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of the Sweetwater clan, one accepted the arrangements stipulated by the particular Sweetwater with whom one was dealing.
    At the first meeting Caleb had been convinced that Owen Sweetwater was a hunter-talent of some sort but not the traditional variety. The psychical abilities of the average hunter tended to be of a more physical nature. Such talents were usually endowed with preternatural reflexes, speed, hearing and night vision. They hunted by detecting the psychical spoor of their prey.
    Owen Sweetwater moved with a predatory ease and control that put one in mind of a hunter, but Caleb had grown up in a family that boasted a number of hunters sprinkled throughout the bloodline. He knew true hunters, and he was quite certain that whatever Sweetwater was, he was not a traditional hunter-talent.
    “What we want to know,” Caleb said carefully, “is whether you have found any evidence that supports my belief that the two glass-readers were killed by paranormal means. If not, then this case is not J & J’s problem. I will give what information we have to an acquaintance at Scotland Yard. The police can take responsibility for finding the killer.”
    “The way they took responsibility for the murders of an untold number of prostitutes in the past several years?”
    Gabe frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    “Tomorrow or the following day, you will read of the tragic death of Lord Hollister in the morning papers,” Owen said. “The official cause of his demise will likely be a heart attack or stroke. In reality, he died of a knife in the chest.”
    Caleb raised his brows. “Your work?”
    “I cannot take the credit. I suspect the wife. I found the body when I explored the basement beneath the mansion.”
    “What the devil were you doing in Hollister’s basement?” Gabe asked.
    “That is where my investigation led me,” Owen said a little too smoothly. “What the press will not be aware of is that Hollister preyed on young prostitutes for years. He lured them into his carriage and took them to the basement beneath his mansion, where he raped and murdered them. There is no telling how many he killed. While I was on the premises, I found another girl who was still alive. I took her to the charity house in Elm Street.”
    “I have seen nothing in the papers about missing streetwalkers,” Caleb said.
    “That is because the press rarely notices when girls go missing,” Owen said. “Prostitutes are forever vanishing from the streets. Sometimes they turn up in the river, sometimes they simply disappear. But unless the death is a particularly bloody one, the public has no interest. Hollister was careful to dispose of the bodies so that they did not draw attention.”
    Gabe thought about that. “You say Hollister was a talent?”
    “Yes, I’m sure of it, possibly a glass-reader.”
    “That is why your investigation led you to his basement,” Caleb said, mentally assembling the pieces of the puzzle. “Was he the one who murdered the glass-readers?”
    “No, but there is some connection between Hollister and the murders of the glass-readers,” Owen said. “My investigation is ongoing.”
    “That does not tell us a great deal,” Gabe said without inflection.
    “I can give you one or two other interesting facts. I came across a rather dangerous psychical weapon disguised as a clockwork curiosity in the Hollister mansion. There may be other such devices out there.”
    Caleb groaned. “I had hoped that the crystal guns that gave us so much trouble in the course of a recent case were the end of our problems with paranormal weaponry.”
    “Evidently not,” Owen said. “I can also tell you that the link between Hollister’s death and the deaths of the glass-readers runs through the Leybrook Institute.”
    Irritation flashed through Caleb. “That damned Institute is rife with charlatans and frauds.”
    “When you consider the matter closely,” Gabe said, “it is the ideal place for a true