There was no point checking Southwark; Gemma wouldn’t have gone where her family lived. Beyond that, he knew the Kincaids had connected him to her. Going to their safehold would simply invite trouble.

He smells blood, Doc. He has to be stopped.

He’d made quiet inquiries all around Finsbury. The Dreadfuls had done the same in every corner of London where they knew people.

He smells blood.

The search felt futile, but he couldn’t give it up. He wouldn’t.

Where could she possibly be?

His feet had taken him far afield when he spotted Fletcher and Brogan walking together. He called out to them, then hurried to join them.

“Any luck?” Fletcher asked.

Barnabus shook his head. “None. Not even a hint of her.”

“She’s powerful good at hiding,” Brogan said. “Kept herself tucked away for years after you were married. I suspect that’s what’s happening now.”

Barnabus had repeatedly told himself that very thing. She wasn’t being held captive by her family. She hadn’t been killed by them or the Mastiff. She was simply hiding.

“None of the Dreadfuls have reported anything?” Barnabus asked.

Fletcher shook his head.

Where are you, Gemma?

A commotion nearby pulled all their attention.

“That’s Lord Chelmsford’s home,” Brogan said.

“Maybe we oughta have a quick gab with Martin,” Fletcher said, motioning them both toward the servants’ entrance at the back, where chaos and shouts were spilling from the house.

A maid was screaming, tears streaming down her face. An older man—the butler, Barnabus guessed—was barking out orders, his ruddy cheeks a sharp contrast to his pale countenance.

Fletcher never had been one to wait around for people to talk with him at their convenience. He pulled aside one of the maids and spoke firmly but gently. “What’s happened?”

“Claud stabbed him. Took a knife from the kitchen and just stabbed ’im.”

“Who’s Claud?” Fletcher asked.

“Footman here,” the maid said. “Weren’t no reason. No argument between ’em. Just stabbed him.”

Merciful heavens.

“I’m a doctor,” Barnabus said. “Take me to the injured man.”

The maid rushed back inside. Barnabus struggled to keep pace with her in the press of people. They didn’t need to go far, though. The violent scene had played out in the servants’ dining hall.

And the victim was . . . Martin.

Barnabus dropped to the floor beside him. Years of training kept him calm as he checked his friend for signs of life. The wound in his back was high enough to have missed his heart and enough to one side to have avoided the major arteries. Barnabus’s next biggest worries were whether the wound had compromised his lungs and whether the blood loss had already proven too much.