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Back Cardinal Black Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Title Page
  2. One: Into the Storm
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Two: London Calling
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Three: The Malignant Seven
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Four: Squirrels and Cats
  29. Twenty-Four
  30. Twenty-Five
  31. Twenty-Six
  32. Twenty-Seven
  33. Twenty-Eight
  34. Twenty-Nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Five: Revelation
  39. Thirty-Three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. About the Author

“We’ll get in and out,” Julian said with his eyes closed. “We’ll find the book. Tonight. In and out. We’ll take that book and then we’ll find a chemist. Kidnap him, if we have to. We will.

Tonight … we will.”

Julian was already drifting off. Matthew picked up the lantern and returned to the bedroom where he lay down on the beautiful bed with two dead men in the closet ten feet away and a tormented killer sleeping in the next room. He closed his eyes, but found that sometimes bedtime stories do not deliver peace.

Tonight. In and out. Find the book.

In and out.

Tonight.

Fifteen

Fifteen

This was the plan agreed upon by the gentlemen in the first floor’s Grand Suite: pack weapons, hire a hack in front of the inn, proceed to the destination, instruct the driver to go ahead just past the last estate on Endsleigh Park Road and wait for two hours, the payment supplied for his patience to be substantial. Then past the guard at the gate with the invitation, and in that house somehow find that book. If indeed it was there. If indeed this was the right house, which they were not absolutely sure of. Getting out of the house with the book was another kettle of fish, and they both agreed they might wind up fried before they could get to the hack.

Darkness had fallen, though the day had been so dark the disappearance of the meager sun hardly mattered. As Matthew readied himself in the white facial powder, wig and garb of Baron Brux—the same outlandish outfit he’d worn yesterday—he felt the immense pressure of the task ahead crushing down on him. It was truly a do or die situation; without that book, all was lost. So the plan might not be much, and certainly not to the standards that the Herrald Agency might have demanded, but it was all they had.

During the morning hours Matthew had considered trying to contact Gardner Lillehorne for help, perhaps getting a ring of constables around the house or even—in desperation—raiding the place, but he’d dismissed the idea as unworkable. For one thing, time was of the essence and Lillehorne could not be counted on for speed in this matter. For the second thing, Matthew knew Lillehorne and certainly his superiors would wish to know why the book was so valuable, and he doubted that the legal arm of London would sit back and let it be returned to Danton Idris Fell, no matter whose sanity was at risk.

And contacting the London office of the Herrald Agency? Again, unworkable in the frame of time they had. Matthew would still be explaining the situation at seven-thirty tonight.