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Fogarty had only taken a half dozen steps when Drake glanced our way and then dodged behind tombstones, disappearing from sight. The ex–police sergeant took off after him, moving quickly around the large ornamental monuments despite his limp. Unfortunately, Drake had a head start.
I watched A
A
Then she sniffed and leaned her body against the wind to march away from the gravesite, her widow’s veil streaming out behind her. I dodged the black fabric as we walked toward the chapel and, beyond the small brick and columned structure, the main road. I kept my head bent down, fighting for every breath as I moved forward into the blustery gusts, but I tried to search the cemetery with my eyes for Fogarty or Drake. Neither man appeared.
When we neared the chapel, I heard A
I caught a glimpse of a shadow near one of the pillars and guessed immediately who was waiting there. “Won’t you introduce me to your husband?”
A
“Yes. I saw him at the gravesite. Who’s in the grave?”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s ask your husband.” I took her arm and strode toward the chapel porch. I expected Nicholas Drake, after hiding so long and so well, to disappear before we arrived, but he waited in the shadows until we stood on the porch.
A
He looked good for a corpse. Actually, he looked good, period. Even better than his photograph. He had a nice height and a pleasant face, which currently looked delighted to see his wife.
She gazed back at him with devotion. “I hired the Archivist Society to find you. To save you from your abductors. You must tell her everything so they can stop these attacks. Oh, Nicholas, I want you safe.”
He gave her a squeeze and turned to me.
“I’m Georgia Fenchurch, a member of the Archivist Society. How many people are you blackmailing?”
A
I couldn’t decide if it was the smile, knowing and willing to please, the voice, deep and smooth as a caress, or his eyes, twinkling with sexual promise, that was the most devastating. I could see why others found him so charming. I glanced around the cemetery. “Who died in your house?”
“Ah, that would be Harry. He found me in the Red Lion and said he needed to lie low for a few days. Something about some confidence trick that went bad. I sent him on to the house and finished up at the pub. While I was walking home, I suddenly heard a boom and then the sky lit up over my house. Someone must have blown up my house. Harry didn’t stand a chance.”
“Couldn’t it have been an accident?”
“You don’t get an explosion like that from a fireplace or an oil lamp. The house was out in the countryside where we lack modern conveniences like gas lighting.”
I shivered, both from the chilly air and from the knowledge that now we were dealing with a murder much like my parents’. “And the blood on your entry hall floor?”
“It’s from one of the three goons sent to drag me off. When they forced their way in and grabbed me, I stabbed one man in the gut. I know my way around the house in the dark, so I was able to run to the basement and hide. They searched the house but didn’t find me. In too big a hurry to get their friend to a doctor, I’d guess.”
“Who’s doing this?”
“I don’t know.” He looked genuinely baffled in a seductive way.
“I’ve been so worried,” A
He focused his charm on her. “I know, love. I would have told you, but I was afraid I’d lead them to your door. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
I didn’t believe him. About his not knowing who was after him, about his being worried for A
“Aristocrats all. Their letters are perfectly safe, and most of them have finished paying me.” He smirked. He’d stolen from these people and then threatened them with what he had taken, and he had the nerve to laugh about what he’d done.
I stepped close to him, glaring into his face as I thought of his victims’ fear of exposure. “I don’t believe you’d let the wealthy loose from your grip so easily.”
“It’s not a matter of letting them out from under my control; it’s a matter of circumstances changing so their letters no longer have value. Aristocrats have a talent for making new alliances to keep themselves above common gossip. That’s the reason they’ve stayed in power for a thousand years.”
I watched his face, searching for clues. He was bitter about something, but did it have anything to do with his attacker? “If the letters have no value, why don’t you return them?”
“Because I don’t know what will again become valuable.” He smiled, as if we spoke of shares of a company and not the private correspondence of ladies and gentlemen.
I was so disgusted I could taste ashes. “But you still have them? They weren’t destroyed in the fire?”
He laughed easily, a warm, seductive sound. A
Blast. I had hoped. “Where do you plan to hide now?”
“At home. Whoever my attacker is, he’s made it clear I can’t hide from him.” His slight scowl said he wondered how he’d been followed.
I wanted to know the same thing. “How many people knew about your house out here?”
“Just Tom and Harry. I told the locals I worked somewhere up north and came down occasionally to look after things here.”
“So Harry was followed when he came down here that night.”
He winced at my words.
It didn’t make them any less true. “Did you see any strangers in the Red Lion that night? Anyone you recognized from London? Anyone who didn’t fit in?”
“No.” He looked out into the distance. “It was just me and Harry and some locals I recognize by sight. It wasn’t a busy night.”
“What time did Harry Conover arrive?”
“Late. Ten, more or less.”
Someone had to have followed Harry Conover from the station. Fogarty or Jacob would be good at finding out if another stranger was seen getting off the same District Railway train. Could it be as easy as that to find the murderer? “I suggest we head back into London before anyone else catches up with you.”