The Dollar Prince's Wife by Paula Marshall Page B

looked hard at the shabby character sitting opposite to him who talked so carelessly of tons of money. He named a price, a high one, and watched his man carefully.
    Cobie nodded. ‘I’ll double it,’ he said coolly, ‘and half of it will be paid in golden sovereigns before the raid, and half in a bank draft drawn on the account of Mr Horne after it.’
    â€˜Oh, come,’ said the other man with a smile. ‘Why should I believe you?’
    Cobie put his left hand in his pocket, and withdrew from it a heavy purse, ‘There’s a hundred golden sovs for you personally as a sweetener. You may also contact Coutts Bank and ask what lies in the account of Mr John Horne. I’ll give you a piece of paper authorising you to do so.
    â€˜Coutts will pay out the sovereigns at my order to your messenger after I receive your answer, here, tomorrow night. I shall require you to give me details of the day and the time of the raid. Only then will I hand the first payment over. After that you’ll not see me again. Don’t be more of a fool than you need be and have me followed. I promise you I’ll dispose of anyone who tries to track me down.’
    The copper whistled. ‘What about your agent? Suppose we put the frighteners on him?’
    â€˜He only knows me as Mr Horne, of an address which Ihave now vacated. Don’t waste your time on him. He’s a go-between—like you.’
    â€˜Suppose we take your money and run?’
    â€˜Then pray, Mr Policeman, pray. For I know you, and you don’t know me, and my revenge will be swift and sure—and not only on you. Do we have a deal?’
    â€˜I think so. Be here at the same time tomorrow.’
    â€˜And no double-cross?’
    â€˜No, you offer too much for that.’
    Â 
    So, the deed was done. He had little doubt that he had offered a sum so large that those in the police force who had been protecting Madame Louise would snap his hand off to get at the fortune he was offering. Ever since he had rescued Lizzie and told Ebenezer Bristow that those who had thrown her in Sir Ratcliffe’s way would pay—and then Sir Ratcliffe himself—he had been planning to make them do exactly that.
    He thought of the network of bolt-holes he had set up round London to cover his tracks, and all the way to the nearest of them where he had a change of clothes waiting, he was on the qui vive for the man whom he was sure would be following him. He finally made certain of him on Waterloo Bridge and walked off it for about a hundred yards to wait for his quarry in an alley. The hunted had become the hunter.
    He heard footsteps coming along, the steps which had followed him from the Jolly Watermen. He laughed to himself, and when the man passed the end of the alley, he caught him from behind with his tartan muffler in a garrotter’s grip. It took him only a moment to drag him against the nearest wall.
    He held his victim tightly to him, slipped a razor-sharpknife from his pocket to hold it with his left hand under his jaw, whispering, ‘I told your superior not to have me followed. I could cut your throat, but I prefer to have you go back to tell him how I keep my word. Nod, if you can hear what I am saying.’
    The gasping man nodded frantically.
    â€˜Good. Tell him I shall kill the next man he sends to follow me, and as an earnest of what I say, you may show him this.’
    With one swift motion he cut off half of the man’s mustachios, before releasing him, coughing and spluttering, black in the face and clutching his throat. Once he had straightened up, Cobie kicked his feet from under him, and then rolled him, semi-conscious, into the gutter, before running silently and swiftly away in the opposite direction from the one he had previously taken.
    He had not the slightest intention of killing anyone—particularly a policeman—but it would not hurt to impress upon those with whom he was dealing that