Page 42 of Thief Taker

When he’d had enough of such nonsense he stood up and got the direction to Osborne’s house. It was in Berkeley Square, a ten-minute walk back along Curzon Street. Passing Rowsley’s house, Elias was tempted to check that Duvall had returned from the solicitor. He slowed as he passed the house and then told himself he was a crack-brained fool. The Honourable Christopher Duvall, second son of the Earl of Ashbourne, could take care of himself. He had a decent left hook, after all.

No, Elias would find out what had happened with the solicitor when he dressed Duvall for dinner, assuming he still had the position of valet after this morning’s antics. The thought tightened a knot in his stomach.

Bloody cod’s head.

Deliberately, he bent his steps in the direction of Sir Gideon’s house.

He slipped into the mews at the back, and on pretence of some enquiry from Flannigan about a horse, made his way to the stables.

He found Pike in the yard, sleeping off the shock of the previous night’s encounter. Or, more likely, the gin he’d consumed afterward. He was a hatchet-faced man with greying hair and a missing front tooth. He snored like a bloody horse too, slumped with his back to the stable wall despite the sharp February afternoon.

Elias cleared his throat. “Mr. Pike?” He got no response, so kicked the man’s foot. “Pike.”

“What—?” He jerked awake, then grimaced. “The devil—?”

“Elias Cole at your service, Mr. Pike. I’ve come to ask you some questions.” He dropped to his haunches in front of the man. “On behalf of interested parties.” It felt good to be about his real business again, not blacking boots and dressing a man quite capable of buttoning his own damned waistcoat—

But no, he drove the thought away before it could take hold.

This was what he did, and Elias Cole was a damned good thief taker. “I’m after the highwayman who calls himself Wessex, and I’d like to ask you about last night.”

Pike blinked at him. “Oh, aye. Cursed bloody man, I nearly soiled m’self when he pointed that bloody gun at me.”

“It’s a frightening experience, I’m sure,” Elias said. “You have my sympathies.”

Pike pushed himself up the wall, so he sat straighter, but didn’t try to stand. He still looked jug-bitten. “Bloody menace. Hang the lot, I say.”

“That’s my intention. Now…this was at eight o’clock, I hear.”

“Aye, thereabouts. We was taking Sir Gideon to an evening party in Mayfair.”

The party at which Rowsley had arrived late, in fact only moments before Sir Gideon himself. “And can you tell me anything that might help identify the villain?” Elias said. “Did you see something of his face, perhaps?”

Pike shook his head. “It was dark and he…” He gestured around his face. “A scarf across his mouth and a cocked hat over his eyes.”

“A cocked hat?”

“And a scarf about his face.”

“His eyes?” he pressed. “Did you see his eyes?”

“Not so I could describe them. It was dark.”

Frustrated, Elias sighed.

“But, uh, his voice?” Pike said. “He was a gent, no mistake, but not from these parts. From the West Country, maybe.”

“The West Country?”

“Aye, or maybe Ireland. Something of a burr in his speech.”

That was not suggestive of Rowsley, who sounded like any London gent. No getting away from that. But it did accord with Elias’s memory of his fleeting encounter with Wessex. He said, with sudden certainty, “Yankee, maybe?”

Pike shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve ever met one.”

“What about his hair? Dark or light?”

“My eyes, son, were mostly on the pistol he pointed at me.”