Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [116]
Wetron stared at him, his face for a moment gleaming with anticipation. Then it darkened, caution reasserting itself. They stood less than a yard from each other, the reflected streetlamp on the scullery windows making them seem even closer. Tellman felt his body shake as if his heartbeat were violent enough to choke him. Had Wetron seen through his trick? Was he even now having someone arrest Pricey in the act?
Had he allowed Tellman to bring him here in a double bluff?
“Yes, sir,” Tellman said hoarsely. “Do you want to go in here, or the front door?”
“Front door,” Wetron answered. “We’ll take all night to rouse anyone here.” And he pushed past Tellman and went up the steps, almost stumbling in the shadows.
The constable was in the lee of the house at the far end, almost invisible. If this was where Pitt emerged from the back, he might get caught, but there was no way to warn him. Tellman’s whole body ached with tension, fear knotting his stomach, making him gulp for breath.
Wetron reached the front door and yanked the bell pull, waited a few moments, then yanked it again.
It was nearly five minutes before anyone came, by which time he was pale with rage.
“Yes, sir?” the footman said coldly.
“Superintendent Wetron,” Wetron told him. “You have an intruder in the house who may have come to set a bomb. Go and call all the staff immediately, lock the doors, tell the women to stay together in the housekeeper’s room. Immediately, man! Don’t stand there like a fool! You could all be blown to smithereens.”
The man went sheet-white, staring as if he barely comprehended the meaning of the words.
Wetron pushed past him, Tellman immediately behind him. The hall was large and the gas lamps were all out except for the one the footman had probably lit in order to find his way to answer the door. Tellman could barely see where he was going and cracked his shins against a low, oriental table as he went to turn up the main lamps.
Wetron turned around slowly, staring for any trace of disturbance. Everything was exactly as one would expect to find it: Chinese embroidered silk screen, pot of ornamental bamboo, long-case clock, chairs. Nothing moved. There was no sound anywhere. Tellman strained his ears, but heard not even the creak of wood settling. He prayed that Pitt was over the wall at the back, and far away by now.
“Wake everyone!” Wetron ordered in a low, tense voice, speaking to the footman. “But lock the front door first. If this man has set a bomb, I’m going to make sure he stays here with us!”
“Yes, s-sir,” the footman stammered, moving jerkily to obey.
Wetron turned to Tellman. “You start over there!” he pointed to one of the large mahogany doors with a carved lintel. “Put all the lights on. We’re going to flush this man out.”
“Gas, sir,” Tellman said, trying to sound afraid. “If there’s a blast…” He left the appalling thought unsaid.
“If there’s a blast, Sergeant, the gas already in the pipes will be enough to blow us all to Kingdom Come,” Wetron replied. “Get in and find that man, before he can light a fuse to anything.”
The next two hours were among the best and worst Tellman had ever spent. They woke all the servants, and of course Edward and Enid Denoon. Piers Denoon came blinking out of his bedroom, confused and obviously more than a little drunk. He seemed barely able to understand when Wetron told him that someone had broken into the house to plant dynamite.
Everyone was frightened. Several of the younger maids were in tears, the cook was outraged, even the male servants were visibly alarmed. The butler was so jittery, he knocked over a vase of flowers that fell with a crash of splintered china that sounded like a shot. That set off the thirteen-yearold between-stairs maid screaming until she was sick.
No intruder was found, nor any explosive device of any sort. By three o’clock in the morning, Wetron, white with fury and completely baffled, withdrew from the house, leaving Tellman and the constable on guard outside. He had