Page 44 of Taken to the Grave
In no way did he plan to follow through with an encounter with this young woman. Or any other offered to him. However, continuing to question Madame Knight about her predecessor would have only raised her suspicions. Questioning Nanita once they were alone could be more fruitful. He would make it clear to her straightaway that he only wished to talk. With any hope, she would not signal the alarm.
The upstairs of the Red Lotus was just as decadent and tasteful as the ground floor, but Hugh barely saw it before Nanita, a few paces ahead, opened a door and stepped aside to show him in. The bedchamber had been appointed in greens and blacks, and his attention caught and stuck on what first appeared to be a chandelier above the large tester bed. However, on closer inspection, he saw there were no candles or gas jets. Several ropes and ribbons of differing material hung from theceiling fixture, reaching down to pool on the counterpane. With the specialty of the house in mind, Hugh imagined the ropes and ribbons were used in a variety of ways.
The door snicked shut behind him, and Hugh turned. The young woman was gone. She had not entered the room to join him, leaving him to wonder if his assigned companion would be sent.
Hugh tossed his hat onto a chair. It had not been taken from him at the door, nor his coat or gloves. He raked his hand through his hair. A curl of disquiet snaked its way through him, and he did not think it was merely due to his current location. The escalating sense that something was not right made the back of his neck sweat.
He’d turned to take up his hat when a door in the back corner of the room opened. He expected a young woman to appear, but when the burly man from the front hall entered instead, Hugh sighed.
“It appears I’m losing my touch,” he said. Madame Knight hadn’t been fooled.
The muscle came at him, giving Hugh only a fraction of a second to judge the man’s skill. The way he lumbered forward, moving without finesse or economy, Hugh gaged him to be the sort of fighter who depended on brawn rather than dexterity.
Hugh sank down, dodging the man’s fist. He wheeled to the side, out of the man’s reach.
“Let’s discuss this,” he said, but the brute, of course, was not chatty. Madame Knight had given him a job, and he meant to do it.
He hurtled toward Hugh. Partially in thanks to his boxing lessons at Gentleman Jack’s, but more so for his time defending himself against criminals as an officer, he dodged swiftly again. But the big oaf wasn’t entirely without aptitude. His meaty armhooked Hugh’s middle as he was attempting to move out of reach, and he felt the floor go out from underneath his feet.
The man heaved him toward the floor, but it wasn’t carpet that met his back. The breath was driven from his lungs as he cracked through as a low table. The thing crumpled like it had been made of sticks, whatever objects it had been holding, shattering too. Pain seared his back and the base of his skull. If Hugh’s opponent had not been a man twice his size, with the sole desire to do him in, he might have taken a moment to catch his breath. The instinct to survive, however, drove him to roll to the side, just in time to avoid the man’s fist coming toward his face.
Too slow to halt the punch, he ended up plowing his knuckles into the remnants of the wooden table. As Hugh rolled to his knees, his hand closed around the leg of the destroyed table. The man was starting to straighten when Hugh smashed the leg onto the back of his head. The man’s knees folded, and then he dropped.
Hugh dragged in a breath, panting as he stared at Madame Knight’s guard. He wasn’t moving. Hugh threw down the chair leg and started for the door. Leaving was instinctive, but he stopped and fought against it. Madame Knight had sent this brute up here to either kill him, or just warn him—forcefully—to not come back. Had the mention of Madame Lee, or of Stromburg, decided it? He needed to know, or this trip would have been for nothing. He certainly would not be able to come back and try again.
Rubbing the growing knob on the back of his head where it had connected with the wooden table, Hugh peered at the ropes and ribbons splayed on the bed, suspended from the ceiling fixture. He selected the thickest hemp rope, rough against his palms, and brought them to the man’s immobile figure. He tied his wrists together behind his back in as tight a knot as possible.With another line of rope, this one of sleeker, whip-like material, he bound the man’s ankles.
Then, Hugh snatched up a silver candlestick that had been swept off the broken table, ripped out the candle itself, and backed up against the wall next to the door. He waited, allowing his heart rate to come back down. Less than a minute later, as expected, a slight knock landed on the wood. Then, the door opened. Madame Knight entered cautiously, coming to a halt as she saw her guard unconscious and bound among the detritus.
Hugh pressed the round opening of the candlestick against the back of her neck and kicked the door shut. The madame held still, and he could only hope she continued to assume the candlestick was the barrel of a pistol.
“He really wasn’t the sort I was looking for,” Hugh said.
“You are making a serious mistake,” Madame Knight replied.
He ignored her warning. It had been a mistake to come here…without his flintlock.
“Tell me what happened to Madame Lee and Lord Stromburg.”
“Who are you?”
“You are running out of time, Madame Knight.” He hesitated. Then took a chance. “Someone from the Sanctuary will be here shortly if I do not get what I need.”
She went instantly rigid. Her hands lifted to the sides, as if in surrender. “I want nothing to do with that place.”
“Then answer my question. What happened to Madame Lee and Stromburg?”
On the floor, the man twitched. If he woke, he’d inform the madame that she was being held at candlestick point.
“Stromburg was a regular,” she said, relenting. “He took to a certain girl. Opal. He liked her so much that he asked Minerva—Madame Lee—if he could bring her to a secret club. There were many members there that might enjoy the Red Lotus.”
“And did she agree?”
“Yes. But then Stromburg returned in a fury. Another member had strangled Opal while initiating her.”
Hugh nearly lowered the candlestick in surprise. Strangle? Like Bethany Silas.
“Minerva and Stromburg were in an uproar. They went to the police. And then…they both disappeared.”
