AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The narrow staircase creaked alarmingly beneath her weight, shattering her nerves further until, by the time she had her hand on the latch to Mr Donaldson’s door, she was positively trembling with fear. Suddenly, she stopped and couldn’t go any further. She was too scared.
“I will go first,” Joe murmured when he saw her fear. He nudged her aside and withdrew his gun from his cloak.
Grateful for his chivalry, Marguerite cowered behind him, glancing nervously down the stairs at the still open door. It cast the hallway into some light but also left them vulnerable because anybody could come in without being heard.
“Should we close it?” she whispered.
Joe looked over his shoulder at her and glanced at the door. He nodded and raced down to close and bolt it before he ran back up the stairs. Without pausing for breath, he then opened the door to the flat.
“Where can they be?” Marguerite murmured when she had finished a slow perusal of the flat. There was no sign of her father or Hugo Donaldson.
“There is nothing moved at all?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I have never been up here. It isn’t appropriate for me to want to venture anywhere near it because it is a gentleman’s lodgings. There is no sign of anything upturned, though.”
Joe shook his head but didn’t look at her. He was busy rifling through the contents of a bureau located next to the shuttered window in search of any papers that might be incriminating in some way, or at least give him some clues about what was going on.
Suddenly, the gate in the yard slammed.
“I thought I had closed that,” Marguerite murmured. She hurried to the window to peer around the shutter.
“You did,” Joe replied. His gut instinct was warning him that danger was circling all about them and it was only a matter of time before they were attacked.
“Come away from the window,” he ordered.
“Who could it be?”
Their eyes met. Her stomach lurched when she read the silent warning in his eyes.
“It will be alright,” he assured her. “We knew he was not going to allow anybody near this place unhindered.”
“Do you think he wants something from the shop?” Marguerite asked as she considered Sayers’ penchant for burglary. “Is it likely to have something to do with one of the clocks my father has?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Joe sighed. “I really don’t.”
Given the nature of some of Sayers operations, Joe wondered if the clocks being shipped up and down the country contained more than the mechanisms. Anything, all manner of small and precious gems, could be spirited inside the main body of a clock and nobody would be any the wiser.
In spite of his dislike for the man, Joe had to concede that it was an ingenious way of getting the gems transported in a way that nobody would think of.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
“What is it?”
Joe shook his head. He couldn’t tell her that it was looking more and more likely that Eustace was involved in Sayers’ gem smuggling operation, voluntarily or not. Right now, he didn’t quite know what to think, or what to tell her. It sounded a little far-fetched, even to Joe’s way of thinking but there could be no other reason for both Donaldson and Eustace to go missing at the same time.
“What could they be up to?” Joe whispered with a sigh when a search of the flat revealed nothing except for a few unpaid bills. “Does the man have any relations in the area?”
“I don’t know,” Marguerite sighed. “He is just as reclusive and withdrawn as my father. I think that is why they chose to work together.”
“How long as Donaldson been working here?”
“Mr Wreake took ill and died last summer. Hugo Donaldson applied for the job. Eustace liked him and so gave him the job. Like I said, when mother died, my father didn’t work for a while. During that time the shop remained open. Mr Wreake, my father’s partner, insisted that he had nothing else to do and the clocks shouldn’t be left there to gather dust, so continued to open up until he became ill. When he died, and there was nobody here to open the shop, my father decided to keep it going himself for a while. I think once he got here he started to become more involved with work and realised he needed help. He advertised, and Hugo Donaldson applied. Eustace liked him, I think, and had no reason to doubt him.”
“When did Mr Wreake die?”
“Last summer,” Marguerite replied.
