Convicted Innocent(37)

“In any case,” Duke went on, “I had hoped adulthood would change the boy, and the little I saw of him since my return – preceding his arrest – seemed a good indicator that he indeed had. I was mistaken. While the rest of the family seem keen to support him and deny his culpability, I will not share their good opinion of the boy.”

“And how did you come across him today?” Horace tacitly nudged the conversation back on track.

Duke blinked at him as if surprised the inspector refused to commiserate.

Constable Frost’s pencil stub scratched furiously across the pages of his little notepad.

“I stopped in at the factory where I clerk to pick up some papers. Mr. Harker…Archibald, that is, requested that I bring them round to his house at tea today, and I thought I’d collect them on my way back from services this morning. Mr. Harker’s request isn’t unusual, and I found myself at the factory at about half-past ten.

“I let myself in the back way as I always do after hours. As I was making my way to the offices, I saw someone moving about near the area where equipment and raw materials are stored. I’d thought myself alone until then. I called out to him, and then someone struck me from behind.”

Duke rubbed the back of his head in pained memory.

“When I came to my senses, I wasn’t in the factory anymore, but in some sort of long, bricked corridor with what seemed to be many hallways or rooms branching off from it. And there was my nephew with a few thug-like men. He gave me a brief message – very concise and well-planned as though he’d memorized it…which he must have done for me to understand him at all – then he clocked me on the head.”

Gingerly, he touched the cut at the fringe of his gray-sprinkled hairline.

“I was in the alley behind the factory when I awoke, and came straight here as soon as my wits returned fully.”

“What was the message?”

“To find you and to tell you that he’s ready whenever you are to settle the feud, that you’ll have figured the location, and…” Duke’s voice trailed away, and his dark eyes became nervous once more.

“—And?” Horace prompted.

The message bearer swallowed audibly.

“…and he said he’ll trade the two in his pocket for you.”

* * * * *

David Powell was about to lay a restraining hand on his friend’s shoulder when he realized Lewis wasn’t actually throttling Innocent, but gripping the boy’s collar tightly in one fist – very tightly and very firmly, but not brutally.

After all, there was a difference between Lewis Todd and the thugs who’d kidnapped them.

The police sergeant leaned over. His face inches from Innocent’s, Lewis growled slowly and with noticeable menace: “Why are you here? How?”

Innocent (or was it Nicholas?) spluttered a reply. The look on the young man’s face was frightened, yet he hadn’t raised a hand in struggle and lay still as he spoke.

However, before the young man finished his explanation, which was the same he’d given David before, Lewis shook his head and cut him off.

“No. It’s no use.”

The frustration in his friend’s tone surprised David, who stood still at his friend’s side with one hand outstretched to check the violence that didn’t come.

“Lew?”

Lewis released Innocent abruptly and sat down with an ‘oof.’

“I can’t understand him,” the bobby replied to David’s unspoken question, his voice a rasp once more. “He could be saying anything – a taunt, a threat, a plea – and I’m none the wiser.”