The Formula for Murder (31 page)

The correct place and time for Archer was one in which he got paid even more than he had been promised.

If Lacroix suffered an “accident” rather than being dragged into a slow and uncertain justice from the courts, Archer had a feeling that his pot would become much, much bigger. Winsworth was the kind of mine owner who wasn’t afraid to call in strike breakers to crack a few heads, and was willing to have a union leader pulled out of his home in the middle of the night and hanged.

Of course, the other side of the coin was to see what Lacroix had to offer in order to make a getaway.

Archer was about to tap for another whiskey when a man slipped up next to him and said, “Let me get this one.”

The man tapped the counter twice with his own empty glass. He was about thirty, with a heavy build.

“My thanks.” If this stranger wanted to get him a drink, fine with Archer. He bought many a drink for other pub patrons when he was in the chips.

“I could tell you are a fellow Londoner just by the way you’re dressed,” the man said. “Thought we might chat. Hard to pick up a conversation with these local yokels, don’t ya think?”

The innkeeper walked by, pleased that the two men were drinking whiskey rather than cheap ale. He took them to be a couple of salesmen from the city, Bristol or London, probably.

Odd, though, he thought. The one who had just bellied up to the bar next to the other man was wearing a type of shoe he’d never seen before. Might even be boots, it was hard to tell because the upper part was hidden under the man’s pant leg.

The pointed toes of the footwear is what threw him off. It made the boots look uncomfortable.

52

We lay together, Wells on his back, my head on his chest. I feel more relaxed, more focused, than I did when I arrived back in our room after verbally dueling with Archer.

I have been running, mentally and almost physically, basically from the second I learned of Hailey’s death. Shortly before that I had been racing breathlessly around the world to beat a “record” that existed only in the imagination of Jules Verne. My body and mind have been in high gear for … well, since I got my job with Pulitzer at
The World.

A thought comes to me—the woman at the spa in Bath showing me how they help women release their “female hysteria” and how important it is. So this is the end result. I can’t help but smile.

“I’m sorry,” Wells whispers.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t punch that ass in the jaw. He would have finished me off proper, but not before I got in one or two.”

“And for certain the innkeeper would have called the constable and we would be in jail right now or out in the streets without a room. Either way, you were right in leaving. Besides, we needed to string him along and find out what he knows. He baited us again with that vampire thing. I am just sorry he tried to insult you.”

“The worst part about his probes is that it was all true. My parents are domestics and they once worked at the Winsworth estate. Lady Winsworth took an interest in me. I—I came to be fond of her.”

“You loved her?”

“I loved her for what she was, a kind, generous, and intelligent woman. She was beautiful in mind and soul. I was, am, infinitely grateful for her help and support. Her husband is a tyrant, who cares nothing for her except as a display piece in his collection of art and fine furnishings.”

“Winsworth’s extremely rich, which I imagine for her made up for a great many of his shortcomings.”

“He was a mining engineer who struck it rich, as much from luck as skill, as those things usually are. He bought himself a title and now thinks of himself as the cock of the walk. He’s insufferable to be around. He doesn’t talk to people, he talks down to them. My parents didn’t stay long in their service because he constantly yelled. The last straw was when he went into a fit of rage over a maid breaking a vase and threw a broken piece at her as she was trying to clean it up.”

I have a hunch that part of Wells’s feelings toward Lady Winsworth were in the vein of a knight in shining armor. I could tell he is being evasive about his relationship with the woman and being the person I am, I want to know.

“Were you lovers?”

“We—we found comfort in each other’s arms. Just once. She had come to me after her husband slapped her for some transgression or another, so she said. I imagined he was just in a bad mood and took it out on her. He had a habit of doing that. I had suffered an injury and was emotionally distraught over life, over the struggle to be something more than the draper’s apprentice that I was headed for. It was my dear mother’s wish that I become one. ‘A much better position in life than hers,’ she constantly told my bothers and me. I saw it as a life of servitude.”

He kisses me on the forehead. “I did write her some letters that gushed with passion and gratitude. I’m not a hopeless romantic, but I see nothing wrong in showing emotions. May I remind you that you are a bird that will fly off to your next story or your next adventure. Well, in a sense I’m no different. I do not believe I will ever give my love to a single woman for all time. I find that unhealthy and stressful. Just as I would imagine it would be for a woman. I am polygamous, like that religious sect in Utah Conan Doyle wrote about in his first Sherlock Holmes book. I believe in free love, not love that is smothering.”

This is a conversation I don’t want to partake in, at least not right now after I’ve just finished making love with the man. All I know is that I am a woman who has been raised in a very strict society—especially for women. It’s hard for me to grasp his free love theory. But I do know that I am not polygamous. I don’t believe in sharing. It’s just not for me and I feel it’s a disrespectful way to treat your mate. If Wells is fine with it, that’s his choice, and I just hope he finds a woman who has similar feelings.

But now it is time for me to put aside love and what I want out of life, at least for the moment. There are more important things to concentrate on. I slip off the bed and start getting dressed.

“There. I’ve driven you away with my babbling. Forgive me. I truly do love—”

“Get dressed. It’s time to go.”

He stares at me and then looks to the window before stating the obvious.

“It’s nighttime. Dark outside.”

“Yes, it usually is about eleven o’clock in the evening, everywhere, I’m told, except those places that enjoy the midnight sun.”

I grab his pants off the chair and toss them to him.

“We have to get out of here when Archer isn’t looking.”

“We’re not teaming up with him?”

“Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?”

He gets off the bed and starts hopping into his pants. “I suppose I should have known you were lying. You do it so well. But, pray tell, sweet Nellie, shouldn’t we wait until the crack of dawn to sneak out?”

“Archer is not a stupid man.” I think about that statement. “More sly like a fox than bright, I suppose. And the fox in him will tell him we’ll make a getaway about the time the sun is rising. I told him we’d meet him after breakfast, but I’m sure he took that with a grain of salt.”

We continue dressing as we chat.

“You don’t believe that there is any advantage in teaming with him?” Wells asks. “Remember, there’s a killer out there. Archer is an ex-policeman and I’m sure he can handle himself. He may even have a gun.”

“If he has one, he’ll probably end up using it on us. And yes, I’m sorely tempted to team up with him, but I also keep reminding myself that he smacks of criminality, starting with the mugging I got from him. People tend to stay consistent in life; criminals tend to commit more crimes. That means we can never trust him and will always have to be watching our backs. Worse, when he does betray us, we may be defenseless.”

“What about the diary? It may have more information.”

“I don’t want to be clutching for the diary with my dying breath and I have a feeling it will end up that way if we let him lead us around with it like a donkey with a carrot. Besides, I don’t believe he has much more to tell us from the diary. What he told me about Hailey’s infatuation with Lacroix rang true. Hailey was immature in many ways and dealing with a man in a romantic situation is just one of them. But she apparently wrote nothing in the diary about how to find Lacroix or where his laboratory in the moors is. If she had, Archer wouldn’t need us.”

“Quite, but, as I’m sure you are aware of, we are only going to shake him temporarily. He’ll find us again and he’ll still have the diary. You’ll still have an opportunity to find out if there is any more to grasp from it.”

I give a bit of thought to the idea of running into Archer after we run out on him. He doesn’t strike me as a particularly forgiving man.

“My dear Wells, I do believe that our next meeting with Mr. Archer will not be on a friendly basis.”

“Point taken.”

What I don’t convey and he knows as well as I do, is that we shall be lucky just to get away and stay away from the man long enough to find Lacroix.

53

We had left our purchases for the trip with the buggy at the stable, so we didn’t have to haul anything more from our room than our valises.

After we’re dressed, we pack up our clothes for a quick escape.

As quietly as possible I open the door a crack and check the hallway to make sure the coast is clear. There are only eight rooms, four on each side of the hallway with a set of steps at each end. Since I don’t know which room is Archer’s or even if he has returned to his room, I hesitate, wondering which direction we should take.

For all I know he could still be in the bar below and if he is, he might see us going out the front because the exit passes by the double-door opening to the bar.

To my left the hallway leads to the stairs that would take us back downstairs and through the lobby, past the hotel’s small front desk and the wide doors to the pub.

To the right is a set of stairs that I’m guessing leads to a rear door.

Our room is already paid for, so we don’t have to stop at the front desk.

“We’ll go out the back,” I whisper to Wells.

As we hurry down the hallway I can’t resist the temptation to glance back and see if Archer’s head is poking out of a doorway. It isn’t.

The hallway is dimly lit with gaslights at each end. The stairway is a dark pit and we have to watch our footing going down.

At the bottom of the stairs we get an unpleasant surprise—
the rear door is locked, bolted tight.
It takes a key to get out.

“Damn,” Wells hits the door, “should have guessed. Keeps people from running out on their rent.”

“I don’t suppose you learned how to pick a lock from one of those books you read?”

Wells shakes his head. “Only cutting up salamanders.”

“Then we have no choice, we’ll have to risk going out the front.”

“In that case, I think we should wait a couple of hours until after the bar closes. Archer struck me as the type that hangs around to the very end. We call them pub closers.”

“We can’t. The stable will be closed. The stableman’s not going to be happy and if we wait any later he won’t answer the bell, period. Besides, it’s already dark and it’s getting foggy. We need to make our way to another inn before it gets worse.”

“And what is your plan if he catches us red-handed?”

“We’ll pretend we’re coming to see him.”

“With our luggage?”

“We tell him we have to leave now because we’re afraid the police are coming, but stopped by to tell him where we’re headed.”

“Amazing…”

“What?”

“How you do it.” He walks down the dimly lit first floor hallway shaking his head.

“Do what?”

“Come up with these lies.”

I don’t volunteer that I doubt that Archer would fall for the lie, but it will at least give him pause.

Wells is ahead of me and he is going by the open door to the men’s water closet when he comes to an abrupt halt.

“
Good lord!
”

“What? What’s the matter?” I rush up beside him.

Archer is sitting on a toilet. Motionless. Dead.

“Oh … my … lord…”

The handle of an ice pick is sticking out his right ear. Blood is running down the side of his neck. He is staring straight ahead, blankly, dull eyed. The expression on his face is one of permanent surprise.

“We have to keep going.” I give Wells a push.

We start to rush away when I stop. “
The diary!
We have to get the diary.”

I turn back and go in. My whole body shaking, I slowly approach Archer’s body. He appears to be staring directly at me and I almost lose my nerve. Giving out a slight yelp, I reach inside his coat where I’d seen him put the diary.

It’s not there.

I pad his chest to find it. Nothing. His weight shifts and he starts to fall forward. This time I cry out and push him back.

Wells grabs my arm and pulls me out of the room. He closes the door and turns the sign on the outside from
UNOCCUPIED
to
OCCUPIED.

“It’s not there,” I tell Wells as we move quickly down the hallway. The diary Archer stole and so blatantly boasted possession of had cost him dearly.

My knees are trembling and I’m afraid they will give out, but I force my feet ahead with sheer willpower.

Just before we come out of the hallway I stop.

“We need to compose ourselves.”

Once we get our breathing in order we move forward at a speed I hope doesn’t look like we are running from a fire—or a murder.

We pass through the dining room and as we go by the open doors to the bar I pause and look in. My eyes automatically go to the shoes of men, looking for cowboy boots. Thank God I don’t see a pair because I don’t know what I’d do.

As we head for the exit the innkeeper, who’s behind the front desk, looks up from an accounting book and asks, “Are you leaving?”

“Mother’s sick,” Wells says. “Must rush to her bedside. We’re taking the train.”