Lord Day and Lady Night

34. Take them Down

Lord Patrick Day sat on his chaise longue, stroking his chin, deep in thought.

Why?

The reason for his intense concentration lay right in front of him on the table.

It was about an hour after breakfast. Most of the children had left the house to wreck the—ehem, play in the garden. From upstairs, the sound of a piano being tortured echoed through the house. Apparently, Flo and Jo were putting the lessons they had learned from Edmund to the test. Well, it was good they were all busy. He and the others had business to attend to that wasn't exactly fit for children's ears.

"So that's it?" Angeline's words were more a statement than a question, each syllable saturated with anger.

"Aye." Amy nodded. "The list."

They had not looked at this thing ever since they had liberated the children from the gang's secret east end hideout. But now, all their attention was focused on it.

"Why are we looking at this?" Karim growled. "The girls on this list need to be rescued, true. But with every moment that passes, more and more are captured and sent to locations all over Britain we don't even know about. We should attack the heart of the organization, rather than whittling away at the edges."

A fighter to the core. But not a general. Well, I suppose that is what I am here for.

"True." Patrick nodded grimly. "Unfortunately, we don't know where said heart is, or if it even is a heart, or perhaps a liver or a kidney. Remember, we still don't have any idea who is actually behind this. Which gang is kidnapping the children? Is it actually just one, or are several cooperating? How did they manage to secure connections to the nobility to sell their...products? We need answers to all those questions, yet we don't have any way to get them."

Reaching out, he tapped the crinkled document on the table.

"Except for one."

"You mean..."

"I mean since we don't know which gang to go after, we go after their victims instead. With every single one we find, we will obtain more information. A whispered name here, a glimpse at a face that was supposed to be masked there...Sooner or later, intelligence will accumulate. Sooner or later, our enemies will not be able to hide anymore. We will rescue all the children they have stolen from all over Britain, and once we have witnesses that can lead us where we want to go, we will strike straight at whoever is behind this!"

From the other side of the table, Amy sent him a grin that would have caused any hostess of a ball held by a well-respected family to throw her out on her derriere in horror. Patrick, for some reason, did not feel the appropriate amount of horror. Quite the opposite, in fact.

"Ehem." Karim cleared his throat.

"Ah. Right." Hurriedly, Lord Patrick Day lowered his gaze to the list again. One thing had to be said for that list—it was incredibly effective at driving out any embarrassing thoughts. Ruthlessly so.

***

Amy watched as Patrick's finger started wandering down the list, mumbling as he went.

"Sir MNG, Lord F, Duke RH..."

The others exchanged looks.

"Those are merely initials," Karim pointed out. "How are we supposed what any of that means?"

Patrick looked up, only cocking one eyebrow in response.

'ell, now I know where da word "cocky" comes from. 'ow da 'ell does he manage ta look dis arrogant just by doing dat? And...why da 'ell ain't I more pissed off about it?