“I should think that obvious, Miss Stone.” Mr. Sack’s lips thinned, a predator’s expression in a piggish countenance. “I want the trunk. What do you want?”
“A satisfactory recompense for having delivered it to you. And to know all that you do about the circumstances of Clements’s and Jack Ghosh’s deaths, for I must understand whether forces continue to threaten my welfare. Did you send Ghosh to Highgate House after you were driven off yourself? Mr. Thornfield suspected as much, I overheard.”
Augustus Sack snorted in contempt. “Jack Ghosh had his uses, but I should never have sent him alone, Miss Stone, not into that household—I should have been a fool for trying. An armed guard of Company officers to search the place whilst the occupants were locked in the cellar, on the other hand? I was organising just such a campaign.”
Then I was only just in time.
“Ghosh acted on his own recognisance?”
Mr. Sack tilted his head back and forth, considering. “He has been in this office on many occasions and could easily have found Mr. Singh’s correspondence, so that is the most likely explanation. He was a brute and a snoop and the world is well rid of him.”
The words were delivered so carelessly that they seemed altogether true. The waters I had dived into were far murkier than I had imagined.
“What about John Clements? You said you no longer suspected Mr. Thornfield of murdering him—why?”
“Poison simply doesn’t seem our dear Charles’s style, does it?” The diplomat sighed. “Clements had been looking into the circumstances surrounding David Lavell’s unfortunate murder in Amritsar, but my late colleague hadn’t the intellect God bestows on sheep. He was low over the project, over his lack of progress. Then he saw an old love of his briefly, and he sank further into melancholy. Honestly, Miss Stone? I believe he took the soldier’s way out. Now you will tell me where the trunk is.”
The moment of truth could not have come at a worse time.
“I cannot tell you where I have hid the trunk yet, Mr. Sack,” I demurred firmly, “not for lack of trust, but because I wish to know what you plan to give me as a finder’s fee.”
Mr. Sack, far from looking miffed at my insolence, grinned. Rising, he approached me where I sat, rubbing his hands together like a benevolent uncle out of a Dickens novel. An equally avuncular glimmer came into his eyes as his hand rose, seeming about to whisper a caress of fingertips over my hair.
Mr. Sack ripped the necklace from my spine.
I shrieked briefly, but soon mastered myself. Had I been less frugal and bought a sturdier chain, I might have had my neck snapped—as it was, the metal gave before my bones did, and I was left a shaking huddle on the floor, battling not to whimper as I observed the first red drop of blood trickle from my shoulder onto the creamy carpet.
Mr. Sack squatted, dropping his hand to lift my head. The fiery pain produced when my posture shifted was shocking, and I gasped.
“Miss Stone, I do not think that we quite understood each other when I said this was a Company matter,” he hissed. “Here is what I propose: I assume the trunk is somewhere nearby. If by midnight tomorrow you supply it, and I find it contains what I am looking for, I will give you a gift. If you do not supply it, I warn you that I know every fence and pawnbroker in London, not to mention every ship’s captain who might be tempted to sail away carrying a mysterious female passenger. The Company owns this city, Miss Stone, and you have stolen from us—so now I own you. Your rooms will be watched, you will be followed, and when you have given me what I seek, my gift to you will be that I shan’t rip those earrings from your lobes.”
Augustus P. Sack leant forward, close enough to bite me, close enough to kiss, laughing as I scrambled away. He tossed the bloodied necklace in the air, caught it, and put it in his trouser pocket. We stood facing each other, my breath heaving as more jewel-bright liquid seeped into the bodice of my dress.
“Put your cloak on and lift your hood so that no one need glimpse any blood, least of all your own sweet self,” Mr. Sack suggested, ringing a bell to see I was escorted out. “Thank you for your visit. And, I assure you, I look forward to our meeting again with the very greatest pleasure.”
? ? ?
My hooded cloak served his purposes just as neatly as Mr. Sack had imagined, and I arrived at the Weathercock without a single glance of concern darting my way. This is not to suggest that eyes did not follow my progress; shadow-obscured figures trailed after me as I exited East India House, for I saw their doubles in the windowpanes, and when I had reached my lodgings, I peered through the curtains and saw men with hats pulled low, studying newspapers as they idled against the brickwork.
These small impediments served solely to bait me.