Read Chapter 26: The Counterfeit Clue

The money spread across the scarred oak table in the Wapping boarding house looked ordinary enough. Five-pound notes, crisp and almost convincing in the low lamplight. But Arthur Phelps had handled enough genuine currency in his life to know the difference the moment he’d dipped into Victor’s stash. The paper was too smooth, the watermark too sharp, and when he held a note up to the window at dawn, the portrait of the Queen seemed to be looking slightly off to the side, as if she too suspected the forgery.

Now, with Eddie still sleeping off his captivity in the next room, Arthur sat with the lamp pulled close, a magnifying glass in his trembling hand. He’d examined dozens of these notes over the past two days, finding nothing beyond the imperfections that marked them as false. But this time, he went slower. Steadier. He’d been a signalman for nearly thirty years; he knew what it meant to attend to small, vital details.

He pressed one note flat and tilted it against the light. The paper was thick, watermarked with a scrolling pattern he’d taken for decorative filigree. But as the angle sharpened, the pattern resolved into something else. A small crest—an eagle with wings spread, clutching a key in one talon. Below it, letters so fine they were nearly invisible: *B.P.P.*

Baron Private Press.

Arthur set the note down, his breath catching. The press had a home. He’d been a fool not to think of it sooner. A press that large—that ambitious—needed equipment, premises, a supply chain. It couldn’t exist in a vacuum. And if the Baron was the man behind Victor, then the Baron had a physical location. A place where these notes were born.

He dug into his coat pocket and pulled out the photograph Fenwick had given him. Foley, the banker, standing outside a plain brick building with a narrow sign over the door. The building was anonymous—no name, no flourish. Just a door and a window, the sort of structure a man could walk past a hundred times without a second glance.

But now, squinting at the print, Arthur looked at the background. Beyond Foley’s shoulder, past the grime of the factory district, he could see the rise of a railway viaduct. And near the roofline of the building itself, a dark smudge. He adjusted the magnifying glass over the photograph. Not a smudge—a painted emblem. An eagle with a key.

The same crest as the watermark.

Arthur tapped the photograph once against the table. He’d spent his whole adult life reading signals, understanding the language of tracks and timetables. Now, here was a signal he couldn’t ignore. The press was in East London, somewhere under the shadow of the railway arches. And if he could find it, he could find the Baron.

But finding the Baron wasn’t enough. Arthur had seen how men like Victor operated—cut off the head, and the body kept thrashing for a while before it realized it was dead. He needed something more. He needed to expose the operation, to prove to the police that Preece’s death and the manhunt were built on lies.

He looked at the pile of counterfeit notes, then at the photograph. The plan took shape quietly, the way ideas often did in the still hours before dawn. He’d go to the press. Not to destroy it—that would be suicide, walking into the Baron’s territory unarmed and alone. But to follow it. The press was the Baron’s engine. Unless it was already dismantled, it would still be running. And wherever it ran, money flowed. And where money flowed, Foley would be near.

Foley was the key. Not the Baron directly, but the banker who laundered the loot and made the counterfeit notes into a usable fortune. Foley had been photographed at the press. Foley had known Arthur’s father. And if Arthur could corner Foley, he could make the man talk.

Eddie stirred in the next room, a low moan through the thin wall. Arthur got up, folding the notes back into his pocket alongside the photograph. When he pushed open the door, Eddie was propped against the headboard, sweat beading on his forehead, his eyes hollow but sharp.

“You’ve been at it all night,” Eddie said, his voice cracked. “Found something?”

Arthur sat on the edge of the bed, showing him the watermark under the lamp. Eddie took the note, held it close, then farther away. He let out a low whistle.

“Baron Private Press,” Arthur said. “I know where that is. Or near enough.”

Eddie looked up, alarm flickering across his face. “Arthur, you’re not thinking of going there. That’s not a warehouse full of Victor’s thugs. That’s the hub. Men with rifles, dogs, maybe. You walk in there, you won’t walk out.”

“I’m not walking in. I’m going to watch. And Foley—the banker—he’s tied to that press. If I can find him, I can make him talk.”

“Or get yourself killed trying.” Eddie paused, rubbing his ribs. “You’ve got a death wish, you know that?”

Arthur almost smiled. “I’ve got a debt, Eddie. The gambling money. The kind of debt that follows you even after you’re dead. This is the only way I get clear. You take down the man at the top, every accusation falls apart. Victor’s men lose their patron. The police see the truth. And I walk away with nothing hanging over me.”

“And if the Baron’s not there? If it’s just machines and a few printers?”

“Then I wait. I watch the building. The Baron might not print the money himself, but someone high up will come. The operation’s too big to leave unsupervised for long.”

Eddie stared at him for a long moment, then shook his head. “You sound like my old sergeant. Believing a plan can survive contact with the enemy.”

“It’s not about the plan surviving. It’s about having one worth trying.” Arthur stood. “You rest. There’s bread and tea in the kitchen. I’ll be back before noon.”

Eddie caught his arm with surprising strength. “Arthur. If you see a man in a grey coat—anyone who looks like he’s been following you for a while—don’t lead him back here. You understand? I don’t want to be found tied to a chair again.”

Arthur nodded. He’d seen the grey coat twice now, always at the edge of his vision, always turning away just as he looked. The thought sat uneasily in his gut, but he had bigger problems.

The morning air was thick with river fog as Arthur slipped out through the back lane Wapping, hugging the buildings until he reached the railway line. He followed the tracks east, keeping to the towpath below the embankment where he wouldn’t be silhouetted against the sky. Ten minutes later, he saw the viaduct from the photograph—the same brick arches, the same curve of line.

The press building sat at the base of the third arch, its roof nearly level with the tracks. From his position on the far side of the line, Arthur had a clear view of the front door and the narrow street feeding it. He settled into the shadows of a decommissioned signal box, its windows long since smashed, and settled himself for the wait.

He didn’t have to wait long.

At half past nine, a black Humber drew up opposite the press door. Arthur twisted his neck, catching the man who stepped out. Tall, trim, grey-haired, wearing a charcoal coat that fit like it had been tailored for a banker’s board meeting. Foley. The photograph hadn’t done him justice—he carried himself with the easy confidence of a man who believed himself untouchable.

Foley walked to the press door, produced a key, and let himself in. The door swung shut. Arthur counted the seconds, then the minutes. A soft chuff of machinery began somewhere inside—a printing press, running clean and quiet.

Then the window beside the door flickered. Arthur shifted his angle, catching a sliver of the interior through a gap in the grime. Foley stood over a large desk, his back to the window. And across from him, half in shadow, was another figure.

Arthur couldn’t make out the face, but he saw the shape of it. Broad shoulders. A disciplined stillness, the posture of a man who had once been in uniform. The figure reached into an inside pocket and laid something flat on the desk. A map, or a ledger.

Foley bent to examine it.

And then the figure turned, just slightly, and the light caught his profile.

Arthur’s blood turned cold. He knew that profile. He’d seen it sketched in a photograph in Fenwick’s office. The Earl of Marlowe—the man whose wealth and influence everyone assumed shielded the Baron’s identity.

But the Earl had been reported dead six months ago. Killed in a boating accident off the Cornish coast.

Unless he hadn’t been.

Arthur pressed himself flat against the signal box wall, his heart hammering. The man in the window—the man standing beside Foley—brought a hand up to his collar, and for a moment, the lamplight caught the glint of a key-shaped pin fixed to his lapel.

The Eagle’s Key.

The Baron was alive. And he was right there.

Arthur slid down the wall, his mind spinning. He had no gun. No backup. No plan beyond watching. And the man he needed to take down was standing thirty yards away, oblivious, but with all the resources of a dead man’s empire behind him.

And then the door of the press opened.

The Baron stepped out, Foley behind him. They didn’t look left or right. They crossed the pavement, and just before the Baron got into the Humber, he paused, tilted his head, and looked directly up at the signal box.

Not at it. *Through* it.

Arthur froze.

The Baron smiled, thin and knowing, then got in the car. The door closed. The engine hummed. And as the Humber pulled away, Arthur realized that his father’s coded message, the one he’d never fully decoded, had always been a warning.

The Baron knew he was being watched.

And he hadn’t cared.