Chapter Fifteen
The House of Werth was not on fire.
Standing on the street before his handsome abode, staring up at its solid grey walls shrouded in a late-afternoon fog, Theo experienced an odd feeling of anti-climax. Even something like disappointment. There had been a great rush to return home, a charging-through-the-streets in a state of high alarm, and while he was not sorry to find a perfectly intact house at the end of it, there had been a sense of certainty and purpose which was now all dissipated.
If the villainess of this horrid little tale had not chosen to smoke her rival out of her place of refuge, well then, what was she doing? Where was she? And what in the Devil’s name was Theo supposed to do about it?
‘Well,’ said Gussie, climbing the two or three steps to the front do
