by Blythe Baker
16
I had half an hour until dinner, so I decided to spend it out of doors. The day had turned a comfortable kind of warm and the dappled afternoon sunshine coming through the trees eased away my worries. Walking amongst the flowers and the foliage of the garden, I felt like I could finally breathe.
Edward, who usually would have been watching me from the window in his bedroom, had been out of the house all day. I noted with some annoyance that he had also left early that morning without telling anyone where he planned to be, yet Lady Ashton only worried about me. I thought often that my mission would be much easier to accomplish if I was a man. No one seemed to concern themselves with the comings and goings of men, but women were to be watched and monitored at all times for their own safety. Regardless, Edward’s absence allowed me to wander from the back of the house to the front freely, enjoying the sight of people walking home after a long day, and appreciating the solitude of the back garden simultaneously.
I was rounding the side of the house for the third time that evening when I saw a man approaching from the street. His head was down, so I could only see the top of his cap and his dark gray suit. However, when he did finally lift his head, the breath left my body in one disbelieving sigh.
Arthur Burton was moving up the walkway towards Ashton House, carrying a small package under his arm.
My mind flitted between two questions: What was he doing here? What did I plan to do about it?
Getting the answer to the first was wholly dependent on my answer to the second. I could do the brave thing and march up to him, ask what he was doing at my home, and then question him about the death of Frederick Grossmith. Or I could do what I desperately wanted to do: escape into the back garden and dive into the relative safety of the house.
I was standing at the corner of the house, half-exposed to anyone who would be at the front, when my decision was made for me. Arthur looked in my direction, spotted me, and raised a hand in greeting. So as not to look like a peeper who resided in the bushes, I raised my hand in return and moved towards him.
“Can I help you?” I asked, hoping the tremor in my voice wasn’t obvious.
“I’m looking for a,” he glanced down at the package in his arms, “Rose Beckingham.”
“I am she,” I said.
Did he know I suspected him of the crime? Was he here to deliver a package laced with poison? Or worse, when I reached for the package, would he strike out and cut my throat? Horrible possibilities flashed through my mind in the few seconds it took for Arthur to extend the package toward me with one hand. Despite the panic bubbling up inside of me, threatening to take hold of my mind and body, I calmly reached out and took it from him.
I breathed. Once. Twice. Three times.
Nothing happened. The package didn’t explode into flames or make my eyes burn or my skin flake off. It seemed like a completely innocuous item, which surprised me more than if the parcel had been dangerous. What was Arthur doing here if not to dispose of me for being a witness to the crime I was growing increasingly more confident he had perpetrated?
“I found a necklace near The Chesney Ballroom, the jazz club. And when I went to turn it in to the police, someone told me where I could find you,” he said.
I nodded, trying to understand. He’d found a necklace and someone had sent him to me? Then, all at once, I understood. Forgetting decorum, I tore into the box eagerly, pushed aside the packing paper, and lifted my lost locket out, holding it in the air in front of me.
I was so happy I felt I might cry, and Arthur must have seen the emotion in my eyes, because he immediately began to downplay his role in the item’s safe return.
“It really was no trouble. I come by this way often, anyway. I just offered to bring it by is all,” he said.
“Thank you so much,” I managed to say. After the day I’d had, it felt nice to have the locket back in my position, to have something tangible to tie me back to the time before India and the orphanage, before Rose or the Beckinghams ever came into my life. To tie me back to New York. And to Jimmy. “Where did you find it?”
“Near the docks,” he answered a little too quickly. The answer felt prepared, and confusing. I had been in the alley behind the jazz club when I’d lost my necklace. The docks were close to the club, sure, but that still wouldn’t explain how my locket would have travelled two blocks away by itself.
I pursed my lips. “It’s funny how lost items can travel without you,” I said.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes, it certainly is.”
“I’m amazed you noticed such a small locket. And grateful that you moved to return it. Most people would have kept it for themselves, or, in the case of this old thing, thrown it away,” I joked. “I know the necklace would have little value to anyone else, but it has a great deal of value to me.”
“Let’s hope you don’t lose it again,” he said.
I grabbed the locket tightly in my fist and held it to my chest. “I will be much more careful in future.”
Arthur smiled politely and then half-turned towards the road, clearly eager to leave.
“I actually lost it several days ago,” I said as a way to hold him there. I didn’t yet understand whether fate or something more sinister had brought one of the main suspects in Frederick’s murder to my doorstep, but I intended to do my best to find out. “In fact, the reason anyone knew where to return the locket is because I happened to lose it shortly before a murder occurred in the same location.”
Arthur seemed much less surprised than a normal person would be at hearing such a story. He just nodded. “Are you referring to Frederick Grossmith?”
I hadn’t expected him to be so forthcoming. I nodded. “Yes, the very same.”
“Well, if it will ease your worries, Miss, Frederick wasn’t a man anyone will be missing,” he said, placing a hand alongside of his mouth as if he were telling me a secret, though there was no one around to overhear us.
“I’m not so certain his girlfriend thinks so,” I said. I, of course, was referring to Everilda. I now believed her story that she and Frederick were never actually in a relationship, but it was a common belief anyway, and I wanted to see what exactly Arthur knew on the topic.
“If you’re referring to Everilda, the two of them weren’t a couple,” he said. “If you’re referring to another woman, then she’s well rid of him. Frederick was no good, Miss. Let me tell you.”
“Oh, so you were well acquainted with the deceased, then?”
Arthur shrugged his shoulders. “I was a regular at The Chesney Ballroom. I saw Frederick while he manned the bar. If ordering drinks from the man makes us well-acquainted, then I guess we were good pals,” he joked.
“I heard Frederick had a lot of trouble with his temper. He was known to throw customers from the club, yell and shout, make a big scene.” The sentence lent itself towards being a question, and Arthur understood this.
“If you’re looking for someone to corroborate what you’ve heard, then I would be happy to oblige. Frederick and I had plenty of run-ins over the years. I wasn’t his favorite customer, nor was he my favorite bartender.”
“What did you argue about?” I asked.
Arthur’s face flushed slightly, and he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “To be honest with you, Miss, I have a bad habit of overindulging when I drink. The wife gives me a lot of trouble for it, but I have cut back considerably. And well, Frederick didn’t take too kindly to my inebriated state. He was always concerned about men bothering Everilda. But you see, I’m a married man. I wouldn’t have bothered Everilda, but Frederick didn’t see it that way. If I so much as looked at her, I could be thrown out to the curb.”
“So, you never saw Everilda romantically?” I asked.
His eyes went wide. “Me? No, never. In fact, I often asked Everilda whether she wanted me to talk to Frederick. She made it clear she had no interest in him, but Frederick wouldn’t leave her alone. He was always pushing her around and making sur
e every decent man in the city stayed a solid five meters away from her.”
“Did she ever take you up on that offer?”
“No. No, she always insisted she could handle him. That everything was fine,” he said. “I was concerned about what would happen if Frederick lost his temper with her, but she insisted she had means to take care of herself.”
“Did she ever tell you what she meant by that?” I asked.
“No, and I never asked,” he said. “Everilda is a tough girl, and I trusted her judgment. But as it turns out, someone else took care of him for all of us.”
Encountering yet another person who showed no signs of remorse at Frederick’s passing left me feeling more than a little glum. Even if the man was as terrible as everybody claimed, didn’t he deserve even one nice eulogy?
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” Arthur said, pulling his mouth to the side. “I suppose I seem rather crass speaking of the dead in such a way. I really ought to get going. The wife will be missing me.”
I wondered whether the woman I’d seen Arthur arguing with earlier that afternoon was the one he referred to as his wife. And if she was, I wondered whether they had made up, or whether Arthur had big plans to knock on the front door of Lissa’s house all evening.
“You didn’t offend me,” I said with a smile. “Thank you so much for finding me and returning the locket. I honestly can’t express how happy it makes me to have it in my possession once again.”
“Of course, Miss,” Arthur said, nodding his head. “Just take care to keep it around your neck this time.”
I waved as he walked down the sidewalk and turned to the right, disappearing behind the wrought iron fence cloaked in flowering ivy.
The locket bore a new scratch across the back where it had fallen and collided with the stone alley, but otherwise it looked as good as new. I flicked the locking mechanism, and released a pent up sigh when the small strip of paper fell into my open palm. Even though I knew what it would say, I used my thumb and forefinger to unfurl the piece of paper to read the two scribbled words for what had to be the thousandth time.
Help me.
I quickly rolled it back up and closed it safely inside the locket.
Then, a gunshot rang through the picturesque afternoon, and I fell to the ground.
17
It was instinctual. The moment I heard the gunshot, I threw myself on the ground, making myself as small as possible.
A scream rang out behind me and I turned, face still pressed to the cool dirt, to see Alice standing in the doorway to the Beckingham home, her hand over her face.
“Get down, Alice,” I shouted.
She obeyed, dropping to the ground, the ruffles of her dress catching on the stone steps and tearing. We both waited. My breathing came in frantic gasps and I could hear Alice softly crying behind me, but still I didn’t move. I felt that perhaps the smarter thing to do would have been to run inside, but I didn’t want to make myself a larger target and staying down on the ground seemed to be working. I didn’t hear another gunshot. So, out of fear and indecision, I stayed put. Had Lord Ashton not come outside to see what had caused his youngest daughter to scream, I may have stayed in the face down position for the rest of my life.
“What on earth happened?” he asked, grabbing Alice’s elbow and pulling her to her feet. Alice’s face was red and splotchy, wet with tears.
Lord Ashton looked over at me as though I had caused them.
“Gunfire, Uncle,” I said. “Someone shot at us.”
“At you?” he asked, turning to Alice, bending down in front of her to assess her injuries, which were nothing more than scraped knees.
Alice shook her head. “No, they were shooting at Rose.”
“Did you see who fired that shot?” I asked, turning towards her eagerly. I’d been distracted when the gunshot rang out, and by the time I had the presence of mind to look for a shooter, my nose was already pressed into the grass.
“No, but the bullet hole is here,” she said, taking a few steps towards me and pointing to a perfectly circular puncture wound in the stone face of the house. “If they were aiming for me, we can be certain they weren’t a marksman.”
Alice already seemed to be gaining her composure, and I was proud of the young girl for pulling herself together so quickly. Most women—and men—in her position would have been inconsolable in a similar situation. I, of course, had found myself at the wrong end of a gun before. The murderer aboard the RMS Star of India had attempted to shoot me moments before choosing to take his own life instead. I was no stranger to the violence guns could cause. I only felt grateful the bullet had missed its intended target and curious as to who had pulled the trigger in the first place.
Lady Ashton and Catherine came out of the house at the same time, eyes wide and panicked. Lord Ashton consoled them, and no sooner had he calmed them than Edward ran through the front gate and made directly for Alice.
“Alice, dear sister,” he said, breathless, bending down in front of his youngest sister and caressing her cherubic cheeks. “Are you harmed?”
“I am perfectly well,” she said, seeming annoyed with all of the attention.
I, however, couldn’t help but notice how Edward had immediately run to Alice upon arriving at the house. He hadn’t even asked what had occurred to bring everyone outside and send the house into such a panic.
“Someone attempted to shoot me,” I said, offering him an explanation he still hadn’t asked for.
He turned to me, the concern in his eyes shifting to another emotion I couldn’t place, and nodded. “Yes, several people who were walking down the road ran when they heard the gunshot. The news reached me when I was crossing the street to come back home.”
“Lucky you were so close by,” I said.
Edward narrowed his eyes but turned back to Alice. She was doing her best to fend off the worried hands of her mother.
“We ought to contact the police,” Lord Ashton said just as on officer pushed through the front gate.
“We heard news of a gunshot from this residence?” the officer asked, eyeing each member of the family suspiciously.
Lord Ashton nodded. “That is correct, though we didn’t attempt to shoot ourselves, so I suggest you expand your search beyond my property.”
“We have officers scouring the neighborhood,” the officer said, not bothering to hide the distain in his voice. “Countless witnesses to the event reported it and my men are on the hunt for a suspect.”
“If you have witnesses, didn’t they see who pulled the trigger?” I asked.
The officer shook his head and ran a hand down his weary face. “Somehow, not a single person managed to actually see a shooter. They only heard a gunshot. Are you sure you were actually shot at? It wasn’t an explosion of some kind?”
I pointed to the bullet hole in the house behind me. The officer took a step closer, squinted to get a better look, and then nodded somberly. “Yes, I’m afraid that is a bullet hole. And were you the intended victim?” the officer asked, tipping his head towards me.
“I believe so,” I said.
“Do you have any idea who may have wanted to shoot you?” the officer asked.
I resisted the urge to look at Edward. It still seemed suspicious to me that he had arrived so soon after the gunshot rang out and had run to Alice without a single question as to what had occurred. How had he known Alice was outside when it happened? How had he known his home was the location of the attack? There were too many questions and his story had provided few answers. Still, I didn’t have grounds to accuse him. Sure, he wanted my inheritance, but would that be enough reason for him to execute me? Plus, if he did want to kill me, he had ample opportunity to do so since we were now living under the same roof. Poison would be a much less obvious, less suspicious way to achieve the same ends. A shiver ran down my spine as I thought of how easily Edward could be rid of me if he so desired.
Then, my mind flicked to Arthur Burton. He had been g
one less than a minute when the shot rang out. He was my main suspect in Frederick Grossmith’s murder, he had arrived at my doorstep with my missing locket, and it was possible he had recognized me from outside of his house earlier that afternoon. Perhaps he discovered I was the “witness” to Frederick’s murder, and seeing me outside of his house led him to believe I was on his trail. Perhaps he wanted to do away with me before I could turn him in. Before I could identify him as the shooter. Of course, I knew I couldn’t identify anyone as the shooter since I had neither seen nor heard Frederick being shot, but there was a good chance Arthur didn’t know that.
“If I knew someone who wanted to shoot me, I wouldn’t be standing exposed in front of my house,” I said to the officer as kindly as I could.
He tightened his lips and nodded, clearly tired of dealing with citizens for the day.
“We will alert you if we discover anything,” he said. “Please, go inside and stay there for the evening. Police presence will be heavy in this area for the next few days until we are able to determine what exactly happened here.”
Lord and Lady Ashton thanked the officer as he left, and then grumbled all the way through dinner about the police’s inability to nab a suspect. Edward, who had arrived home beside himself with worry, grew steadily quieter as the evening dragged on. His brows drew together in thought, and he barely touched his dinner. Alice, who had at first been annoyed by the attention she was receiving, began to miss it as everyone’s attention switched to other topics. Her memory of the incident became more vivid and elaborate with each retelling. Catherine seemed incapable of doing anything other than casting her gaze nervously between her brother and me, no doubt trying to decide how she could repair the damaged relationship she believed to be her own doing.
Dinner was exhausting. I ate my food and quietly excused myself before dessert. Adrenaline alone had carried me through the questioning by police and the beginning of dinner, but by the end, my head was drooping and I desperately needed the comfort and solitude of my bed. When my head finally hit the pillow, the reality of the situation crashed over me.