“See the carriage?” Swithin hissed, urging her forward.
She could hardly miss it; a black traveling carriage, it was drawn up across the mouth of the lane.
There had to be a coachman on the box, but doubtless he was Swithin’s man. But Barton would be just across the street.
She let Swithin propel her forward. As they neared the carriage, he spoke into her ear. “Be quiet and get in.”
She managed not to humph derisively.
The instant she stepped out of the laneway, she wrenched back from him, twisting her elbow, pulling away from the cold metal of the pistol’s muzzle—praying he wouldn’t shoot her in the open street. “Help! Ow! You’re hurting me! Let go!” Desperate, she glanced around—there was no one in sight. She redoubled her volume. “Help!”
Swithin snarled—then something like a rock hit her on the head.
She swayed as the world turned gray.
“Damn you, damn you!” Swithin muttered under his breath.
For a moment she knew nothing, then felt herself being lifted and bundled—into the carriage.
Swithin shoved her onto a seat; her head pounded as it fell against padded leather.
From a great distance she heard Swithin say something to his coachman.
Then the light from outside was cut off. Swithin had shut the door. The carriage lurched sickeningly, then rumbled off.
Swithin was inside the carriage with her. She could sense him moving around, but couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t focus her swooning senses well enough to guess what he was doing.
Then he muttered from quite close, “I’d hoped this wouldn’t prove necessary, but clearly you’re a Vaux to your toes and therefore totally untrustworthy when it comes to scenes.”
A waft of sweetness reached her, then got closer, intensifying to a horrible cloying smell—a cloth clamped over her nose and mouth.
She struggled, tried desperately to shift her head away from the smell, but Swithin held the cloth in place so she had to breathe through it.
Blackness closed in.
Her last thought before darkness engulfed her was that she was alone. At the last, at the end, all alone. Christian wasn’t there, he hadn’t come for her, and even Barton hadn’t been there.
Everyone had deserted her.
And left her in the hands of a murderer.
Chapter 19
Why can’t we just go to his house and put it to him?” Justin looked from Christian to Dalziel.
Christian reined in his own impatience. “Because it might not be him. And if it is, we need an approach that’s going to advance our position, gain us some ground, not simply serve to advise him of our suspicions.”
“You heard Roscoe.” From his corner of the carriage, Dalziel gazed out at the familiar streets. “Swithin didn’t need to kill Randall—it’s difficult to see why he would.”
“Swithin is quiet, cautious. Of the three of them, he’s the last one you’d imagine had the intestinal fortitude to commit murder.” Christian added, “Far easier to imagine Roscoe was our man, except he’s far too clever.”
Dalziel humphed in agreement.
The carriage drew up outside Allardyce House. They couldn’t go to Randall’s house because of Barton’s dogged watch, so Christian had suggested they call in there to take stock and plan their next move—almost certainly a call on Swithin, but exactly how…
They’d alighted and were climbing his front steps when a messenger—one of those Gasthorpe used—came pounding up the pavement.
They all halted, turning to face him.