Arcane Adversaries

by Jess Faraday

  “Very good, ah…Sergeant, is it?” the operator said. I wasn’t in uniform, after all.

  “That’s right,” I said as he wrote it down.

  “Sergeant what?”

  My heart stopped. The operator and I knew one another by sight, but had never exchanged names, and now I was glad. My ignominious departure from Scotland Yard was largely behind me, but a scandal like that wouldn’t soon be forgotten. They probably wouldn’t bother to pursue me, but it wouldn’t take any effort at all to drop Landry a note and ruin my carefully rebuilt life here.

  “Actually, the Chief Inspector requested the information,” I said. He hadn’t, of course. And he hadn’t approved the telegraph, either, though if my hunch turned out to be correct, he’d be grateful I hadn’t wasted time asking.

  The operator nodded. “Very good, Sergeant.”

  Walking to the interview room, I found myself with more questions than answers. Miss Dobbs’s lectures had clearly inspired Pritchard’s and Tremayne’s decisions about the products they would stock in their shops. And Tremayne and Miss Spurgeon had had words. But was it enough to connect the two men to the attacks? As tidy as it would have been, the connection seemed thin. Had Pritchard lied to me about his son being in school that morning? And did he know more about Mrs. Gilbert’s window than he was admitting?

  I would have to interview Miss Dobbs, and the sooner the better. Unfortunately hers was just one name on a growing list.

  When I arrived at the interview room, Jeffrey Pritchard appeared to have collected himself, as Trevelyan had predicted he would. As for me, I’d recovered from the shock of Theo’s near escape, though not from the guilt about the possibility of my leaving.

  “I didn’t set the fire,” young Pritchard said as I took the chair across the table from him.

  “I believe you,” I replied. I laid out pen and paper, and started to take notes. “You were at the meeting until just before the alarms began. You wouldn’t have had time to set a fire. Perhaps you can tell me, though, why you were sneaking around the back of the library.”

  “I was meeting…someone.”

  “Strange place for a meeting,” I said. He didn’t reply. His expression was wary. Frightened. He was hiding something, even if it wasn’t arson. “Don’t you usually attend Miss Dobbs’s meeting with your father?”

  A pause, and then, “He was helping Mrs. Gilbert with her window.”

  “Oh? And he told you to go on without him? In this weather?”

  “He doesn’t know I’m here. He wanted me to help with the window, but I…I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it was my fault,” he mumbled.

  “You threw the stone?”

  “It was only supposed to hit the door!” he cried.

  “What about Miss Spurgeon’s house?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “The retired headmistress. Someone destroyed her library this afternoon and left a very similar calling card. Exodus 22:18.”

  “What? But he told me—” He snapped his mouth shut.

  “Who?” I demanded. “What did he tell you?”

  He didn’t answer; his expression suggested a worse threat than I awaited him if he did. I resisted the instinct to push. He might reveal more, later, if he didn’t feel under attack.

  “So your father knows you threw the rock. He’s helping Mrs. Gilbert to repair the damage. You couldn’t face her, so you came…to Bodmin? To go to the study group then meet a friend? And your father doesn’t know you’re here. He must be worried sick.”

  “Oh, God,” Pritchard said.

  “Who is this friend of yours? Can’t be a very good friend if they encourage you to cast off your responsibilities and worry your father. In fact, I’d say they’re no friend at all.”

  “That’s not true!”

  His eyes met mine as soon as the words were out, and those eyes were filled with fear. Fear, of what? Discovery? Who had he been there to meet? Someone his father wouldn’t approve of? That could have been a lot of people. But something in his panic gave me pause. Reminded me of my own terror of discovery when I’d been his age.

  “Why did you throw the rock?” I asked, taking another tack.

  He blinked, perhaps confused at the conversational turn—or relieved by it. “I didn’t want to do it.”

  “But you did.”

  “I had to!”

  “Somehow I doubt that, unless you’re claiming demonic possession.” From his expression, I suspected Mr. Pritchard was indeed considering such a claim. “Did your friend ask you to do it?”

  “What? No!”

  Now I knew I wasn’t imagining the desperation in his voice. Whether the nature of his friendship was as I suspected, or something else altogether, he was protecting someone.

  “But someone told you to.”

  This was the most difficult part of an interview—allowing the subject time to arrive at the decision to confess, or if not to confess, to reveal that which they had so painstakingly concealed. I wasn’t patient by nature, but experience had taught me that patience almost always yielded more and better fruit.

  “I’d never hurt Selina…that is, Mrs. Gilbert,” young Pritchard said after several moments. He was calm, now, and he spoke with a restraint and decisiveness beyond his years. “She’s the only one who…who understands me.”

  I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and considered him. I’d put Pritchard’s age at seventeen, eighteen. Selina Gilbert couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. Both were young, attractive…. Stranger things had happened. And if they had quarreled—or his father had found out—either of those could have led to a rock through the window.

  “But you did throw the rock,” I said.

  He sighed again. “He told me if I didn’t, he would tell my father.”

  “Who told you? What would he tell?”

  “I…I can’t,” Pritchard whispered.

  The pieces began to come together. A special friend Pritchard had come all the way to Bodmin in the snow and dark to see. Someone he felt he had to keep secret. But someone had discovered his secret, and was blackmailing him over it. Whether Pritchard’s secret was Selina Gilbert or someone else didn’t matter. What mattered were the attacks, whoever was behind them, and the fact that they were using Jeffrey Pritchard’s secret to coerce him into helping.

  “Tell me,” I said gently. “Does your secret concern harm to another person or their property?”

  He looked up from his hands, confused. “No, Sergeant.”

  “Are you being harmed?”

  “No, Sergeant.”

  “Are you safe at home?”

  He paused, then nodded. I had to approach this carefully—not only because of potential repercussions for young Pritchard, but also because I didn’t want to shatter the fragile trust growing between us.

  I said, “But revealing your secret would hurt you, and, I suspect, your friend.” He paused again then nodded. “You’re seventeen, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re basically grown. And adults are entitled to their privacy, provided they’re committing no injury. Give me the name of the person who put you up to this. I swear I’ll sort them out.”

  “But—” His eyes brimmed with fear. Not just fear of discovery, I suspected, but possibly fear of legal prosecution as well as the crashing end to the only life he’d ever known. “But he’ll—”

  “Tell?” I said, “Mr. Pritchard, every good copper knows that many people, when confronted with evidence of their own wrongdoing, will make up all sorts of ridiculous stories and outright lies to shift the blame to someone else. No sergeant worth his stripes would believe those stories.” I met his eyes. “Do you understand?” He relaxed a bit and nodded. I said, “Your father will come for you in the morning. I would very much like to tell him how you cooperated and helped us to solve a crime wave spanning two towns. Will you help me?”

  We sat there for several long moments, his
eyes searching mine, wanting to trust but understandably, rightfully wary. Then, at last, he nodded.

  “It was Mr. Edward Tremayne,” he said. The chemist with the fanatical eyes. “He told me I had to do it. To…to atone for my sins.”

  “Thank you. Your part in this story is finished for now, though I expect you’ll apologize to Mrs. Gilbert when you return to the village.”

  His entire body sagged with relief, and he nodded. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Good lad. I’ll have someone bring you a blanket and some supper. Good evening, Mr. Pritchard.”

  Outside the interview room, I signaled for a constable to return Jeffrey Pritchard to his cell. As I watched them go, Trevelyan came up beside me.

  “What’s this?” I asked as he placed a folder into my hands.

  “The report on the library fire.”

  “Already?”

  I opened the folder and glanced over the report, once, twice, and again, just to make sure.

  It hadn’t been arson at all.

  “Well,” I said, closing the report and tucking it under my arm. “That was unexpected. But now that it’s settled, fancy making your first arrest?”

  •••

  I went to check on the progress of my inquiry on Miss Dobbs. Turned out, Scotland Yard’s response was well worth the wait.

  Miss Sarafina Dobbs, aka Miss Sarah Dempsey, Miss Sally Dobbins and Miss Selina Dell, was an accomplished fraud. Her specialty was medicines and potions that ranged from the merely useless to the outright dangerous, and she was wanted in connection with a spate of poisonings in South London. If found, the reply read, hold and contact Scotland Yard.

  That I would, I thought, though I’d let Trevelyan take the credit if it would keep my name off the transfer paperwork.

  No sooner had I thought this than Trevelyan walked in with his prize.

  “Got him,” Trevelyan said, practically beaming. “Quite a piece of work, but you’ll see for yourself. And you’ll want to have a look at this.”

  He handed me a stack of papers folded in half. Tremayne struggled against the cuffs as I carefully opened the parcel. Among the papers was a list of names of women in Bodmin and a few of the surrounding villages, as well as a crudely-drawn map. There were also the names of several men, including Jeffrey Pritchard.

  “Take him to the interview room,” I told Trevelyan. “And then if you don’t mind, Scotland Yard would be very grateful if you fetched us Miss Dobbs, as well.”

  Trevelyan’s grin lit up his face, in striking contrast to his prisoner’s scowl. This would be a brilliant start to my young friend’s career. Just like Fitzsimmons. Briefly, I wondered if my highest calling as a police officer would always be to make the careers of my trainees by passing off my work as theirs.

  The chemist was still scowling when I walked into the interview room. The fanatic glow still simmered in his eyes, though now those ice-blue eyes were wary. His thin mouth was grim against his pasty skin. I’d given him a bit of time to think things over, and now I sat across the table from him and took out my pen and paper. Before I could say a word, he spoke.

  “As I explained to the constable, I’ve done no wrong.”

  “Oh?”

  “That is to say, I serve a higher authority.”

  “Miss Dobbs?” I asked.

  “Miss Dobbs also works for the cause of righteousness.”

  I tapped my pen on the desk. “Protecting the weak and the vulnerable?”

  “In part.”

  “And punishing the wicked?”

  The gleam returned to his eyes and he gave a slight nod. “Are you a religious man, Constable?”

  “I believe in justice,” I said.

  “Justice or the law?” It was an interesting question. No one knew better than a copper that sometimes the two diverged. It was a question I’d grappled with on a personal level, as well. “Then you’ll know that sometimes to serve one, a man has to go against the other,” he said.

  “For example, blackmailing fellow worshippers,” I said.

  His expression turned thoughtful. “Nudging the wicked toward righteousness. Allowing them to redeem themselves by punishing the perverse.”

  “Perverse?” I asked.

  “Those who go against the natural order of things. God rules over man, man rules over nature—and over woman. To subvert the natural order is an affront to God.”

  That had been the topic of Miss Dobbs’s talk. In her lecture, she’d been speaking theoretically. But the alarm had interrupted her talk. Would she have eventually come to practical implementation of this philosophy, had the talk continued?

  “Did Miss Dobbs ever instruct you, or anyone else, to punish the perverse, as you put it?”

  “Her meaning was clear enough.”

  This was a slippery area. He might have been trying to protect both himself and Miss Dobbs with a deliberately vague answer. Or he might have been reading something into her words that wasn’t actually there. He might also have been reading an intent that was there, but which Miss Dobbs, if pressed, could plausibly deny.

  “So it was your idea,” I said. “Your plan to punish the perverse and redeem the wicked.”

  “It’s all part of the Lord’s plan,” he said. “And so are you. So are all of you.” He gestured as if to include the station and everyone in it. “‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.’ All that I’ve done, I’ve done for a greater purpose, and justice will see me vindicated.”

  “Then perhaps,” I said, sliding the paper and pen across the table to him. “You’d care to put everything into writing, so that the representatives of justice will understand.”

  •••

  Miss Dobbs was not quite so forthcoming. She turned out to be a hardened member of the criminal class; I’d tangled with plenty of her type. Trevelyan had not, as was apparent from the new scratches across his cheek, and an impressive bruise on his chin. His prisoner was none the worse for wear, though the beatific glow was gone.

  “Not quite the angel she appeared to be?” I asked as he released her into the interview room and quickly shut the door.

  “More like a wet cat,” he grumbled.

  I laughed. “Help me with the interview.”

  “Do I have to?”

  I clapped him on the shoulder, let us in, and shut the door behind us.

  “Miss Dobbs,” I began. “Or is it Miss Dempsey, Dobbins, or Dell?”

  She made a dismissive gesture. “Pick one.”

  “Right. Scotland Yard’s got so many charges against you, they’d be annoyed if we mucked it up by adding our own. But I’m curious. Is your new vocation a result of some religious conversion, or new packaging for the same old swindle?”

  She drew herself up, as if attempting to summon the angel once more, then scoffed and let the mask drop. “I sell people dreams. Religion, health—they hear what they want to hear.”

  “Including instructions to attack the competition?”

  A fierce spark lit her eyes. “There’s a room full of people who’ll swear I never said any such thing. Ask them. I’ll wait.”

  It matched what Tremayne had said, and she struck me as clever enough to avoid giving any such instructions outright. Still, I didn’t imagine that she would have objected to the attacks.

  “Don’t you at least feel guilty making a mockery of your flock’s cherished beliefs?”

  Her expression then told me that guilt was not in her emotional repertoire.

  “Constable,” she said. “I’m a shepherd. And what are sheep for if not to be fleeced?”

  •••

  Abby was at the library’s front desk when I was finally able to pull myself away from work the next afternoon and pay a visit. When I walked in, she glanced up from the stack of books she was processing, and a shadow fell over her features.

  “Simon.”

  “Back to business, I see.”

  She no
dded. “The fire damage was limited to the kitchen and stairs. It was the Wellington,” she added. Her voice hinted at a smile, but it didn’t reach her lips. “But you’re here to see Theo.”

  As she led me out of the main room, I thought to ask if something else was wrong. She seemed unusually subdued. But she probably had a lot to occupy her thoughts. She and her brother didn’t lack for money, but the repairs would be time-consuming and disruptive as well as expensive. I doubted the smells of wet ash and charred Wellington would ever be completely gone. Finally, we came to a private office near the back of the property. Abby knocked softly at the door, eliciting a sigh from behind the heavy wood, and the sound of shuffling papers. Then she gently pushed it open.

  Theo sat at a large mahogany desk covered by neat stacks of papers and books. A plate with the remains of a sandwich sat off to one side. It was a small office, and the desk dominated it. But all I could see was the rounded shoulders and mussed hair of the man slumped over it.

  “Hello, Simon,” Theo said, rising. The door clicked gently shut behind us. We were alone.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get away until now. How…are you?” I asked cautiously. He shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “Theo, what is it?”

  He drew breath to speak, paused, then reached into his pocket. “You dropped something the other night.”

  He tossed an envelope onto the desk. My heart stopped. Where had he found Cal’s letter? How long had it been sitting there? Had he read it? Of course he had. Oh, God.

  “You told me it was finished,” he said.

  “It is.”

  “Please. Are you going? Are you going to go meet him in London tomorrow?”

  He was usually so animated. Let’s be honest, he was loud. Colorful. Full of sweeping gestures and prone to hyperbole. But now his tone was cold, his words clipped. And his expression—I could have cut myself on it. He’d never liked the fact that Cal and I had stayed in contact, and now I understood why.