The Vanishing Thief (24 page)

I had to say something to stop him. “Surely you haven't done anything so terrible. And what about your niece, Daisy? Who will take care of her?”

“Who cares about Daisy? All she cares about is money and parties. I never guessed she'd kept her last letters from her parents. Stupid chit. Or that her father would write her about his discovery. She should have died with her parents.”

What a terrible man. I looked at him, furiously trying to think of something to calm him down while my own blood boiled. I tried to sound serene. “Perhaps if you talk to Sir Broderick—”

Jacob was inching his way to the left when Hancock looked at him and said, “No. Sir Broderick can do more damage than Drake. He'll recognize the importance of those papers. He'll give them to the police. It's finished. All I can do now is as much damage as I can to the Archivist Society and Drake and Blackford. That'll give me a chance to escape the country. I'll either escape or hang, and I won't hang.” He lit the gas and stepped away.

I dove straight down the middle of the room. Fogarty and Sumner both took the right side, after Hancock, and Jacob the left. The rope seemed to weaken almost immediately as the jelly in the saucer began to liquefy from the heat.

There was no time to cut Emma's bonds and set her free. I ran for the chair and shoved it in front of me until we smashed into a heavy table on the far side of the room. I heard glass break and something sizzle behind me.

I stepped to the side and looked back. A puddle of glass melted into liquid steaming and bubbling on the wooden floor. I checked my skirt and shoes. Apparently I'd moved far enough away not to be splattered by the breakage.

Jacob ran down an aisle between beakers and gas jets, knocking things over in his rush to reach us. He pulled out his knife and cut Emma free as I removed her gag. She choked and coughed, but she managed to gasp out, “He covered my face with something noxious. The next thing I knew, I was tied up here.”

I looked Emma over for signs of injury. Her face and arms were bruised and she had small cuts on her hands. “Are you all right?”

“Where did he go?” she cried out frantically, whipping her head from side to side.

I glanced around. Lord Hancock, Fogarty, and Sumner had all vanished. I didn't see any door or stairs to exit. “I don't—oh, dear Lord. Let's get out of here.” A fire had broken out on one of the worktables and was spreading from beaker to vial as glass shattered and acrid smoke rose.

The room was rapidly filling with a noxious fog, hiding any escape. I could hear Jacob coughing and something nearby sizzling. Breathing burned my lungs. The air smelled like a sewer. We were trapped.

For one terrible moment, I stood paralyzed. To my right, flames shot toward the ceiling. My parents' voices cried out to me from the fire, telling me to save myself. The way they had shouted to me the night they died.

Not this time. This time I would save my friends.

I grabbed Emma's arm and lifted. She rose stiffly and then Jacob pulled her along. I pushed her, following in the trail of their coughs as the smoke grew denser. Then I heard breaking glass in front of me.

The smoke cleared enough for me to see Jacob had smashed a metal stand through a window. Smoke slid out the gaping hole in the glass, but iron bars kept us in.

“We've got—to get out,” Emma managed between coughs.

“This way. Through the house.” Fear paralyzed every thought but one. I was determined not to fail again. I grabbed her hand and led her along the wall until we reached a corner. Perhaps ten strides more and we'd be at the door leading into the house. And freedom.

A popping, swishing sound came from in front of me. A bright band of fire raced for the barrels in the corner. I had no idea what was in them, but it couldn't be good. “Run.”

I pulled Emma behind me as I rushed for the door. I wouldn't leave her behind. Yanking it open, I hurdled through the doorway and ran, tripping over my skirt. Emma collided with me and Jacob brushed our sides as we fell. He jerked Emma up by the grip he kept on her arm.

“Get out!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, not certain if anyone else remained in the building. Pulling myself up by clutching a door frame, I held my torn skirt up with one hand and raced after the other two Archivists.

I was in the front doorway when a great wind and a huge boom blew me forward. I crashed into Jacob. We both fell into the tall grass and weeds as fire arched over our heads. I kept my face down as searing heat scorched my back and objects pummeled me.

Just when I thought I couldn't stand the pain any longer, the wind died away. I looked behind me to see fire in every window of the house. Smoke glowed pale in the night sky above my head. Jacob and Emma lay sprawled on the grass in front of me. We were alive. I rose, my hairdo slipping into my eyes and hanging to my shoulders, and looked for Fogarty, Sumner, and Lord Hancock.

They were nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Twenty-one

A
TALL,
antique carriage rumbled up the street behind matching black horses and stopped behind our borrowed conveyance. I walked to the edge of the road, putting one foot wearily in front of the other. Now that Emma was safe, now that Lord Hancock and the others were missing, I lacked the energy to speak, much less walk. This night, with its glamorous ball, had been horrible.

The duke leaped down from the ancient carriage, his highwayman costume ridiculously appropriate in this setting. He plucked the tiara off the side of my head where it had come to rest. “You're a wreck.”

I glared in reply. “You're very kind. What papers did Drake have of Hancock's?”

I could hear the fire wagons racing toward us and a bobby blowing an alarm on his whistle. A series of coughs left me unable to catch my breath. The smoke from the house made my lungs burn.

The duke put a protective arm around me. “You need to sit down. I'll help you into the carriage.”

“Not until I find out what Drake stole from Lord Hancock and where Hancock, Fogarty, and Sumner are now.”

I shivered and the duke pulled me closer, supporting my weight. His breath warmed my ear as he said, “Daisy invited Drake to a large gathering here last season. During the party, Drake pinched a letter from Daisy's room. A letter written to her by her father, the late Lord Hancock, dated shortly before his death while she was visiting her mother's family in the country. It contained his formula for the amylnitrohydrated sulfate.”

“Hancock's one big success.” I tried to remember what I'd learned about the formula.

“Published by Hancock a few months after his brother's death. Whatever honors he received in the world of chemistry came from stealing a formula from a dead man.”

I shook my head. “No wonder everything he's done since then has been a failure.”

The duke stared at the burning house. “Or been too unstable for practical use.”

I coughed again. Breathing was coming easier now and it made me light-headed in relief. “I don't think he meant to blow up the house. I think we might have done that saving Emma. Beakers seemed to break and set off the next glass dish and so on to barrels stacked in one corner of the laboratory. But he did say he wanted to destroy you and Drake and the Archivist Society before he escapes or hangs.”

Firemen raced past us dragging a hose. Water sprayed onto the house in a stream, but it was too late to save anything. The roof rose and sank in rumbling waves before another hose could pour more water into the building from another direction.

With a shout, the firemen drove everyone back as the roof fell into the house with a mighty crash of sparks and thunder.

The sight was an all too familiar one and I shivered at the memory of that day twelve years before. The day I made the choice to rescue Sir Broderick first.

I turned away from the house, sickened by my memories.

A bobby came up to us. “Is there anyone inside?”

“I don't think so,” I told him and discovered I was crying.

“Are you the homeowner?” he asked the duke.

“No.” He looked at me. “Where is Lord Hancock?”

I bit back my sobs and swallowed. “Fogarty and Sumner chased him out of the lab while we got Emma out. I didn't see or hear any servants.”

“The house has stood empty for months,” the bobby said. “It's been an eyesore for the neighborhood and a target of young boys with their catapults and stones. Few in this neighborhood will be sorry to see it burn down.”

More hoses were dragged across the scraggly lawn and pointed at the fire. The water began to dampen the fire, or perhaps it was burning itself out.

A figure trudged toward us out of the darkness into the blazing light encircling the fiery building. When he reached us, Fogarty said, “I lost him,” and dropped to a sitting position among the weeds, breathing hard.

If I'd had more energy, I'd have found a way to hug him. “I'm glad you're safe,” I said, patting his shoulder.

“Not the ending we expected,” Fogarty replied, his chest heaving as he pulled in air.

Emma reached us, supported on one side by Jacob. He jostled her and she shook him off. “That's enough. Georgia, are you all right?”

I realized I was still hanging on to the duke for support. I straightened and jumped forward guiltily, feeling the loss of all the warmth and security that had enveloped me. “Yes. The smoke took my breath away.”

Embarrassed, I turned to Adam Fogarty. “Where did you lose Lord Hancock?”

“A few blocks away. He might have doubled back, but I couldn't find him anywhere.”

“Any idea where he intends to go?”

“None.”

“Where's Sumner?” Emma asked.

“Here.” Sumner stumbled into the light. Dark liquid puddled between his fingers where he clutched his arm. Sweat beaded along his hairline, and he was missing his hat.

“Oh, no.” Emma ran and put an arm around him.

I covered my face with my fingers. “I'm so sorry. What happened?”

Sumner gave Emma a grimace and turned to the duke. “Stupid mistake. He was waiting in the branches of a tree. Jumped down on me. I got stabbed by my own knife. Lost him.”

The fire was dying down and under the control of the fire brigade. The police didn't need us any longer. Jacob handed over Emma's tiara and then he and Fogarty departed in the unmarked carriage that had been lent to us by the duke. Sir Broderick would be waiting for details of the night's misadventure and could use help sorting through the letters purchased from Drake.

After traveling to the duke's home to drop off Sumner for medical care and the jewels for safekeeping, Emma and I were escorted to Lady Westover's by the Duke of Blackford in his ancient carriage. We were silent the entire trip, and Emma kept twisting her fingers.

Although she met us wearing a dressing wrap over her nightgown, I suspected Lady Westover had not gone to bed. She appeared wide awake when we arrived, ordering her sleepy-looking servants to fix tea while her lady's maid helped us out of our ruined gowns and into our everyday shirtwaists and skirts.

As I looked at the burns and tears in the Fire Queen costume, I felt my eyes dampen and my throat tighten at the loss. I hadn't expected to wear that dress again. I wasn't born to be a queen. But my dream of waltzing with the duke and being admired by men and women alike was not to be.

I caught Emma hiding a yawn, which started me yawning. Lady Westover came in and frowned at my wide-open mouth. “Come along. The sooner you tell my grandson and me what happened, the sooner you can get to your beds.”

We found the Duke of Blackford and Detective Inspector Grantham waiting in the parlor, brandy glasses in their hands.

“Do you want tea or would you rather have brandy?” Lady Westover asked.

“Tea. I can barely stay awake now,” I told her. “How much have you heard, Inspector?”

“I've learned about the letter Mr. Drake stole from Miss Daisy and how Lord Hancock couldn't allow anyone to know his late brother created the formula. How any evidence that his brother created the compound would have been in the laboratory Hancock never let anyone into, and that has now burned down. The surviving Hancock made the fortune he subsequently lost and his reputation from his brother's formula. I take it this is why Drake was attacked and then disappeared. Blackmail is a dangerous game,” Grantham said.

“Drake swears he never tried to blackmail Hancock,” Blackford said.

“Then he was the only person in your club he didn't try to blackmail,” I said in a peevish tone. It was late, I was tired, and I had run out of patience for circling the truth.

“Drake is a known blackmailer?” Inspector Grantham asked, looking at Emma and me.

“Yes,” I said.

“No,” Blackford said. When I glared at him, he said, “Not provably. None of his victims will admit to it, in part because most of them have managed to extricate themselves.”

“Are you telling me there's no sense starting an investigation?” the inspector asked.

“There's no proof of a crime,” Blackford said.

“What about the letters and papers Drake sold to you tonight?” I asked.

“They're not proof of a crime unless someone wants to come forward and press charges.” Blackford gave me a cold smile over his brandy snifter.

“And no one will press charges for blackmail against the wishes of a duke.” I gave him a hard stare.

“Georgia,” Lady Westover began in her
remember where you are
voice, “you must be overwrought from the dangers you faced tonight. Your ball gowns were all sooty and torn. Surely you'll feel better after a good night's sleep.”

“Sir Broderick and I plan to return all of the letters to their rightful owners, or burn them if the owners are dead,” Blackford murmured.

I nearly jumped to my feet, and then remembered where I was. “You did all this—the dresses, the jewels, the invitations—to buy back letters you had no intention of keeping?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Do you want sainthood? Or just the power to make people leap at your every command? I don't think a good night's sleep will help this, Lady Westover.”

“Miss Fenchurch,” the duke began.

I'd had enough of the Duke of Blackford pulling the strings while the Archivist Society danced. I rose and stormed from the room, not knowing if I was angrier at him or at myself. I wanted to believe his goal was the same as ours. Instead, he was circumventing justice.

He caught up to me in the hall. “Georgia, listen to me.”

I spun around and glared at him. “While you subvert the course of justice? No. And it's ‘Miss Fenchurch,' Your Grace.”

“Miss Fenchurch, I am not subverting justice. I am giving a bright young man and his very loyal wife a chance to start over without having to resort to crime to fund their lifestyle. I think Canada will be a good place for them to begin again. And Mrs. Drake has a sister there.”

I had forgotten about Edith, whose name Anne had borrowed. Staring into his eyes, I said, “Be truthful with me. Now that you have the letters, be truthful with me for a change. Why did you hide your sister's death?”

He gazed at a spot over my head, but I knew he wasn't studying the coffered ceiling. “You went to Blackford and saw her grave. Didn't you?”

I nodded and he continued. “You're resourceful, I'll grant you that. I didn't plan to keep it a secret forever. Only until I took her letters, her embarrassing letters, back from Drake. He made me pay for his silence. He wouldn't give them to me because he knew I let her die.”

I grabbed hold of his arm. “You didn't let her die. You weren't there.”

“He holds me responsible for her death, just as I do. Her letters spell out how Drake was going to help her escape my control, how I was unfairly imprisoning her, how I sided with Victoria, everything. Drake gave me copies of them. He held those letters to remind me how wrong I'd been about Margaret, how I'd failed her, and how I'd forced her to make her daring escape.”

He leaned forward, scowling so close to my face I was forced to bend backward to keep him in focus. His clothes had captured the smoke from the fire and he smelled of brimstone. His straight hair now ended in a few curls at the nape of his neck. I could have sworn his hair was rigidly straight when we arrived at Lady Westover's.

“I wasn't there, but I should have been. From her letters, from the reports I was getting from the castle, I thought Margaret was getting better. I learned later she was hiding things from me. She believed Drake could give her the freedom I wouldn't, while I kept thinking Drake was a good influence on her. If I'd been there, I could have stopped Margaret before she reached the river. I could have saved her.”

Tears filled my eyes. How many times had I said similar words to myself? “No. You couldn't have. I was right there, and I couldn't save my family.”

Puzzlement, followed by dawning understanding and then sympathy crossed his face. “That's why you work with the Archivist Society? To help others so they don't suffer like you have?”

Thinking of the murderer hardened my expression and I crossed my arms protectively over my chest. “Someday I'll find the man who killed my parents and stop him from killing ever again.”

He nodded. “I'm certain you will.” He studied the ceiling again. “Tomorrow I'll have my solicitor correct the records concerning Margaret's death. I've given up blaming Drake for encouraging her to escape. It's time to let her rest in peace.”

He sounded so mournful for his sister. Had he shown as much grief for his fiancée? “If she can. Did she kill Victoria?”

He stared at the floor. “Mrs. Potter told me about your questions. Did you learn anything more than I did?”

“Lady Margaret ordered lilies of the valley for a floral arrangement that day. Lilies are highly poisonous, even the leaves Sally saw her cutting up into pieces. If Margaret had somehow put them into the tea, anyone who drank it would have died of symptoms similar to Miss Victoria's.”