Текст книги "The Broken Bell"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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“Whose idea was it, to skim a little off the top?”

“His.” He looked up at me. “I swear, finder. I was poor, but I was honest. It was the Colonel’s idea. Said he had some gambling debts. I kept a third of the take. Hell, it wasn’t much. At first.”

“But things didn’t stay small.”

He shook his head. His face was pure crimson. The veins in his forehead were swollen and throbbing.

Maybe he had been an honest kid, after all.

“The Sixth wound up at Killispill. Regional headquarters. The Seventh was already there. Hell, within a year we were feeding eight, nine hundred men a day. Double that the next year.”

“So a lot of money was involved.”

“A fortune. The Kingdom might have skimped on a lot of things. Hell, you know they did. But the officers got fed. Nobody asked any questions. They didn’t even look at the ledgers. We’d claim we spent a thousand crowns on beef, when we spent two hundred. It was like owning a bank, finder. Even when I tried to pull back, the Colonel wouldn’t hear of it. He got greedy. He’d have killed me, had I tried to stop.”

I nodded. That might have been true. Even if it wasn’t, it was something the baker needed to believe.

“And then the War ended.”

“It did. All over. Orders came down. You’re discharged. Thank you for your service.” He spat on his good clean floor. “Bastards.”

“So you and Colonel Lethway-you just split the take and parted ways?”

“That’s what we did, finder. I didn’t lay eyes on the man until Tamar-until my daughter started walking out with that fool son of his.”

“And the money?”

He lifted his hands, gestured to the coffee shop. “All gone, years ago. I built my business with it. Lost most of it the first five years. But it kept us afloat, long enough to get established.” He sighed and gripped his untouched coffee again. “I’m not proud of what I did during the War, finder. But I’ve never done anything like that since. I’ve worked hard and made a living for myself and my family. I want nothing to do with the Colonel or the past.”

“Those two men who just left. Were they part of this, somehow?”

He spoke quietly. “They know. I don’t know how they know, finder. Or who they are. But they know Lethway and I stole a fortune during the War, and they want something from him, and they want me to try and pry it out of him.”

“By blackmailing him.”

He nodded. “I told them to go to Hell.”

“They didn’t seem to be heeding your travel advice.”

“I meant to kill them, finder. I had a knife.”

“Brave. But dumb. Two of them, one of you? Maybe those are good odds when you’re dealing with rogue pastries, but not hired muscle.”

He mulled that over while his coffee steamed.

“You didn’t really kill that man in my house, did you, finder?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Tamar keeps crying. Talking in her sleep too. Telling someone she’s sorry.” He looked up at me. “I wish I’d told that son of a bitch to get stuffed the first night he walked into my mess tent.”

“You were just a kid with a potato peeler. He was a Colonel. Don’t beat yourself up too much. After all, you’ve got other people trying to do that for you.”

That got a ghost of a grin.

“Whatever it is they want out of Lethway, he isn’t budging.” I finished off my cup. “They cut off his kid’s ear, Mr. Fields. Sent it to him. He dropped it in the fireplace. I think the Colonel will let Carris die before he’ll cooperate.”

“I’m afraid you’re right about that.”

“That means they’re going to keep coming after you, Mr. Fields. Because if there’s one thing the Colonel is afraid of, it’s being exposed as a War profiteer.”

“So you’re saying I should blackmail Lethway?”

I smiled, big and wide. “No, Mr. Fields. I’m saying I should.”

Chapter Fourteen

Convincing Mr. Fields to hand over everything I needed to pry open Lethway’s lips took another pot of coffee.

But when that was drunk, he stopped shaking. His face wasn’t the color of hot coals. And the hate was gone from his eyes.

The worst had happened, and instead of tearing his world apart, I had emerged as the very man who might be able to put it safely back together.

All I had to do, of course, was live through my little talk with Lethway.

When I left the coffee house, I had a parcel under my arm. It was a pair of ledgers, wrapped in aged brown paper. He’d been keeping it close to him, all these years, moving it from secret drawer to safe to hidey-holes far and near.

When the pair of toughs had been threatening to cut off small but valuable bits of his person earlier, the very thing they sought was lying two steps from them, covered only by a baking tin.

But now it was mine. Two ledger books-one a copy of the book the Army had received-the other the real book, showing who got what, and when. Accompanied by receipts and signed orders and even a series of handwritten letters the Colonel had, in some moment of daft bravado, signed with his name and seal.

What lay between those covers was a hanging, even for a man of Lethway’s post-War stature.

I had to admire Fields' ingenuity. The ledgers proved Lethway made himself rich during the war, at the expense of the taxpayer. They only showed that Fields had carried out the orders given him.

If things came to a Court, Fields would likely claim he had no choice. And a jury might just buy that.

Clever little move, for an honest little baker.

The first thing I meant to do was stash the bulk of the evidence somewhere safe. I planned to take a single signed letter with me when confronting Lethway. That would be enough to establish the existence of the rest without risking the whole batch to a grab. I figured stashing the ledgers at Avalante would put them well beyond the reach of even a Lethway, so that word was on my lips when I stepped into the street to hail a cab.

I was in such a hurry to get to Avalante I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the people on the street. Oh, I had eyes for the pair who’d fled the bakery, all right, but no one nearby fit the requirements of a pair of murderous musclemen. No, it was nannies out walking with kids and bankers out for a bit of air and ladies in hats out walking to be seen.

But at the moment, they weren’t walking. Instead, they were clustering around a barker, who was in turn passing out handfuls of handbills. People were taking them and then walking into each other as they backed away, their eyes on the paper they held.

A lady walked past, her skirts whipping, such was her hurry. I planted myself in her path and gave her my warmest, most winning smile.

She frowned and tried to dart around me. I sidestepped, still smiling, and she thrust a handbill at me.

“Take it, I have two.”

And then she was away.

WAR, the handbill read. WAR COMES TO RANNIT.

I cussed and stuffed the awful thing deep in a pocket and stopped the next cab I saw.

No one, not even the Regent and the Corpsemaster and the Army, can keep a secret forever.

Especially not when half of the secret is heading south toward you with mayhem on its mind and the other half is being built at night all around the city walls. The handbill had lots of it wrong, but it had enough right to convince me the proverbial cat was out of the metaphorical bag.

The Watch would go after the barker and the handbill printer, of course. I doubted they’d catch either. But even if they did, the word was spreading, and I figured by tomorrow even the weedheads would know the peace was broken.

NINE CITIES ALLY AGAINST RANNIT, cried the handbill. ARMY OF A HUNDRED THOUSANDS ON THE MARCH AGAINST US NOW!

Wrong on both counts. But the numbers weren’t going to matter. Not with the cannons in the mix.

I hope Evis and his-well, our, I suppose-plan to render the Brown impassable to barge traffic hadn’t been tossed aside by his superiors in the House. I had little faith the scheme would actually accomplish more than making a lot of noise and ruining some good timber, but already I was not only grasping at straws but throwing the weight of my hope upon them.

That’s what war does to people. Makes them cling to any hope, no matter how empty it may be in the harsh bright light of day.

I slept most of the way to Avalante, despite having gulped down coffee all afternoon. My dreams were troubled and brief. I didn’t even awake, claimed the cabbie, when a bridge clown reached inside and tweaked by nose.

Jerle, the day man, let me in and took my coat. The old boy insisted on peeking inside the cover at the ledgers, just to make sure I wasn’t trying to smuggle in a trio of Troll assassins, but he was quick and professional about it and he even offered me a seat while he looked.

I didn’t think I’d catch Evis awake at such an unvampirish hour, but Jerle told me he’d been left word to show me right in if I happened to stop by. So I made my way to Evis with barely a yawn or stumble.

The first thing I heard when I drew near to Evis’s door was female laughter. I stopped dead in my tracks, wishing for the first time that a suave halfdead was gliding silently at my side, so he could knock at the door and make sure Evis wasn’t occupied before I barged in.

But I was alone, and Evis had left word, so I walked right to the door to knock.

The woman laughed again before I could lift my hand. I heard Evis speak, his words not quite clear, and the lady laughed again, and there was a tinkle of glass on glass and a slosh of liquor.

I knocked. If Evis was pitching woo he could always tell me to go away.

“Come on in, Markhat,” called Evis. “We were just talking about you.”

The door swung inward, meaning Evis had touched something behind his desk.

I stepped inside.

Gertriss was seated across from Evis, trying to decide whether to hide her cigar or take a puff. She’d already managed to put her glass of brandy down on the corner of Evis’s desk. I knew she’d done that in a hurry because she’d missed the cork coaster and even sloshed a bit of brandy on the polished wood.

Something squealed and caught me across my knees. I tousled Buttercup’s hair, and she greeted me by leaping up and wrapping her arms around my neck before sliding around to ride on my back.

“Boss,” said Gertriss. Her cigar trailed up a damning swirl of smoke. “I was just waiting for you.”

I trotted a half-circle around the room while Buttercup giggled and squealed.

“I see. Did Buttercup decline to smoke, or has she finished hers already?”

“Oh, knock it off, Markhat. The banshee is older than all of us put together, and you know it. It’s not like she’s never seen people have a smoke or a drink before.” Evis leaned back in his chair and blew a smoke ring. “Anyway, your junior partner here is helping me celebrate. We got the go ahead from the House. We’re going to blow the bluffs.”

Gertriss cringed. I disengaged Buttercup and sat her on the floor. I wasn’t happy with Uncle Evis, but when vampires babysit banshees, I suppose hoping for nursery rhymes and games of dolls and houses is a bit too much.

Evis reached behind him and groped for a moment amid the sorcerous knick-knacks he keeps in those huge glass cases of his. When he withdrew his hand, he held a glowing orb that trailed twisting wakes of dancing light.

“Here you go, kid. Play with this.”

He tossed it to Buttercup, who snatched it out of the air and began to coo and mutter over it, engrossed.

I pulled a chair beside Gertriss. “What’s that thing you just gave her?”

“Damned if I know. We’ve had it for a couple hundred years. Maybe she can figure it out. Did you hear what I said? We’re heading up the river. Going to stop the War before it starts. We’ll be heroes. Probably have a parade. Brass statues, for sure.”

I tried to take the luminous sphere away from Buttercup, but she did a little banshee hop-step and appeared all the way across the room.

“Oh, calm down, finder. Trolls could blast the House down around us, and we both know the banshee wouldn’t suffer a hair out of place.”

Gertriss handed me a cigar, and a flame appeared in her hand.

“Boss. It’s all right. Tell us what you’ve been up to. And what’s that you’re holding?”

I sucked in a long draw of very expensive tobacco.

“This is the stuff of Lethway’s nightmares. Evis, I’d like to keep this here. But before we get into that, tell me about the celebration.”

“The House agrees that blowing up the bluffs is cheaper than fighting a new war. In fact, they’re pulling out all the stops.” He leaned forward, his dead eyes almost gleaming. “We might actually make this work. I was hoping for grudging support, at best. I had no idea they’d hand me the keys to the treasury.”

“Good way to get on the Regent’s Yule list, keeping his city nice and intact. If it works, you’re heroes of the realm. If it fails, oh well, money will be the least of everyone’s problems, won’t it?”

Evis laughed. “Money is never the least of any problem. But look here, Markhat. Remember when I said it would take us a week to get the wagons and the gunpowder up the Brown?”

“I remember.”

“They’ve a got steamboat,” said Gertriss. Her eyes were wide, and I wondered how many of those tumblers of brandy Evis had offered her. “It’s amazing, boss. You have to see it.”

“A steam what?”

“Another line of research the House pursued during the War,” said Evis. “It’s a shallow-keeled, flat-bottomed boat. Burning wood heats water. The hot water turns to steam. The steam drives an engine. The engine-”

“Oh bloody hell,” snapped Gertriss. She grabbed my arm. “Boss, the thing can go upriver. No sails. No oars. No pulling it with chains and donkeys. You just point it north and feed it logs and it goes. Fast.”

“How many of those drinks have you finished, young lady?”

She shook her head violently. “Three. But I’m not drunk, boss. Evis, how fast did you say it could go?”

“Eight knots. Ten if she’s pushed, and she will be.”

“For how long?”

“The whole way. With luck. The steam engine is not without its problems. But our engineers say she’s ready. The House has issued its blessing. We set sail in two days, finder-steamboat and barges and gunpowder and all.”

I finished my brandy in one quick gulp. It burned all the way down.

“You’re serious.”

“Dead serious. Pardon the pun. We have a navy, finder. Hurrah for Encorla’s Irregulars. We fight on land and sea.” He lifted his glass. Gertriss did the same, and they clinked together, and vampire and partner drained their glasses.

“And this steamboat of yours can do ten knots, day and night. That’ll put it at the bluffs in, say, two days.”

“Less. But say two.”

“Hauling enough gunpowder to level a few thousand tons of solid rock.”

“We’ll be towing that on a barge well behind us, but yes.”

“Just how big is this thing, Evis?”

“Huge,” said Gertriss.

“She’s a two hundred and ten feet from bow to stern. Forty-two feet wide. Her draft is only six feet, under a full load. We’ll be seeing four. She’s down at the docks now, getting prepped. The paddle-wheel is under wraps, but it won’t be a secret much longer.”

“No sails.”

“None at all.”

“Did you think to add a couple of cannon?”

Evis froze, face blank.

“Angels and devils, finder. No. No, we didn’t. But we will. We will.”

Buttercup squealed. She was rolling her ball across the floor, where it trailed a twisting nimbus of light.

It reached an empty spot on the floor, and then it stopped, wobbled around for a bit, and rolled back to the little banshee-on its own.

I held out my tumbler for a refill. Gertriss obliged, filling her own glass as well, and chuckling at some secret joke with Evis.

I stayed for quite a while, drinking and smoking and plotting. I laid out my day with Fields, my plan to loosen Lethway’s clenched jaw, my hope that Mama would put a stop to any further hexed visitors before one of them put a stop to me.

All the while, I watched Buttercup play a spirited game of roll the glowing magic ball with a playmate who wasn’t there while Gertriss made googly eyes at Evis and he taught her how to blow a passable smoke ring.

Some days are just strange that way.

I didn’t see the steamboat, that night. Evis offered to take me, but a couple of glasses of his aged brandy left the weight of my day dragging me quickly toward sleep.

He did convince me to spend the night under Avalante’s roof. I didn’t relish the thought of a strange bed, but for all I knew half a dozen irate Sprangs or a pair of Lethway’s bully boys were waiting by my door. I couldn’t have fought off an assault of determined laying hens, and I knew it, so in the end I allowed myself to be domiciled in a guest room slightly smaller than a city block.

They even had a fancy bath with hot and cold running water. I managed to clean myself without being scalded or drowned, and after that I slept the sleep of the truly weary.

Being surrounded on all sides by vampires troubled me not at all.

Morning in Avalante feels like midnight. The halfdead are bleary-eyed and grumpy, disheveled and weary in their tailored clothes. Even taciturn Jerle was jovial by comparison.

I shared a sparse breakfast with the day folk cleaning staff. Their talk was of the trouble heading Rannit’s way, and was mostly filled with wild speculation concerning the Regency’s plans to defend the city and whether or not they would accept Avalante’s offer to take in the human staff and their families, should war reach Rannit’s gates. Most were only too eager to seek refuge beneath Avalante’s walls. A few planned to ride it out close to the Brown and flee by boat, barge and bathtub should the Regent fail to win the day.

Afterward, I went to see Gertriss and knocked, but after a long while she threw a pillow at her door and told me in rather harsh terms to go away. I heard Buttercup giggle once, but she never did more than that.

Evis was long abed. I stopped by my borrowed room and sat on the feather bed and plotted out the day. I’d need to find Pratt, and set a time and a place to corner Lethway. I needed to swing back by my office and see if it was surrounded by hillbilly thugs. And I hoped I could pay Master Sergeant Burris another visit-I might not have Darla’s keen eye for accounting fraud, but I could certainly take her a fresh box of old records to inspect, if the Sergeant could be persuaded to let his precious files leave the Barracks.

I hauled myself off the feather bed and headed out, availing myself once more of a sleek Avalante carriage. I bade the driver to swing by the docks before we crossed the bridge. I wasn’t sure, but I guessed that Evis’s steamboat was being made ready on the Hill side of the River.

I was right. Finding such an odd craft wasn’t hard, and my carriage was waved on past a makeshift barricade after a scowling dockmaster checked my name against his list.

I can always count on Evis to pay attention to details.

I left the carriage right by one of the three wide gangplanks that spanned the sluggish waters of the Brown and led onto the deck of the steamboat herself.

Being a landlocked Rannite, my familiarity with watercraft is mostly limited to barges and fishing tubs. I’d probably know what a mast was, if I saw one. And I could likely pick out a mainsail from a bed sheet three times out of five.

So when I say Evis’s steamboat looked more like a wedding cake than a ship, please take that statement as the opinion of one wholly unfamiliar with either subject.

But there you have it. Her hull was simply a shallow, flat oblong with a slight bow at the front and an enormous cylinder lined with long rectangular paddles at the rear. Sprouting up from this shallow hull was two stories of white gingerbread festooned with windows and doors. A balcony ran the circumference of the upper decks. Chairs and benches were scattered about it, behind an ornate iron rail.

Amidships, two enormous white cylinders rose above it all. I recognized them from Evis’s description as the smokestacks through which the exhaust of the steam engine was routed. Someone had painted a face on the front of the forward smokestack. It had angry eyes and an open toothy mouth.

The whole craft smelled of wet paint and fresh-sawn pine. A gang of men swarmed over her, furiously painting decks and bulkheads and her other assorted nautical bits with thick white paint. The painting crew exchanged shouts and curses with an equally frantic crew of mechanics with urgent business wherever the painters were working. Through it all lumbered ogres with armloads of split wood, which they hauled into the depths of the steamboat.

Neither painters nor mechanics raised their voices at the ogres.

I decided to keep my landlubber boots firmly on the docks. I did walk the length of the craft, paying special attention to the odd contrivance at the rear. The tarp Evis had mentioned was nowhere in sight. I could see how the paddlewheel might propel the boat forward. What I couldn’t discern was how such a heavy assembly was going to turn at all.

Men shouted. Smoke puffed from the smokestacks. The puffing became a billowing, and from deep within the vessel, a deep thump-thump-thump began to sound.

With a screech and a groan, the paddlewheel turned. The first revolution was slow, so slow I was sure Evis’s mighty boat was destined to remain moored at that dock forever.

But the next turn was faster. The paddles bit into the water with great wet slaps. Spray flew.

The steamboat began to pull against her moorings.

The next turn, and the next, were faster still. The spray of water became a furious downpour. The thumping of the engines became a roar.

The dock began to tilt and groan.

A mighty blast issued from the smokestack, a whistle made loud as thunder. Mechanics and painters alike cheered and waved their tools.

Then the turning of the paddlewheel slowed, the dock settled level and the troubled waters began to calm.

“I’ll be damned.”

An ogre turned and looked at me.

That was the first time I’ve seen an ogre wide-eyed.

“It’s called a steamboat,” I said to him. “Burns wood to make steam. Nothing to it.”

The ogre rushed away.

I stayed a few more moments. Long enough to watch two men paint her name across the bow. Evis hadn’t mentioned a name.

The Regency. Nice touch of political flattery. Suddenly the angry face on the smokestack made perfect sense.

I clambered back in my carriage and headed for my side of the Brown, while a small army of painters and mechanics and oddly subdued ogres made the Regencyready for war.

Much to my relief, the only stranger idling by my door was one of Mama’s street kids, a hard-eyed ten-year-old named Flowers.

He rose and stretched while I bade the driver to wait.

“Got something for you, mister.” He proffered a grubby envelope, along with his empty palm. “Mama said you’d pay two coppers.”

“Mama said nothing of the sort. She’s already paid you or you wouldn’t be doing this.”

“Awww. C’mon, mister. One copper?”

I fished in my pocket. “Done. Now hand it over.”

Copper and envelope changed places. The envelope bore Mama’s familiar scrawl, and I wondered how the devil she’d managed to get a letter back to Rannit so quickly.

I’d have asked Flowers, but he was away, heels and elbows pumping.

I stuck the letter in my jacket pocket and unlocked my door. I stepped aside as I opened it, just in case clever persons inside sent crossbow bolts whizzing toward the sudden sunlight.

They did not. Three-leg yawned atop my desk. The layer of flour I’d left just inside the door was undisturbed.

I closed my door quickly behind me, shook some food out in Three-leg’s pan and then settled into my chair to read.

Boy,began Mama’s letter. I reckon you’re all done being mad. I hope so. What I done is what I had to do, and ain’t nobody can do it but me, so I left. Tell your vampire friend Evis that fancy house of his ain’t locked half as tight as they thinks.

I’m back home. I’ve set a fire in my fireplace and my cook-stove. The Plegg House is lit and lived in, and I tell you, boy, that shook folks up a might, and then some. There was some that thought the Hog name was done hereabouts. There ain’t so many of them now.

I ain’t been here long, boy, but I’ve learnt a few things. First off, that Sprang boy what the ogre threw is going to live. He ain’t right in the head and he’s got a limp, but I reckon he wasn’t right to begin with so that ain’t much of a loss. There was a couple of other dunces that lit out of here swearin’ they was gonna get some vengeance on you and my niece. They ain’t been heard from again. Not that anybody is particular worried. They wasn’t held in much regard, save for being drunks and pig thieves. I reckon it’s a mite easier to hex the weak-minded into charging off to Rannit on some fool’s errand.

Next, this here hex-caster I’ve been hearin’ about-oh yes boy, I barely had them fires lit ’til I had people come scratchin’ around-he ain’t no local. I ain’t got a name yet, and I ain’t got no idea where he lives. But that don’t matter, cause I ain’t going to see him. No, I reckon he’ll be coming around to see me directly. And that there, boy, is going to be his un-doing. I aims to end this, and end this permanent.

Boy, them not being a local puts a new light on this mess. Now, there’s all kinds of magic, whether you believes in it or not. And this don’t smell nor look like the kind of magic we favors hereabouts. It does raise a stink like that kind of wand-waving Army types used during the War. I reckon we might be dealing with one of them, a small-timer, probably got hisself kicked out of Rannit or Prince or somewheres and came to Pot Lockney to earn a little money by taking on curse-works for the country folks.

If’n they was a wand-waver in the Army, they might still be using them same kind of spells and what-not. Watch out for them things. I reckon you know what to look out for.

Now, I aims to send letters once a day. If Mr. Pitcher’s pigeons fly straight and true to Granny Knot, you’ll be a getting them soon after. Don’t you be charging out here if I miss a day or two, Mr. Pitcher ain’t got but three of these extra-smart pigeons and I ain’t the only one sending letters to Rannit. I told him I takes priority but he’s a young man and he ain’t learned proper respect for the Hog name just yet. I reckon he will soon enough as I may have let a tiny little hex slip yesterday when he got all uppity about telling me his birds was first come, first served. See how he likes spending the night in his outhouse, we will!

I will write again on the morrow. Keep that niece of mine and that other one out of trouble.

She’d signed it simply ‘Mrs. Hog.’

I put the letter in a drawer. Three-leg licked his stump. Traffic rushed by outside, no more and no less hurried than usual.

Pratt, I decided. I’d go find Pratt first. Getting Lethway talking was the surest way forward, and it might be the only chance Carris Lethway had of getting home alive. I wanted to check on Tamar, too, but I didn’t want to put unnecessary strain on my newfound relationship with her father. If he’d had a chance to think about what he’d handed me yesterday, I didn’t want to know about it.

I rose and patted Three-leg’s ugly head, and I got a swipe of his claws across the back of my hand for my trouble.

“Good morning to you too,” I said as I left. He just glared and kept licking.

I reflected, as I rode, that I was getting far too familiar with Avalante’s largess with carriages. But I pushed such thoughts aside, and concentrated on how to lay my plan out to Pratt.

All I needed was a quarter of an hour in a place unsuitable for murder. Somewhere public. Somewhere that a few raised voices would go unnoticed. Somewhere that would throw Lethway off balance, someplace that would cause him to pause as soon as he realized who I was, what I knew.

I had a few such places in mind, but getting Lethway inside them would require a bit of kidnapping on my part, and that wasn’t anything I cared to do. So I needed Pratt, who knew Lethway’s habits and haunts intimately, to suggest something more suitable.

Of course, that would also leave me open to a double-cross on Pratt’s part, but if I failed to see that coming I deserved whatever I got.

Finding Pratt turned out to be easy. I asked my driver to roll by the Lethway offices without stopping, just to see who might be milling about. And, praise whatever Angel handles wild strokes of good luck, there was Pratt out front, hands in his pockets, talking with three other suited musclemen right by the bench we’d shared. I didn’t dare stop or wave, and I didn’t think he’d seen me. But when I signaled the driver to turn around, there was Pratt, neither huffing nor puffing, tapping at my door.

I flung it open. He was inside before the carriage even slowed. Away we went, just another black carriage rolling down a busy street.

“I’ve got something,” said Pratt.

“Letter from the kidnappers?” I kept my voice low. I trusted the driver but Pratt had no reason to do so.

He nodded and produced an envelope. I gathered from the size of it there was more than one page.

I took it, but didn’t open it. “Lethway seen this?”

“Not yet. Since it’s opened, he won’t ever see it. I’m taking a huge chance here, finder. Tell me it was worth it.”

“Oh yes. Because, Mr. Pratt, I’ve got something too. Something that’s going to get Lethway talking, whether he likes it or not.”

Pratt raised an eyebrow. “They sent his son’s severed ear, and he didn’t blink. What have you got?”

“Ruin. Poverty. Maybe even the gallows. Your boss did bad things during the War, Mr. Pratt. I’ve got the proof. Now all we’ve got to do is use it.”

“You sure about this?”

“I’m sure. It’s what he’s most afraid of. All I need is a quarter of an hour with him, Mr. Pratt. A quarter of an hour, someplace he can’t murder me outright. You know his habits. Tell me when and where.”

Pratt pondered this.

“You don’t have to be involved,” I said. “I know he’s still your boss. We can keep you out of it.”

He made a derisive snort. “I’ve had enough of Colonel Lethway,” he said. “It’s time I sought employment elsewhere.”

“Careful with that. He might take offense. You know things Lethway doesn’t want known.”

“I’m going to take his wife when I go,” he replied. “So I’m not overly concerned with Colonel Lethway’s delicate sensibilities. Let him try something. But you know what, finder? I don’t think he’ll bother.”