Page 46 of Where the Heart Leads
Stokes looked at Barnaby. “We’ve learned all we can from around here.” He tipped his head to the east. “Spital Street’s not far. I’m going to go and check that address we have for Gannon. He might be there. He might have moved.” Stokes shrugged. “I’ll go and see.”
“I’ll come with you.” Griselda waited for Stokes to meet her eyes. “We can see what the place is like—if it’s a shop it’ll be easy enough to walk in and look around.”
“I’ll come, too,” Penelope stated. “If there’s any chance the missing boys are there, I should be present.”
She looked not at Stokes but at Barnaby. His expression hard, lips compressed, he met her gaze. He wanted to argue, but recognized the futility. Curtly, he nodded, then looked at Stokes. “We’ll all go.”
They turned off Brick Lane into narrower streets that were more like passages with the upper stories of the buildings frequently meeting overhead. Reaching Spital Street, they walked along, Stokes with Griselda, her arm linked with his, in front, Penelope and Barnaby, his arm around her shoulders, following a few yards behind.
The directions they’d been given led them to an old wooden house. Narrow, its timbers faded, the windows shuttered, it fronted directly onto the street. There were two rickety stories and an attic above, no basement; an alley, just wide enough to allow a man to pass, ran down one side. There was no sign declaring it a shop of any kind, but the door was wedged ajar.
They strolled past, but saw no signs of life.
Stokes halted farther on. He and Griselda spoke, then he waited for Barnaby and Penelope to reach them. “We’ll go inside. Why don’t you two wait out here, just in case our inquiries lead to any action.”
Barnaby nodded. He moved to lounge against a nearby wall, taking Penelope with him, his hand gripping her waist, anchoring her beside him. She rolled her eyes, but forbore to comment.
Stokes and Griselda crossed the street and disappeared into the house.
A minute ticked past. Penelope shifted her weight from one foot to the other—and immediately decided not to do so again. The movement had rubbed her hip against Barnaby’s thigh. She studiously ignored the resultant wash of heat beneath her skin, and sternly lectured her witless senses to stop swooning.
They stood directly opposite the alleyway alongside the building. Staring down the length of the side wall, she noticed an irregularity.
She stepped forward. “There’s a side door.”
Whether she’d surprised Barnaby, or had simply broken his grip, his hand slipped from her waist. Taking advantage, she hurried across the lane and plunged into the alley. She heard him swear as he followed her. But the alley was clearly empty; she was patently not rushing into danger, so while he quickly closed the gap between them, he didn’t try to catch her and pull her back.
Nearing the side door, she slowed, wondering if it led into the shop, or was another premises entirely. Caution had already laid its hand on her spine when the door cracked open, then quietly swung wide enough to allow a man to slip out. His back was to them. Peering into the building, he started to shut the door, easing it closed.
“Mr. Gannon?”
The man jumped and swore. He whirled around, flattening himself against the side of the house.
Penelope frowned at him. “I take it you are Mr. Joe Gannon, and that being so, we have some questions for you.”
Gannon blinked. He looked at Penelope, and regained some of his color. But then he looked past her at Barnaby, looming at her shoulder, and transparently didn’t know what to think. Warily, he asked, “Oo might be asking?”
Penelope replied without hesitation, “I’m asking with the full weight of the Metropolitan Police.”
Gannon’s eyes went wide. “The perlice?” He tried to see past them, then glanced the other way, to the other end of the alley. “’Ere—I ain’t done nuthin’.”
“That would be physically impossible.” Penelope planted her hands on her hips; she’d dropped her disguise, and was now very much the haughty, demanding, commanding lady, which was what was confusing Gannon so much. “Don’t lie to me, sir.” Leaning forward, she all but wagged her finger in his face. “What do you know of Dick Monger?”
Gannon blinked, thoroughly rattled. “Oo?”
“He’s about this tall”—Penelope held a hand at shoulder height—“a towheaded lad. Do you have him in your employ?”
She rapped the question out; Gannon all but recoiled.
“No! Only lad I got is me sister’s—me nevvy. Right layabout he is, too. What would I want wif another? ’Specially if he’s wanted by the rozzers.” Clearly out of his depth, Gannon looked to Barnaby as if he were a lifeline. “’Ere—if you’re one of them rozzers in disguise, you shouldn’t let a female like this loose. She’s dangerous.”
Barnaby had been thinking much the same; the sheer fear that had spiked through him in the instant before he’d realized Gannon was no threat—that instant when Penelope had been between him and the man—was something he never wanted to experience again. However…“Just answer her questions, and we—and the police—will leave you alone. Do you know, or have you heard, anything at all about a lad like she described?”
Eager to cooperate with the voice of reason, Gannon frowned and gave the matter due thought, but eventually he shook his head. “Ain’t seen any tyke like that about ’ere. And I ain’t ’eard nothing, either—not about ’im, or any other.” A certain craftiness lit his eyes. “If you and the lady are after a lad that’s been snitched, and yer imagining I might be using his services as a burglar’s boy, I’ll ’ave you know I ’aven’t been on that gamble fer over two years now, not since my last stretch in the nick.”
Truth rang in his voice. Barnaby glanced at Penelope, and saw she’d heard it, too. She nodded, and the stiffness of battle went out of her slight frame. “Very well,” she said to Gannon, and there was still a latent warning in her tone. “I believe you. Take care you stay on the right side of the law from now on.”
With that, she swung around. Coming face-to-face with Barnaby’s chest. He stepped aside and let her through.
