Titus couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The fear thumped through him with every wild beat of his heart. Laxton ground the pistol’s mouth against his temple, harder. “Do it!”
“All right,” Titus managed. His tongue felt thick. “All right.”
He had paper and ink on the sideboard. He wrote up a letter for the bank, requesting two notes to the value of five thousand pounds each, to be made out to Bearer.
“What about the painting?” Baynes demanded. “There is nothing here about that! Are you trying to trick me?” He raised his own pistol.
“It’s upstairs!” Titus yelped. “Not in the bank.”
“Then get it!”
“When he’s sent to the bank,” Laxton snapped. “We’re sticking together in this, old fellow. You’ll get your picture when I get my money. Ring the bell, druggist, and don’t try anything. If you raise the alarm I’ll put a ball through you.”
The men positioned themselves to hide their pistols, Baynes behind a chair and Laxton behind the door, as Titus rang the bell. Alma answered in her father’s absence, looking red and tearful and entirely preoccupied with her own concerns. Titus wished Mr. Thorpe were here.
“Mr. Pilcrow?”
“I need this taken to the bank at once. Send—” He would normally ask Mr. Thorpe to do this. Anyone else might steal notes made out to Bearer. Anyone at all might rob him, betrayhim, for the money that had made his life this wretched place, and desolation swept over him at the realisation. He had never felt so alone.
“Mr. Pilcrow?” Alma asked again, sounding a little puzzled.
Titus could see Laxton in the corner of his eye, sweaty and tense. “Just, send someone to the bank and bring back what they give you. Someone trustworthy. Quickly, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what about the picture?” Baynes demanded, on a rising pitch.
Titus was in this mess because he had not wanted Baynes to have the forgery, in case he exposed Nico or, as was an increasing possibility, tried to kill him over it. But Nico was on his way to France, and exposure would be a problem for another day, assuming Titus lived to see one.
“Alma, I will need a painting fetched. The picture of a woman wearing a necklace—”
“I know it,” she said, voice hard.
“It is in the paint room, against the wall, with the face turned in. Please bring it down once you have had the letter taken to the bank.”
She curtsied. Titus shut the door at Laxton’s gesture and said, “There. You will get what you want. You can put away the pistols now.”
“We’ll put them away when we have what we want. But first you’re going to give me your vowels for ten thousand in the way of gambling debts, so we don’t have any unpleasantness later on.”
It was a clever precaution, Titus supposed, as he wrote, at Laxton’s dictation, a note stating that he owed Matthew Laxton ten thousand pounds in gaming debts, which Baynes signed as witness. Laxton could insist the money he wasextorting was payment of a debt of honour, and Titus would struggle to prove otherwise. Men ran up greater debts every week.
“That’s that,” Laxton said, folding the IOU and stowing it carefully in a pocket. “Now we wait. Oh, and when the girl comes back, tell her to bring wine, and something to eat. It is past two and I have had no luncheon.”
“Go to the devil!”
Titus surprised himself with that, but the shame and fury were bubbling up uncontrollably. He could afford to be robbed of ten thousand pounds, and letting it happen was doubtless the most sensible course in the circumstances. Standing up to bullies was all very well, but not when they had pistols. But it was one thing to be robbed at gunpoint in his own house, and quite another to serve his assailants refreshments.
“You do as you’re told,” Laxton snarled.
“This is my house!”
“It should have been mine!”
“And where is the girl with my painting?” Baynes put in. “She is taking too long. I have been extremely patient—”
“For God’s sake, shut up for five minutes,” Laxton snapped. “I want wine and food, you damned muckworm! Give the order!”
Baynes took a seat, muttering under his breath. Titus sat too, hunched in on himself, cursing the whole wretched mess.