by C. J. Archer
“Any idea how they found out about your relationship?” Matt asked.
She shook her head.
“I’ll see if Farnsworth has learned anything from the Rycroft servants,” Willie said.
Aunt Letitia set her cup down and regarded Catherine. “If you think it will help, I can speak to your parents for you and vouch for Cyclops’s character. It’s a shame that it’s come to that, but that is the way of things. Matthew can say something too, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Cyclops said just before Catherine spoke. From the look on her face, I suspected she was about to agree to the plan. “I can do something about the problem myself.”
We all looked at him blankly, even Catherine.
“The problem of me being able to support her, not one about them accepting me,” he clarified. “Work for Matt is intermittent. That’s enough while I live under this roof, but I need to earn a regular wage.”
“You got a job?” Willie asked. “Doing what? There ain’t no mine work in London.”
Aunt Letitia gasped. “You’re leaving London? To work in the mines? No, Cyclops, I absolutely forbid it. You’re staying here, with us, in this house.” She picked up her cup. “You don’t need to work. Matthew is quite well off and can support his family as well as yours.”
“Aunt,” Matt chided. “Let him make his own way in the world. If that means moving away then so be it.”
“We can always visit them,” I assured her.
Willie humphed. “I agree with Letty. Duke, say something sensible. Don’t be like Matt and India; say something to make him stay.”
Duke got up and went to the drinks trolley. “I need something stronger if I’m going to lose my best friend.”
“You won’t lose him,” Matt said at the same time that Willie said, “I’m your best friend.”
Cyclops watched the conversation bandy back and forth with a small smile. Catherine looked amused too. I didn’t see anything to be amused about and told them so.
“You’re going to be missed,” I added. “But we understand your need to make your own way, Cyclops.”
“You’re jumping ahead, India,” Catherine said. “If you’d let Nate speak, he has something important to tell you.”
Cyclops cleared his throat. At a nod of encouragement from Catherine, he said, “I have an announcement to make.”
“Well it’s about time,” Willie declared.
“Finally,” Aunt Letitia agreed. “How wonderful that you’ve decided to put aside your family’s doubts, Catherine, and go ahead anyway. Where will the ceremony be?”
Cyclops glanced at Catherine. “It’s not that.”
“Oh,” we all said as one.
“I’m joining the Metropolitan Police,” Cyclops said. “Brockwell reckons he can have my application pushed through faster on account of my experience.”
Matt was the first to get up and shake his hand. “I think it’s a great idea. You’ll make an excellent policeman.”
“London’s criminals will quake in their boots,” I said, smiling.
“Finally, common sense prevails,” Aunt Letitia said. “That idea of yours to run off to the mines was a ridiculous one, Cyclops. I don’t know what got into you. You’re far better off staying here with us.”
He kissed her cheek. “I know. I’m glad Brockwell suggested it.”
“Speaking of Brockwell,” Matt said with a glance at me. “We’d better report to Scotland Yard. You can stay here if you like, India.”
Catherine took that as her signal to leave, even though I insisted she should stay. “I have to get back for closing,” she said. “Ronnie’s not all that good at counting the money.”
After Catherine left, Matt and I put on coats, hats and gloves and were about to depart when Willie rushed down the staircase. “You going without me?”
“We didn’t think you were coming,” Matt said testily. “You disappeared.”
“I had to make a short stop upstairs. Too much tea.”
“Too much information.” He signaled for her to put on her coat and join us in the carriage.
At Scotland Yard, she waved at the sergeant on duty at the reception desk. “We’re visiting Detective Inspector Brockwell,” she said breezily. “No need for an escort. We know our way.”
The sergeant didn’t try to stop us.
We found Brockwell surrounded by paperwork. It spread over his desk like a tablecloth. A series of cups, inkstands and books operated as paper weights to stop the sheets moving in the drafts. The substantial draft created by us opening the door saw him stretching his arms over the closest papers to hold them in place.
“Close it!” he snapped.
“I don’t know how you can find anything,” I said, reading one of the papers upside down. It was Mr. Bunn’s statement. “It looks very disorganized.”
He frowned. “There is a system.”
“I’m sure there is.”
Willie picked up the statement I’d been reading and scanned it. “Seems like an accurate account of the day to me. Except this bit.” She pointed to a paragraph at the end. “I didn’t nearly die at Amelia’s hand. It was all under control. I was waiting until the last second to dodge out of the way. India’s what we sharpshooters call a trigger twitcher.”
“Nonsense,” I said, taking a seat. “You would have died if not for my quick thinking and magical watch. Or lost an eye, at the very least.”
She pressed her right eyelid. “I reckon I’d look good with a patch. Better than Cyclops.”
I half expected her to say that women liked their lovers with eye patches, but thankfully she either didn’t think of it or restrained in Brockwell’s presence.
“Anyway,” she went on, “I would not have lost an eye, or an ear, or anything. Amelia was no match for me.”
Brockwell folded his hands on the papers. “Has this been going on long, Glass?”
“Off and on since we got back.”
“You have my sympathies.”
Willie and I both glared at Matt. He merely smiled and sat too.
“May I see Bunn’s statement?” he asked.
“Yes, you may, and thanks for asking.” Brockwell passed him the pages with a pointed glare for both Willie and me.
I sidled closer to Matt to read it properly. “It says he didn’t know Amelia was going to blow anything up, including the bandstand,” I said. “Do you think that’s true?”
“We’ve got no one else’s word for it except his,” Brockwell said. “It’ll be up to a jury to decide if he’s telling the truth.”
According to the statement, Mr. Bunn and Amelia were smuggled out of the city by Mr. Carpenter the younger, albeit reluctantly. Amelia had convinced him to do it, as she had convinced Mr. Bunn to persist with their kidnapping and bombing scheme.
“It’s very vague,” I said. “There’s no mention of magic or me in there at all. It doesn’t say what he and Amelia hoped to achieve in specific terms, and he makes it seem as though my watch hit its target thanks to a measure of luck.”
“Indeed,” Brockwell said, sounding pleased. “I wrote the statement myself after questioning Mr. Bunn as soon as he returned to London. I also instructed him not to mention magic to anyone else or at the trial. I think I got the point across that it wouldn’t go well for him if he did.”
Willie told him her idea about pretending Amelia created a special device for detonating bombs remotely, and Brockwell agreed to add it to the statement with a note that no one knew how to recreate the device that Amelia destroyed before her death.
“What cause will Bunn say he adopted?” Matt asked.
“I’ll present him with some options before he leaves tomorrow. The Irish cause is perhaps the most believable, but I feel there are others that deserve to have a light shone on them.”
I wasn’t sure if he was presenting the light shining as a positive or negative for the cause.
“Is he here at Scotland Yard now?” Matt asked.
&nbs
p; “Downstairs in the holding cells.”
“May I speak with him?”
“What about?”
“I want to know if he and Amelia tried to shoot me outside the office of The Weekly Gazette.”
Brockwell rose. “Come with me.”
“Can’t someone else take them?” Willie asked.
“Why?”
Willie winked. When Brockwell gave her a blank look, she said, “So we can be alone.”
Brockwell’s cheeks pinked. “Right, yes, you wanted to discuss that matter with me in private. That official police matter that we discussed, but requires further discussion. Of course, Willie, I’ll be happy to.”
She rolled her eyes.
Brockwell fetched a sergeant to take us to the holding cells in the basement. We found Mr. Bunn sitting alone on the narrow bed, his head in his hands. He looked up upon our arrival then lowered his head again. He groaned.
“What do you want now?” he muttered. “I’ve answered the inspector’s questions.”
“He didn’t ask you this one.” Matt crossed his arms and regarded Mr. Bunn until the prisoner finally looked up out of morbid curiosity. “Why did you shoot at me outside the office of The Weekly Gazette?”
“Shoot at you? We did no such thing!”
Matt lowered his arms and moved further into the cell. Indeed, it was more of a prowl than a walk. A beast hunting his prey. Mr. Bunn gulped and scrambled back over the bed to get further away.
“Did you want to kill me or merely injure me?” Matt growled.
“Neither! We didn’t shoot at you.”
“Did you hope my death would force India to agree to your scheme? Or was it intended as a warning only?”
“A warning? The bandstand bomb was a warning and the Brighton bombs were our threats. We didn’t need to shoot anyone as well.”
Matt’s hands closed into fists.
Mr. Bunn’s eyes widened. “You must believe me, sir!” His screech was so high I worried the sergeant would come. The cell door remained closed, however. “Why would I lie about it now? My life is over. I’ll be hanged within days.”
Matt’s fists opened and he released a breath. Mr. Bunn, however, didn’t relax. He looked on the verge of tears.
I stepped around Matt and thought about sitting on the bed beside Mr. Bunn but the mattress was stained and I wore a dark blue dress with cream panels. The cream would pick up any dirt it came into contact with.
“You probably won’t hang,” I said. “Not if you argue that Amelia forced you to do her bidding by threatening to blow up her bombs if you didn’t. As to Amelia’s death, you can say you were saving Willie’s life. After all, it’s true, and the police can vouch for you. So can we.”
His chin trembled. “I’ll still go to prison. I won’t survive a week in there.”
“You should have thought of that before you tried to manipulate India,” Matt snapped.
Mr. Bunn lowered his head with a groan.
Matt put out his hand to escort me out of the cell, but I indicated I wanted another moment. “Are you being honest with us about the shooting?” I said gently. “Did you shoot at anyone outside the office of The Weekly Gazette on Lower Mire Lane?”
“I told you, no,” Mr. Bunn whined. “We did not. I don’t even know where Lower Mire Lane is.”
I straightened and accepted Matt’s hand. We left without saying goodbye.
“Do you believe him?” I asked as we followed the sergeant out of the holding cell area.
“I do.”
“So the question is, who fired the shot? Could it have been Sir Charles Whittaker, trying to kill Oscar after all?”
“It’s possible, although unlikely. If he wanted Barratt dead, he would have paid that thug to kill him in the lane, not merely beat him up. A knifing would be swift, whereas a beating takes longer. It gives more time for witnesses to intervene.”
He was right. It was unlikely to have been the same person, so if Whittaker orchestrated the beating, he wasn’t responsible for the shooting. So who had fired the shot?
And who had been the intended victim?
Chapter 17
We sent a message to Oscar that we’d like to see both he and Louisa that evening. He sent a message back inviting us to dine with them at Louisa’s townhouse.
Louisa’s elderly great-aunt joined us for dinner so conversation remained polite but insignificant. She retired shortly afterward, assisted from the dining room by a maid. Thankfully the men declined the formalities of cigars and port so I didn’t have to be alone with Louisa. I suspected Matt and Oscar were equally disinterested in spending time together without ladies present. We retreated to the drawing room and drank tea.
Oscar hardly waited for the butler to close the doors when he started. “What more have you discovered about Whittaker?”
“Nothing yet,” Matt said. “We’ve been on an investigation.”
“A magical investigation?” Louisa asked as she passed me a teacup.
“It’s confidential.” Matt wasn’t about to tell her too much. Her enthusiasm for magic was rather intense. I suspected she would side with Mr. Bunn and Amelia if she knew they’d wanted to use my magic to further the cause to free magicians.
“The police could have dealt with that, surely,” Oscar said. “The situation with Whittaker is critical. He wants me dead.”
“He wants you stopped,” Matt clarified. “He doesn’t want your book to be published.”
“He shot at me! The man wants to kill me, Glass. The beating was merely a warning; the shooting was intended to end my life.”
Matt drew in a breath. “We don’t know if it was Whittaker who fired that shot.” He explained how it would have been easier to kill Oscar rather than set upon him the first time if Sir Charles’s intention was to kill. “So it’s unlikely he was the one shooting at you,” Matt finished.
Oscar groaned. “You think there’s someone else after me?”
Matt said nothing, despite the yawning silence. He didn’t want Oscar to know he might not have been the intended victim at all, and that Matt was. He wanted Oscar to think he had more than one enemy who wished he’d stop writing his book. It was a little cruel, but less so than a beating.
Oscar was too focused on himself to think that someone else could have been the shooter’s target, but Louisa worked it out.
“This is pure speculation,” she said. “We don’t know for certain that it was Sir Charles who sent that thug. We also don’t know for certain that he shot at you, Oscar. The shooter could have been trying to kill India, for example.”
“Me?” I said.
“You’re becoming very well known in magical circles. If the artless who are worried about magicians becoming too powerful learn about you, they might want you out of the way so that magicians can’t rally behind you.”
“I am not a figure to rally behind. I’m not on anyone’s side.”
“The artless don’t know that. You saw how the Watchmaker’s Guild reacted towards you, even when you stopped owning a shop.”
“That was a small minority who are no longer in the guild.”
“Even so,” she said simply.
Oscar shook his head. “It’s too coincidental. First the beating then the shooting; I must be the target, and Whittaker is behind both. Glass heard the bruiser direct the driver to Hammersmith where Whittaker lives.”
“Thousands of people live there.” She put down her teacup and turned to him. “Oscar, you’re not thinking clearly. Set aside your worries and try to look at the incidents objectively. If you were reporting on them, would you jump to the same conclusion? Would your editor let you smear Sir Charles’s good name in his paper based on the evidence you have thus far? Or would you consider he’s one possibility among many?”
Oscar stared into his teacup. “You’re right. It’s not enough evidence to prove anything. I’d need more information before slandering Sir Charles.” He looked up at Matt. “So what do we do to get that evidence?
”
“Nothing,” Matt said. “You agree to stop writing the book, as we already discussed.”
“No-o,” Louisa said through a tight smile. “He agreed to make it appear as though he’s no longer writing the book. Speaking of which, India, will you be guest of honor at a club gathering I’m holding here tomorrow night? I’ve already sent out invitations. Oh, and do urge Fabian to accept. I’ve sent him an invitation but have yet to receive a response. I think once he knows you’re coming he’ll attend too.”
“We’re going to announce that I’m giving up on the book at the gathering,” Oscar said.
“Tell me you are actually giving it up,” I said. “Not just making it appear as though you are. It’s getting far too dangerous now.”
He glanced at Louisa.
“He is not giving it up,” she said crisply. “Why go to such an extreme?”
“To keep him safe,” I shot back.
“Tosh. Once everyone thinks he’s giving up, the attempts on his life will cease. He’ll be quite all right.”
“You’re willing to wager with his life?” Matt asked.
“It’s a calculated risk, not a wager. Good lord, you are all over reacting. He is not giving up the book, and that’s final. He has worked too hard for too long, and what is written so far is excellent. It’s engaging and enlightening and puts magic in a favorable light. The vast majority of the public will be quite convinced of the goodness of magic after reading it.”
“And the minority who aren’t?” Matt asked. “The dangerous minority who’ll do anything to protect their businesses from magicians? What if they take it upon themselves to protect those businesses with more beatings and shootings?”
“Then the law will punish them accordingly.”
“And in the meantime, magicians like your fiancé and my wife might be dead.” He suddenly rose and fastened his jacket. “You seem unperturbed by the threat, but I am not.”
Louisa bristled. “Are you insinuating that I do not care for Oscar?”