Once ashore, Toke woke the high constable, who recognized Pertellis’s name. The young lawyer had been arrested twice on suspicion of sedition, but acquitted for lack of evidence. His address was included in the records of the trials.

An hour later, accompanied by his three Stationers and two petty constables, Toke stood before the door to Pertellis’s house and knew instantly that he was too late.

The locks of front door, back door, closet, and writing desk had been picked without leaving so much as a scratch. The housekeeper was found, trussed and gagged, in the metal bath, her muslin cap pulled down over her face. Pertellis was gone. The whole thing had been managed without waking the neighbors, or even the dog that slept in the hallway.

In the pantry Toke found several hollowed bread loaves, with a different forbidden book hidden in each one. The Stationers now had evidence against Pertellis, but no Pertellis.

Mabwick Toke knew a Locksmith break-in when he saw one. But why had they taken Hopewood Pertellis? If Toke was correct, the Locksmiths themselves were responsible for printing the pamphlets vilifying the Duke. But if the Duke believed that radicals were running the secret printing press—perhaps the Locksmiths meant to present Pertellis to the Duke in chains as the radicals’ leader, and so win his trust and gratitude. Or could it be that the Locksmiths themselves had been using Pertellis as a cat’s-paw to run the printing press, and were afraid that he might talk if the Stationers caught him?

“In any case,” Toke muttered to himself, “if the Locksmiths think him worth grabbing, he must be important. And I shall snatch him back, Mr. Goshawk, just you see if I don’t. I’ve never sought a war with you, but I won’t flinch from one either. I fought the Birdcatchers when they held the country in the palm of their hand, and if they couldn’t frighten me, Aramai Goshawk, then you shan’t.”

He looked around at the pale, sleep-starved countenances of the other Stationers.

“Gape any wider, and you will yawn your faces inside out. All of you, go into the streets and shout out for a linkboy. Bring back as many as you can find!”

Within a short time there were half a dozen linkboys in Pertellis’s front hall. Surveying their sly and spotted faces, Toke thought it no wonder that they should welcome the veil of darkness in their nightly work.

Using a little sharp questioning and careful bribery, he soon learned that the youngest linkboy had seen five gentlemen “helping a friend home.” The boy had offered his lantern, but had been told to “sling his hook.”

“Followed ’em as far as the Drimps in case they changed their mind,” the boy added, then gave a gap-toothed grin as Toke put a coin in his hand.