Read Chapter 27: The Baron's Manor

The Earl of Marlowe’s estate sat behind twelve-foot stone walls crowned with rusted spikes, a relic of an earlier London that refused to surrender to the modern age. Arthur lay in the damp grass of the neighbouring field, binoculars pressed to his eyes, counting the minutes between patrols.

Two men at the gate. One more circling the perimeter with a dog that looked more wolf than hound. The main house blazed with light from every window on the ground floor, but the upper storeys were dark, as if the Baron didn’t want anyone to see what happened above.

Arthur had been here for three hours. Long enough to memorise the patterns. The guard with the dog passed every twelve minutes. The gate men swapped shifts at the top of the hour. And no one approached the house itself without being met at the driveway by one of Victor’s men.

Victor’s men. Arthur had spotted three of them so far, smoking by the servants’ entrance, wearing suits that didn’t fit their shoulders. The irony wasn’t lost on him. The Baron had hired the city’s best criminals to run his operation, and now they were standing guard over a man who was supposed to be dead.

The gravel crunch of tyres made him lower the binoculars. A black Daimler swept up the drive, its headlights cutting through the dusk. The gate opened without the driver even slowing. Arthur adjusted his focus and felt his stomach drop.

Eddie’s description had been exact — the narrow face, the cheap cologne necessary to cover the stench of blood, the way he held his shoulders too high as if expecting a bullet. It was Scar, climbing out of the car before the driver had fully stopped. He straightened his jacket, spat on the gravel, and walked inside without knocking.

Arthur watched the door close behind him and felt the weight of what he knew. Victor had put the bounty on his head, but Scar was the one who’d been sent to collect. The man who’d broken Eddie’s ribs in a basement in Wapping was now standing in the Baron’s foyer, probably discussing the price of Arthur’s skin.

A voice crackled from Arthur’s pocket. He fumbled for the radio, a battered Bakelite unit Eddie had rigged to work on short-range frequencies. It was set to come alive on a specific channel, one they’d agreed on in case of emergency.

“Arthur.” Eddie’s voice was thin, still weak from the beating. “Are you there?”

“I’m here.” Arthur kept his eyes on the house. “He’s just arrived. Scar. He walked straight in.”

“Then you need to get away from there now.” Eddie’s voice cracked with urgency. “Something’s happening. I heard it from one of Victor’s old contacts, a man who owes me favours. The Baron isn’t staying.”

Arthur’s grip tightened on the radio. “What do you mean?”

“He’s leaving tomorrow. The real loot, not the notes, the actual takings from the train heist — parcels, bearer bonds, the jewellery that was salted away before the police examined the evidence — it’s already packed. He’s got a boat waiting at Greenwich, papers in a false name, connections that will take him as far as Lisbon. Maybe further.”

Arthur processed the words slowly, cold understanding settling in his chest. The Baron wasn’t running because of the exposure Arthur had caused. He was running because he’d already won. He’d used Victor to plan the heist, Arthur to stop the train, and now — with everyone else facing prison or a rope — he was going to slip away with everything.

“He’s not going to take Victor,” Arthur said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

“Not even Scar,” Eddie said. “They’re all being left behind. The Baron’s been planning this for months. The whole operation was always going to end with him the only one left standing.”

Arthur watched the upstairs window flicker as a light came on in a room facing the field. A figure moved behind the curtain, tall and thin, the unmistakable silhouette of a man who should have been rotting in a grave for six months.

The Earl of Marlowe. The Baron. The man who’d worked with Arthur’s father. The man whose symbol matched the one in the coded message Arthur still couldn’t decipher.

“There’s more,” Eddie said slowly. Arthur heard the hesitation in his voice. “The contact, he told me something else. About the Baron’s plans. He’s not just taking the money. He’s taking the manifest.”

Arthur’s blood chilled. “The manifest?”

“The one from the train. The full record of what was moved that night, what was taken, what was still hidden. The Baron’s kept it untouched — it’s the only proof of the double-cross. He’s going to destroy it tomorrow before he leaves. Without it, there’s no way to prove what was taken, no way to trace anything back to him. Even if you find the money, you’ve nothing to tie it to the heist.”

Arthur thought of the papers in his pocket, the photographs of Foley at the printing press, the fake notes that burned like evidence of a crime he hadn’t committed. And now this. The one document that could tie the Baron to everything, the record of the train’s cargo and its final resting place, was inside that house.

“What about Foley?” Arthur asked. “The banker. He’s the one who holds the accounts for the Baron’s operation. If I can get to him —”

“Foley’s dead.” Eddie’s voice was flat. “Found this morning. In his flat in Mayfair, shot through the head. The papers are calling it a robbery gone wrong, but the contact says it was the Baron’s work. He’s clearing the loose ends before he runs. Foley was the last one who could trace the money.”

Arthur closed his eyes. Foley, the man in the photograph, the one lead he’d thought could unlock the whole puzzle. Gone in a single morning.

“You’re the only one left who knows,” Eddie said. “You and me. And the Baron knows you were at the print house. He’s not going to leave that thread dangling.”

Arthur watched the figure retreat from the window, the light flickering off. The security was heavy but not impenetrable — he’d already mapped the gaps in the patrol pattern, the blind spot by the eastern wall where the ivy had grown thick and dark. He’d told himself he was just gathering information, that he wouldn’t make a move until he was certain.

But certainty had just become a luxury he couldn’t afford.

“He’s running tomorrow,” Arthur said slowly. “Which means tonight is the only chance I have.”

“You’re not thinking of going in.” Eddie’s voice was sharp. “There are men with guns in there, Arthur. Victor’s men. They’ll shoot you on sight.”

“They’ll shoot me eventually anyway.” Arthur began packing his binoculars, his movements deliberate. “The Baron’s leaving tomorrow with the loot and the manifest. If he destroys that paper, everything I’ve done, everything I have on him, it’s worthless. I’ll be nothing but a hunted man with a stack of fake money and a photograph of a dead banker.”

The line was silent for a long moment.

“I can’t help you,” Eddie said finally. “I can barely stand. But I know someone who can. The woman who rescued you, the one who knew your father. She’s still in London. I can find her.”

Arthur paused, considering the offer. The woman had appeared out of nowhere, shooting out tires with a calm precision that spoke of training he hadn’t expected. She’d known his father during the war, and she hadn’t stayed long enough to explain.

“Find her,” Arthur said. “Tell her I’m going in tonight. Tell her what the Baron’s planning. And tell her—” he hesitated, thinking of his father’s coded message, its meaning still locked in his pocket. “Tell her I need to know what the symbol means. The one that matched his message. She might know.”

A rustle of movement came through the radio, and then Eddie’s voice, low and steady. “Good luck, Arthur. Come back in one piece.”

The radio clicked off. Arthur slipped it back into his pocket and looked up at the manor house, its windows now dark except for the single light upstairs.

The Baron was in there. Scar was in there. And somewhere in that building sat the manifest, the key to everything.

He began to edge closer to the wall, his movement quiet and careful, his eyes on the man with the dog as the patrol passed the eastern corner and turned away.