To Distraction (Bastion Club 5)

Gervase knocked on the study door, then opened it and walked in.

Seated in the chair before the wide desk, Dalziel turned to look at him. Tristan stood to one side, close to the wall, arms folded; Christian stood in a similar position on the other side of the desk, at ease yet focused.

Lowther sat rigidly upright behind the desk, trying to hide incipient panic behind a belligerent scowl.

Closing the door, Gervase walked forward and answered the others’ unvoiced question. “We found her. She’s with Deverell.” Halting behind the chair Dalziel occupied, Gervase held Lowther’s gaze. “The room she was in was concealed.”

“Is that so?” Dalziel’s brows rose as he turned his dark gaze back on Lowther. “How very unwise.”

Lowther had paled. He tried for blustering anger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’re insinuating—”

“The time for insinuations is past.” Dalziel’s voice, although not raised, left no doubt that he, and not Lowther, was in charge of the interview. “Perhaps I should tell you what we already know.”

Calmly, succinctly, he outlined their case against Lowther, citing the evidence tying him to the kidnappings of eight separate women. Christian, Tristan, and Gervase stood not exactly unobtrusively around the room, their gazes resting on Lowther, their condemnation explicit in their cold silence. Lowther glanced at them, read judgment in their eyes; his gaze drifted back to Dalziel.

He swallowed.

There was no hope; he saw that. His face—he—seemed to age before their eyes.

Reaching the end of his recitation, Dalziel asked, “Who was your contact among the white slavers?”

Lowther blinked, twice, then with peevish arrogance stated, “I don’t know—I don’t consort with such people.”

“A nice distinction—you simply take their money. So how was the information relayed from you to the gang who organized the abductions, and how were the resultant payments delivered to you?”

Lowther hesitated. After a moment, he said, “My ward—Malcolm Sinclair.”

A curious stillness descended on Dalziel. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, lighter—and wholly frightening. “Your ward. Correct me if I’m wrong—Sinclair’s been your ward from the time he was a child.”

Curtly, Lowther nodded.

“And you’ve involved him in this business? Or did he involve himself?”

Lowther snorted. “Malcolm’s nothing but a pawn. He does what I tell him. Under my direction, he made the contacts and acted as courier, ferrying information and money back and forth.”

“And that’s the full extent of his involvement?”

Lowther compressed his lips, then conceded, “He has friends from his Eton and Oxford days—I encouraged him to cultivate them. They proved excellent sources of information about pretty maids and the like—the usual young men’s gossip. Malcolm would bring the information to me and I would decide what was useful, what not.”

“So Sinclair’s role was entirely of your making?”

Lowther’s lip curled. “Malcolm’s weak—he lacks backbone. He’s bright enough but totally indecisive, inclined to be overcautious to the point of doing nothing. He might think of schemes, but he would never actually do anything about them.”

After a moment’s silence, Dalziel murmured, “A pity, perhaps, that you didn’t follow his lead.”

A deep coldness threaded through his voice, one that chilled to the marrow. Already pasty-faced, Lowther blanched even more.

The silence stretched; none of them moved.

Lowther, increasingly ashen, sat frozen, immobilized as the full weight of all that had been said—and not said—sank into his brain. Eventually he blinked, and the belligerent but brittle defiance that had held him upright until that moment started to fade.

Dalziel glanced at the others. “Perhaps you would give me a few minutes with his lordship. I’ll join you in the drawing room.”

All three recognized an order when they heard one, especially one delivered in that quiet, deadly, almost disembodied voice. They exchanged glances as they went to the door. Each cast one last glance at Lowther—sitting behind his desk, his pallor ghastly, his eyes fixed straight ahead, the wall behind him sporting six fabulous examples of his obsession, the obsession he’d sold women into slavery to satisfy—then they quietly quit the room and closed the door, and left Lowther staring at his fate.

For long moments, a clock ticking was the only sound to break the silence.

Then Dalziel spoke, his tone colder, icier than the grave. “Well, my lord?”