“Stand back!” Matthew told him, and again gave the door a kick. The thing splintered but would not yet yield. He heard upraised voices below and the sound of someone coming fast up the stairs.

“Help me!” Firebaugh shouted, regaining his senses if not his courage to flee. “A man with a gun is up here!”

The moment swayed on the edge of disaster. Matthew kicked at the door again as hard as he could, his kneecap be damned. The door burst open on one hinge. At the same time, Firebaugh tried to run. Matthew scrambled after him, grabbed him by the back of his nightgown and put the gun to his head.

The man climbing the stairs—one of the Owl’s crew who had escorted Matthew in to see Cardinal Black—had reached the second floor and also gripped a pistol. His steely gaze registered the gun at Firebaugh’s head and said, “Let him—” but go would never be spoken, for a heavy blue flower vase went flying past Matthew’s left shoulder and made a direct hit to the man’s face, toppling him back down the way he’d come.

“I’ve got this,” said Julian, who put one hand on the four-barrelled bastard of destruction and the other on the back of the red-bearded bastard’s neck. Matthew stepped aside. A glance at Julian showed the guards had enjoyed some exercise at the bad man’s expense, for Julian’s left eye was bruised dark and dried blood crusted his swollen lower lip. Though the garish yellow jacket had been taken off him, he was still wearing his Count Pellegar clown costume of gray breeches with red stripes up the legs, gray stockings, a lavender-hued blouse—now speckled with bloodstains—and the python-skin boots. He held the pistol against the back of Firebaugh’s head so hard it made the doctor’s eyes bulge.

“Hear me!” he called around the corner to those downstairs. “If we’re not allowed free passage out of here, we’ll find out if the good doctor is well-named or not!”

Lazarus, Matthew thought. Able to rise from the dead, is what Julian meant.

“He won’t be of use to any of you with his brains blown out!” Julian continued. “Are you listening?”

“Listening.” It was Lash’s voice. “‘We’? Who is—oh my Lord! Is Corbett up there with you? I thought you’d broken out on your own, but … Corbett, are you there?”

“Present,” Matthew answered.

“Well, I am impressed! Come down and let’s talk. You can tell me how you got back into my house, and perhaps we—”

“Perhaps my ass,” Julian interrupted. “We’re going out. One move I don’t like and Firebaugh is a useless bag of bones.” To Matthew, in a quieter voice, “Stand behind me.”