The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy Read Online Free PDF Page B

He raised his arm to protect his eyes and pounded his pistol on the door frame. Maybe a little violence would induce the bloody thing to work properly.
    Over the top of the carriage, he saw the flash of Toby’s rifle—the pellet struck the front of the vehicle behind them and flared. The pursuing carriage sputtered to a stop in the middle of the street. Toby cheered in victory and raised his first two fingers in a rude salute to the swearing men trying to get their vehicle working again.
    “I’ve got to ‘ave one of those, mate,” Jack enthused as they both dropped back into their seats. “Good going, Philippe!”
    “ Très bon , mes frères! Très bon ” came the reply on a wave of maniacal laughter.
    Jack and Toby chuckled, as well—a release of nervous energy. That had been close. They’d had closer, Jack especially. Once, he’d stared down the barrel of a pistol just inches from his face while trying to pull his trousers on. Luckily for him, the wife of the man holding said pistol chose that moment to throw a pillow at her husband, and Jack took the opportunity to jump out the window. He’d landed in a rosebush, and despite being scratched senseless by the thorns, he’d run to his carriage barefoot, laughing like the idiot he was to have been diddling with a magistrate’s wife in the first place. Obviously the man hadn’t thought his wife’s honor to be worth hunting Jack down, but just to be safe he’d never returned to Exeter.
    His smile at the memory faded as the carriage sped on toward St. Pancras and he brushed slivers of wood from the front of his coat. He hadn’t anticipated tonight’s attack, but he’d felt it in the warehouse. He’d known something was wrong and he hadn’t gotten him and his men out of there fast enough to heed the warning bells clanging in his head. That was badly done of him. Philippe and Toby knew there could be consequences to working with him, but if one of them had been killed tonight...
    Well, Abernathy would owe him more than money. As it was, the viscount owed him an explanation, or at least an apology.
    What the hell was in that crate?
    * * *
    It wasn’t easy getting the crate into St. Pancras. Fortunately, the train stop wasn’t terribly busy, and Jack and his friends had disguised themselves as laborers to make their activities less interesting to anyone who might see them.
    The tricky part was going to be getting the crate to the correct spot, as it required them dropping onto the tracks and down a bit, unless Toby could get them into the maintenance rooms.
    As luck would have it, the train pulled out of the station just as they arrived on the platform, so for the time being they had the place all to themselves.
    “Don’t dawdle,” Jack said to Toby as his lanky friend crouched in front of a service door, lock-picking tools in hand.
    At one time it had been easy to pick a lock—they were practically all the same, and a master key was as good as gold. Then people starting taking their home security more seriously—a ring of body snatchers who weren’t too picky about whether or not their victims were already dead when they set upon them would do that—and locks became more intricate. Now there were punch cards and clockwork mazes, secret codes and what have you.
    Fortunately, the one on this door was a simple clockwork piece. Jack could have picked it himself, but the benefit of being the one running the show meant not getting the knees of your trousers dirty.
    There was a noise beside him—a muffled sliding sound. Frowning, Jack turned his head. Had it come from inside the crate? He listened again, but all he heard was the gentle clicks of Toby’s tools, and Philippe singing a French song under his breath.
    “We’re in,” Toby crowed as he pushed the door open.
    Jack clapped him on the back. “Well done, mate. Let’s go.” He could hear footsteps approaching, some of which did not sound human but more like the clang of metal on stone. Had their