Beyond Compare (15 page)

The duke finally found the right key and fitted it into the lock. Opening the door, he moved inside, the others streaming in after him.

“’Cor!” the gunman exclaimed, glancing around him at the cases filled with ancient objects and the vases and statues and various pieces of pottery that littered the tables of the room.

Kyria noticed that her little brother fell away from his mother’s side as they walked, moving behind her and her captor and around to the other side of the gunman, the cricket bat still dangling from his hand. The gunman, still a little stunned by the profusion of objects in the room, seemed not to notice Con’s movements.

Broughton moved across the room to the center case, key in hand to open it. He stopped abruptly and stared into the case. “Good Lord!”

“What?” The duchess’s guard looked at him.

“Why, it’s gone,” Broughton said, stunned. He pointed toward the glass-fronted case, at a vacant spot between a necklace on a stand and a small vase. “The box is gone!”

“What!” their captor exploded, releasing the duchess’s arm and stepping forward in his agitation. “What are yer saying? Don’t try to pull the wool over me eyes—” He waved his pistol at the duke.

“I’m not!” There was nothing false about the panic and distress in her father’s voice. “The reliquary has been stolen!”

The gunman’s hand dropped as he stared, slack-jawed, at the empty spot in the cabinet, and in that moment Con seized the advantage and struck, swinging his bat upward with all his strength and cracking it smartly into the man’s gun arm. The man let out a howl of pain as the gun went flying out of his hand. A shot
went off, shattering one of the gas lamps across the room. The ruffian turned and grabbed Con with a shriek of rage and shook him, then flung him aside.

The duchess cried out, “Con!” and ran to her son.

Kyria flew at the man, kicking and hitting, and he struggled to hold her off. Thisbe started toward her sister to help, but Dixon managed to grab her and hold on. Lord Penhurst brought his cane down smartly across the big man’s knuckles, and Dixon cried out, releasing Thisbe and turning toward the old man with a growl.

At that moment Rafe burst through the doorway, a gun in each hand, followed by Alex, wielding a fireplace poker. Quickly assessing the situation, Rafe shoved one pistol into his belt and brought the other one down smartly, butt first, on Dixon’s head. He kicked the thick-set man’s knees out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor, and finished the job with another crack of the pistol butt. He started then toward Kyria, struggling in the other attacker’s grasp. But before he could reach her, the duchess whirled from her son’s side and bent down to pick up the cricket bat he had dropped, then came up like an avenging angel, her eyes lit with fire and a wild, almost inhuman cry issuing from her lips. She swung the cricket bat, striking the gunman’s head with a loud
thwack.
He toppled like a felled tree.

The duchess stood over him, glaring down at him. “How dare you touch my child!”

“Emmeline!” Broughton rushed to his wife and pulled her into his arms. “Oh, thank God. I was afraid I had lost you!” He looked over her shoulder and caught sight of his eldest daughter, who had snatched
up the nearest object to use as a weapon. “Thisbe! No! Not the Etruscan vase!”

There were a few moments of confusion as everyone turned to everyone else to make sure they were all right. Rafe crossed the room to Kyria in two quick strides and pulled her into his arms. Instinctively, her arms went around his waist and she leaned against his chest, her eyes closing in relief.

“I knew you would come,” she breathed.

“Of course,” he replied, and his lips brushed her hair. “Thank God for Alex. Are you all right?”

Kyria nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.” However, she made no move to leave the shelter of his arms. “It was Mother who was in danger. And Con. Con!”

She gasped as she recalled what had happened to her younger brother, and she whirled around to see where her younger brother lay on the floor, still dazed. The other members of her family were all huddled around him, the duchess kneeling on the floor beside him.

“You are a hero,” the duchess was telling Con, reaching down to wipe the hair from his forehead. She twisted to put an arm around Alex and pull him close. “Both of you are heroes.”

“You are the one who has been hurt,” Broughton said, reaching down and tugging his wife to her feet. He turned to cast a burning glance at the unconscious villains on the floor. “When I think that that fellow hit you!”

“I survived,” the duchess reassured him, smiling at her husband and reaching up to pat his cheek.

They were interrupted by the sound of pounding footsteps outside, and in the next moment, a crowd of servants came streaming in, all drawn by the crack of the pistol shot, followed a moment later by the few
guests who were still in residence. Kyria realized that she was still standing very close to Rafe, his hand resting lightly on her back, and she took a self-conscious step away.

“I say,” Cousin Albert remarked mildly, looking the scene over. “Why are those men on the floor?”

“Deuced peculiar household,” Lord Penhurst declared. “Always has been. How is a fellow to take a nap around here?”

With those words, he turned and shuffled off, leaning on his cane. There were exclamations and explanations all around, and the butler sent a footman for rope to tie up the miscreants.

It took some minutes to get rid of their curious guests, and by the time they had done so and closed the door, their uninvited guests were beginning to wake up. Dixon let out a groan and made a move to touch his head, only to discover that he was tied up. He let out another groan and laid his head back on the floor.

“Blimey, Sid,” he whined, “why’d I let you talk me into this? No good ever comes outta leavin’ the City. I told you.”

“Shurrup,” the lantern-jawed man replied in a slurred voice. “Yer took the money well enough, din’t yer?”

“Not really enough, though, was it?” Rafe asked pleasantly, striding across the room and squatting down beside the men.

None too gently, he grasped the gunman, Sid, by the arms, jerked him to a sitting position and leaned him against the wall. He looked straight into the man’s eyes, and his voice was flat and hard as he asked, “All right, who hired you?”

Sid sneered back at him. “I ain’t tellin’ yer nothin’.”

“You aren’t talking to an English gentleman now, Sid. I don’t believe in fair play. I believe in taking care of my own, and you have gotten in the way of that. Do you understand what I’m saying? Now, you can talk right here and now, where you have a well-mannered, upright duke watching the proceedings, or you can talk later to me—when we’re alone.” He paused, then added, with a faint smile, “Trust me, you’ll end up telling me.”

Something in his eyes must have convinced Sid of the truth of his words, for the man squirmed, looking away from Rafe, and said, “I can’t tell yer nothin’. I don’t know nothin’.”

“You were hired by someone. What was his name?”

“I don’t know.” Sid shrugged. “These ropes are too tight.”

“You’ll wish they were as
loose
as this later if you don’t start answering my questions.”

“I don’t know nothin’.” Sid’s voice took on a whine similar to that of his companion’s. “’E didn’t tell me no names. ’E just said as ’ow ’e wanted the job done, and I agreed. ’E paid me ’alf and said I’d get the rest when I brought him the box.”

“What did he tell you about the box?”

“Just that it was small and white, made of ivory, like, and it ’ad a giant black stone on the side of it.”

“What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. Just a gent, you know. A foreign gent.”

“A foreigner?”

“Talked funny.” He paused, then added, “Not like you. More like a Frenchie or summat.”

“Was he French?”

“’Ow should I know? ’E was just foreign, like.”

“Was he dark? Fair?”

“Dark, I guess. I din’t pay much attention.”

Rafe grimaced. “You certainly are an unobservant fellow. It’s a wonder how you would have managed to hand the box over to the right man.” He turned to the heavyset man. “What about you, Dixon? Can you give me any better description of the man who hired you?”

Dixon looked at him blankly. “I didn’t see nobody, mister. It were Sid ’ere as ’ired me. I told ’im it would come to a bad end. It’s no good leavin’ the City.”

Rafe studied him for a moment, then turned back to Sid. “All right. How did he find you?”

“I don’t know wot yer mean.”

“The man who hired you could scarcely have put an ad in the newspaper for a thief. How did he know that you would do the job?”

“Oh. ’E asked the barkeep, Tommy, and Tom said as ’ow I was good for nickin’ a few things.”

“What barkeep?”

“Down at the tavern. The Blue Bull.”

“Where is that?”

“London, ’course.” Sid looked at Rafe as if he were daft. “Where else?”

“What part of London?”

“Cheapside. Down by the docks.”

“And did you meet your employer there?”

Sid nodded, then winced at the pain the movement brought. “Yeah. Tommy told me to come by, and this bloke was waitin’ fer me.”

The Morelands had all been watching the interrogation with interest, and Kyria moved forward now, saying, “Where are you supposed to meet him? You must have set up some way of meeting him after you got the box.”

Sid’s gaze flickered over to Kyria for a moment, and his lip started to curl into a sneer, but then his eyes went to Rafe, who was watching him steadily, one hand tightening into a fist, and Sid dropped the sneer.

“I’m supposed to meet ’im tomorrow night, after I get back into the City. At the Blue Bull.”

Kyria turned to Rafe. “We could go there. We could intercept him and find out who it is.”

Rafe nodded and stood up. “I’m afraid that’s all we’re getting out of him at the moment.” He flicked a glance at the man on the floor and added, “I may have another little talk with our friend later, but for now I reckon Smeggars can lock him up. Do you have any handy dungeons?”

Sid and his companion paled a little at his words. Kyria smiled. “Just the cellars, but I imagine they will do nicely.”

Broughton rang for the servants, and Smeggars returned with several of the footmen to carry the miscreants away to the root cellars. As soon as they had left the room, Kyria turned excitedly to Rafe.

“We can catch the train to London tomorrow. Then we can go to this Blue Bull tomorrow evening and—”

“Now, hold on a minute,” Rafe interjected. “You can’t go to a place like that.”

“Why not?” Kyria flashed back, bridling.

“You’d stick out like a sore thumb, for one thing,” Rafe retorted. “Women who look like you don’t frequent places like the Blue Bull.”

“I’ll wear a disguise,” Kyria said blithely.

“But wait. Just a minute,” the duke put in. “Aren’t you forgetting, my dear, that we have a more immediate problem?”

“What?” Kyria turned to him, puzzled.

“The fact that the reliquary is missing,” Broughton said.

“What!” Rafe’s eyebrows flew up, and he stared at the man.

“Oh.” Kyria’s excitement deflated. “That’s right. The box is gone.”

As one, they all turned toward the open cabinet where the reliquary box had sat and where now there was only a blank space between the vase and the necklace.

“How could it be gone?” Rafe asked, striding over to the case to peer inside.

“I don’t know. I was flabbergasted when I went to open the case for that chap and the box was not there. I cannot imagine what happened to it. I had the case locked and the door to the room locked.”

“You mean you don’t know where it is?” the duchess asked her husband in surprise. “I thought you were pretending—just to fool that man. I thought you must have put it somewhere else.”

Broughton shook his head sorrowfully. “No. It’s disappeared.”

They all stood looking at one another in consternation.

Con raised his hand tentatively. “No, sir,” he began in a small voice, “it isn’t missing. I know where it is.”

“You do?” the duchess cried, and everyone swung to look at Con.

“Well, where is it?” Kyria asked when Con supplied no further information.

Looking rather abashed, Con said, “In the nursery.”

His revelation was met with a stunned silence. Quickly he added, “I didn’t know you were going to be looking for it!”

“But how…why?” Kyria asked finally, a shudder running through her at the thought of the valuable artifact lying about in the boys’ rooms, amidst their balls and bats and animal cages.

“It was a puzzle,” Con said simply.

“Oh,” Kyria said, and the members of his family nodded in understanding. Con’s attraction to puzzles was well-known. There was nothing he liked better than figuring out some sort of puzzle, whether it was a riddle or a jigsaw or a lock.

“I thought there must be some way to open it if I only looked hard enough.” He paused and cast a look around at the others.