Deception by Gaslight

by Kate Belli

  And a very convincing actress. A humorless bark of laughter escaped him, causing the bartender to shoot him a wary glance. She really ought to have pursued a career in theatre. He had fallen for her act like a rube from the sticks, like some new transplant from the cornfields. The toughened city boy in him should have known better. Somehow, he should have seen through her.

  Why was his damn glass empty again?

  “There you are.” Rupert’s cultured voice sliced through the fog encroaching on Daniel’s brain. He’d gotten distracted by the wood grain in the bar again.

  Daniel blinked at his friend. “What are you doing here?”

  Rupert slid onto the stool next to him, eyeing the sticky surface of the bar with raised brows. “I’ll assume the drink here surpasses the cleanliness. What’s good?”

  Daniel shrugged moodily, irritated. Couldn’t a man get drunk alone? “It gets the job done.”

  “Ah. Very good, then.” Rupert signaled to the barkeep, who came over grudgingly. “I’d like to get the job done, please.” At the bartender’s blank look, he pointed at Daniel’s glass. “What he’s having.”

  Rupert followed the bartender’s glance back at Paddy and Billy, swiftly assessing the situation. “Your minders are here, I see.”

  Daniel slouched lower toward the bar. “Don’t need anyone’s permission to drink,” he growled.

  “Of course you don’t,” Rupert allowed, sniffing his newly arrived glass and grimacing slightly. “And although I’m certain I know the answer, I feel I must ask the obvious. Would you please tell me why we are in this fine establishment drinking what is fairly”—and he lowered his voice decorously, so as not to be overheard by the scowling barkeep—“substandard whiskey? You’ve much better stuff at home.”

  Daniel responded only by tightening his grip on his glass. He wished Rupert would go away. He needed to keep adding to the layers of insulation, building his woolly blanket, and his friend’s voice was needling in his ears, making oblivion impossible.

  Hell, it was probably impossible anyway. But he’d been trying to reach it for days, and he wasn’t going to stop until he got there. Or at least devilishly close.

  Dammit, there was that needling sound again.

  “Shut up, Rupert.”

  “Well, if you want to drink yourself to death, be my guest. But surely we can do it somewhere more comfortable?”

  “We are not doing anything,” Daniel rasped. “You are leaving. I am staying here.”

  “Oh, I’m not leaving you.” Rupert smiled cheerfully, throwing a little salute toward Paddy and Billy, who were watching the whole exchange. “I do wish you’d chosen a different watering hole, you know, one that actually cleans its glasses from time to time. But I’m sure this one has its charms,” he amended hastily, catching the bartender’s glare. Looking around the dank, dimly lit room, Rupert nodded at the dusty tin light fixtures, the dirty glasses piled behind the bar, the keep’s soiled apron. “It’s rustic,” he murmured. “Yes, charmingly rustic.”

  Daniel wanted to swat at him like a nettlesome fly. “How did you find me, anyway?”

  Rupert tilted his head toward the door, and Daniel saw the hulking form of Asher sitting at the far end of the bar. He scowled deeper. Traitors, the lot of them.

  They sat in silence for a while. Daniel tried to lose himself in the patterns of wood again. Rupert ran his finger along the edge of his glass. Asher glowered by the door, and Paddy and Billy watched the pair at the bar. They made quite a contrast: one elegant and striking in an expensive, expertly tailored suit, the other rumpled, disheveled, and unshaven.

  “She’s ruined, you know,” Rupert remarked conversationally.

  Daniel raised his head from the bar’s gummy surface, not quite sure when he’d needed to rest it. “What?”

  “Genevieve. She’s ruined.” Rupert sipped his drink, grimaced again, and then looked thoughtful. “It does get better on the second try, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean, ruined?” Daniel was trying to pull together the pieces of his brain to make sense of what Rupert was saying. Why would Genevieve be ruined? There was nothing ruined about her.

  “Well, everyone is gossiping that the two of you spent the night together, and now you’ve been gone for four days, leaving her to face the music alone. Everyone assumes you’ve had your way with her and then thrown her out like yesterday’s scraps, moved back to Europe or something.”

  Daniel tried to process this information. Four days?

  “That kind of thing tends to destroy a girl’s reputation,” Rupert said knowingly.

  A few more moments passed as Daniel continued to absorb what he’d been told, willed the words to assemble themselves into an understandable picture.

  “Hence the ruination,” his friend added helpfully. Another beat or two went by. “She’ll likely die an old maid,” Rupert said, as if commenting on the weather.

  “I have tried to quash the rumors,” Rupert continued, holding up his glass and squinting at its contents, “insisting you were in the gaming room with me until five AM—everyone was so bloody drunk by then, nobody can remember anything properly. I think I’ve convinced a few folks. But it would be awfully helpful if you would emerge and say the same.”

  Daniel finally grasped what has been eluding him. “Rubbish,” he declared. “Besides, she’s got her precious career, hasn’t she?”

  “Probably not,” Rupert said cheerfully. “Newspapers don’t tend to employ ruined ladies. And you know she didn’t write that article.”

  The words had the waking effect of an ice-cold glass of water in his face. Daniel was instantly alert. “Say that again, very carefully.”

  Rupert grew serious and looked his friend in the eye. “She didn’t write the article, mate,” he said gently.

  “How do you know?” He signaled for a glass of water.

  “The Globe printed a retraction on Tuesday.” Rupert slid a folded page of newspaper across the bar at him. A corner of the paper instantly darkened with spilled liquid on the bar’s sticky surface. Daniel snatched up the paper and read the retraction, including the apology for accusing him of being Robin Hood. He noted the Globe’s acknowledgment that authorial attribution of the piece had been given to Miss Polly Palmer in error. Everything clicked in an instant: Genevieve must have told her editor about their being in the hotel room together at the time of the Maple diamond theft, damning herself while exonerating him. And somehow word had leaked.

  He ran a hand through his hair, amazed. He had trusted her and had been correct in that trust. Bile rose in his throat, which he quickly chased back down with a gulp of water.

  “You have to make a decision, mate,” Rupert said quietly. “Do you want to keep living in the past, with the dead? Or would you like to join us in the land of the living? Would Maggie really want to be a stone around your neck? Because that’s what she’s been to you, as long as we’ve been friends.”

  Daniel gripped his water glass and absorbed the words quietly, deep in thought.

  “You’ve been set up,” his friend continued softly. “As was Genevieve. Someone knew your vulnerability, your weak spot, and I’m sorry to say, they played you like a violin. Together, you two are a force, and whoever set this up was determined to drive you apart.”

  Rupert’s words rang true. He felt like the most incredible bastard to walk the earth. How could he have been so blind? But his friend had hit the nail on the head: whoever had been out to trick him, they had indeed known how to find his emotional jugular. It was Maggie, had been Maggie since before her death. Really, since she had become Jacob’s lover. Since she had, in essence, prostituted herself to an old man with gnarled hands so Daniel could have a better life.

  He’d been carting that guilt around since he was twelve years old and hadn’t realized what a weight it was until that very moment.

  Daniel looked around the dingy bar, bemused. Who would have guessed he’d have the major epiphany of his life at McSorley’s?
r />   “So the question is”—Rupert’s voice sliced through his memories, not buzzing this time but welcome—“who else knew about Maggie?”

  Daniel shook his head. “Just you.”

  “Well, I can be an insufferable ass when I choose, but I do hope you know I’m not that much of an ass. You’re my best friend,” he concluded simply. “I would never betray you.”

  “It was Tommy,” Daniel said, closing his eyes against both his own stupidity and the pounding headache that was beginning to encroach. He gestured to the bartender again. “He said as much at your engagement ball. And damn my eyes for not seeing it sooner.”

  This time, Daniel asked the barkeep if he could rustle up some coffee. He had barely slept, but that couldn’t be helped. There was no time to waste, not if he was going to catch a killer.

  CHAPTER 20

  The darkness in the empty townhouse was not, after a time, utterly complete. The longer she sat, waiting, in the chair she had positioned in the corner of the drawing room, the more her eyes adjusted, and what had been mere shapes gradually transformed into furniture and objects she knew well: a credenza, a side table, a love seat. Familiar vases and bric-a-brac emerged from the shadows—though, Genevieve noted with a pang, there was less here than there had been.

  Callie and her grandmother had sold quite a lot, it seemed.

  Genevieve didn’t allow her anger and grief over her friend’s distressing financial woes to distract her. She remained still and silent, as immobile as any of the furniture. She’d chosen a plain chair from the kitchen for her wait, its hard seat and straight back keeping her alert and upright, rather than sinking into the plush comforts of one of the remaining armchairs.

  Not that she could fathom falling asleep, even if she had been fully ensconced in the comfort of her own bed. No, tonight she was singularly focused.

  It was time to end this.

  The heating was turned off, and the cold was beginning to seep through the soft leather of her boots and the thick wool of her stockings. She wiggled her toes, waiting.

  Patience had never been Genevieve’s strong suit; all her life, it seemed, she’d been focused on what came next. This had particularly been true over the past few years, after her broken engagement. She had wanted to succeed in the newspaper business so badly, had been so desperate to prove her worth, that she’d almost completely removed herself from society, from all but a few close friends, and had barely even slowed down to enjoy the changing of the seasons.

  Tonight, she had the patience of a cat. She could sit in this chair forever, the heavy, comforting weight of the revolver she held resting in her lap. Her ambitions seemed trivial at the moment; whether her actions tonight resulted in a story or not was of little consequence. What she really wanted was the truth.

  That, and for the killing to stop.

  The quiet creak of wood scraping on wood emerged from the back of the house. A kitchen window was being slid open. Genevieve sat taller, every sense in her body attuned to the noise.

  She waited.

  A few moments later, another creak, but this one of a foot gently landing on a slightly loose floorboard.

  They were coming through the kitchen, then. Which way after that? She’d strategically placed herself where she could see the bottom of the stairs through the open French doors to her left, the dining room beyond, but could also see the entrance to the drawing room from the back of the house. Someone could come in that way, or loop through the dining room to the stairs.

  Silent as a mouse, she raised her revolver, ready to point it whichever way would be required. Her left hand held her right wrist steady. She deliberately slowed her breath.

  No other sounds came. But a shadow suddenly filled the far doorway. Carefully and slowly, she shifted her shooting arm to the right.

  The figure stilled.

  She waited.

  They began to move again, taking deliberate and quiet steps into the drawing room, with a pause of at least five seconds between each footfall. One, pause. Two, Pause. Three.

  A blinding flash of light, coupled with the explosive sounds of a gunshot and the splintering of wood, suddenly filled the quiet night. The acrid scent of Gun smoke instantly permeated the room. Keeping her hand steady and her eyes on her target, she simultaneously stood up and used her left hand to turn up a kerosene lamp she’d had waiting on the table next to her.

  “Jaysus, woman, are you trying to kill me? Put that thing down!” In the gaslight, Daniel was still ducking, his arms around his head, gazing at her incredulously, his mouth a perfect O of surprise.

  “If I had wanted to kill you, I would have. I shot exactly where I intended, directly over your left shoulder. Now don’t move another muscle, or I’ll direct my aim a bit more toward the right,” Genevieve replied, pulling the hammer on the revolver back again. Her heart was pounding, but her hands still felt steady.

  “Stop!” he yelled, hands in the air. “May I stand, at least?”

  She considered the request, then nodded once.

  Daniel’s shoulders relaxed a bit as he unbent his long frame, still holding his hands in the air. She squinted through the sight of the gun. He took a step closer.

  Another blast, and Daniel ducked again as a spray of woodwork from the wall behind his right shoulder rained over his head, accompanied this time by a shattering of ceramic. She’d shot a lovely little china shepherdess she knew the older Mrs. Maple had been fond of.

  Well, it had been in her way. No helping it now.

  “I always was an excellent shot, you know,” Genevieve informed Daniel conversationally, pulling back the hammer a third time. He winced at the noise, carefully straightening again and still holding up his hands. “But I’ve been practicing with Charles out on Blackwell’s Island for days now, as I was rusty. He says I’m quite gifted.”

  Daniel stilled completely. He blinked at her from across the Maple townhouse drawing room, his expression a curious mix of resignation, regret, and admiration. It angered her, that expression.

  In truth, it angered her that she had been right. That she should have known, and listened to her gut from the beginning.

  “You led me on a merry chase,” she said softly. “And played me for a fool. It was you all along. I know now you had an accomplice, as you couldn’t very well be spinning tales to me in the Union Pinnacle Hotel and here at the Maple home at the same time.” Her jaw tightened as her anger intensified, thinking of the trauma Callie and her grandmother had endured in recent days. Her finger tightened too, pulling the trigger back a hairsbreadth. Daniel’s eyes caught the tiny motion and flared.

  If anything, he seemed to still further.

  “Those diamonds were all they had left, you know. Half the furnishings in this house are gone; did that never cross your mind? Or your accomplice’s mind? Or were you so focused on greed and revenge you were blind to their suffering, right under your nose?”

  Daniel remained silent, his eyes locked on her trigger finger.

  “I was blind, Genevieve. I’m trying to make it right.”

  From the doorframe behind Daniel, Rupert emerged, hands held high.

  Genevieve shifted her aim to the right again, locking Rupert in her sights. “So you’re the accomplice. I couldn’t, in the end, work out whether it was you or your bride-to-be. I rather liked the idea of it being Esmie, but you were of course the most logical choice. Occam’s razor and all that.”

  Rupert was shaking his head. “I’m not an accomplice. I am Robin Hood. Just me, and only me.”

  She shifted her gaze to Daniel. He had lowered his hands and was staring not at her anymore, but at his friend. Rupert lowered his hands too and shrugged.

  “I guess the jig is up. Genevieve, can you please lower that thing? Unlike Daniel here, I’d never any doubt of your skill.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t doubt. I just didn’t expect to find myself on the receiving end,” Daniel said.

  She instantly pointed the gun back his way, causing him to rais
e his hands in alarm. “And why would you think that?”

  “I thought you trusted me. Partners, remember?”

  She huffed. “Yes, such close partners you failed to mention your best friend was responsible for stealing from half the Astor 400.”

  “I didn’t know, not for sure,” he said, eyeing the revolver nervously. “I suspected. Strongly. But why would I share that with a journalist?”

  “Even after I was almost killed? So much for trust.”

  “Robin Hood and the murders are completely unrelated.”

  “So Reginald’s death was a coincidence? As was Elmira Bradley’s?”

  “No. They were setups, meant to frame an innocent man.” At this, Genevieve cocked an eyebrow. Even Rupert looked doubtful. “Fine, not entirely innocent. But Rupert did not kill anyone.”

  “I did not,” Rupert reiterated. “Please, if you believe nothing else, Genevieve, you must believe that. I’m a thief. A wretched, twisted thief, who can’t seem to stop. But I’ve never hurt anyone, and I never would.”

  “May we talk, Genevieve?” Daniel pleaded. “Can you please put down the gun?”

  Genevieve waited a few moments. Her anger had not abated; if anything, it had risen. She had trusted him, and thought he trusted her. She had thought they had a true friendship, but he had turned tail at the first doubtful sign, not even bothering to ask if she’d written the damn article.

  “Instead, I think you should give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you both right now,” she said, steadying the gun. “Robin Hood and accomplice, caught in the act. Self-defense. I’d write a cracker of a story, and it would really aid my career, don’t you think, Daniel?”

  He had the good grace to flush. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out to you immediately. I should have known you would never betray my trust.”