The Apothecary's Poison (Glass and Steele #3)(64)

"Everything all right, sir?" the coachman asked as we alighted. "I thought I heard a…" He trailed off when he saw Matt pointing a gun at the thug's head.

"Wait here," I directed him then followed Matt up the steps.

The butler opened the door and fell back a step. Matt didn't wait to be invited inside but shoved the thug across the threshold despite the butler's protests.

"Your master," Matt snapped. "Now!"

"I-I'll see if h-he's in," the butler said.

"He better damn well be in."

The next two minutes were excruciating on my nerves. Matt held the back of the thug's collar in his left hand and the gun at his temple with his right. Both men had lost their hats in the coach.

Finally Lord Coyle trudged down the stairs, flanked by two young, wide-eyed footmen and the butler, who'd regained his composure and now looked down his nose at us.

"What is the meaning of this?" Coyle demanded in a voice as robust as his stout body.

Matt hustled the thug forward. "Your man attacked us. He threatened to break Miss Steele's fingers if we didn't stop investigating Hale's murder."

"My man?" Coyle looked the brute up and down and wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something foul. "I've never seen him before."

"Don't play me for a fool, Coyle. He was seen coming here."

Coyle looked to his butler.

"Er…a delivery of some sort, if I recall, sir. Nothing important."

"He came to the front door," I pointed out, "not the service entrance."

"It is hardly my master's fault if that fellow doesn't know the proper order of things." The butler straightened and placed his hands at his back. He looked entirely too smug for my liking.

"There you have it, Glass," Coyle said, stroking his thumb and forefinger along his drooping white mustache. "This man has nothing to do with me. Now if you'll kindly remove him from my premises, I would be most grateful."

Matt pulled hard on the man's collar and he made a choking sound. "Threatening me is one thing, Coyle, but you do not threaten Miss Steele and get away with it."

"My dear fellow, I have not threatened anyone. He has. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Matt looked as if he would protest, but instead he swung the thug around and marched him out the door. The man tripped down the steps but Matt managed to keep him on his feet.

"Coyle has thrown you to the wolves," Matt growled at the man. "Care to admit that you work for him now?"

The man didn't speak. He looked angry, but at Coyle or Matt?

"He doesn't care what happens to you," Matt said. "He's saving his own skin at your expense."

Still, the man said nothing.

"Don't you care what will happen to you?"

"The law will do what it wants with me. Ain't nothing going to change that."

With a grunt of frustration, Matt shoved him into the cabin. "India, you'll ride alongside Bryce. Bryce, take us to Scotland Yard."

Bryce helped me up to the driver's seat then waited until Matt shut the cabin door. I sat with my heart in my throat the entire journey, jumping at every shout from other coachmen or loud noise. Matt seemed to have everything under control, but the disappointment of Coyle's unruffled reaction must be eating at him. Perhaps he'd got the thug to confess by now.

The cabin door flew open before the coach came to a complete stop outside the Victoria Embankment police headquarters. Matt pushed the man ahead of him. He still held his collar and the gun at his temple, but the man now sported a bloody nose and bruised cheek.

I eyed Matt but made no comment. I didn't dare. Fury hardened his face and clouded his eyes so that I hardly recognized him. He didn't seem to see me as he marched the thug toward the New Scotland Yard building. I followed a few paces behind.

Inside, constables rushed over. Matt briefly explained that the thug had threatened me and pulled a gun on us. They took him and his gun away, then led us to a windowless room that seemed to be used as a sitting room but had more in common with a cell it was so airless and sparsely furnished.

"Get me Brockwell," Matt demanded. He paced for five minutes until Brockwell came, then he stopped pacing. He did not sit.

Brockwell walked into the room in his slow, deliberate gait that wound my already fraught nerves even tighter. Matt was just as tense, if his rigid shoulders and stony silence were anything to go by. He had not spoken to me since ordering me to sit alongside Bryce.

"My constable tells me you brought someone in after he threatened you," Brockwell said. "Poor Miss Steele! What an ordeal for you. Constable, bring tea for Miss Steele."

"He's linked to Hale's murder," Matt said before Brockwell addressed him. "He's the man who threatened Miss Steele yesterday. Today, he held us at gunpoint in my conveyance. If I hadn't overpowered him, he would have broken Miss Steele's fingers or shot her to get his point across."

"Perhaps you should have stopped investigating after the first threat."

Matt sucked in a sharp breath and looked as if he would explode in fury. I caught his hand and squeezed so hard it must have hurt. He merely blinked but at least he no longer looked like he wanted to punch Brockwell.

"When you question him," I said, "you must ask him about Lord Coyle."