“I think that it will be better if my role is kept between us, yes,” John agreed, “In case his friends or cohorts decide they’ll want to take revenge on somebody later on. At least they won’t know who they should blame.”

“I will endeavor to make sure this remains strictly between you and I,” Edward promised. “But we must make haste. Payroll will be delivered a week hence, on the Friday. So you have to find out what you can before then. And figure out how to retrieve the gold, too.”

“Leave it to me, Edward,” John said smoothly, as he straightened up, and pulled on the sleeves of his long coat, adjusted his dark silk choker, and then flicked off some dust from the top of his high hat. “There’s a card game tonight, and, although I wasn’t planning to join, I will proceed to the club now. The game should be starting in half an hour, and, if he shows, I’ll make sure I will sit in the table he plays in. Maybe lose a few hands to him, and gain his confidence.”

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Later that week, John was visited by his sister, whom he’d been helping with her own impending move to Vienna, Austria.

John’s mind was still on the conversation he’d had with his footman when he saw the carriage of his sister, Lady Beatrice, turn the corner to the street of his Mayfair address. With a smile he turned from the terrace railing he’d been leaning on to head downstairs, thinking to surprise her by greeting her himself. As he descended the staircase quickly, he thought again about the rather unsavory task the footman was going to do for him – to look for a few prostitutes who could distract the men guarding the remote farm shed that Mr. Pimms had temporarily moved the gold to. Based on the information he and Edward pieced together subsequent to their meeting in London Bridge, both men were convinced Mr. Pimms was clearly intending to rob the gold shipment transiting through London, because the various men he’d been hiring for his criminal enterprises were being called in for the heist. Edward had also learned that Mr Pimms had arranged to move his cache of gold early the following week from the barnhouses in Surrey to a temporary shed. Edward surmised the man was intending to consolidate all the gold, once he robbed the gold transiting through London, likely in a manor in an estate the man had recently purchased in Barnsbury, near Woking, southeast of London.