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“Regardless what anybody knows or doesn’t know, I recommend you give me back those patterns, and not make matters worse for yourself. There’s only one way in and out, Pritchett. And you won’t get past me.”
“Won’t I?”
Another crash, as of furniture knocked over. A clatter of broken crockery. A screech of rage.
He didn’t care what Noirot had said about her dealing with this. He didn’t care that he oughtn’t to be discovered here. A business problem was none of his affair, but this was getting out of hand. In a minute, the others would hear the noise and come running downstairs. Erroll might well escape her nursemaid and run down with the others, and be hurt by a flying missile.
All this raced through his mind while he moved quietly toward the doorway. An object—a bowl or vase or pot or some such—sailed through the door and crashed against the wall inches from his head. He burst into the room in time to see a woman throw an inkstand at Noirot. As she dodged, Noirot tripped over a toppled chair and fell. He heard another crash. Looking that way, he saw an overturned lantern on the desk and the flames licking over the stacks of papers there. In the blink of an eye, the flames leapt to the window curtains and raced upward.
The woman ran past him. She was carrying something, but he did not try to stop her. Noirot was struggling to get up, and the fire was racing from the window curtains to shelves of books and papers. One corner of the room was in flames already. His mind flashed over the materials he’d seen in the showroom. There would be more materials of their trade elsewhere, in storerooms and workrooms: heaps of highly combustible wrapping papers and boxes as well as cloth of all kinds.
Already the flames were too high for him to smother easily.
He made his decision in a fraction of a heartbeat. He couldn’t chance fighting the fire. In minutes they’d be trapped in an inferno.
Clutching the precious portfolio, Pritchett pushed through the rear door into the yard, and ran without once looking back, all the way to Cary Street. Only then did she stop to catch her breath. She saw the smoke rising from the shop, and she felt a pang. She hoped the child wasn’t hurt. She’d planned so carefully, then madame had thrown everything into disarray with her abrupt decision to send the seamstresses home early. Pritchett had chased them out, saying she’d tidy the workroom. When the duke came, she’d breathed a prayer of thanks. She’d thought he’d keep madame occupied for a time.
But it had all gone wrong, and now not only madame but his grace knew what she’d done.
Never mind, never mind. She had the patterns, and Mrs. Downes’s money would allow her to start fresh elsewhere. Frances Pritchett would take a new name, and nobody would be the wiser.
She glanced upward again. Above the rooftops, against the starry sky, the smoke hovered like a black thundercloud.
Marcelline saw the flames, and stared for a moment in shocked disbelief. Then, “Lucie!” she screamed.
Clevedon was dragging her up from the floor, dragging her to the door. She heard shouts from upstairs. They’d heard the noise or smelled the smoke
“Out!” Clevedon shouted. “Everybody out! Now!”
A thumping and clatter from above. More shouting.
“Everybody!” he roared.
Marcelline started toward the stairs. He pulled her back.
“Lucie!” she cried. She heard more noise from above. “Why don’t they come?” Had the fire risen so fast? Were they trapped? “Lucie!”
But he was dragging and pushing her down the passage toward the front door. “No!” she cried. “My daughter!”
“They’re coming,” he said.
Then she heard the footsteps on the stairs and the voices.
Behind her came his voice: “Out, out, everybody. Quickly. Noirot, for God’s sake, take them all outside.”
In the dark, smoke-filled passage, she couldn’t see them. But she heard Lucie’s voice, and her sisters’ and Millie’s.
Clevedon shoved her. “Out!” he shouted, his voice savage.
She went out, and it was only then, when they were all out of the smoke and confusion that she discovered Lucie wasn’t with them after all.
“Where’s Lucie?” Marcelline shouted over the din of panicked neighbors and the clatter of carriages and neighing horses.
“But she was with us.”
“She was just here.”
“I had her, ma’am,” Millie said. “But she broke away—and I thought she was running to you.”
