Scotland Hard (Book 2 in the Tom & Laura Series) Read Online Free

window while he listened to the boy. Looking out, he saw fields and grazing sheep. Beyond the first mile or so the fields became forest that stretched to the horizon. Tom tried to remember their arrival at the house the previous night, but his memories were a blur. He had been so tired after the journey he could barely remember the cab and Saunders, let alone what followed it.
    “They calls themselves the Brotherhood,” Tricky said a little desperately. “I come to you rather than the binder, because they said Mister Stewed might ‘ave turned her.”
    Tom moved from staring out of the window to staring at Tricky. Thoughts flashed through his head at lightning speed.
    “You are sure they said Stewed and not Snood?”
    Tricky shook his head. “Stewed, Snood, who cares? If she’s working for them we can’t trust her.”
    ‘If Snood worked for the Brotherhood, and they were held by them now then that meant…’
    “ Have you heard the name Saunders mentioned? James Saunders?”
    Tricky detected the eagerness in Tom’s tone and screwed his face up as he tried to remember. “They said Jimmy was goin’ to bring you ‘ere.”
    Tom said a rude word under his breath and then a far ruder one a moment later. Saunders must be the leak in MM3 that Trelawney had been looking for, and he had delivered them here himself. That would explain why he had been so annoyed when Laura saw through his disguise.
    “Jimmy’s one of them, ‘im and a bloke called Smee,” Tricky said. “I’ve heard them talking through the walls, but I ain’t tall enough to see through the spy ‘oles. The auction will ‘appen soon now that you two are ‘ere.”
    Tom stared at the tapestry lost in thought and Tricky shook him to get his attention. “There’s three of us, Alice is the oldest, she’s thirteen and she’s a Telepath.”
    It took some effort for Tom to get his mind into focus. The revelation about Saunders had shaken him to the core. If the Director of Operations of MM3 worked for the enemy, getting free wasn’t going to be good enough. They had to find out everything he could before they could act.
    “Slow down, Tricky,” Tom said, pulling the boy’s hands off his waist. “Who exactly is holding us captive? And where are we?”
    “Dun know where we are, somewhere out o’ London in the country, I think,” Tricky said in a voice that suggested he thought Tom was wasting time. “The ‘ouse is run by Bertram Smee. Lord of the manor, ‘e calls ‘imself. ‘E’ll whip you soon as look at you. I got some marks…” The boy started to raise his nightgown, but Tom stopped him. They could look at bruises and share stories about whippings later. What Tom needed right now were answers to more immediate questions.
    “Who are they holding captive and why, and while we are at it, just how long have you been held here?”
    Tricky sat on the bed and adopted a thinking man’s pose, hand on chin.
    “Bin ‘ere near on three weeks, Alice a week more than me. We got the testing for talent that everybody ‘as. These men as come round to me ‘ouse said we’d passed the tests and they brought us ‘ere. They said we’re ‘ere for more tests, but I’ve ‘eard them talking and they’re not part of the military, they’re planning on selling us to the highest bidder.”
    It would be so easy to imagine the boy was being paranoid, but Tom knew he wouldn’t be locked in the room and left without his clothes if that were the case. Tricky’s story even made some sort of sense. Military Magic tested children for magical talent and the more talented were sent to special schools. The Empire needed the services of every one of them in its endeavors to grow.
    If Saunders had infiltrated MM3, which was responsible for managing the most talented magicians as well as intelligence work, it would be easy for him to arrange the kidnap of some of them. The bureaucracy of the Empire was so complicated that it was possible nobody would notice;