They sat in silence for a moment, disquiet thrumming in the air.
“Did you discover anything about the attacks?” Damian said. Talking was the only way to dispel all anxious thoughts.
“I’ve got a friend, Maguire, who runs the dog fights at the Westminster Pit. He knows the Turner brothers who work out of The Compass Inn on Rosemary Lane. After exchanging a few vowels as payment, Turner told me a nabob hired a once Bow Street Runner turned enquiry agent who’s as bent as a shepherd’s crook.”
“Hired the runner to frighten Scarlett?” Damian would have the name of this turncoat and put an end to the
matter tonight.
“Hired the runner to get rid of her for good.”
Damian jerked his head back. Panic choked his throat. “Then why the bloody hell did you not send word to me at Bruton Street?”
“Don’t be galloping away with yourself.” Flannery held up his hands in mock surrender. “Yer man dived into the Thames and never came out.”
Damian wasn’t sure whether to gasp or sigh. “While I am grateful the blackguard is dead, did you not think to discover the name of his employer before throwing him into the water?”
“Oh, I didn’t throw yer man from the bridge, though my fingers itched to send him hurling. The fool jumped.” Flannery pursed his lips and shook his head. “If the lass had come to me sooner, I could have saved her weeks of heartache, so I could.”
Yes, but Damian would still be wallowing in ignorance, wondering what had happened to his angel.
“Perhaps Scarlett’s silence was a ploy to keep your neck from the hangman’s noose.”
Flannery threw his hands in the air. “I’m telling you, let the Lord strike me dead, yer man jumped. But we found his room in Bermondsey, found this letter.” The Irishman reached into the top drawer, withdrew the folded paper and pushed it across the desk. “Serves as proof, so it does.”
Damian peeled back the folds and examined the neat penmanship. The instructions were clear. The runner must make another attempt to snatch Scarlett from her bed. To take her to a warehouse on the riverbank in Shoreditch and dispose of her there. Five hundred pounds was the fee for accomplishing the task.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had time to discover who owns this warehouse off Tooly Street?” Damian scanned the missive again, looking for evidence as to the identity of the sender. There was something distinctively feminine about the sweeping curls. “And in your efforts to follow Joshua Steele, did you not consider his sister the more likely suspect?”
Flannery rubbed his bald head. “A Mr Johnson leased the warehouse, paid in advance and left no address. And the lass is too free with her tongue to be a threat.”
Everyone knew of Miss Steele’s disdain for the widow. So much so, she would be the prime suspect in any murder case. But would that be her alibi? Was that part of the chit’s plan?
Damian refolded the paper and pushed it back across the desk. “Might we speak openly about your friendship with Jack Jewell?” A niggling suspicion told him that the past held the clue to the mystery. “He must have trusted you a great deal.”
Flannery’s green eyes flashed with uncertainty.
“We want the same thing,” Damian continued. “We want to bring an end to Scarlett’s nightmare.”
A resigned sigh breezed from the Irishman’s lips. “Jack’s sister was my— We were— Well, I was married, but my wife remained in Kilkenny.”
“And Jack embraced you as a brother instead of beating you for disrespecting his sister?”
“Oh, it wasn’t pretty. I can tell you that. But we settled our differences in the end. Scarlett was away in Canterbury, and Bernadette was Jack’s only kin.”
“Canterbury? One of the many seminaries hired to keep Scarlett far from home?” Damian’s tone brimmed with contempt.
Flannery nodded. “Bernadette, she didn’t agree with sending the poor lass away. But Jack wouldn’t have her in London.”
Damian’s heart ached for the lonely girl shunned by her father. The marquis was not alone when it came to fathers who lacked compassion.
“Did Jack ever say why?”
“Oh, he loved Scarlett, so he did, called her a gift from heaven and made me swear to protect her until my dying day. But Jack didn’t talk about anything other than money.”
It made little sense.
Why would a man who loved his daughter send her away for the best part of ten years?