“Ma’am.” She allowed the constable to precede her down the long corridor.
He cast a puzzled glance over his shoulder. “Begging your pardon, miss?”
“Ma’am. Given my age, and that I run the Foundling House, a position of some responsibility, then regardless of marital status, the correct form of address is ‘ma’am.’” It never hurt to keep potentially annoying people in their places, and while the constable had yet to do anything to spark her ire, she doubted his sergeant—he who had executed a warrant on the Foundling House—would prove so innocuous, but the master would likely take his tone from his servant’s.
“Oh.” Frowning, the constable worked to digest the lesson.
They found the sergeant, one hip propped against the desk in her office, watching two constables searching through the tall cabinets that stood against one wall; one swift glance at her desk showed they’d already searched there. Two constables were likewise pawing through the files in the row of cabinets in the anteroom, much to Miss Marsh’s evident distress.
Sizing up the sergeant in one sharp glance, and not liking what she saw—he was a swaggering braggart, she felt sure—Penelope swept around the desk, set her reticule upon it, and sat in her chair, pulling it up to the desk.
Reasserting control.
“I have been told you have a warrant, Sergeant.” She’d yet to meet the man’s eye, instead looking over her desk with a faint frown, as if noting the changes due to their search; she extended a hand, imperiously waggling her fingers. “If I could see it?”
Predictably, the man frowned; from the corner of her eye, she watched as he reluctantly straightened away from her desk. He glanced at his three subordinates; as she’d guessed, he spent a moment longer assessing the reaction of the constable who’d fetched her, before, regrettably, making the wrong decision. He hiked up his belt, and pugnaciously declared, “I don’t know as that’s proper. We’re here in pursuit of the law, doing our job to ferret out—”
“The warrant, Sergeant.” Her words cut coldly. Looking up, she met his gaze, this time reaching for the haughty arrogance of Lady Osbaldestone and the Duchesses of St. Ives—both the Dowager and Honoria; in dealing with such situations, those three were role models par excellence. “I believe that as the representative of the owners of this place, as well as in my capacity as administrator, that prior to any search being instituted,properprocedure dictates that I, the effective owner and occupier of the premises, should have been shown the warrant. Is that not correct?”
She was guessing, but she’d discussed police procedures with Barnaby and that sounded right.
From the way he shifted, and the glances he threw his three constables—the two searching had slowed, then stopped their rifling through the files, waiting—the sergeant suspected she was right, too.
Again, she held out her hand commandingly. “The warrant, if you please.”
With a great show of reluctance, he reached into his coat and drew out a folded sheet.
Penelope took it, unfolded it. “How one is supposed to cooperate when one isn’t even permitted to knowwhatthis nonsense is about…”
Her patter was designed to give her time to absorb the details of the warrant, but her voice faded, then died as, taking in the action for which the warrant was sworn—a search of all files and administrative papers of the Foundling House—she moved on to the reason behind the search.“What?”
All four men in the room straightened.
Staring at the warrant, literally unable to believe her eyes, Penelope declared,“This is outrageous!”Her tone set new benchmarks for feminine outrage.
When she glanced up, the sergeant took a step back. “Yes,” he said, suddenly sounding anything but sure. “Outrageous it is, miss—which is why we’re here. Can’t have you selling boys to the burglary schools, now can we?”
Penelope made a heroic effort to hang on to her temper; to be accused of the very thing she’d been spending the last weeks fighting against…“What the devil put such a bacon-brained notion into your collective heads?”
Although her voice hadn’t risen, the heat in her tone was enough to scorch.
Demonstrating a supreme disregard for self-preservation, the sergeant looked smug. He pulled another paper from his pocket and handed it to her. “Scotland Yard’s been circulating these. They sent one with the order to search your files. Well, easy enough to put two and two together.”
Holding the warrant in one hand, Penelope stared at the second paper—one of their notices describing the missing boys and offering a reward. “I drafted this notice. The reward, if any is ever claimed, will come from the Foundling House. The notice was printed by a Mr. Cole in his printing works in the Edgware Road, as a favor for Mr. Barnaby Adair, son of the Earl of Cothelstone, who is one of the commissioners overseeing the police force. Inspector Basil Stokes, of Scotland Yard, distributed the notices with a friend.”
Raising her gaze to the hapless sergeant’s face, with dreadful calm she continued, “I fail to see what, in those circumstances, you consider as in any way supporting or excusing, or even explainingthis.” She brandished the warrant. “Would you care to enlighten me, Sergeant?”
The stupid man tried. At length, in a variey of ways.
The search had come to a complete halt, all attention diverted to the battle of wills occurring over Penelope’s desk. Mrs. Keggs bustled in at one point, waiting only for a pause and an inquiring glance from Penelope to inform her that all classes had been suspended by order of the sergeant, and all teachers had been summoned to the office and were now gathered in the corridor.
That resulted in another incredulous“What?”from Penelope, and the opening of a second front in her verbal stoush with the sergeant. Only by threatening to hold him personally accountable for any damage or hurt caused by or inflicted on any of the children left so thoroughly unsupervised by his edict did she eventually force him to back down and allow the teachers to return to their classes.
She was still trying to establish what the sergeant was searching for—given the strange circumstances she wasn’t prepared to simply sit back and allow the search to continue; who knew what might have somehow been slipped into the office files and left there to be found?—when Englehart came in and took up a position at her back.
When she paused in her harangue and sent a questioning look his way, he smiled reassuringly. “I gave my boys some exercises that will keep them busy for some time. I rather thought”—he lifted his gaze to the sergeant’s face—“that having a senior clerk from a respected law firm present as a witness might be wise.”
His expression had assumed the impassivity of all good legal personnel. Penelope nodded. “Indeed.” She turned back to the sergeant.
