Page 8 of Hold Me Fast
Jowan resisted the urge to bop him on it. “I take it, then, that you are a party to his fraud and embezzlement. Bran, you had better fetch those constables.”
Beckleston put up a hand. “Wait! Those are serious charges. Thatcher is a gentleman I will have you know.”
Jowan laughed. “In Cornwall, we find that gentlemen thieves, when shot, are just as dead as those from lower levels of Society. I daresay the same applies to hanging. I have other matters to attend to while I am in London. If I cannot meet with Thatcher and find out what he has done with my money, I shall let the constables sort it out.”
Beckleston paced to and fro, saying, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” He stopped, having clearly made a decision. “I might be able to get a message to him. Might. I can guarantee nothing.”
“Not good enough,” Jowan replied. He nodded to Bran, who began to move towards the door.
“Wait,” Beckleston begged, again, and went back to pacing. “I know where he is boarding,” he admitted after a few seconds. “If he is home, I can have him here in under an hour.”
“We shall save you the trouble,” Bran said sweetly. “The address, and we shall be out of your hair. Unless Thatcher implicates you in his schemes.”
“I am certain you are mistaken,” said Beckleston, drawing himself upright. “Mr. Thatcher is a respected member of London’s legal community, and the trusted London agent of a number of country gentlemen.”
“I am aware of how Thatcher presents himself to country gentlemen,” Jowan commented, dryly. “Being myself one of those country gentlemen. At the very least, Thatcher is guilty of gross incompetence. Given his repeated failure to respond to my increasingly urgent missives, I strongly suspect that his sole goal from the beginning has been to separate me and my investors from our money. You must decide, Mr. Beckleston. Are you confident of his innocence? Then give me his address and allow me to investigate. Or are you his co-conspirator?”
“You are possibly being unfair to Mr. Beckleston,” Bran suggested. “He might have been as taken in by Thatcher as we were. Perhaps Mr. Beckleston is in this up to his neck, and perhaps he is just a poor naive fool.”
“I do not think so,” Jowan argued with Bran. “Mr. Beckleston would be as keen to find out the truth as we are if he was innocent. I think Mr. Beckleston is in this with Thatcher.”
“I am not,” Beckleston protested. “I am sure you are mistaken. Let me give you the address. Paper and pen, Oliver!” The last was addressed to the clerk, who hurriedly provided the required items.
“There.” Beckleston handed a sheet of paper to Jowan. “I will thank you to leave my office, Sir Jowan.Ifthat is who you are.”
“I will leave for the moment,” Jowan replied. “If you are implicated, I will be back.”
They strolled out of the room and down the stairs and then, with no more than an exchange of looks and a nod, separated to cover the doors, Jowan to the front and Bran to race around the row of buildings to the rear.
After ten or so minutes, Bran returned, dragging the clerk, Oliver, by the upper arm. “Sent with a message to Thatcher,” he reported to Jowan.
Oliver was white and shaking. “I know nothing,” he kept repeating.
Jowan pulled out his purse and abstracted a guinea. “This is for showing us to Thatcher’s place, then going to a coffee house for a while before returning to your employment. Though, if you are wise, you might start looking for another position.”
“Unless he is part of it, too,” Bran growled.
Oliver must have decided that his own skin was more valuable to him than that of his employer. “I am guilty of looking the other way,” he admitted. “But what was I to do? Who would have believed me if I said anything? Beckleston is the master mind. Thatcher is the man who sells the idea. Beckleston gives references to Thatcher, and forges references from some of his clients. Were you taken in by the find-an-investor scheme? Or one of the canal schemes?”
“Investors,” Bran replied, though Jowan was still wondering whether the man’s change of sides was genuine.
“Ah. That’s a clever one. They do a good and genuine job for around half of the projects. Then they use those projects as references for other opportunities.” He sounded impressed. Jowan was more convinced than ever that Oliver was in deeper than he admitted. Still. The man could be useful.
“If you are prepared to be a witness to what the others have done, we will put in a word for you,” he offered.
Oliver shook his head. “If you can keep me out of it, I am your man,” he countered.
He was still pale and trembly, but his jaw was set. There’d be no shifting him today, and in any case, Jowan was interested in bigger fish.
“Show us to Thatcher’s address,” he said, without committing himself.
“It isn’t the one Beckleston wrote down,” Oliver confided. “This way.”
Jowan stayed alert. His instincts told him that Oliver couldn’t be trusted. But he proved reliable in this instance, at least. He led them to a street of run-down but still solid townhouses. When they knocked on the door he pointed out and asked for Thatcher, the woman who answered the door directed them up four flights of stairs and to the room at the back of the house.
The door to the room was open. Jowan stepped inside and stopped. Either someone had ransacked the room, or Thatcher had been warned and had packed in a hurry and escaped. Bran pushed him out of the way and rushed to the window. “He’s getting away,” he said.
Sure enough, a man was clambering over the back fence. He dropped to the other side and took off along the mews, pausing to look back over his shoulder at the window where they stood. They couldn’t see his expression, but they could see the rude gesture he made with his free hand.
