Wicked Gentlemen Read Free

Good Commons that your wife kept in contact with?"
    "Yes." Dr. Talbott looked surprised that I would guess as much.
    "Mr. Roffcale had been sending Joan letters." Dr. Talbott frowned as he said this. "She said they were nothing, just news about her old friends at Good Commons. I never thought anything of them. But after she disappeared, William and I went through them." He seemed unable to go on.
    Captain Harper again took up where Talbott left off. "The letters could be seen as incriminating. We discovered warnings that she might be abducted in transport. Another letter described tortures inflicted upon women in graphic detail. Roffcale wanted Joan to return to Good Commons. He claimed that they would protect her."
    Harper stood and opened his long black coat. I caught sight of the white priest's collar at his throat as well as the pistol holstered beneath his left arm.
    That pairing fit the Inquisition perfectly. The white band proclaimed the captain's authority to judge and redeem the souls of those awash with sin. The pistol embodied the very earthly duty of each man of the Inquisition to enforce and uphold the law. Salvation became far more appealing when damnation was faced at gunpoint.
    Captain Harper withdrew a bundle of letters from the inner pocket of his coat and handed them to me. His leather gloves brushed against my fingers, and I felt the slight sting of the holy oils used to cure the hide.
    Captain Harper was close enough that I could see his eyes and smell his breath. His eyes were dark brown with deep blue shadows beneath them. His breath was nothing but tobacco smoke and coffee. I guessed that he had not eaten recently, nor had he slept.
    "These are the letters." Captain Harper stepped back from me before I could catch a deeper impression of him.
      "Do you have any idea where Mr. Roffcale might be now?" I turned the bundle of letters over, checking the postmarks and return addresses. All of the letters came from Hells Below.
    "He's in custody at the Brighton Inquisition House," Captain Harper said.
    I frowned at the thought. It was an unpleasant place to be for anyone, but the worst tortures were reserved for Prodigals. The prayer engines were a particular horror. The scars on my chest and arms burned from just the memory.
    "I'm not sure what you could need me for, then. If he's in your power already, I'm sure you'll be able to extract all the information you'd like to have."
    "Right now, I'm just holding him. If I have him taken in for a confession, then everything he says goes down in the confessor's records. I would rather not have his name mixed with Joan's if it can be helped," Captain Harper said.
    "If it can't be helped?" I asked.
    "We will do anything that is required to see that Joan is returned unharmed." Dr. Talbott's low voice trembled with conviction.
    Captain Harper gazed out the open window behind me. He studied the empty blackness for several moments and then turned his attention back to me.
    "All we want is for you to go in and talk with Roffcale. He's more likely to relax with one of his own. Hopefully, he'll let something slip to you that he wouldn't tell me."
    "You're paying quite a bit, just to have me chat a man up," I replied.
    "I'm sure I can find more for you to do if that isn't enough," the captain replied.
    I glanced up at him. I had no doubt that there was more he would have me do. I glanced out the window. Pairs of fireflies flashed and chased each other across the darkness.
    "I suppose that you'll want me to go to the Inquisition House to speak to this Roffcale?" I knew that would be the case but still asked, hoping that somehow I'd be wrong.
    "Tonight would be best." Captain Harper buttoned up his coat.
      "Yes, I suppose it would," I said.
    "Thank you so much." Dr. Talbott stood quickly.
    I nodded and picked my coat up off the back of my chair. As I pulled it on, I remembered my fallen hypodermic. I glanced down quickly, wondering if the captain might have caught sight of