The clouds meandered away from in front of the moon, and its silver light angled down across their faces. He was surprised to see that the tall man was old enough to be his grandfather, and the other one obviously a relative. Their faces were all but identical, though the younger man couldn’t be more than thirty. Son? Grandson?
Walker shifted. “You really want to stop us?”
Slade gripped his pistol tighter, just to give himself something to hold to while he considered.
The tall old man stepped forward, his hands out in a placating gesture. “Easy now, Mr. Osborne. We don’t intend to get in your way, and we would appreciate it if you would stay out of ours.”
Ours? Who were they? Did Pinkerton have more detectives in Baltimore he hadn’t mentioned?
No. His boss would have told him if he were sending him under the very nose of another detective, but something in his gut told him he had to trust a little here. He slid his pistol into its holster. “Educate me. And if it isn’t too much to ask, don’t do whatever it was you were going to. If I can claim to have scared off the vandals, it’ll go far with Hughes.”
The trio exchanged a glance, the tall one nodding to his whatever-he-was. “Fall back to B. Go on, Hez.”
Hez. Why did that sound familiar? He tried to place the name, but it wasn’t anyone he had met before. And even as he considered it, Hez melted into the night, not making so much as a sound on the gravel in the lot.
The old man turned next to Walker. “Go home to Cora, son.”
Walker stared up at his companion. “Come again?”
“Go on. I’ve been wanting to talk to Mr. Osborne anyway.”
Slade shifted his weight to his other foot, still on alert but more curious than wary. Walker met his gaze and held it for a second. And managed, in that brief span, to pack a wallop of warning. Then he turned and followed after the mysterious Hez.
“Consider the vagrants scared off.” Amusement laced the old man’s tone, though Slade felt miles away from laughing. “How about a cup of coffee, Mr. Osborne? Do you drink coffee?”
Coffee. Coffee at midnight with an old man he’d caught sneaking onto railroad property, who didn’t show so much as a whisper of unease. “Yeah. Mr…?”
“ ‘Mister’ will do just fine.” The gent’s grin both put him at ease and made him twitchy. “At least until you figure it out for yourself. Come along. I imagine my wife is still up.”
Maybe he had fallen asleep when he sat down on his bed two hours ago. Maybe this was all some bizarre dream. Saying nothing, he followed Mister to the street. A block down, the man climbed into a carriage and indicated he should join him inside.
Slade hesitated only a moment. In for a penny… He settled onto one side while his companion made himself comfortable across from him and tapped the roof. Though Slade hadn’t noted the driver, one must have been waiting. The carriage rolled forward.
Clouds covered the moon again, and the drawn curtains kept out any lamplight they may have passed, but he still noted a few things. Like the quality of the upholstery under him, the thick padding upon the bench. The scent of flowers that indicated a lady usually rode within.
“So. How have you found Baltimore thus far, Mr. Osborne?”
Slade folded his arms across his chest. “Dirty, mean, and divided.”
The old man sighed. “Sad but true. It was different in my day.”
“When was that?”
A laugh rumbled in the darkness. “Many years ago. You should have seen her during the last war. Everyone came together to save her from the British. It was an inspiration to behold.”
The last war…in 1812? Slade pinched the bridge of his nose. Surely a dream. “What do you know about me?”
“Enough. Enough to trust you to do your job. Enough to know you’re smart enough to accept help when it’s offered. You can trust Walker. He’s a good boy.”
“And who is he to you?” As if he would answer.
No, the low chuckle was more what he expected. “Do your research, Detective. You will figure that out soon enough.”
He would love to figure it out now and was hoping for a clue when the carriage rocked to a halt a few minutes later. But the neighborhood he stepped out into looked like many another in the intermittent moonlight. He didn’t catch a glimpse of a street name or house number.
The old man led him from the carriage house to the back door. A light burned in a window, and when they stepped into the dark kitchen, that was the direction they headed.
Heat welcomed them in the room the man ducked into, along with golden light that showed him more of Mister’s face. Movement then stole his attention, and he looked over to find a grandmotherly woman turning from her chair at a small desk.
She smiled, as if it were perfectly normal for her husband to bring home strangers in the middle of the night.
“Sweet, this is Slade Osborne.” The old man made a few strange motions with his hands and headed for the fireplace. A tin percolator sat in the coals. “Oz, the missus to my mister.”