City of Secrets

by Victoria Thompson

  “Nothing at all. He didn’t seem to have an office elsewhere or a profession of any kind. He inherited his money, or so I understood, and lived off the interest.”

  The way most rich people did. “Do you know his friends?”

  “Not really. He never invited anyone to the house. In fact, he was hardly ever here himself. He went to his club most days and often took his supper there. Some days I didn’t see him at all.”

  How curious. A man so anxious to marry he allows his minister to practically kidnap a bride for him and then declines to consummate the marriage or even spend any time with his new wife. “Did he seem particularly anxious or worried just before he died?”

  Priscilla frowned as she considered the question. “Now that you ask, he did seem anxious, but that wasn’t at all unusual.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he always seemed worried and distracted. I did try to develop some sort of relationship with him. We were married, after all, no matter how it had come about. But he seemed almost incapable of having a conversation.”

  “Incapable?”

  “I know it sounds odd, but when I did manage to catch him at home and at leisure, I would ask him about his day or whatever, trying to engage him. But he never said anything except to answer a question or two before . . . I’m not sure how to describe it, but I got the feeling he was thinking about something else, something very important, and he couldn’t focus his attention on me for more than a moment or two.”

  “So he didn’t ever seem particularly excited or happy about anything, I suppose.” Which is how he would have appeared if he were about to fall for a con, thinking he was going to turn his fortune into a much larger fortune.

  “Not that I ever saw. He always seemed . . . sad, I guess. Or worried, like I said.”

  “Do you know what club he belonged to?” Maybe some of his friends there would know more, although she’d need Gideon’s help with something like that.

  “No, I’m sorry. He never talked about it.”

  “That’s all right. Someone will know, or there’s probably a bill from them somewhere in his desk.”

  “Do you need me to help you sort through his things?” Priscilla asked with no enthusiasm whatsoever.

  “Not at all. Go off and play with your beautiful little girls and leave me to it. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

  When Priscilla had departed, Elizabeth closed the door in case one of the servants got nosy. Keeping secrets from servants was always difficult, but there was no reason to make it too easy for them.

  She sat down in the desk chair and scooted it closer to the desk. The top of the desk was clear, but in the first drawer she opened, she found a stack of recent mail. Only the top envelope had been opened. It bore no return address and had been addressed in neat block printing. She pulled out a piece of stationery that had been folded around a photograph. She unwrapped the photograph and stared at it for a long moment.

  The image was so bizarre and unexpected that at first her mind couldn’t even comprehend what she was seeing, and when she did, she yelped and tossed it away as if it had burned her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GIDEON WAS REVIEWING SOME ESTATE DOCUMENTS FOR A CLIENT when his law clerk knocked on his office door.

  “A young lady is here to see you, sir. She does not have an appointment.”

  Plainly, Smith considered anyone foolish enough to arrive at the offices of Devoss and Van Aken without an appointment to be beneath contempt.

  “Did she give her name?”

  “A Miss Miles, I believe.”

  Gideon managed to reveal only surprise. No one knew his true relationship with Elizabeth yet, and he certainly did not intend to give anyone in his law firm reason to gossip. “Oh yes. Miss Miles is a friend of my mother’s. A fellow suffragist. Please show her in, Smith.”

  Smith wasn’t going to give in easily. “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Of course I’m sure. If Miss Miles needs more than a few minutes of my time, I will instruct her to make an appointment to come back later.”

  That seemed to placate Smith, even though Gideon had no intention of sending Elizabeth away to make an appointment, and he did as Gideon had instructed.

  Elizabeth, as usual, looked lovely when Smith escorted her into his office, and for a moment Gideon almost forgot to breathe. She smiled at him but betrayed nothing beyond common courtesy until Smith had closed the door behind himself.

  “I don’t think he approves of me,” she said, her beautiful blue eyes wide with mock concern as she set down the bag she’d been carrying.

  “We rarely have such beautiful clients at Devoss and Van Aken,” he said, hurrying around his desk to greet her properly. “They tend to be portly and middle-aged at best.”

  “Ah, that would explain his dismay.” She gave him her hands and lifted her face for his kiss. “He must have guessed I’m not here to prepare my last will and testament.”

  When he’d properly welcomed her, he sat her down in one of the client chairs situated in front of his desk and took the other so he could hold her hand while they talked. “Then why are you here, if I may inquire, or did you just come to apologize for going straight home last evening and leaving me bereft of your company?”

  “I came because I need your legal advice, Mr. Bates.”

  “Then you really are here to make your last will and testament?”

  “Of course not, although I’m sure you’d advise me that everyone should have one.”

  “I certainly would.”

  To his surprise, her playful smile faded. “I really do need your advice about something, Gideon. It’s concerning Priscilla Knight.”

  “Does it have to do with Knight’s estate? Because even if he didn’t have a will, she should inherit everything.”

  “It has to do with Knight, but . . . I don’t know what your mother told you about our conversation with Priscilla yesterday . . .”

  “She didn’t say much of anything.”

  “Then you don’t know the reason Priscilla asked me to call on her. The real reason. She has just learned that Mr. Knight somehow managed to squander both his fortune and her own, and he has left her penniless.”

  “That’s impossible. There must be some mistake,” Gideon said instinctively, but he instantly realized it was not impossible at all. Hadn’t he and Elizabeth just recently been part of a scheme that had accomplished just such an impossibility?

  “Priscilla thought it must be a mistake as well, although your mother and I . . . Well, I see you’re thinking the same thing we were. We thought Mr. Knight might have been taken advantage of, so your mother suggested—because of my unique experience—that Priscilla allow me to go through Mr. Knight’s papers to see if I could figure out what happened to the money.”

  “And neither of you thought about mentioning this to me?” Gideon said, dismayed he wasn’t able to keep the anger from his voice.

  “Of course we did, my darling, but Priscilla was too embarrassed to ask anyone . . . or rather to ask any man for help. She thought her banker might be lying to her, and she didn’t know whom to trust.”

  “You could have told her to trust me.” Now he sounded dangerously close to whiny. He cleared his throat in an effort to get some dignity back. “I mean, you know I would have told her the truth.”

  “Of course I know that, but at the time your mother and I were fairly certain Mr. Knight had been conned out of his fortune. You couldn’t have done anything about that, and your knowing would have just caused Priscilla more humiliation.”

  That did make sense in a female sort of way, he supposed. Then he realized what she’d said. “But now you don’t think he was conned.”

  “No, I don’t, and I want you to know that as soon as I figured it out, I came straight here to see you, although I now realize I should have
made an appointment first.”

  “I’ll make sure Smith knows you never need an appointment.” He glanced down at the bag she had carried in. He could see now that it appeared to be a man’s valise.

  She released his hand and reached down to open the case. She pulled out a ledger. “Mr. Knight was rather good at keeping his accounts, it would seem. I’m not sure why, but thank heaven he was. I think these pages give a very interesting picture of what became of his fortune.” She opened the book to a page she’d marked with an envelope and handed it to him.

  Gideon wasn’t an accountant, but he didn’t need to be to read the story told in these pages. This was apparently a record of Knight’s household expenditures. Beginning on the page she’d indicated, each month a generous set amount was deposited, probably from the income of his investments, and each expense was recorded and subtracted. All of them seemed to be normal expenditures for a man running his own household. He noted Knight seemed to have belonged to several clubs, including the Manchester Club, where Gideon himself belonged, although he didn’t recognize all of the names. The monthly fees for each were paid out accordingly, although one club seemed to have much higher fees than the others, and Knight paid them two or three times a month. Gideon turned the page.

  “This is where it starts to get interesting,” Elizabeth said, pointing to the new page. The date was approximately three years earlier. The monthly deposit increased substantially, and Knight had paid out five thousand dollars in a lump sum.

  “Do you know what these letters stand for?” Gideon asked, indicating the letters identifying the five thousand dollar expenditure.

  “No, and neither does Priscilla. Keep going.”

  A few months later, Knight made another large deposit and withdrawal, this time for three thousand dollars. The trend continued until a month when the deposit was much smaller than usual and the balance at the end of the month was less than a hundred dollars. The following month, the deposit was even smaller and the ending balance even lower.

  “I suspect Knight was running out of money at this point, and that’s about when he married Priscilla and got access to her money,” Elizabeth said, pointing to a date in the ledger shortly after the lowest monthly balance.

  Within a few days of the wedding, Knight had deposited another substantial amount of money into the account and made another large payment to the person or business indicated by the mysterious letters.

  “Priscilla told me he sold his house when they got married, or at least he told her he did, so that would account for some of the money he used after they married, but obviously, if she’s now penniless, he used her money, too.”

  “Priscilla should have consulted an attorney before she married Knight. He would have advised her to put some of her first husband’s money into a trust for the children,” Gideon said, still scanning the ledger entries and seeing the same pattern of huge amounts of money being paid out with no logical explanation.

  “I don’t think Priscilla ever really intended to marry Knight, though.”

  “What?” Gideon looked up from the figures in amazement.

  “She was devastated when her first husband died, and she said she doesn’t remember much from that time. Everything seemed foggy, she said. But Reverend Honesdale and his wife called on her almost daily, and Mrs. Honesdale kept telling her she needed a man to take care of her and the children. Then, even though Priscilla doesn’t remember ever agreeing to it, one day they showed up with Knight and a witness and performed the ceremony.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. She was so embarrassed, because her first husband hadn’t even been dead four months. She knew people would talk, but she had no explanation for how she’d ended up remarried so quickly. She doesn’t even remember Knight proposing to her.”

  “And you say Reverend Honesdale performed the ceremony?”

  “Yes.”

  “None of this makes any sense at all.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Elizabeth asked. “What do those large payments suggest to you?”

  “Not a con,” Gideon said. “Nobody would fall for a con so many times, over several years, again and again.”

  “You might be surprised, but in this case, I think you’re right. So why would someone be making large payments like that over and over?”

  “Debts, maybe. Gambling debts, but I’ve never heard a hint of scandal about Endicott Knight. If anything, he was always somewhat of a mama’s boy.”

  “He was? What’s his mother like?”

  “A real harridan, but she’s dead.”

  “When did she die?”

  “I don’t know. Several years ago, I think.”

  “Maybe he started sowing some wild oats after she died.”

  “If he did, he was very discreet. And he was an elder in the church, which is quite an honor for someone so young. He wouldn’t have been named elder if he was a known gambler.”

  “What else could it be, then?”

  He wasn’t fooled by her wide-eyed innocence. “I think you already have an opinion.”

  “Of course I do. I just wanted to see if you agreed.”

  Gideon sighed wearily. “Even though I can’t imagine why, I think he was being blackmailed.”

  “That does explain the payments. Which is the problem with blackmail. It never ends.”

  “Which is why no one should ever pay in the first place. But what could someone like Knight have done to attract a blackmailer?”

  He should not have been surprised when Elizabeth reached into the valise again and pulled out an envelope. It was addressed to Knight and had been opened. He pulled out a photograph and peered at it for a long moment before he comprehended what he was seeing. Then he gasped and instantly turned the photograph over and slapped it onto his desk. “Did you see this?”

  “Yes, unfortunately, which is why I was pretty certain he was being blackmailed. There’s a letter, too.” She nodded at the envelope he still held.

  He pulled the letter out and read it. In simple block letters it said, “Just a reminder.”

  “I assume the man in the photograph is Knight,” Elizabeth said. “I never met him, and I didn’t want to ask Priscilla.”

  “Good heavens, no. She must never see this. But yes, it’s Knight.” He rubbed his eyes in a vain effort to erase the image of the photograph.

  “And the, uh, woman?”

  “I have no idea, but I’m guessing the photograph was taken in a brothel.”

  “Really? Is that what goes on at brothels?” she asked with far too much interest.

  He gave her what he hoped was a disapproving frown. “I couldn’t say. I have no personal experience.”

  “But I’m sure you’ve heard rumors.”

  “Of course I have, but you don’t need to hear them.”

  She looked as if she wanted to disagree but thought better of it. “All right. So Mr. Knight was being blackmailed, and he used up his entire fortune and then married Priscilla practically against her will and used up hers as well.”

  “The man was a cad,” Gideon said, not bothering to hide his anger now. How could anyone do something so despicable?

  “And he got the Honesdales to help him.”

  Gideon had been thinking of all the things he’d like to do to Knight but would never have the opportunity, and he almost missed what she’d said. “What?”

  “I said, the Honesdales helped him.”

  “I doubt that. He’s a minister.”

  “But Mrs. Honesdale convinced Priscilla she needed to remarry.”

  “Because Priscilla was . . .”

  “Because she was penniless?” Elizabeth guessed when he hesitated. “Because she wasn’t penniless, as I have just shown you. She said she would have been fine with what her first husband left her, and we now know Knight was the one who w
as penniless. So who told you she married Knight for his money?”

  “I’m trying to remember. I think I heard it from more than one source. There was a lot of talk when she remarried so quickly.”

  “Could it have been from the Honesdales?”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard either of them gossip. That would be fatal for a minister, I think. If people thought he couldn’t be trusted, they’d never confide in him.”

  “And your mother tells me people confess everything to ministers.”

  “Probably not everything, but a lot, I’m sure.”

  “Do you think Mr. Knight would have confessed that?” She gestured toward the photograph still lying facedown on his desk. Gideon hoped it wouldn’t leave a scorch mark.

  “If he did, I can’t imagine why Honesdale would allow a decent woman to marry him.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  Gideon’s first instinct was to defend Honesdale, but he caught himself. “What makes you think the Reverend Honesdale would be involved in something as sordid as blackmail?”

  “Nothing in particular, but it is suspicious that he and his wife played such a big role in getting Mr. Knight married to a rich widow before she’d even had a chance to mourn her dead husband. Why do you think he wasn’t involved?”

  “Because he’s a man of God.”

  “I see.”

  “What does that mean?” Gideon asked uneasily.

  “It just means I see your logic.”

  “It’s more than just logic. If I heard the rumor about Priscilla being penniless, maybe the Honesdales did, too. Obviously, everyone believed it, so that would explain why they encouraged Priscilla to remarry so quickly. They had her best interests at heart.”

  “I suppose you could be right.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or not, and I don’t really know enough about the man to judge one way or the other. In any event, none of this helps poor Priscilla in the least. If Knight squandered her fortune and his own in blackmail payments, she has little hope of recovering it.”