Laura Lee Guhrke Read Online Free PDF Page B

place,” he told her with a fatherly sort of frown. “But, once you’ve decided on your course, you’d best stick to it.That has always been my way. I remember once in the Bengal—”
    “Tell us, dear,” Miss Atwood interrupted to prevent another of the colonel’s long, rather tedious stories of his life in India, “what do you plan to do next?”
    Sophie looked at the eager faces of the other four people assembled around the tea table, and she found herself at a loss. “I have no idea,” she confessed. “But I’m going to think of something. I am not going to let him die.”
    The White Horse was not the pub of choice for most policemen around Whitehall. The Boar’s Head, close to both New Scotland Yard and Cannon Row Police Station, usually held that honor. But thanks to Sir Roger Ellerton and his motorcar, the Boar’s Head was closed for repairs, so the White Horse was crowded with off-duty bobbies, constables, and inspectors when Mick walked in.
    Word of his part in Sir Roger’s escapade had reached most of his comrades, and he bowed facetiously to the applause that greeted his arrival at the pub. His black eye was much admired, and his birthday provided the perfect excuse for another round.
    Amid good-natured insults, slaps on the back, and birthday wishes, Mick accepted a complimentary pint of ale from the barkeep. He ordered a steak and chips from Annie, the prettiest barmaid at the White Horse, then he glanced around the crowded interior of the pub. He saw many men that he knew, including his friends Anthony Frye and Jack Hawthorne seated at a table nearby, but though he responded to their wave ofgreeting with a wave of his own, he did not cross the room to their table. Right now, the men he wanted to see were Billy and Rob. He spied them seated in a far corner of the pub, and he made his way through the labyrinth of people and the haze of cigar smoke to their table.
    Billy Mackay and Rob Willis were veterans of the Metropolitan Police for two decades. Though only a few years older than Mick, they had no ambitions beyond their present jobs. Both of them enjoyed being bobbies on the beat. Though higher in rank, inspectors like Mick who dressed in plain clothes garnered even less trust and confidence from the populace than the uniformed officers did.
    Billy and Rob took their work seriously, but that did not stop them from playing jokes on their fellow officers. They were, in fact, notorious for it. Mick had learned that his first day on the force. Barely eighteen, he’d been initiated into the ranks with a uniform they had rolled in poison ivy. In retaliation, Mick had dusted their uniforms with sneezing powder, and he’d been friends with the pair ever since.
    “Well done, lad,” Billy said as Mick sat down. “How many blots on your copybook do you get for arresting an earl’s son?”
    “Couldn’t you have done something a bit more sensational for your birthday?” Rob asked. “Unmasking one of the Queen’s nieces as a jewel thief would have been better, I think.”
    “Rather,” Billy agreed. “Then you might have been in the penny papers.”
    “It’ll be in the papers anyway,” Mick assured them.“When I passed the Boar’s Head on
my
way here, I saw that artist for the
Daily Telegraph
sketching the scene.” He took a hefty swallow of ale and licked the foam from his upper lip. “But enough of that. I want to know about the other.”
    “What other?” Rob grinned beneath his graying dark-brown mustache. “You mean you did something else today as stupid as arresting Sir Roger Ellerton?”
    “It wasn’t stupid,” Mick defended himself.
    “He’s related to the Home Secretary,” Billy told him.
    “I know that now,” Mick answered. “But I didn’t know it at the time. Besides, I don’t care who his relations are. He deserved to be arrested for striking a policeman.” He took another swallow of ale, then set his glass down on the table. “Enough about that. I want to know