Page 61 of Someone to Watch Over Me
“You don’t think they’ve run away together, do you?” Flagstad mused aloud. “I mean, the ladies do seem to like Keyes, and Miss Duvall has a definite reputation in that regard—”
“Get away from me.” Grant’s voice was low and deadly. “Before I slaughter you.”
Flagstad seemed to understand it was not an idle threat. Paling, he stopped and edged away hastily. “I think I’ll get a report from Captain Brogdon on the progress of his foot patrol.”
“Morgan! Morgan!” A breathless shout caused Grant to look about alertly. A constable was running neck-or-nothing alongside the opera house, coming from the streets north of the marketplace. “Mr. Morgan…they sent me to tell you…”
Grant reached him in three strides, nearly knocking the young man over. “What is it?”
“The betting shop on the alleyway off Russell… something you’ll want to hear about…” Gasping frantically, the constable paused and hung his head in the struggle for more air.
“Tell me, dammit!” Grant snapped. “You can breathe later.”
“Yes, sir.” The constable nodded jerkily and forced himself to continue. “The list-maker and some of his customers claim”—he paused for another gulp of air—“a girl came into the shop tonight, asking for someone to help her to Bow Street. They say a Runner came in and forced her to come away with him.”
“Praise God,” Flagstad exclaimed, having lingered to hear the report. His face was transformed with relief. “It’s Keyes and Miss Duvall, obviously. He found her! Everything is all right now.”
Grant ignored the Runner’s excitement and questioned the constable grimly. “How long ago did it happen?”
“It appears to be less than ten minutes, sir.”
Flagstad interrupted eagerly. “I’ll go directly to Bow Street and await them. No doubt Keyes will have her there momentarily.”
“You do that,” Grant said, and took off at a dead run toward Russell.
The betting shop was easy to locate. A cluster of constables had gathered outside the basement steps, while a squatty, imperious figure stood beneath the questionable shelter of a tattered umbrella and uttered loud complaints to all and sundry. The bookmaker wore heavy leather pouches that made him instantly identifiable.
The constables straightened and backed away a step en masse as Grant reached them. They looked at him strangely—no doubt he presented an odd appearance with his hair plastered over his skull, his face stiff and bloodless beneath the falling rain, and his lips drawn back from his teeth in a sort of frozen snarl he couldn’t erase.
The bookmaker squinted at him speculatively. “Bloody big bastard, you are,” he commented. “You must be Morgan. She was asking for ye, the wench that came in my place an’ started the ‘ole bloody rucktion.”
“Tell Mr. Morgan what happened,” one of the constables urged.
“The Runner came in my shop for ‘er, an’ she wouldn’t go wiv ‘im. The addlepate said ‘e was going to kill ‘er.”
“And then there was a fight,” the constable prompted.
“Aye,” the bookmaker said sourly. “One ow my customers tried to claim the wench, an’ the Runner knocked the piss out ow my customer, ‘e did.” He spat in contempt at the thought of the departed runner. “Bloody Robin Redbreast, trying to ruin a man’s honest business!”
Grant experienced an excruciating mingling of panic and pain that rose higher and higher until he felt hot pressure in the center of his head.
“What direction did they go in?” he heard himself ask hoarsely.
The question produced a sudden sly smile that stretched from one curling sideburn to the other. “I may know,” the bookmaker said diffidently, “or I may not.”
One of the constables seized him impatiently, giving him a brief shake that elicited an angry squawk. “Rough me again,” the bookmaker threatened, “an’ I won’t tell ye where they went! ‘Ow’d ye like to put the wench to bed wiv a shovel?”
“What the hell do you want?” Grant asked softly, staring at the bookmaker with a savage intensity that seemed to rattle him.
The bookmaker blinked uneasily. “I want ye stinkin’ Redbreasts to keep yer arses out o’ my lister from now on!”
“Done.”
“But, Mr. Morgan…” the constable said, protesting the hastily struck bargain. His voice trailed away meekly as Grant’s murderous gaze swerved to him for one chilling instant.
The bookmaker regarded Grant suspiciously. “‘Ow do I know ye’ll keep yer word?”
“You don’t,” Grant replied, his voice rising to a thunderous pitch that rivaled that of the storm outside. “But you know for certain that I’ll kill you in the next ten seconds if you don’t tell mewhere the hell they went!”
