House of Corruption Read Online Free PDF Page B

gazed at the cracks in his skin, his slender wrists, the long fingers ending in gnawed fingernails. He could only imagine the terrible voices that could condemn him from those hands.
    Could it have been?
    Rain pounded against the hansom’s coverage. He looked into the sky and his eyes dilated as he took in more light, hoping to convince himself he was lucid. He was awake, was he not? Truly awake? Four years had passed since his last living nightmare and yet...
    And yet.
    He touched at his chest, pressing down against the upraised scar—the smooth, thumb-sized blotch set an inch above his heart. Through the thick fabric of his coat and waistcoat and shirt and undershirt and skin and muscle he felt the hard knot of tissue, the silver bullet worming its way a little deeper, a little closer, every day. It had given him what he wanted most: time, the prodigal’s chance to regain a life he had lost.
    Yet the bullet served its blessing on a shallow plate. One day it would complete its slow and dirty work as it burrowed ever deeper. How would it feel when it pierced his heart?
    The Beast is gone , he thought. It has to be.
    Four years had passed, and yet...
    Could it have been me?
     
    He arrived at a bland four-story brick building on New Orleans’ Royal Street. The anonymity of LaCroix Brokerage’s main office made men like Bill all the more necessary; he found the wheels of business moved easier when he was unburdened with unsolicited salesmen, unhappy clients, tax collectors and other such rubbish.
    “Monsieur LaCroix?”
    A man in a stiff frock coat stood beside the front steps as Reynard descended from his cab. By his polished shoes, a high-collared suit, and an umbrella draped over his arm, he was as grim as a barrister attending a partner’s funeral. He had the look of a bird with his hornbill nose and high forehead and long, mobile throat, his black hair slicked back save three, unruly hairs at attention behind his left ear.
    “Edward Tukebote,” he said with a thick accent Reynard could not identify. He extended his hand and a business card appeared. “I represent Miss Kiria Carlovec, daughter of Sir Wilhem Carlovec of Her Majesty’s North Borneo Company.”
    “Are you from the constabulary?”
    “No. Her message may have mentioned me?”
    “I received no message.”
    “Ah yes, of course,” Tukebote said. “Forgive my imposition. I supposed your man upstairs would have...” He cleared his throat. “I wonder if you might spare a moment to—”
    “No.”
    Reynard did not take his card. He moved past him up the steps, entered the building and ascended the stairwell. The man did not follow. At the uppermost floor, Reynard went to the third door on the left, an inconsequential flat without sign or label. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting the solicitor at his heels. Thankfully, the man did not follow. They were like cockroaches, weren’t they?
    He went inside, and stopped short.
    “Hello, Reynard.”
    Artémius Savoy sat in one of three chairs that made up the flat’s waiting nook, a carpetbag at his feet, his familiar notebook resting on his lap and a steaming pipe and cup of tea on a table beside him. He smiled as if he had always been there. He was alone—which meant Mister Burlington, the office manager, was out on errands and Betty, the part-time secretary, made good to stay home with her so-called influenza.
    “Just how did you get in?” Reynard asked.
    “I have been here since ten o’clock,” Savoy said. He was at least twenty pounds lighter, the grey in his hair and beard more pronounced than Reynard remembered. “Mister Burlington trusted me to mind the store. Your manifests make for fascinating reading. I was not aware you secured the Kansas line. When did you start brokering cotton into Texas?”
    “It has been a long time.”
    “Too long, my boy, too long.”
    “And not a word you were coming?”
    Savoy stood and drew him into his arms like a father reuniting with his long-lost