The Vanishing Thief(93)

“Chelling Meadows used to be Hancock’s home,” I told them. “I don’t know who lives there now. It’s past Holland Park. We’ll have to go there at once.” Why had the villain taken Emma to Hancock’s former home? Then I remembered Emma telling me Hancock still worked in his laboratory there. I was embarrassed by my failure to realize who Drake’s enemy was and ready to rip Hancock apart.

“I saw that ugly brute that works for Blackford jump on the back of the carriage. He must have had orders to follow if either of you were abducted from the ball. They should have reached Chelling Meadows by now.” Fogarty helped me into the unmarked carriage that had brought us here.

“That must be Sumner you saw. Was Hancock’s niece with them?”

“No. I noticed the man in a wizard costume talking to a young, blond shepherdess shortly before he asked Emma to dance. The shepherdess could have been his niece. Whatever he said, she shook her head no and went off to dance with someone in a knight costume,” Jacob said as he and Fogarty piled in behind me and our driver started to pick his way around the other carriages.

“The wizard was alone when I spotted him carrying Emma. She appeared to be unconscious,” Fogarty said. “I think she was still alive.”

My heart squeezed tight. I had to save Emma. We finally broke free of the tangle of carriages and rode out past Kensington Palace and Holland Park.

“Why does it have to be out in the country?” I asked. Traffic had been heavy through town and our trip was slow. I could have run faster. It was all Fogarty could do to keep me from bolting from the carriage.

“This isn’t the country anymore,” Fogarty told me. “He still owns the house and grounds, but the estate has been sold off and built up. Part of the London suburbs now.”

“Are we ever going to get there?” Tears were filling my eyes.

“If he drove the horses any faster, we’d tip over on a curve,” Fogarty said. “Jacob, are you armed?”

“I’ve got my knife.”

“I have a dagger,” I added.

“Can you throw it?” Fogarty asked me.

“No, but I’ll have no problem stabbing him in the heart. Poor Emma. She’s so young. What did he do to her?” I started to pull the weapon out of its sheath, but Fogarty put out a hand to stop me.

“Leave it where it is until we know there’s no other way.”

Fogarty stopped the driver on the road in front of Chelling Meadows and told him to wait for us. Then we climbed down and entered the grounds past a tall wrought-iron fence. None of us spoke as we stepped through knee-high weeds and around a dry fountain, Fogarty leading the way with a lantern from the carriage.

The house loomed before us, an old three-story structure with a two-story wing on one side and the crumbling remains of a conservatory on the other. Every window was dark.

Fogarty turned the knob on the front door and it opened with a creak. We walked inside the empty front hall, expecting to be challenged by a thug at any moment. The only footsteps and breaths we heard were our own.

Holding the lantern ahead of us, Fogarty was the first to see the wire across the doorway in front of us. He held up his hand, and we stopped. He stuck his head into the space beyond and looked around. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into the next room, pushing the lantern ahead of him.

When Fogarty was through, he stood up and gestured to the side. I stuck my head over the wire and saw it went to the stopper of a glass vial perched on top of a barrel of whitish powder. Hancock was an inventor of weapons. I guessed this was one of his creations.

Fogarty carefully unhooked the wire from the loops on either side of the doorway and pushed it to the side. Now no one could accidently trigger the fire or explosion or whatever Lord Hancock had planned. We walked on, smelling wood rot and stale air, until we reached the back of the house, where we found a door with light showing underneath.

Fogarty set down his lantern and pulled out his pistol. Then, with a nod, he pushed open the door and the three of us spilled into the room.

I had never seen a room like it before. Once it had been a small ballroom, but now it was covered with tables holding glass vials in metal stands with gas jets underneath, glass tubes running from glass jar to glass jar, and clear containers of different-colored powders and liquids. In one corner, barrels were stacked up. The air smelled of sulfur and coal fires and spices.

In the very center in the crossroads of two aisles, Emma sat bound to a large wooden chair with thick ropes. Her head drooped forward. There was blood on her skirt. I reached for my dagger.

Fogarty put out a hand to stop me.