Page 145 of A Debt Inherited

The name did nothing.

Villiers did not raise his voice. “Roark gave up the house.”

The woman’s colour changed. Her gaze darted once past them towards the street, as if Seven Dials might somehow have followed them to Gower Street and stood waiting beneath the lamp.

She swallowed. “Mr Price is not at home.”

“Then you may be easier. We have not come for him.”

She did not open the door.

Fitzwilliam mounted the steps. “Mrs Price, a gentleman’s daughter has been taken. Mr Kerr has some connexion to the matter.”

The chain trembled.

Behind her, somewhere within the house, a board creaked.

Villiers’s head turned a fraction.

Mrs Price heard it too. “That is only my girl.”

“Open the door,” Fitzwilliam said. “Now.”

For one more heartbeat she held the chain. Then it slid back.

Mrs Price stood aside.

“Villiers, charm the household. Harris, Simms, see what this lady has not told us.” Fitzwilliam turned to Mrs Price. “Direct me to Mr Kerr’s correspondence.”

“Second floor,” she said. “Back room.”

Villiers took her arm before she could retreat. “Come along, ma’am. The colonel dislikes a wandering hostess.”

Fitzwilliam went up without her.

The stair was narrow and clean, the runner worn to the threads at the turn. No pictures hung upon the wall. No vase stood upon the landing. The house had the careful emptiness of people who owned little and dusted what remained.

Behind him, Harris moved like a shadow with weight to it. Simms took the next flight without a sound.

The second-floor passage held three doors. One stood ajar upon a room smelling of camphor and stale linen. Another was shut but unlatched. The back room was locked.

Harris came to his side and tried the handle once. “Locked, sir.”

Fitzwilliam stepped back. “Be persuasive.”

Harris took one step forward and swung the hammer. The first blow tore the lock from its seating; the second drove the door inward against the wall.

The room beyond was cold.

It was not the room of a desperate man. No clothes had been flung over a chair, no bottle left uncorked, no ash scattered, no plate abandoned. The bed had been made with severe care. A single coat hung upon a peg. The washstand held a basin, ewer, razor, and folded cloth, each in its place. On the mantel, a clock ticked with a small, precise sound.

At the window stood a desk.

A narrow, well-used thing of dark wood, the surface rubbed pale where hands had rested for years. Upon it lay an inkstand, three sharpened pens, a paper-knife, a ruler, and a stack of folded sheets squared to the edge.

Fitzwilliam crossed to it. He did not touch the papers at once.

The top sheet bore a controlled hand: Thomas Robert Bennet. Longbourn. Hertfordshire.