Blake turned to the marquis. “Is there enough in that file to arrest Dudley?”
“There would be,” James answered, “if we could be sure MCD truly is Miles Dudley. One can't go about imprisoning people on the basis of their initials.”
“If you arrested Oliver,” Caroline said, “I'm sure he would incriminate Mr. Dudley. They are rather good friends, but I doubt Oliver's loyalty would hold fast under such circumstances. When it comes right down to it, Oliver holds no true loyalty to anyone except himself.”
“It's not a risk I'm prepared to take,” Blake said grimly. “I will not rest until I see both of these traitors imprisoned or hanged. We need to catch both of them in action.”
“Is there any way you can determine when Oliver plans his next smuggling run?” Caroline asked.
“Not,” James replied, thumbing through the stack of file, “unless he's been really stupid.”
Caroline leaned forward. “What about this one?” she asked, holding up a nearly empty file marked 31-7-14.
Blake grabbed it from her, leafed through the contents. “What an idiot!”
“I certainly shan't argue with you on the subject of Oliver's idiocy,” Caroline put in, “but I must say I'm sure he wasn't expecting his office to be searched.”
“One should never put this kind of information into writing,” Blake said.
“Why, Ravenscroft,” James said with a mischievous arch of his eyebrows, “with a thought process like that, you should make an excellent criminal.”
Blake was so engrossed in the file he didn't even bother to glare at his friend. “Prewitt is planning something big. From the looks of it, bigger than anything he's done before. He mentions CDL and MCD and ‘the rest.’ He also names a rather large sum of money.”
Caroline peered over his arm at the number written in the file. “Oh my good Lord,” she breathed. “With money like that, what did he want with my inheritance?”
“There are some who feel they can never get enough,” Blake replied caustically.
James cleared his throat. “I think we should wait, then, until the last of the month, and strike when we can nab them all. Eliminate the entire ring in one clean sweep.”
“It sounds like a good plan,” Caroline agreed. “Even if we do have to wait three weeks.”
Blake turned on her with a furious expression. “You are not participating.”
“The devil you say,” she retorted, hands on her hips. “If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even know that he is planning something for that Wednesday.” She blinked in thought. “I say, do you suppose he hasn't been spending all of those Wednesdays playing cards? I wonder if he's been smuggling on a regular basis. Every Wednesday and such.”
She flipped through the files, checking the dates and mentally adding and subtracting sevens to each of them. “Look! All are for the same day of the week.”
“I doubt he smuggles every Wednesday,” James mused, “but it's an excellent cover for the times he does engage in illegal activities. With whom does he play cards?”
“Miles Dudley, for one.”
Blake shook his head. “The entire damned game is probably involved. Who else?”
“Bernard Leeson. He's our local surgeon.”
“It figures,” Blake muttered. “I hate leeches.”
“And Francis Badeley,” she finished, “the magistrate.”
“I suppose we shouldn't look to him, then, for assistance in our apprehension,” James said.
“He'll probably be apprehended himself,” Blake replied. “We'll have to call in men from London.”
James nodded. “Moreton is going to want some evidence before deploying his men on such a grand scale. We're going to need to take these files.”
“I shouldn't take them all, were I you,” Caroline interjected. “Oliver comes into this room nearly every day. I'm sure he'll notice if his files have gone missing.”
“You're getting quite good at this,” James replied with a chuckle. “Are you certain you don't want to sign up?”