather anything you think pertinent. I’ll make a further inspection of those downstairs.”
The need to remove himself from the bedchamber, to banish the pain in his chest at the thought of Miss Vale’s suffering, saw him head out of the door.
Back in the dining room, he searched the mahogany tallboy, found playing cards, chess pieces, a box of cheroots. Nothing to incriminate Wincote or Layton. Yet they had been carrying something from the house. Something they wanted rid of quickly.
A glance at the worn rug on the floor told him this was not the room he wanted. He returned to the sparse sitting room, empty but for a row of chairs lining one wall. Even in the dark, he could see the frame of dust surrounding the place where the rug had been.
The obvious conclusion entered his mind.
Wincote and Layton had carried a body in the rolled rug. A person—man or woman—they had kept a prisoner in this house.
The question was, for what purpose?
With a nagging ache in his chest telling him he had missed a vital clue, Lawrence wandered back into the hall. From the state of the house, the Brethren did not employ servants. Or perhaps they’d wrapped their only maid in a rug and squashed her into a hackney. They did not eat food, either, for the pantry was bare.
In a last attempt to find something of use, he tried the handle on the door leading to the cellar and found it open. Searching the room would prove pointless in the dark, but he descended the steps with the same air of caution.
Hellfire!
Lawrence stumbled back but remained upright. A man did not need a lamp to see the monstrous cage bolted to one wall. The iron lattice door was like that of a medieval torture chamber. Old. Rusty. The holder of many painful secrets.
Thankfully, the cage was empty.
He heaved a breath but could not banish the hollow feeling in his chest. Harrowing images bombarded his mind. Had they kept Charles in this hovel before carting him back to Walton-on-Thames and throwing him in the river? Had Mr Vale been the occupant
before him?
Hidden in the windowless cellar, and with a need to find clues, Lawrence decided to risk lighting a lamp.
He was about to search the dark recesses when he saw a lantern in a wooden box on the floor. Within seconds of bending down to retrieve the light, he sensed a shift in the air—the energy of an ominous presence. He heard the faint shuffle of footsteps, glanced over his shoulder just as a fiend dressed in black stepped out from the gloom and hit him hard on the head.
Chapter Thirteen
Time ticked by in Verity’s mind. It might have been fifteen minutes—it might have been an hour—since Mr Trent commented on her being one of the few who cared for his welfare and left her sitting in the carriage. Every bone in her body had wanted to pull him into an embrace, tell him of all the wonderful qualities he had to recommend him. If illegitimacy bore its mark on a man, then she welcomed the fact he’d been born on the wrong side of the blanket. For what little she knew of Charles Farrow, Mr Trent’s character proved superior in every regard.
Impatience got the better of her. She tugged the strap and pulled down the window.
“Sleeth?” she whispered with every determination. A crippling sense of foreboding settled in her chest. What if the house was a hive of Brethren blackguards? What if they planned to make Mr Trent their next victim? “Sleeth?” She rapped hard on the roof.
The carriage rocked as the hefty coachman climbed down from his box. When he hobbled to the window, she remembered the poor man had bare feet.
“He’s been gone too long.” Her words sounded a little panicked. “Mr Trent would not risk being caught in the house.” He was far too clever for that. “Something must have happened. Should we not investigate, come to his aid?”
Sleeth looked at her blankly. “Mr Trent gave an order, miss. He told me to wait ’ere, and that’s what I intend to do.”
Heavens, he was a servant not an automaton. Surely he could apply logic, make his own decisions when necessary. And at the present moment, it seemed highly necessary.
“Mr Trent told you not to leave my side, did he not?”
“That he did, miss.”
Verity shuffled to the edge of the seat and gripped the door handle. “Then I will walk the length of Clement’s Lane in the hope of locating him.” She pushed aside her anxiety over the coachman’s lack of boots. Duty came before discomfort.
Sleeth blinked and shook his head. “But Mr Trent meant you’re to wait ’ere.”
“But that is not what he said.” Verity opened the door and jumped to the pavement. The same rancid stench hit her nostrils, sending her stomach rolling. She coughed to clear her throat and attempted to breathe only through her mouth. “We must make haste, Sleeth.”
Without giving the servant time to argue, Verity snatched her crook from the carriage seat, scooted under her skirts and drew the knife from its sheath. Concealing the blade amidst the skirt’s folds, she marched towards the entrance of Clement’s Lane.