Page 98 of The Secrets of Lord Grayson Child
Gray added, “With all the extra distribution that will accrue to the sequel toThe Crier’shue and cry edition, there should be more than enough copies sold for you to reap full glory. Indeed, if your story is published inThe Crier, there’ll be no competition at all. And of course, it never hurts to demonstrate to your present employer that you aren’t entirely dependent on him.”
Hennessy’s brows had risen, then risen further during Gray’s little speech. After a long moment staring at Gray, Hennessy looked at Izzy. “I assume you’re I. Molyneaux, the owner?”
She nodded. “I am.”
Hennessy hesitated, then asked, “Is that agreement acceptable to you? Including the usual rates plus ten percent?”
To have a reporter of Hennessy’s caliber publish on the front page ofThe Crier… Taking care not to appear overeager, she nodded. “I’ll accept those conditions.” She arched a brow at him. “Do we have a deal?”
He sat forward and extended a meaty paw. “We do.”
She shook his hand, then Drake rather caustically said, “Now we have the formalities dealt with, please enlighten us as to what you know of the gentlemen in question.”
Despite the polite phrasing, that was a demand. Hennessy promptly said, “The taller man’s name is Henry Mitchell Duvall, and he works as an undersecretary at the Board of Trade. He told me as much, and I confirmed it. He’s too far down the pecking order to have access to the minister, Labouchere, but on the other hand, Duvall seems to know the ins and outs of various projects. Details not many people know.”
“Go on,” Drake directed.
Hennessy threw him a careful glance. “Duvall approached me—” He broke off and drew a notebook from his coat pocket, flipped it open, flicked through several pages, paused, read, then said, “Last Monday. At the Hound and Whistle—the pub I favor in Fleet Street.” Hennessy looked at Drake and Gray. “Anyone with a story knows to find me there.”
Gray and Drake nodded in understanding. Drake asked, “And did Duvall have a story to sell?”
“Not so much sell as give, in the hope of using me to get his story to the masses. He was offering information for free”—Hennessy glanced at Izzy—“and that always makes me suspicious. I wasn’t sure I believed him, so I took the information, but I haven’t done anything with it yet—well, until today.”
Hennessy’s expression hardened, and he spoke directly to Izzy. “What Duvall had to say boiled down to this. The materials that make up the telegraph cables the government is laying beneath the Channel to various countries on the Continent—for instance, the cable recently laid from Dover to Calais—are highly unstable and dangerous. Much more dangerous than the government wants anyone to know.” Hennessy glanced at the others. “The implication I was supposed to draw was that the telegraph station itself, where the cables are supposedly most exposed, constituted a very real danger to the populace at large.”
Drake swore beneath his breath and tensed as if to leave, but Hennessy held up a hand. “Before you race off, there’s more you might want to hear.” Hennessy fixed Drake with a level look. “You’re Winchelsea, aren’t you?”
Tight-lipped, Drake nodded.
“Then you’ll want to hear the rest.” Hennessy looked at Izzy. “I hadn’t done anything with Duvall’s information because I didn’t trust it, but when I readThe Crierand saw that picture”—Hennessy nodded at the photograph of the scene outside the coffeehouse—“I thought I recognized the man Duvall was speaking with. So I spent this morning asking around, and it turns out that gent is a very dangerous character. Monsieur Henri Roccard, a Belgian, he’s said to be—whispered to be—the principal London contact for several of the major crime families on the Continent. He’s the man those families ask to arrange for any ‘business’ they want done in Britain to be carried out.”
Hennessy glanced at Baines and Littlejohn, then looked at Drake. “My informants tell me the authorities have suspected Roccard of being behind several murders, but as the victims are usually criminals and he’s always at a good distance from the crime, he’s never been fingered for anything himself. Some of his men occasionally disappear, sent back to the other side of the Channel to be replaced by fresh faces.”
Leaning forward, Hennessy peered at the photograph of Duvall and Roccard talking before the coffeehouse. “Putting together what I can see here with what Duvall told me, I’d say Duvall is taking his orders from Roccard.” Hennessy glanced at Drake. “I’ve also heard that Duvall is hopeless at the tables and is very deep in debt.”
Drake, Gray, and Izzy exchanged glances, then she said, “I assume we’re all thinking that, operating under orders from Roccard, Duvall is planning to blow up the Dover telegraph station.”
Tersely, Drake nodded. “Because the European crime families want to prevent the British authorities being able to exchange information virtually instantaneously with their counterparts on the Continent.”
Hennessy’s eyes had widened. “I hadn’t heard about blowing anything up, but that makes sense. If the police on this side have a criminal fleeing in a boat to France, they can just telegraph to Calais, and the gendarmes will be waiting when the villain fetches up on the other side.”
“Even more pertinent,” Drake said, “is the interception of all sorts of smuggling and the traffic of villains and stolen goods both ways.” He paused, then added, “The telegraph opened for business—at least official business—in mid-October. Over the past months, the police and other authorities have been actively using the service, exploring the possibilities. I understand they’ve disrupted several long-established schemes over recent weeks. And I can confirm several more undersea links are planned, connecting Britain with the Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland.”
“Well, there you are, then,” Hennessy said. “None of the criminal fraternity are going to like that. It sounds like they’re using Duvall as their means to strike at the telegraph and get things back to the way they were. From all I’ve gleaned, those at the head of the families are old and conservative—they don’t like anything changing.”
Drake nodded. “The telegraph threatens the crime families’ futures, so they’ve devised a plan they hope will turn the population against the entire idea of the telegraph. You can imagine the mayhem.” Drake dipped his head at Hennessy. “If they could get the likes ofThe Courierto push a story of how dangerous the telegraph is to life and limb, and then one of the stations blows up, we’ll never get a working telegraph network within England, let alone across the sea.”
Izzy straightened. “It’ll be the Luddite uprisings all over again.”
“Well, then.” Baines tugged down his waistcoat. “I guess we’d better get along and have a word with this Mr. Duvall.”
Drake met Gray’s, then Izzy’s eyes and grimaced. “Much as I’d like to have a chat with Duvall, my first priority has to be to report this in all the right quarters and ensure word is sent to Dover, warning them to be on guard.” He paused, then added, “I’d better warn those building the official Dover telegraph station as well.”
Hennessy frowned. “Isn’t that—the official office—where the telegraph station in Dover is?”
Drake shook his head. “Not yet. They were in a hurry, so ran a line from where the cable makes landfall at South Foreland to the nearest suitable building they could lay their hands on. That happened to be a private residence at the southern end of Victoria Park Terrace.”
Gray saw Donaldson—who, with Lipson, had until then stood silently and listened—shift and frown. The quality of that frown prompted Gray to ask, “What is it?”
