Page 68 of Hazard a Guest
So, Joe had.
“Why are you limping?” Ember snapped at him. “Beck didn’t slap your legs.”
“He may as well have!” Freddy returned, somehow both cheerful and moaning all at once as he collapsed onto the foot of the bed. “What’s the news?”
“Well, first,” Ember said, arching an eyebrow, “are you quite well enough to hear it? I should hate to crack your fragile constitution.”
“I will endure,” Freddy intoned, grinning and ducking away when she swatted at his head.
Joe, despite his utter commitment to not indulging this, laughed.
“So, I’ve had a letter from Millie,” Ember announced, dragging out the chair from the windowside table and falling into it. “A long letter, with annotations from Dot. Many things have happened. Something for me, something for you, Joe, and even something for Freddy.”
“Me?” said Freddy, perking up. “Is it a gift?”
“It is a gift,” she agreed in a tone that sounded like it was absolutely not a gift.
Freddy didn’t seem to mind.
“I haven’t mentioned it because I truly thought it unimportant, but my late husband’s sons have been trying to disrupt the peace for some months now. There were some minor stories in the press, fraud and so on. I believe they’ve burned through the entirety of the estate. The only thing that remains standing is the bit they gave to me, the castoff failing business I turned into the Forge.”
“Right,” said Freddy, “good.”
“Indeed,” Ember agreed, flashing her sharp little teeth at him. “However, they aren’t the sensible sort of villains who go to ground when caught out. One of them made a loud fuss about being held accountable and is being confined at Bow Street. Theother one keeps showing up at the Forge to attempt to extort us. Me. Well, Jones for now, since he is running the place in my absence.”
“Jones?” clarified Joe, feeling a bit skeptical. “That’s the one who …” He held his hand up as high as it would go, in an attempted approximation of Jones’s height.
“That’s the one!” Freddy confirmed happily.
“Well, that seems in hand, then,” Joe returned, looking back at Ember.
“It is. Or it would be, had they not gone an extra mile in their incompetent wickedness.” Ember laughed, shaking her tangled and frizzy curls. “They’ve been selling debt slips for my club, you see. Theyforgeddebt slips.”
“Oh,” said Joe. “Of course they did.”
“Yes, and once Jones showed them to Dot and Millie, he unknowingly handed two dogs a very meaty bone,” Ember squeaked, her excitement overpowering the sleep deprivation in her voice. “Millie’s been tracking them down, and Dot? Dot has been approaching the poor sods who bought them with the offer of legal representation to pursue both recompense and criminal justice.”
Freddy whistled a low tone. “Oh, thatismeaty,” he agreed. “Silas will take that and run.”
“Well, he would,” said Ember, blinking rapidly, “if he had time. Silas, poor lamb, has taken the silk and as such serves at the pleasure of the crown. He’ll need assistance with such a large group of victims and their individual wholeness. Isn’t it a blessing, lads, that he has such a capable partner?”
They both turned to Joe as though he’d announced himself as said partner, which of course he was, but he could only stare back at them in numb silence.
“I’m not in London,” he protested.
“You will be,” Ember told him, “soon. We just have to tie up our loose end here. If Mr. Beck has been flitting around London buying up my debt slips, what are the odds that some of the ones he holds are Withers forgeries, do you reckon? It’s a gamble I’d take, and I don’t gamble.”
“You’ve been gambling this whole time,” Freddy reminded her, getting immediately shushed. He mumbled to himself, barely audible, “Well, she has.”
“Do you think Beck was complicit in the forgeries?” Joe asked, wrinkling his brow. “Do you think he helped them?”
“I don’t, actually,” she said, leaning back in the chair until the wood creaked. “I think he remembers my late husband as infallible and sees me as the wicked young widow who benefitted from his death. It makes him a perfect mark for my darling stepchildren. Beck wants to buy the Forge, not steal it. He’s made that very clear over the last decade.”
“But youdothink he has some of the forged slips on his person?” Joe clarified, uncertain if this was good or bad news.
“Worse than that,” Ember said, widening her eyes, “I think he submitted them to Penrose and Lazarus as collateral. Whether he knows it or not, he’s committed a very serious crime if so, and it does explain why I haven’t seen nor heard of the slips since arriving here. He’s got them in escrow in good faith.”
“He’s cooked, then,” Freddy put in, dragging over a stack of Joe’s pillows and plumping them up to lean back on. “Completely cooked. He’ll be ruined.”
