Page 101 of The Secrets of Lord Grayson Child
Izzy noticed. “What is it?”
He stooped, reached into the wastepaper basket beneath the desk, and drew out five pieces of torn paper. He straightened and turned them over in his hands, aligning the pieces, which were from two separate wrappers. Face hardening, he looked at Baines and handed him the pieces. “One is a wrapper from a largish packet of black powder. The other is from a packet of blasting fuse.”
Baines and Littlejohn confirmed that.
Littlejohn raised his head. “So he has his explosives?”
Grimly, Gray nodded. “Ready to go.” He started for the door, and Izzy followed. “I think,” he said, “we should assume that Duvall has seenThe Crierand taken himself to Dover to complete his mission before anyone—like Winchelsea—can stop him.”
Baines and Littlejohn clattered down the stairs behind them. “The landlady said Duvall left this morning. He might already be there.”
“Or,” Izzy said as she followed Gray out of the front door, “he might have gone somewhere else first and still be in town. We just don’t know.”
With the Strand so close, they hadn’t kept the hackneys. Gray nodded to the landlady and, with Izzy, walked a little way along the street, then they stopped and waited for the others to catch up.
Baines and Littlejohn joined them, then Hennessy, Donaldson and Digby, having taken their leave of the landlady, came hurrying up.
“Anything?” Hennessy asked.
Gray explained what they’d found. “We need to decide what we should do next—what would be best for us to do next.”
“Drake—Winchelsea—will already have warned the Dover telegraph station,” Izzy pointed out, “so they’ll be on their guard, which, at this point, is the best we can do at that end.”
Gray nodded and met Baines’s eyes. “It’s Duvall we need to catch—now more than ever. Given he’s carrying around the wherewithal to demolish a small building, if there’s any hope of catching him before he lights the fuse, we have to seize it.”
Baines and Littlejohn agreed.
“At this moment,” Baines said, “we don’t know if he’s already left for Dover.” He looked at Gray and Izzy. “He wouldn’t have taken the coach, would he?”
“I can’t imagine why he would,” Gray said, “given the train is so much more convenient. And he isn’t wealthy enough to keep horses in town and is unlikely to hire a carriage and drive down, either.”
“Right, then.” Baines nodded with decision. “The first thing we need to learn is whether he’s already gone down on the train or if, for some reason, he’s still lurking in town.”
“The terminus for the Dover train is London Bridge,” Littlejohn supplied.
“Let’s go there and ask.” Gray grasped Izzy’s hand and turned toward the Strand. “Once we know where he is—down there or up here—we can decide what our next move should be.”
Their hackneys drew up outside the front door of the South Eastern Railway terminus, on the south bank of the Thames just east of London Bridge.
During the short ride, the members of their party had, apparently, become infected with a sense of urgency; they all but fell out of the carriages in their haste to learn whether Duvall had left London.
Her hand in Gray’s, Izzy remained beside him as they pushed through the front doors.
He looked around, then pointed to their left. “Over there.”
A sign identified the booking office, and their company descended on one of the two manned windows.
Izzy dove into her reticule, pulled out the photograph showing Duvall, and thrust it at Baines. “Here—ask if they’ve seen him.”
Baines seized the photograph, fronted the counter, and after identifying himself and Littlejohn, stated, “We’re hot on the track of a felon.”
His rank and that opening had the men in the ticket office gathering on the other side of the window.
Baines held up the photograph and pointed out Duvall. “This gentleman here.” He handed over the photograph. “Have any of you seen him over the past hours—say from ten o’clock onward? He would have been wanting to take the train to Dover.”
Hennessy, who’d hung back, scanning the overhead sign listing the trains, called, “There was a train at nine-thirty, another at eleven-thirty, and one about to leave at one-thirty.”
The five men in the booking office passed the photograph around, and the youngest said, “Oh aye. I remember him.”
