“Mr. Gregor here is willing to swear out an arrest warrant for the theft of some notes you took from his home in Jamaica. So you see, you are very much in my power.”

“Would you do what he threatens, Mr. Gregor?”

Elias was nervous, but he appeared to be enjoying himself. There was something of the dramatic in this performance, and he could not help but indulge. “I think you know quite well what I am willing to do,” he said.

I did know, for he had already done it. He had convinced Dogmill of the urgency of the danger against Grace. I had wanted the matter resolved at once, and Elias had strolled into Dogmill’s house to make certain this would happen.

“You see, you have no options,” Dogmill said. “You must do what I tell you, or you will be destroyed.”

“Well,” I said, “as that is the case, we may yet work for ourselves a compromise. I am willing to forgo any demands of wealth, given the dire nature of my situation. What say you to exchanging your sister for some mere information. Does that trouble you so much?”

He blinked a few times as he attempted to make sense of my proposal. “What information?” he demanded.

“Information regarding Walter Yate,” I said.

Here Greenbill turned flush and something I could not quite identify flashed across Dogmill’s face. “What should I know of it?”

I shrugged. “Something, I hope, if you wish to see your sister again.”

“Why is this important to you?” he demanded.

“Idle curiosity,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “If you tell me why you had him killed, and a few other details, I shall free your sister. It is as simple as that.”

“I had him killed?” Dogmill repeated. “You must be mad.”

“Perhaps I must.” I finished my wine and set down the goblet. “I shall be off, then. You may leave a note here in the next forty-eight hours if you should happen to change your mind. If not, you can depend upon never seeing Miss Dogmill again.” With that I rose to my feet and began toward the door.

Greenbill now walked over to block my way.

“I shall not let you leave,” Dogmill said to me. “I cannot endure that my sister is in your hands, and you shan’t leave here without telling me where she is. You may speak of all the forty-eight hours you like, but one way or another, sir, this will end tonight.”

I smiled at him, a pitying sort of smile. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that I work alone. Mr. Gregor can attest to my cleverness, I believe.”

“He is remarkable clever,” Elias said. “You had better hear him out.”

Dogmill glared at him but turned back to me. He bit his lip while he attempted to think of what he could say to make me remain in this room on his terms rather than mine, but in the end he came up with nothing. Thus far, my plan continued to work.

“Speak your wretched proposal,” he said at last, “and hope it saves your life.”

“Very generous. Now, you must know that if I do not return to my set meeting place at a given time, my associates have instructions to move Miss Dogmill to a location they have not told me of. If they do not hear from me in one day, they are to remove Miss Dogmill from the miseries of this world. You may, therefore, threaten to torment me until I reveal what you want to know, but I believe myself strong enough to last until the first time of crisis that I mentioned, and once that time has passed, you will never be able to find your sister again unless I am at liberty and wish for you to find her. So I tell you, sir, get your dog from my path. Either treat me like a man now or be resolved to do so another day, but I shan’t endure this bullying.”

Greenbill stared at me, and Dogmill at Hertcomb. Hertcomb stared at his shoes.

Finally, Dogmill let out a sigh. “Damn you, you rogue. I shall tell you what you want, but you must know that it can do you no good. If you wish to use this information against me, it will be worth nothing, for the testimony of a single witness has no weight in court, and the testimony of a man such as you is worth less than nothing.”

“Perhaps,” I said, resuming my seat, “but that is my concern and none of yours. I only wish to hear what you have to say for yourself in the matter regarding Walter Yate. You have my word that if you speak to me openly and honestly, you will see your sister’s safe return this night.”

At long last, Dogmill took a seat at the table, and Hertcomb sheepishly joined him. Greenbill, for his part, remained at the door, looking very much like a goose awaiting the season of the Christian nativity.

“You had Walter Yate murdered by your friend Billy, here,” I began. “Is that not so?”

Dogmill smiled thinly. “Wherever did you get such an idea?”

I returned the smile. “From Billy. A few nights past, I knocked him down, affected an Irish accent, and asked him a question or two. He was most accommodating.”

“I don’t care what this blackguard says,” Hertcomb interjected. “You may depend that gentlemen do not engage in murder and deception. That is the province of the likes of you.”

“If you are so troubled, Hertcomb, I will tell you that I am sorry I wounded your tender heart,” I said, “but your heart has nothing to do with this. Gentlemen are much more brutish creatures than you would allow.”

Dogmill, for his part, was glaring at Greenbill. I could see what happened inside his churning Whig mind. Why had Greenbill not confessed this mysterious nocturnal interrogation? That he had not done so had put Dogmill at risk, and I could not but doubt that he would, in exchange, provide Billy with very little shelter.

“I don’t know what this rough told you, but you may depend that he had very little to do with Yate’s demise. It is true that he had been causing difficulties for me, but I only asked that Billy silence him. I never specified how that might happen.”

“Surely you must have known that murder might be one method used.”

“I never thought about it. I neither knew nor cared, and frankly I still don’t. I cannot say why you do.”

“I have my reasons, I promise you. Do you mean to tell me that Billy never once spoke of his dealings to you?”

“We spoke of it. What is it to you? Do you think to confuse the world with these tales that no one will believe? Do you think that if you cannot extort me into paying for my sister’s safety you can do so in order to protect me from scandal? You know me not at all if you think that.”

“I know you as well as I care to,” I said. “I only want now to know your motivations. Why did you have Yate killed?”

“I asked Greenbill to remove Yate from my sight,” he corrected, “because the fellow was a nuisance and a troublemaker. He and his labor combination with its communist notions was too great a danger to my business.”

“Come, now. Was there not some matter of Yate’s knowing of the existence of a Jacobite spy among the Whigs?”

For once, I believe I had truly unbalanced Dogmill. “Where did you hear that?”

“Your problem, Dogmill, is that you have no regard for laboring men. You think them no more than beasts to be driven and tormented and consumed. But unlike beasts, these men have the gift of speech, and they talk freely. By listening to them one can learn a great deal.”

“Perhaps it is so, but I shan’t listen to leveling cant from an abductor of women.”

“I prefer to think of myself as a redistributor of wealth,” I said, thoroughly enjoying this role I had adopted. “But you have evaded the question. Did you believe that Yate knew of a Jacobite spy?”

“He came to me and told me that he knew of one, and he wanted money from me in exchange for revealing the name. In other words, he was but a vile extorter, much like yourself.”

“And did you come to terms with Mr. Yate?”

“Of course not. I do not deal with men who resort to extortion.”

“No? Not even when they are your own men? Did you not have Mr. Greenbill here send threatening notes to a priest named Ufford?”