“Is something wrong?”
Herrick paused. He had long ago learned to depend on his intuition, and at the moment his senses were on full alert.
“I am simply wondering why a gentleman who is frequently a guest at the palace would choose to frequent a coffee shop that is more suited to the bourgeois.”
A frown touched Gregor’s heavy brow. “Perhaps he needed refreshment after visiting Madam Ivanna.”
“Perhaps.”
“You do not seem convinced.”
Herrick lowered his voice as a party of gentlemen weaved their way toward the brothel. Drunken idiots. They would be fortunate to make it out of the neighborhood without being knocked over the head and robbed of their purses. Only a fool would travel the lesser streets of St. Petersburg without well-armed servants.
“When the Prince first befriended Richards I made a few discreet inquiries among my connections in England,” he admitted, returning his attention to Sir Charles, who had moved down the street to impatiently await his carriage.
“There was something that concerns you?”
Herrick crossed his arms over his chest. “From most accounts he is precisely what he claims to be, a minor baronet who was well liked among society and respected as a reformer in Parliament.”
“Why would such a gentleman choose to leave his home and career to live in a foreign country?”
“Precisely my question.”
“And?”
Herrick considered what he had discovered, his brooding gaze noting the manner in which the various pedestrians veered a wide path around the English nobleman. Almost as if they could sense a danger in accidentally brushing against him.
Odd.
“There were rumors, most of them carefully suppressed by Richards’s powerful friends, but they were enough to encourage him to leave England and seek a new home far enough away he would not be troubled by scandal,” he murmured.
“It must have been a considerable scandal to have forced an English nobleman to travel to St. Petersburg.”
“Yes.” Herrick’s gaunt face hardened. He took personal insult to a foreigner who brought a threat to his city. “Over the past ten years a number of whores were discovered floating in the Thames with their throats slit.”
Gregor made a sound of shock. “Richards?”
“There was never any proof, but one of the brothel owners was willing to tell anyone who would listen to her that two of the whores had been regulars of Sir Charles and that he had been the last to see them before they died. Unfortunately, the word of a mere madam could not bring a nobleman to justice.”
“But it could cause unpleasant gossip,” Gregor murmured.
“Exactly.”
Gregor’s large hands clenched into fists. Before attracting Herrick’s notice, Gregor was a simple soldier who had been the son of a butcher. His humble past gave him a compassion for the peasant class that was all too rare.
“Have any whores in St. Petersburg been found with their throats slit?”
It was, of course, the first thing that Herrick had attempted to discover.
“No, but that does not mean they have not been murdered.” He grimaced. “Dimitri Tipova keeps an iron grip on his territory and would rather dispose of any untidy messes than risk being brought to the attention of the authorities.”
Gregor gave a disgusted grunt, not at all surprised that even a man with Herrick’s power could not penetrate the murky politics of St. Petersburg’s underworld.
Dimitri Tipova, the Beggar Czar, was a law unto himself.
“A pity.”
“Not entirely. Dimitri has a tendency to inflict his own manner of justice against those who threaten his position.”