Breaking and Entering 101 (The Case Files of Henri Davenforth Book 4)

by Honor Raconteur

  “Alright, I’ll put him in holding for now.”

  “Thanks, Charlie.” I hung up and went toward Henri’s lab. As always, I stopped just behind the yellow line at his door, even though I was relatively sure it was safe.

  Elwood was bent over an ingot, a magnifying glass held up to his eye, but he lifted his head as I came in. Henri sat opposite him with an inventory sheet on the table, marking things off, but he too looked up.

  “Abracadabra,” he said without prompting.

  That still made me smile, no matter how many times he did it. Part of the fun with Henri was that he always played along. “Gentlemen, I’ve got a lead on the rest of the missing gold. Jodan Nichols has been detained, but he’s only saying it’s in Bristol somewhere. Mr. Elwood, I need my partner. Can another officer help you?”

  “Please, Detective,” he encouraged cordially. “I’ve no wish to hold up the process. I believe all my property is here, I’m just inspecting things to make sure no one tried to shave a bit off.”

  Ah. Probably a smart precaution. “I understand. I’ll grab one of my trusted colleagues and be right back.”

  Henri stood, reaching for his coat hanging on the wall and sliding into it even as he moved. “Who do you want to fetch?”

  “Gerring, if he’s available. He’s already pitch-hit for us once.”

  “Pitch-hit?”

  “The baseball terms are the hardest to explain,” I noted rhetorically. “Already helped, I meant. I’ll grab Gerring, you update the captain?”

  Henri gave me a nod and headed toward the front of the building. I headed for the back. I’d seen Gerring pass me a few minutes ago, headed this direction.

  I was correct and found him in a few minutes. Gerring promptly agreed to my request, which reinforced once again that I really had to focus on getting him completely trained. He had the right attitude to make a great detective, he was just short on the know-how. If I focused on him like I had Penny, he’d be detective in six months. Easy.

  Mental note to me: Gerring.

  I introduced him and Elwood, and they cordially shook hands before settling back in. I also poked my head into Colette’s lab—which looked leagues different from when Sanderson occupied it. It looked (gasp! surprise!) organized—and gave her a head’s up just in case the two next door needed help. Then I belatedly realized who I had not updated and fired off a quick message to Gibson.

  Henri met up with me at the front door, a taxi already waiting on us. He’d always been good about anticipating things. He held the door open for me as I slid inside, settling on the bench. Henri joined me a second later, double tapping the roof to get the driver going.

  “We know nothing about where the gold is, other than Bristol?”

  “Nope, no clue. And even that might be a lie. I think Nichols is trying to hedge his bets, maybe get time off for being cooperative.” It was a ploy most criminals tried. We sometimes played along, depending, as it did save time and aggravation on our end too. “Charlie didn’t say as much, but that was the vibe I got.”

  “I see.” Henri frowned, lips pursed. “I do wonder if we should perhaps stop by the apartment and pack an overnight bag. I have a notion this might run well into the night. And we’re short on daylight as it stands.”

  Considering it was late afternoon now? “It’s not a bad idea. I’d rather find a hotel tonight in Bristol than hang out at the station waiting on the morning train.”

  “Precisely.” Henri grimaced. “The one time I did that was a notable memory that doesn’t bear repeating.”

  “Oooh, I sense a story.”

  “One I’ll regale you with later. Let me divert the driver.” Henri shifted to the other seat and opened the pass-through window up front, giving instructions to stop by our apartment building first.

  I asked Clint if he wanted to come or stay home and chase mice. His decision was quick and unanimous. Train.

  I was an old hand at packing in a hurry, thanks to my FBI days. I was in and out in five minutes flat, a carpet bag holding the essentials. (I missed duffle bags and backpacks, but the old-fashioned carpet bags were charming.) Clint rode along my shoulders like the pirate parrot he was in a previous life, beyond excited to ride a train again.

  Henri once again met up with me at the door and when he saw Clint on my shoulder, he arched an eyebrow in question.

  “Trains apparently trump mice,” I informed him drolly.

  “Ah.”

  We loaded back into the taxi, my cat so excited he kept bouncing from window to window. If he’d possessed a tail, he’d have been wagging it furiously like a dog, I will swear to this.

  “I meant to tell you,” Henri stated in a by-the-by manner, “RM Felix sent me another message requesting a follow up interview with the two of you. He’s quite excited you’ve agreed to work with him in perfecting the Felix.”

  I turned to face him, a little surprised by this. “Really?”

  “Clint is, in a sense, a prototype,” Henri explained patiently. “I was able to acquire him through connections. It wasn’t because he was commercially available. He is, in fact, only the third generation of Felixes. You’re one of the few aside from Jules who truly understands the Felix.”

  Now that was interesting. It didn’t surprise me Henri knew the right people to acquire something that was still a prototype. The man seemed to know everyone in Kingston. “So he views me as…what? A consulting expert?”

  “Quite so. If you’re amiable, I can respond and set up a meeting?”

  “Sure. I personally think it’ll be fun. And he did mention he wanted to give me another kitten.”

  “Kitten?” Henri repeated blankly. “I thought that was in jest.”

  “Pretty sure he was serious. I think he wants to see if another cat I raise will perform better than the standard, like Clint has done. A repeat experiment on his part, or something.”

  “When put that way, it does make sense.” Henri nodded firmly. “I’m definitely sitting in on that meeting when you two do talk.”

  I snorted in amusement. Of course he would.

  We arrived at the station without fanfare and quickly got out, Henri paying the driver. He’d gotten better about letting me occasionally pay for things, but the bulk of the time he did so, even if it was an expense (like now) the department would reimburse us for.

  Libby Shannon had somehow been alerted, as the station master met us at the front door. She kept her voice semi-confidential as she demanded, “I’ve heard the news, is any of it true?”

  “Depends on what you’ve heard.” With rumor mills, the sky was the limit on that. “We’ve arrested Jodan Nichols, Cain Innis, Simon Biggs, and Marianna Rutherford. Innis and Nichols have confessed. We’ve recovered most of the gold from the first heist and we’re going through it now. We need passage to Bristol. That’s where Nichols is—and supposedly the rest of the gold from the first and second heists.”

  Her mouth went flat with displeasure, eyes spitting fire. “So, it was some of my own employees. Curse their hides. Detectives, you’ll get free passage. I’ll get you tickets immediately. Whatever we can do to aid you, inform me immediately.”

  “With pleasure, Station Master, thank you,” Henri responded politely.

  When Shannon decided to move, she certainly did. She had us on the next train in ten minutes, one of the nicer first-class coaches—with snacks, no less. I appreciated the snacks. I’d missed lunch entirely, what with all the running back and forth.

  As we settled in, the train took off in a slow chug, the whistle announcing our departure from the station. I mixed up a cup of hot chocolate and eyed the petite sandwiches, deciding which of them would grace my stomach first.

  “Jamie.” Henri was mixing up his own drink, lips pursed thoughtfully. “How much would you care to wager Nichols has done something remarkably stupid, hence his hesitation to speak frankly with us?”

  A dark, unamused chuckle tumbled free. “Yeah, no bet.”

  Gibson, somehow,
beat us there. By probably five minutes, but that was still rather amazing considering how efficiently we’d moved to Bristol. He must have driven and put the pedal to the metal to manage it. He kept bouncing on his toes, like a child waiting for some highly anticipated present.

  “You’re a little too perky,” I informed him.

  “We’re about to solve and recover the stolen property from the biggest gold heist in history,” he informed me, still bouncing on his toes. “Of course I’m excited. Here, throw your bags under Charlie’s desk. That’s where she put mine.”

  “Alright.” I took Henri’s too, passing it along, as there wasn’t much room to maneuver in this area of the room. “Is Foster here?”

  “He is. Currently shadowing Nichols in the interrogation room.”

  “Good.” I’d feel bad if Foster was left out. He’d done so much good work he deserved to help us close this one.

  We threw bags under Charlie’s desk, and I tucked Clint under one arm as we headed into interrogation. Foster let us in, a smirk on that foxy face of his, and I smirked back before sailing through the door. It did feel good, being this close to having a resolution. It’s what made this line of work so addictive.

  Nichols did not share our excitement. Which was to be expected. He was an odd mix of his fellow thieves—he had Innis’ resignation, Rutherford’s belligerence, and the grey, ill skin tone of Biggs. That was quite the cocktail of emotions rumbling around in him. As I came in, his head snapped up, and he stared at me with flat brown eyes. I stared back, taking his measure. He wasn’t a particularly handsome man, too thin for that, with his hair standing up at weird angles as if he’d been tugging at it. Maybe, under different conditions, he’d be considered attractive.

  Right now, I kinda just wanted to shake answers out of him.

  “Jodan Nichols.” I smiled pleasantly as I sat opposite him at the table. “Let me introduce you. This is Kingsman Foster, Kingsman Gibson, and Dr. Davenforth, Magical Examiner and my partner. I’m Detective Edwards.”

  Nichols showed no reaction other than to stare fixedly at Clint, still in my lap. “And what’s that?”

  “A lie detector,” I deadpanned, ignoring the chokes behind me. “Now. Where did you hide the rest of the gold?”

  “I want immunity from the charges,” Nichols said quickly, words tripping over each other.

  “No,” Gibson answered flatly. “You don’t get off completely free from this. We can talk about a reduction of sentence—Innis made that deal—but you will pay for this crime.”

  Nichols shook his head, the argument building, but his eyes kept darting from face to face. Finally he seemed to realize the futility of it, and his shoulders slumped as he deflated. “Fine. Fine. How much of a reduction?”

  “Half.” Gibson’s tone brooked no disagreement. “You serve two years instead of four if you help us recover it.”

  “Two years,” Nichols mouthed, almost silently.

  It was a short time, in the long scheme of things. But it was also two years in a place no one sane wanted to live, two years with people who were hardened criminals and had no mercy, two years of not having the freedom to do anything. Two years without family or friends. It was a lot, from that perspective.

  “What if I lead you right to it, fetch it myself?” Nichols offered desperately.

  “Innis did exactly that. He’s still getting two years.”

  Nichols deflated even further. After a long, stuffy minute of silence, he finally acquiesced. “You guarantee the two years?”

  “I do. I speak with Her Majesty’s Voice. I can overturn a jury’s sentence.”

  “Oh. Then fine, I agree. I’ll show you.”

  I stared at the site and whistled low. “Well. This will be problematic.”

  Nichols stood at my side, wringing his hands and looking (if possible) even paler than before. “It wasn’t like this last week! I swear to you, I put the gold in a safe and secured it just inside. No one’s worked on this site for months, almost a year. It shouldn’t be like this!”

  My eyes roved over the half-formed apartment building in question. The brick outer shell was done, but the windows were still tacked over. Even the door looked very makeshift. I could see how Nichols had easily gained access inside. I was still puzzled why he’d thought a half-constructed building was a good idea to hide approximately eighty thousand in gold, but that was beside the point.

  The point was that it was definitely a live construction site now. With protective wards around it.

  Henri and Gibson sighed in unison, both of them sounding completely and utterly done. Turning to them, I requested, “Talk to me, guys.”

  “The wards here work on the same principal as any other,” Henri explained, still staring at the wards as if they’d personally offended his mother. “They are couched in such a way that nothing can be taken from the site. Because the gold was there when the wards were set, they’re now part of the property, and the wards will prevent its removal. I would guess this builder has had trouble with tools walking away and put the ward up as a deterrent.”

  I could possibly get through the wards just fine, thanks to Belladonna, but I wasn’t really willing to risk it. If I was wrong, I’d end up with possible broken ribs, which was a fat no thank you in my book. I could hear banging and general construction noises coming from inside and pointed toward the door. “Someone’s working in there.”

  Brightening, Gibson immediately went to the door and pounded on it. It took a second before the hammering inside stopped. Another minute later, the front door opened and a dusky looking fellow poked his head out, nose scrunching up in query. Werebeaver, eh? Didn’t surprise me. They tended to make up most construction crews.

  “Can I help you, Kingsman?” the man asked politely.

  “I hope so. We’re informed there’s a great deal of gold hidden on this property. We need to extract it. Can you lower the ward?”

  The brown-gold eyes went wide in his round face. “Gold? HERE?”

  “Yes, from the train heist that occurred this month,” Gibson explained patiently.

  “Wow. No, sir, I know nothing about that. That said, we’re still tearing into the building. Re-doing the frame and such, you understand. Could be here and we haven’t found it yet.” Rubbing at the back of his head, he looked doubtfully at the ward, the shimmering transparent gold layer that lay over the building like a finely crafted spiderweb. “And honestly, don’t think you can bring anything out. I’d call the boss, but he’s on vacation. I was just finishing up a task before quitting for the day. I’m the only one here.”

  Gibson bit off a curse. “Davenforth, what’s your opinion?”

  “The ward is very tightly anchored into the building. If we try to force anything, it will either injure the person trying to carry the gold out, or it will warp the building’s frame.” Henri looked as if he were biting into a rotten fish wrapped in moldy seaweed saying the words.

  The construction worker shook his head frantically. “Please don’t. Framing’s only half-up as it is, and we’ve got things shored up, but it’ll come down hard.”

  “All for avoiding getting magically eviscerated or having a building collapse on top of us?” I lifted a hand to vote.

  Everyone immediately lifted hands to agree, even Clint with a purple paw.

  “Let’s verify the gold is truly here first,” Foster suggested. A truly reasonable suggestion. “Nichols hasn’t laid eyes on it for six days. Who knows what’s happened in that time.”

  It was diplomatically phrased to not implicate that Nichols could be lying his face off. Even though we were all thinking it. The thief heard the unspoken words and was stiff as he marched ahead of us, leading us not up, but down into the basement area.

  The area down here was crowded with leftover lumber, buckets of scraps, nails, and the odd collection of junk that amassed during construction. Nichols maneuvered around it all without any issue, heading for the furthest corner. He knelt in front of a stack of brick
s, what looked to make up most of the foundation wall. Lifting sections of it out with his hands, he revealed a dully finished safe. Not something from the train yard, so he must have bought it for this purpose and stashed it here ahead of time. Still without a word to us, he ran through the combination of it, opening the door without a flourish and standing back.

  One look inside confirmed all the missing gold was there. The ingots were stacked precisely and the bag of coins still bore the company’s logo.

  Foster immediately knelt in front of it and carefully moved things about. “Looks like it’s all here. Now what?”

  Henri and Gibson immediately put their heads together, magical terms and lingo flying thick in the air and mostly sailing right over my head. I let them talk for a while, listening, not for the words but the tone. It was clear they had ideas but didn’t think any of them were viable.

  I, on the other hand, did have a viable idea.

  Clearing my throat, I got their attention. “Gentlemen. I have an idea.”

  They stopped and looked to me.

  Smiling, I continued. “We do, in fact, know someone who can easily get past this ward. I’ll bet you anything you care to name he can get the gold back out, too.”

  Henri groaned first in realization. “Him?”

  “Him,” I agreed, smile widening. “I know you don’t like the kid, Henri, but he’s got the skills to pull this job off.”

  Gibson’s eyebrows went straight into his hairline. “You mean Eddy Jameson?”

  “The very one.”

  Pursing his lips in a soundless whistle, Gibson stared at the safe for a long moment. “You really think he can? But he’s only broken in before.”

  “Well, he’s managed to breach every possible ward I know of in Kingston. If I tell him he’ll get books for bringing the gold out to me, it’ll bypass the security on the wards. After all, he’s not stealing. He’s retrieving. I think it’ll work.”