Justin strode close behind. Christian heard Barton’s footsteps following, at first hesitantly, then more definitely.
Eventually the runner dared to draw level with his “quarry.” As they turned the corner into Curzon Street, Christian saw Barton tweak Justin’s sleeve. “What’s going on?”
Justin glanced down at him, faintly exasperated. “Just follow along and you’ll see.”
Barton didn’t have much option.
“Which house?” Dalziel slowed.
His face like stone, Christian pointed it out.
Dalziel halted before the front steps. He looked at Christian. “How do you want to handle this?”
Christian eyed the front door, then marched up the steps and pounded on it.
Swithin’s butler quickly opened the door.
“Where’s Swithin?” Christian demanded. He stepped forward.
Startled, the butler backed. “Ah…I’m not sure I know, my lord.”
Christian pinned him with a glare. “Think carefully.”
“And quickly,” Dalziel advised.
“Ah…” The butler stared at them, his gaze moving from one to the other.
Then Justin ranged alongside Dalziel in the doorway. “Believe me, this is not the time to hesitate—we have a Bow Street runner with us, and he’s keen to make an arrest.”
The butler goggled.
“Did your master leave in his carriage, perhaps?” Christian took another step forward so he was looming over the hapless man.
The butler looked up, into his eyes; what he saw there had him swallowing, nodding. “Yes. That’s right.” The man’s head kept bobbing. “He called for his carriage well over an hour ago—he said he was picking up one of the mistress’s friends and was taking her to visit the mistress in Surrey.”
“Surrey?” Lifting his head, Christian stared unseeing across the hall for a moment, then glanced at Dalziel. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
Dalziel nodded. “Much easier to hide a body in the country—that’s how he’d think.”
The butle
r paled. “Body?”
Christian ignored him, turned and strode back out of the door. Dalziel and Justin joined him; Barton hovered.
Christian felt as if his heart was being slowly fed through a mangle. He forced himself to think past the pain, to ignore the incipient panic. “We’ll have to follow as fast as we can, and pray she can slow him down enough for us to reach them.”
Dalziel said nothing, simply nodded.
“At least he’s in a carriage,” Justin said. “In curricles, we’ll close the distance.”
But not fast enough. Surrey wasn’t that far away.
“Hey!”
They all turned to see Tristan and Tony striding along the pavement.
“We called at Randall’s house to take another look at the books and walked into a madhouse,” Tony said. “Hermione told us Swithin has kidnapped Letitia and you’d come this way.” He raised his brows. “What’s afoot?”