“Yes, of course they were! I was about to say, they fought as animals do, though Scar’s hands were tied behind him. And this executioner … well, he was viciously strong, and had been known to use his hook on unsuspecting victims late at night as they staggered drunk with rum from their taverns, though such could never be proven. That is to say, the executioner’s soul was far from being lily-white.”

“Quite far!” said the lady.

“Indeed,” Julian replied. “As I was relating, Scar fought for his life. Kicking at his tormentor, you see, with his hands bound behind him. And just as the executioner was about to slash his hook across Scar’s throat … I shot him in the back of the head with this very pistol you see before you.”

No one spoke, at first, as the coach creaked and squeaked, the wheels made a low thunder and the horses’ hooves thudded on the earth, and then Lord Turlentort let go the breath he’d been holding.

“Zounds!” he said, so quietly it seemed he feared the wrath of a dead executioner.

The lady cleared her throat, fanned herself with a gloved hand, shifted her position on the seat and cleared her throat a second time. “Let me ask … a simple question, really … but out of curiosity … young man, did the four you murdered … how shall I put this? … did they in any way deserve such an end?”

“No doubt!” said Julian. “They were a ring of black-hearted villains brutalizing orphans.”

Matthew lowered his head a fraction and stared down at the floorboards. Julian had no way of knowing that the pursuit of such a black-hearted villain who actually did brutalize orphans had brought him to New York from the Carolina colony in 1699, and had led to his recruitment into the Herrald Agency and in essence a new life and calling.

“I don’t approve of taking justice into one’s own hands,” said the lord. “Yet … I imagine this ring of villains might have been operating beneath the attention of the law?”

“Absolutely so,” said Matthew, who spoke the truth. “I had no choice but to try to trap him myself. I mean … trap them.”

Julian was looking at him oddly, as if this tale had taken wings and flown away from him. He righted himself in an instant. “But, alas, simple trapping did not do the job nor save a single orphan. So … I won’t go into the bloody details, but suffice to say the villains went to their rewards and Scar here was seized and a rope put about his neck.”

“Hm,” Lord Turlentort said after a moment’s consideration, “the executioner might have been part of the ring. Do you think?”

“I have often thought as much,” Julian answered. “You know … lord and lady … that if one is a villain, sometimes it is because villainy is the only open avenue when all others have closed. Then—by chance—one must wear his villain’s cloak with a measure of pride, to best fight the darkest of evils. Thus Fate steps in and directs the course. What you see before you … myself and Scar … well, we are here to tell that tale.”