Page 62 of Let Me Be Your Hero
Smalley held up both hands as if not wanting to get Archibald’s hopes up. “Ithinkwe have him.”
Archibald collapsed in his chair, relief washing over him. He gestured for Smalley to take the seat across the desk. “Who is it? How did you catch him?”
“There are four warehouses in the London area where small arms are stored. I had to hire enough men to watch all four of them. I hope you don’t mind if I send the bill to you. You did say no expense was too great—”
“I’ll pay it. What did you find?”
“Last night, one of my men saw him. There’s a small storehouse down at the Royal Dockyards… thank you,” Smalley said, accepting the glass of port Archibald had handed him. “One of the overseers, a man by the name of Roderick MacDonald,came back to the storehouse just after midnight and unlocked the building. Had a pair of men with him. They loaded three crates onto a cart, then the men and the cart went one way, and MacDonald went the other. That has to be him.”
Archibald slumped back in his chair. “It certainly looks suspicious.”
“It does.” Smalley leaned forward. “I went over the books, and MacDonald has marked a suspiciously high number of guns as damaged upon receipt. But only one hundred in the last week. I think you mentioned his contact was expecting two hundred.
“That’s correct.”
Smalley nodded. “I’ve arranged it with the local constable—he and I are going to keep watch for the next few nights. See if we can catch him in the act and make the arrest.”
“Good, good. I’ll advise the Bow Street Runner working the case. He’ll likely want to be on the scene as well. And I’m going to send some men from Nettlethorpe Iron to fan out through the neighborhood. I don’t want to give them any chance to escape.”
“We could use the extra muscle, I’m sure. There’s an inn on High Street where we can meet. The Brown Bear. Say at ten o’clock?”
“Ten o’clock.” Archibald stood and offered his hand. “I’ll arrange it.”
After he left, Archibald asked McPherson to recruit a few dozen men to reinforce Smalley that night, offering a generous bonus to volunteers, as there was some degree of danger associated with the task.
Archibald had hoped he could make today’s visit quick so Izzie wouldn’t be alone at the house all day. But as soon as he emerged from his office, Draycott, the foreman who oversaw the blast furnaces, waylaid him.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy, sir.”
Archibald carefully kept his face neutral. “What is it, Draycott?”
Archibald could tell by Draycott’s cringing expression that he was aware that his employer had somewhere he would rather be. “We’ve been having problems with one of the blast furnaces. I’m sorry. I’ve tried everything I could think of. Would you mind taking a quick look?”
Archibald nodded. “Of course.”
It took him a half-hour to diagnose the blast furnace. After that, a veritable parade of men requested “just five minutes” of his time. Of course, most of the requests took more than five minutes, but none of them were unreasonable. He’d been away from the forge entirely for four days. Problems were bound to have arisen in that interval.
By the time he finally managed to get away, the shadows were growing long. He hurried out to his waiting carriage, wondering how Izzie had fared on her own.
CHAPTER 29
Archibald didn’t realize his mistake until he was halfway home.
He usually bathed and changed clothes as soon as he arrived home. The problem was, he was now sharing a bedroom with Izzie. This meant that if he continued his previous routine, she would see him in all his dirt, not only looking but smelling like a blacksmith.
It was crucial that she never see him this way. Izzie seemed to have romanticized the idea of him being a blacksmith, but she had only ever seen him when he was washed up and dressed in fine clothes to attend sometonentertainment. Were she to see him coated in coal soot and smelling like he’d been lifting cannons all day, she would realize what a terrible mistake her marriage had been. Hell, it was considered déclassé for the daughter of an earl to marry a banker or a barrister. But to marry a man who worked at an iron forge? Not merely running the business side of things but supervising the heavy, filthy work that took place on the factory floor? It was absolutely unthinkable, and it did not matter one iota how rich this work had made him. He was a thousand miles beneath her.
Archibald had, therefore, brought a change of clothes with him to Nettlethorpe Iron that morning, resolving to wash up in his office and return home in his finery. He only had a wash stand and basin there, but he was just going to have to make it work.
Unfortunately, old habits were difficult to break, and at the end of the day, he had climbed into the carriage the same way he had for years without remembering to perform his ablutions first.
Stepping into the foyer, Archibald peered around nervously as he took off his hat and handed it to Giddings. He did not see any sign of his wife.
Striving for an air of normalcy, he asked Giddings, “Were there any attacks on the house today?”
“None, sir.”
“Good. How is Lady Isabella?”
