Griselda humphed an agreement as she carefully stepped down, branch by sturdy branch, from her perch.
“Wait!” Montague hissed as Penelope prepared to jump.
When she stopped and looked at him, he hesitated for only a second before saying, “You might slip and twist your ankle, and then you’d have to stay here and miss all the excitement.”
Penelope studied him for a moment, then softly laughed. “Oh, you are good. You, Montague, are a very welcome addition to our band of investigators. All right. I’ll wait.”
Montague clambered down, and Penelope allowed him to lift her down from her perch.
Violet, meanwhile, had edged to the trunk, but before she could start to climb down by herself, Montague returned and, with no more than a glance by way of requesting permission, reached up and lifted her down.
Somewhat to her surprise, her lungs stopped working—seized up in a most peculiar way in response to the feel of his hands about her waist, to the sense of strength as he so easily lifted her down and gently set her feet on the leaves. He hesitated for a second, a telltale moment in the dark of the woods when he stood and looked down at her, their shadowed gazes locked even though, in the poor light, they couldn’t see—but they could sense, and they did, then he drew breath, and, sliding his hands from her waist, he stepped aside, out of her way. But he remained close beside her.
Stokes and Barnaby had been overseeing the disposition of their troops; they returned, two rather large shadows moving surprisingly silently, weaving through the trees.
Joining them, Stokes nodded. “We’re ready.” A flash of teeth in the darkness was a sharklike smile. “Our group will go in via the front door.” A contingent of the burliest constables, as well as the six men from Penelope and Barnaby’s staff, waited a few feet away. “Although I’ve got a warrant, I want Montague to lead the way using his letter of authority—the more confusion we can create over what exactly is going on, the better, and the easier it will be to break up the group inside and take everyone into custody.”
Stokes’s gaze shifted to Penelope, Griselda, and Violet. “I want you three, along with your coachmen, grooms, and footmen, to follow us through the gates and take up position on the lawn directly opposite the front porch.” He paused, his shadowed gaze touching each of their faces in turn. “If this business is as we suspect, I want to be able to get the girls out of there as quickly as we can. I’ve told our men that they’ll be able to steer the girls out of the front door and they’ll be able to see you from there.” Stokes tipped his head to the coachmen, grooms, and footmen. “Your men will stay with you, and help shepherd the girls from the front door to you. I don’t want to risk any of the blackguards inside thinking to take hostages—not of any sort.”
Even Penelope saw the sense in Stokes’s plan. They all nodded and murmured agreement.
Stokes lifted his head. “Right then.” He glanced at his men. “Let’s get this raid underway.”
They followed Stokes out of the wood, into the lane, and, falling into the requested formation, marched through the gates, presently set wide, and up the gravel drive. Violet had to admit it was a stirring moment; the crunch of so many heavy booted feet sounded like a drumbeat—the march of justice.
On reaching the area before the porch, their small party diverged from the rear and took up their appointed positions.
Montague, she saw, fearlessly led the way up the steps. Halting before the front door, he nodded to Stokes, who pulled the dangling chain. Montague waited for a heartbeat, then raised his fist and thundered on the door.
When the door failed to open, at Stokes’s nod, Montague knocked heavily again.
Half a minute passed, then the door eased open.
Up on her toes, Violet could just glimpse the curious manservant as he stood blocking the doorway. His “Yes? Can I help you, sir?” floated over the many burly shoulders between them.
Montague flicked out the letter of authority he held in his hand. “I am empowered by the owner of this property, the late Lady Halstead, to investigate the use of her house.” When the man simply gawped, Montague had no compunction in raising a hand, palm out, and shoving the villain backward; the man staggered back several paces, and Montague seized the opening and strode over the threshold into the front hall.
The door to his left was closed; directly ahead a wide staircase led up to the first floor, while a narrow corridor beside it gave access to the rear rooms of the house. To his right, a pair of doors stood wide, showing a section of what was plainly the drawing room. Pivoting in that direction, Montague strode forward, feeling decidedly more pugnacious than he could recall ever feeling as he took in the two couples beyond the doorway.
They might have been mistaken for guests attending a fashionable soiree if not for the hardness in their eyes and the signs of dissolute living etched in their faces.
Both couples had frozen, their expressions blanking, their eyes widening as their gazes locked on the men at Montague’s back; ignoring the couples, Montague marched into the room and looked down its length.
And saw Walter Camberly, his eyes rounding, his mouth agape, standing alongside a round, raised dais—the sort of thing Montague had seen in dressmaker’s shops. Atop the dais, tears streaking her face, stood a girl of some twenty summers, utterly naked.
Montague finally understood. Walter was auctioning the girls.
“Stokes.”
“Yes. I’ve seen enough.” His gray gaze locked on Walter Camberly, his face the definition of grim, Stokes moved up beside Montague. “I’ll take care of him, you get the girl out of here.”
“Done.” Montague strode forward, shrugging out of his greatcoat as he went, barely registering the other people, men and women both, scattered about the room.
Walter Camberly’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound issued forth. As Stokes reached him and seized him by the arm—ungently—Walter managed to croak, “Here! I say—”
“If you’ve got any brains, you’ll keep your trap shut,” growled a man—well-dressed, but clearly no gentleman—standing a few paces away.
Montague shut his ears to the mounting exchanges of pleasantries as Stokes’s men moved through the room and introduced themselves to Walter’s “guests.” Raising his greatcoat, Montague held it up to screen the poor girl. “Here, my dear. Wrap yourself up, and let’s get you out of here.”
Tentatively, as if hardly daring to believe what was taking place before her very eyes, the girl slowly took possession of the coat; Montague averted his eyes as she slipped properly into it and hugged it about her body.
“Excellent.” Montague held out his hand to assist her down from the dais. “Come along, my dear—you’re entirely safe, and there are ladies waiting outside to help.”
Blinking huge blue eyes, the girl took his hand and, holding the coat tight with her other hand, clambered down. Once she was on her feet, she met Montague’s eyes. “There’s others like me—upstairs.”
Montague nodded, gently urging her forward. “Yes, we know. Others will be bringing them down momentarily.” Shielding her from the jostling of the many bodies—police and their captives—now crowding the room, he guided her out into the front hall. There they found other girls being brought down from upstairs and led outside by solicitous constables. Barnaby had been in charge of that group, all of them older men with daughters of their own.
Remaining with his charge, Montague joined the exodus, escorting her across the porch, helping her over the gravel—although she was barefoot, she seemed unconcerned by the small stones—and then they were on the lawn and he handed her into Violet’s care.
With a smile and a comforting embrace, Violet led the girl to join the others, gathering in a small circle inside the protective cordon of Penelope’s men. The men were all studiously watching the house, showing the scantily clad girls as much courtesy as they could.
As Montague watched, the girl he’d escorted out was welcomed with cries of “Hilda!” Several
of the other girls threw their arms around her.
Penelope waited for the hugs and cries to subside, then asked, “Girls, is this all of you?”
There were seven girls in all. They looked around, then Hilda raised her head and nodded, “Yes, miss. There were seven of us they’d caught this month. I heard him as was in charge”—with her chin, she indicated the house—“say as they usually had more, but tonight, this month, there was just us seven.” Hilda’s voice lowered, trembled. “We’re all girls from the country, miss, good girls an’ all. Each of us came down to try to find honest work in the city, but he came along with his lies and his promises of a good place to work that he knew . . . and then he brought us here and locked us up.” Her voice dropped lower. “He were going to sell us for ravishment and worse.”
“Yes, well,” Penelope said, “you can rest assured that he won’t be doing that, or much of anything else, not where he’s going. Those gentlemen over there”—with a wave she indicated the constables marching the arrested “guests” out in a steady stream to the police wagons that had drawn up, having waited down the lane to the priory until they’d been summoned—“are from the police, and they will ensure that those dreadful people get their just deserts, which, trust me, won’t be sweet.” The words and Penelope’s tone combined to help the girls relax just a little, their tension fractionally easing. “Now,” Penelope continued, “do you know where your clothes are? If you’ll give me instructions, I’ll send my husband and Mr. Montague here to fetch what they can find.”
Supplied with instructions in short order, Montague returned to the house and found Barnaby in the front hall; they went through the rooms upstairs, gathering up the bags they found in each room and filling them with whatever belongings they could find.
“The girls were maids from the country,” Montague told Barnaby when he rejoined him at the top of the stairs. Montague had four bags, two under his arms and one in each hand, while Barnaby carried three similar cases. As they started down the stairs, Montague continued, “They came to London looking for honest work. From what I gather, he—by which I believe they mean Walter Camberly—met them soon after they arrived and offered them employment. He then brought them here.”
Barnaby nodded. “I’d wager he hung around near the coaching inns. Easy enough to spot the wide-eyed innocents who’ve never been to town before.”
Reaching the hall, they paused, and Stokes joined them, Walter Camberly in tow.
Walter still looked stunned, still uncomprehending as, hands bound before him, propelled by a burly sergeant, he stumbled along.
When the sergeant halted Walter a pace away from Stokes, Montague fixed Walter with a witheringly condemnatory glare. “You disgusting excuse for a gentleman—you preyed on innocent girls for your own gain.”
“And,” Barnaby said, his tone equally hard, “you then murdered your own grandmother to hide your crimes.”
“Not to mention murdering your grandmother’s man-of-business, Mr. Runcorn, and her ladyship’s maid, Tilly Westcott,” Stokes said.
Walter’s face lost all color. His jaw dropped, hung open for several seconds, then his eyes bulged and he snapped his mouth shut. He looked at them, at their expressions, then vehemently shook his head. “No.” With every evidence of desperation, he raised his bound hands as if pleading his case. “No—I didn’t.”
His face graven, Stokes signaled to the sergeant. “Take him away.” As the sergeant shoved Walter on, Stokes added, “Just make sure you keep him well away from the others. No telling what they might do.”
“Aye, sir,” the sergeant replied, pushing Walter through the open doorway and onto the porch.
Twisting around to look back at them, desperation in every line of his face, Walter Camberly wailed, “I didn’t murder anyone! That wasn’t me!”
It was a long and busy night, but not one of them begrudged the effort.
Buoyed by triumph and the deep satisfaction of knowing they’d saved seven, at least, of Walter’s victims from violation and misery, the six intrepid investigators banded together to take care of all the issues arising from the evening’s raid.
Albemarle Street became their headquarters. Penelope, Griselda, and Violet returned there with the girls; Mostyn and the rest of the household rallied around, finding beds, comforting the girls with hot milk, then settling them to sleep. They put the girls in three bedrooms, two in each of two rooms and three in the other, so none of them would be alone.
Griselda descended the stairs with Penelope and Violet after they’d assured the girls that help would be forthcoming to find them honest work on the morrow, and then had bid them a good night. “I daresay tonight will be the first decent night’s rest they’ve had since they reached London.”
“Poor things.” Violet sighed. “What Walter did was simply unconscionable.”
“Indeed.” Penelope was unusually somber. “I don’t like to think about how many more he sold off over the last—what was it? Fourteen months?”
“Dwelling on the number won’t do any good, but,” Griselda said, “given they caught the brothel owners involved, and with any luck that will be all of them, then I suspect Stokes and his men will be closing down several such enterprises and freeing the girls shortly. Not that that will ameliorate the damage done, but at least they will be free again.”
Penelope halted, head tilting as she considered that prospect. Then she nodded and continued down the stairs. “Fingers crossed, but it may well be that because of Walter’s crimes, we might end up freeing many more girls than those he himself sent to hell.”
As matters transpired, it wasn’t going to be Stokes and his men who closed down the brothels. When he, Barnaby, and Montague finally returned to Albemarle Street, Stokes slumped in an armchair, accepted a glass of brandy from Barnaby, and answered Griselda’s eager question. “Not me, love, but my peers in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Coventry.” He sipped, sighed, then met the ladies’ encouraging gazes with a half smile. “Walter Camberly stumbled on a lucrative non-London market. The brothels in those lesser cities can’t keep enough girls—those that way inclined who have any sense move to London and the better pickings here. We snared nine brothel owners and their madams—the Chief’s in alt. Usually, it’s easy enough to catch the madams, but the owners . . . they are rarely to be found, and are even less easy to charge with any crime.
“This time”—with his glass, Stokes waved—“we have them all singing. And they’re all giving us the same song. Cromer—he was the man you took to be a manservant, but in fact he was more deeply involved in the racket, a full partner—was the connection. Through him, Walter Camberly approached the brothel keepers in those four cities and offered to sell them country girls—fresh, clean, unsullied country girls. Not being complete flats, Cromer and Camberly took the precaution of insisting they had to be paid in cash, and that the brothel owners themselves had to be present to take possession of the goods immediately after the auction.”
Penelope shuddered. “Evil—simply evil.” She looked at Stokes. “But how did Camberly find the girls?”
“It seems,” Barnaby said, “that Walter stumbled onto the value of being innocuous. According to him, ever since he was a boy he would occasionally loiter about the coaching inns simply because he liked watching the coaches and the horses and the travelers—he said he used to imagine running away, the usual adolescent dreams.” Barnaby paused to sip, then went on, “But as he grew older, and looked more mature, on and off over the last years, he would be asked by fresh-faced country maids just off the coaches for directions. Sometimes even recommendations as to where they might find work, or where they might stay.” Barnaby paused, then said, “Eventually, an evil scenario took root and blossomed in his brain.”
“It sounds like his parents keep him on a very tight rein.” Stokes knocked back the last of his brandy. “We haven’t formally interviewed him as yet. I wanted to let him stew through the night.” Stokes looked at Griselda, then Penelope.
“What of the girls?”
“Thankfully, we got there in time for these seven. I’ve already sent a note around to Phoebe Deverell’s agency, and I received an immediate reply. The woman in charge—a Mrs. Quiverstone—wrote that she and the agency will be happy to take all seven girls in and keep them under their wing, assess and train them, and make sure they get appropriate positions.” Penelope leaned back in her chair. “So they are saved, safe, and well on the way to getting back their lives.”
“Indeed,” Violet said, “and from what the girls said, they do appreciate that, the horror of the last weeks aside, they might well end up in a better situation than they might have had Walter Camberly not interfered in their lives.” Violet smiled. “They are very resilient, which is all to the good.” She met Montague’s eyes. “They’re already looking forward, not back.”
Penelope heaved a tired, but clearly satisfied, sigh and locked gazes with Barnaby. “Excellent, excellent, and excellent! We”—she waved one hand, indicating the six of them—“have notched up a major success. All that remains is to confirm that Walter Camberly committed the three murders, and it’ll be time to celebrate.”
Stokes looked at Barnaby, then Montague, then stoically said, “There’s just one problem—Walter Camberly continues to insist that he hasn’t murdered anyone.”
Chapter 14
Stokes formally interrogated Walter Camberly the next morning at Scotland Yard. Barnaby, in his role as consultant, sat to Stokes’s right, while Montague, courtesy of Lady Halstead’s letter of authority, occupied the chair on Stokes’s left.
Walter Camberly sat in a single hard chair on the opposite side of the table. Two large and grim-looking sergeants stood at ease behind him, staring over his head at the opposite wall.
His wrists and ankles shackled, Walter, disheveled and pale, sat with his head bowed, staring at his hands clasped on the table before him.
Tapping a finger on the table, Stokes considered him, then, in a noncommittal, nonjudgmental tone, said, “Care to tell us why you did it?” When Walter glanced up at him, puzzled by the tack, Stokes elaborated, “You’re the only child of affluent, well-to-do parents. Your father’s an up-and-coming politician. You’ve been given everything, have lacked for no comforts. You’ve been sent to good schools, had every opportunity. Courtesy of both your parents’ families, you had the entree into society. You could have been anything you wished, could have made your mark in countless socially acceptable ways, yet instead you chose to throw in your lot with criminals—more, with elements that rank among the most despicable.” Folding his hands, Stokes leaned forward, his eyes locked with Walter’s. “With those dregs of humanity who prey on the most defenseless.”