“I have given you a place to start, Inspector,” I continued. “Someone is sending letters all over Mayfair, intimidating highborn ladies into influencing their gentlemen to act in the letter writer’s favor. The letters ask only to use their powers of persuasion now, but what if the victims are soon requested to do other things, such as deliver packages to government leaders or perhaps leave an innocuous parcel at a railway station?”
“Ones that might detonate,” Daniel said grimly. “She has a point, McGregor.”
“I am looking into it,” McGregor said in exasperation. “Heed what I’ve told you, Mrs.Holloway. Go home. Stay there. Forget about Lord Peyton, blackmailers, and Fenians, and bake pies, or whatever it is you do.”
I fixed him with an admonishing gaze. “You need a wife, Inspector, one who will chide you when you say silly things about cooks. And to make certain you are properly dressed each day. Your collar is half twisted inside out, you know.”
Inspector McGregor put a self-conscious hand to the offending collar, while Daniel chuckled.
“You’d probably eat better as well,” he said.
“Enough.” Inspector McGregor cut us off. “McAdam, I will quiz Monaghan about your alibi. But I suggest you lie low for a few days, or an enterprising constable will try to haul you in. Good evening to you both.”
He tipped his hat with a stiff hand, turned on his heel, and marched away to Cheapside, snarling at small boys who dared dart across his path.
“I agree with the inspector,” I said before Daniel could speak. “I’d feel better knowing you were home, with Mrs.Williams to look after you.”
“Not until I seeyousafely to Mount Street.” Daniel did his sharp whistle again, and a hansom turned to halt for us. This time, the cabbie at the reins was Lewis, Daniel’s friend, as though he’d been dogging our steps.
I let Daniel assist me into the cab. “I am glad you are seeing me home, because we have much more to discuss. Much, much more.”
Daniel scrambled in beside me and closed the doors on us. “I am happy to continue talking about what we did on our ride here.”
His smile sent a frisson of pleasure through me, but I felt a bit fragile after confessing such feelings.
“I am afraid it is something more serious.” I turned in my seat to face Daniel squarely, so I could watch his expression when I asked my question. “Does a secret branch of the police exist, and are you and Monaghan a part of it?”
Daniel was very good at masking his true reactions, but I’d caught him off guard. His surprise and dismay told me I’d guessed correctly.
“I see,” I said.
“Secretmeans just that,” Daniel said in a quiet voice.
I did not relent. “Inspector McGregor more or less admittedthat such a thing was true. It was mentioned in the blackmail letters Miss Townsend received. I asked her about it, and she pretended to not know what the writer meant. But I could see that it rattled her.”
Daniel let out a breath and briefly covered his eyes with his gloved hand. When he looked up at me again, it was with unhappiness and resignation.
“I never meant to lie to you, Kat. I was compelled to say nothing to anyone, on threat of being tried for treason. Though as time passes, many more know, or suspect, the truth.”
My throat was tight. “I did not want to be correct.”
“It hardly matters now. You understood right away that Monaghan was a hard man who didn’t seem to be under anyone’s control. Now blackmailers are writing about us in letters. The home secretary instigated this project a few years ago, and as I said, Miss Townsend’s father is his right-hand man. As the cabinet comes and goes, so does the home secretary, but Mr.Townsend stays. We more or less answer to Townsend and him alone. Miss Townsend is a clever young woman. She either inferred this new branch’s existence or her father trusted her enough to tell her.”
“The goal is to chase Fenians?”
My chest felt tight, my fears rising. A branch of the police ruled only by the Home Office would be powerful but also vulnerable. Inspector McGregor had said that Daniel could command any constables he wished, but that those men didn’t necessarily have to help him when he called.
Who knew when the secretary would decide to shut the project down, and what if he did it at the very moment Daniel had infiltrated a group of dangerous bombers? Leaving him without recourse?
“More or less,” Daniel answered me. “The branch was formed in response to the assassination attempts on the queen and for the incendiary devices left hither and yon, injuring and killing people. The Metropolitan Police alone don’t have the resources to fight both the bombers and the more usual criminals, so the Special Irish Branch was formed. There is talk of removing ‘Irish’ from the name, as more people than Irishmen are disgruntled at the British Crown and seek vengeance.”
“So you will chase men of all nationalities who wield dynamite,” I said faintly. “That does not make me feel better.”
“I was pleased when they chose me to join,” Daniel confessed. “At first, anyway. When I realized that Monaghan used it as an excuse to thrust me in front of every hazard he could, I was less happy, but I’m good at this, Kat. I’ve found villains and saved people from harm.”
He had indeed, well I knew.
“So Monaghan will release you only when you’ve endangered yourself to his satisfaction?” I demanded. “He promised to when you were finished with Lord Peyton, and now you are finished.”
