Chapter Nineteen
The hackney thatSolomon had commandeered from under the nose of an outraged city gentleman galloped into Theobalds Street. Solomon, all but hanging out of the door, saw at once that there were no other hackneys in the street. He hoped that was a good sign, for his own carriage stood like a badge outside number twenty-one.
Solomon flung himself into the street before the horses had even halted and hurled some coins in the direction of the jarvey.
“Is she in the house?” he called to his own coachman.
“Still there, sir.”
“Did anyone else go in?”
“One out, one in, from what I saw, but I did walk the horses around…”
Solomon did not wait for more.
“If I shout, come at once,” he commanded over his shoulder as he strode up the path and knocked furiously at the door. Hearing a faint bump and rustling inside, he even threw himself at it, shoulder first, though it didn’t budge. He bolted around the path to the back of the house and took a run at the kitchen door.
It flew open and he catapulted inside so quickly that he barely had time to register the other presence before a fist hit him in the chest. With the force of his own charge, the blow knocked him to the ground, winded.
His vision swam sickeningly, while all he could think, desperately,wasConstance.
He had come to save her and was failing.
Kellar’s face came into blurry focus, and Solomon forced his limbs to move, kicking out and bringing the older man down on top of him. With a sudden gasp of air, Solomon rolled, pinning Kellar with his weight, and raised his arm, fist clenched.
Kellar bucked, blocking the punch on one arm and shoving hard with the other. Unbalanced, Solomon leapt to his feet. So did Kellar, with impressive agility for a man of his years. No wonder he had been able to climb up to Caterina’s window…
Solomon lunged, crashing Kellar into the kitchen door, and again drew back his fist.
Then Constance screamed.
Solomon barely heard her words. It sounded like “Get off, getoff!” But her voice acted like a switch on both the kitchen combatants. Solomon froze for the slightest instant, which handed the advantage to Kellar.
Kellar didn’t take it.
He stared at Solomon, frowning, panting.
Solomon wrenched him aside by the coat and flung open the door. He heard Kellar pounding after him into the hall, but somewhere, he already realized that the diplomat was not the real threat. They had taken each other by surprise, that was all, and lashed out like stupid schoolboys in the playground.
Solomon skidded to a halt on the hall rug, almost crashing into Digby Montague, who stood at the foot of the staircase, clutching his hair in horror.
No wonder. George Martin was lying, twisted, on the stairs, while with one hand, Carl Darrow tried to hold a cushion over the old man’s face. The violinist held his other arm up, to protect his head from Constance, who was belaboring him with blows from her bag.
And those blows could be vicious. Solomon had known her tocarry heavy stones in that bag for defensive purposes.
“It was you, Charles Derrick!” she was yelling in rhythm with her blows. “You couldn’t bear to be rejected, so you blackmailed her to keep her. You drove her to fight back, to find your own secret. And that was why she had to die.”
Appalled, clearly physically unable to intervene, Montague only gaped at the scene before him—a man who could be angered and roused to passion, but definitely not a man of violence. Even when he’d tripped Darrow after the funeral, he hadn’t waited to see the blood.
Solomon shoved him out of the way, leapt up two stairs, and, grasping Darrow by the arm, dragged him off Martin. Darrow made a last-second attempt to shove the cushion in Solomon’s face, but Solomon ripped it from his grasp and threw it over the banister.
Still lying on the stairs, Martin made a horrible, rasping noise in his throat, but at least he was still breathing. Constance had managed to weaken Darrow’s hold by forcing him to defend himself.
She sat down abruptly on the top step, her bag slipping from her grip.
“Solomon,” she whispered.
For an instant their eyes met. There was time only to touch her cheek, to feel the comfort of her skin, her vitality. And then he swung away, because Darrow, whom he had left to Kellar, was trying to barge past the older man to the front door.
