The carriage rumbled to a halt.
“Don’t go,” she pleaded.
“Helen, I must.” He leant forward, but someone yanked the door open before he reached for the handle.
Sebastian stood amid the gloom, his jaw firm, his expression grave. He grabbed Helen’s hand. “Nicholas, go! Go quickly. Mr Hope and Sir Percival were here half an hour ago. Leave now, for there is every chance they’re watching the house.”
“What!” Helen faced him. “Let me come with you.”
“No!” Panic almost choked him. “A man was murdered. At the least, they’ll transport you for aiding a criminal. Do as your brother says.”
With no time to argue, Sebastian wrapped his arm around Helen’s waist and hauled her out of the vehicle. Then he slammed the door shut and shouted instructions to the coachman.
The vehicle lurched forward, and Nicholas braced his foot against the opposite seat as they picked up speed and made a dash towards Grosvenor Square.
He might have breathed a sigh of relief and formed a plan had the coachman not cried for the horses to stop.
“Whoa! Whoa!”
The crack of a whip rent the air.
The horses squealed.
Amid shouts and jeers and the whirring of rattles, the carriage swerved and came to a crashing halt. The blind sprang open. Men dressed in the uniform of the Metropolitan Police Force appeared at the door, carrying lanterns and wielding their wooden batons. One yelled, “He’s here, sir! We have him!”
Nicholas prayed he had fallen asleep on the journey from Windsor, and this was nothing more than a bloody nightmare.
But one gruff fellow yanked the door open and cried, “Get out!”
Nicholas relaxed back in the seat and folded his arms across his chest. “Firstly, you have not asked my name or declared your purpose. Secondly, I am not leaving the vehicle until I see Mr Hope or Sir Percival Wold.”
Though Peel wanted his men to appear professional, to blend in with law-abiding citizens, Nicholas knew many were corrupt.
“I am a gentleman,” he continued sharply. “Be advised that I will bring a private prosecution against anyone who attempts to remove me from this vehicle. I pray you have the funds to pay a lawsuit.”
It was merely a bluff, a means to buy time.
But then Helen and Sebastian appeared, barging their way through the crowd of men, jostling and arguing with Peel’s constables.
“I am the 5thViscount Denton,” Sebastian said, hitting them with the full force of his title. “Find me the man in charge, else I shall send word to Peel and have him dragged from his bed.”
One constable pointed into the darkness, and his colleagues stepped back to make way for Hope and Wold. The useless duo who’d struggled to gather a shred of decent evidence between them.
Mr Hope glanced inside the vehicle, saw Nicholas, and nodded. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sebastian sought to silence him and the chubby magistrate.
“Am I to understand you still believe my friend killed Charles Holland? If so, please tell me how we have tracked down the murderer while you are attempting to arrest the wrong man.”
The portly magistrate pushed forward. “Mr St Clair was seen in the garden with the victim around the time of his death.”
“No, the witness did not identify the other person.” Sebastian gave an arrogant chuckle. “How foolish you will both look in court when it’s revealed the person who made the false statement is the killer.”
Helen must have told him about Monsieur Laurent.
Sir Percival frowned. “This is just a ploy to pervert the course of justice. The name of the witness is confidential. Therefore, how could you know he is the killer?”
“The valet confessed to being the witness,” Helen said in the tone of the lead counsel. “He did so in front of Lady Brompton, and I’m sure the butler was listening at the door.”
Sebastian gestured to the constables dressed in blue coats. “Peel wants support for his new police force. He won’t want this matter brought to people’s attention. A gentleman wrongly accused of a crime by incompetent law enforcement? How will it look in the broadsheets?”