Deception by Gaslight

by Kate Belli

  “I wasn’t aware her husband had passed on,” Daniel remarked, his light tone at odds with his tense body.

  Ernest smiled. “All in good time.”

  Quick as a wink, Ernest slid forward, a sudden knife slashing in his hand. Daniel had seen the slight hitch of Ernest’s shoulders and correctly guessed that it signaled his readiness to move. Despite his being prepared for the lunge, though, the sharp edge of the knife nicked Daniel’s left bicep. Blood seeped through the linen of his shirt and down his arm, mingling with the inked dragons and Celtic signs that adorned his muscled flesh. He barely felt the cut, he was so intent on besting his opponent. He made his own lunge, pure rage driving his head into the other man’s midriff, knocking the breath out of Ernest and forcing him to the snowy street. Daniel quickly wrested the knife out of Ernest’s suddenly unclenched fist and sent it skittering across the cobblestones. But Ernest recovered quickly and surprised Daniel with a sharp uppercut to his jaw. Pain exploded in his mouth.

  The two men’s ragged breath joined the creak of the wooden sign as the fight continued, sometimes giving Daniel the upper hand, sometimes Ernest. An occasional brief cheer arose from one side or the other if a particularly good punch was landed, but for the most part the crowd was quiet, watching. They knew, as the two main opponents did, that this could be a fight to the death.

  A clattering sound broke through Daniel’s focus, and he saw Ernest lunge in its direction. Someone had kicked the knife back toward the men. In one smooth motion, Ernest swooped it up and jumped toward Daniel. Reacting instinctively, Daniel jerked to the right. The snow had been falling steadily, making the cobblestones under their feet wet and slick. Ernest’s foot slid out from underneath him when he landed, and he fell forward with a grunt, his left palm extended to brace his fall.

  It didn’t help. The other man’s hand slipped as well, and he crashed onto his own face, where he lay, not moving.

  Daniel waited a moment, panting, wondering if the stillness was a ruse. He approached the body cautiously, and with his foot turned the figure over.

  Ernest had fallen on his own knife. It must have twisted toward his stomach as he fell, and the force of his own body weight had driven it deep, for now it was buried in the man’s belly to halfway up the hilt. Blood pooled on his shirtfront and stained the snow, while a small trickle ran from the corner of his mouth. Ernest’s mouth opened and closed a few times, a gurgling sound emerging.

  “Daniel!” The voice, clear as a mountain stream he had once seen in the Swiss Alps, cut through his haze of disbelief. Genevieve pushed through the crowd and ran to him. He pulled her close in relief, before holding her at arm’s length to make sure she was unhurt. At the sight of her neck and bodice covered in blood, he hissed, turning again toward Clark’s still form, but she pulled him back.

  “It was just a scratch. I’m fine. Please, look at me. I’m fine.” Daniel turned back and examined her neck carefully. The small cut had crusted over.

  Some of the men who had gathered in front of the tavern began to approach Ernest’s limp body. The horrible gurgling sounds had stopped; Ernest Clark was dead.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. “We should leave,” Rupert said. “They’re coming,” Daniel heard clanging bells in the distance and nodded. Someone had called the police, and he didn’t want to be there when they arrived. With Police Commissioner Simons’s involvement, he needed to get to the press before the police and allow the Globe to report on the tangled web of corruption they had uncovered.

  The Oyster Knifers melted into the shadows from whence they’d come, drifting back into the Eagle Head or slipping away down side streets. Some Bayard Toughs stayed to assist Daniel, should help be needed, but most dispersed, satisfied at the outcome of the fight. Several nodded to Daniel as they casually made their way into the evening, and Daniel nodded back.

  Rupert handed Daniel his coat, and he realized Genevieve must be freezing. The wind had picked up even more, and the snow was swirling around them. He draped his jacket around Genevieve’s shoulders and frowned at its thinness.

  “We have to get her home,” he instructed Asher, who was waiting nearby.

  “Clive …” Genevieve swallowed, and Daniel followed her glance toward the back of the building. “Daniel, he fell …” She gestured, and he quickly dispatched Paddy and Billy to investigate.

  “And I don’t want to go home,” she continued.

  “Genevieve, you can’t stay here—”

  “We should go to the Globe,” she said. “Right away. Daniel, Tommy is still out there.”

  The sirens were growing louder. Ernest’s body was already covered by a quarter inch of snow.

  “Let’s go,” he said. Paddy and Billy returned, confirming Genevieve’s story with a single look. “Get out of here, boys,” Daniel directed, glancing at the ever-darkening sky. “I think this storm is gearing up to be something rather memorable. I don’t want any of you caught in it.”

  Daniel and Asher led Genevieve toward a carriage they had waiting around the corner, trailed by Rupert, while Paddy and Billy disappeared into the swirling white mists. Daniel glanced over his shoulder once, shuddering slightly at the scene. The square was eerily empty, save for the lumpen shape of Ernest Clark’s dead body, the bright red of his blood gradually becoming muted and pale under the accumulating snow.

  * * *

  The next twenty-four hours, Genevieve would later reflect, were simultaneously the oddest and the most satisfying she had ever spent in her life.

  Luckily, the Globe’s offices were only a few blocks farther downtown from Five Points, and it was quickly decided in the carriage that Rupert should not accompany Genevieve and Daniel to see her editor. Asher dropped them in front of the building on Park Row and assured them he would go only a few blocks more, taking himself, Rupert, and the horses to a boarding house nearby where they could hole up until the storm passed.

  Gale-force winds whipped Genevieve’s skirts and the flying snow sideways, and she and Daniel struggled their way across the sidewalk and into the building, clutching one another for support, once inside finding it nearly deserted.

  Nearly, but not entirely.

  “Miss Stewart.” A confused-looking Arthur emerged from his office at the sound of the elevator doors opening. It was a miracle the building still had power. “I told everyone to go home.” He blinked at what must have been an outrageous sight: Genevieve, bedraggled, exhausted, and bloodstained, accompanied by Daniel, splattered in blood, hatless, a dark bruise blossoming around his left eye.

  “What has happened? Sit, sit.” Arthur urged them toward some desk chairs while looking worriedly out the window at the blowing gusts. “I daresay you’ll be here all day, perhaps even all night, at this point.”

  He would prove to be correct. They were able to dispatch a telegram to Genevieve’s family and Daniel’s household, letting them know of their whereabouts, right before the lines succumbed to the winds and the weight of the heavy March snow. The power followed soon thereafter, and Arthur fired up a coal stove he had fitted specially into the corner of his office and made them all strong coffee. As they drank, warming themselves before the stove, Arthur produced some muffins from a cupboard.

  The muffins toasted, filling the empty, darkening space with a cozy fragrance, as Genevieve spun her tale. She felt a bit like Scheherazade, enchanting Arthur with partial fact, partial fiction. Daniel remained mostly silent but interjected the occasional comment.

  “Ernest Clark?” Arthur sputtered, nearly dropping his muffin. “The financier? And Clive Huxton? Together they are Robin Hood, you say?”

  Across Arthur’s office, she saw shock, relief, and gratitude sweep across Daniel’s face, before he resumed a more neutral expression.

  “They are. This is why Clive tried to frame Mr. McCaffrey, you see. To protect himself.”

  Daniel shook his head at her, infinitesimally. She dipped her head a tiny bit in acknowledgment of his unspoken thanks. Truth be told, she hadn�
�t been sure whether she would tell the truth about Rupert being Robin Hood or not until she’d begun speaking.

  But Ernest Clark was dead, and Clive was dead. They had committed murder, even if it was at Tommy’s behest; let them take the blame for the thefts as well. Enough damage had been done; let the living forge on as best they could.

  Arthur removed his glasses and rubbed them on his shirt. “Most extraordinary.”

  “We believe the thefts started as just thefts,” Daniel said, picking up her thread. “A way to thumb their nose at the rich. But once Ernest became involved with the Huffingtons’ building scheme, he was able to use the thefts to cover up his additional crimes, such as keeping Reginald Cotswold quiet.”

  “Ernest killed Mr. Cotswold, as he discovered the mayoral committee on housing reform was working to actually profit from the construction of slums rather than improve them,” Genevieve said softly, sadness returning anew at Reginald’s senseless death.

  Arthur peered at them, seeming to take all this in. He passed Daniel another muffin and scratched his face, looking out the window again. “This storm is making for the oddest bedfellows,” he remarked, more to himself than to either of them. Turning his attention back to Genevieve, eyes sharp, he asked, “And Andrew Huffington’s involvement?”

  With his free hand, Daniel dug into his trousers pocket and pulled out the list he and Genevieve had compiled, the one that cross-listed the names of the mayoral committee with those of the people who had invested in Lexington Industries. Genevieve explained about the shell company.

  Her editor looked at the list and sighed deeply. Placing his half-eaten muffin on the corner of his desk, he picked up a telegram and wordlessly handed it to her. Genevieve gasped as she read the contents, passing it to Daniel.

  “That arrived just before you did,” Arthur said, his eyebrows rising. “The suicide death of one of our leaders of industry is major news.”

  Genevieve and Daniel exchanged a look. The telegram stated that Andrew Huffington had shot himself that morning, but Genevieve wondered.

  Who got to him first? Tommy or Sarah?

  “Give me everything else you have,” Arthur ordered. Daniel willingly handed over the rest of their notes, which he had buried deep in various pockets. One was water-stained, and blood had seeped through his shirt onto the corner of another. Arthur took them all with a fussy expression, smoothing out wrinkled pages and arranging them around his desk. Genevieve stood, anxious to be of use.

  He waved her off. “Let me have a look first. I’ll need to confirm all this. Now,” he continued, peering at her from behind his glasses, “when I write this up, you’ll share the byline?”

  Something hot burst in the center of Genevieve’s chest. “You’ll give me credit?”

  Arthur frowned. “Of course. I’d prefer to do the writing for a story this big—my, my, Giles Manfort, the deputy mayor,” he murmured, looking at their notes, “but it’s your research.”

  The hot thing fluttered, and she could barely stop herself from jumping up and down and clapping her hands like a child. “I … I get to keep my job?” she breathed.

  “What? Oh yes. Yes. That talk will die down soon. Besides, I’ve heard from several reliable sources that Mr. McCaffrey was in the gaming room until the wee hours.” He fixed Daniel with a beady look. “Is that not correct, sir?”

  Daniel nodded mutely, looking as surprised as Genevieve felt.

  “Then that’s settled,” Arthur said. “Let me get started, and the two of you get some rest. You both look dead on your feet. You may be able to find a cushion or two in someone’s office, but stay within my sight.” Arthur eyed them both sternly. “I’m your chaperone, I suppose. The last thing we want is a resurgence of the unseemly rumors we’re about to put to bed. Here, Genevieve, take my coat.” He handed over a thick wool coat, redolent of pipe smoke and snow.

  The exhaustion she had been fighting for hours came flooding back in a rush, and she had to clasp Daniel’s arm to keep from falling down. They arranged themselves on the floor outside the glass windows encasing Arthur’s office. Daniel hunted around and found her someone’s shawl to use as a pillow and spread Arthur’s heavy coat over her body. Along with weariness, her aches and pains came roaring back, and she had to fight to keep her eyes open. Still, the overwhelming emotion she felt was gratitude: she was grateful to be safe, she was grateful to be warm, and she was grateful to be prone, even if it was on the hard wooden floor of her office.

  Through heavy eyelids, she watched Daniel set up about ten feet across from her, using his own coat as a pillow. He lay on his side, facing her. She felt herself slipping toward sleep but smiled in his direction, a secret smile, one she hoped conveyed the gratitude she felt toward him as well. No matter what happened next, they were connected now, forever. He smiled back, blue eyes twinkling at her from across the wood floor. It was the last thing she saw before sleep overtook her.

  When she woke up hours later, the worst of the storm had passed and the space on the wooden floor ten feet away was empty. Genevieve pushed herself up and blinked around the still-empty newsroom.

  “He’s gone,” Arthur said, emerging from his office and handing her a steaming mug.

  The cold air assaulted Genevieve’s shoulders as Arthur’s heavy coat slid down and pooled in her lap. She sipped at the mug, wondering why the short statement was causing such a pain in her heart.

  “Is he coming back?” she asked, attempting to sound casual.

  Her editor leaned against the doorframe of his office and looked at her with sympathy. “I don’t believe so. He left when the winds quieted. Frankly, I was surprised he got out of the building at all. I can see drifts as high as third-story windows out there.”

  Genevieve nodded.

  “Come,” Arthur said, approaching and holding out his hand to help her stand. “Let’s get to work.”

  Work. Genevieve applied herself to the task, reading what Arthur had written, making corrections, adding sentences. The sun emerged and shone through the large rectangular windows that lined the room, warming the space, its bright light glinting off the piles of blinding white snow without. It was satisfying in a deep, primal way, this work, this ordering of weeks of toil and investigation into an orderly, neat narrative.

  Genevieve’s pleasure in the task, though, did not keep her from glancing toward the doors into the room every few moments, hoping that one of the times she looked up, a tall, dark-haired figure would frame the empty space.

  But it never did, not that day, nor the next. She didn’t see Daniel again for almost a year.

  EPILOGUE

  One Year Later

  June 1889

  It was a fine day to set sail.

  The sky overhead was that cocky blue unique to early summer, with barely a cloud in the sky. The spring winds had passed—thankfully without another blizzard this year—and the dog days of July and August had yet to trap the city in their oppressive heat. It was one of the rare days the New York air felt fresh and invigorating, even at the docks, and Daniel savored a deep breath of it, hands shoved into the pockets of his light-gray suit.

  He stopped short at the sight of Genevieve.

  She was summer personified, wearing a dress of pale green sprigged with white flowers and a straw hat with matching green ribbons. She was squinting toward the vast ocean liner, her hand held over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun.

  It had been over a year since the blizzard. Over a year since he had fallen asleep on the floor of a newspaper office, her bruised, beautiful face, peaceful in its slumber, the last thing he saw before his eyes closed.

  Over a year since he had forced open the door in the Globe’s main lobby, shoving aside a two-foot snow drift, squinting in the harsh sunshine.

  Their paths hadn’t crossed in the intervening months until recently. At first he’d wrestled with whether or not to pay a call, but he would recall the shock on her face in the gaslight of the Maple townhouse following his impul
sive proposal and find a reason to put it off again. He’d soon read in the gossip pages that their brief courtship appeared to have ended, and he’d folded up the unexpected pain that accompanied this news and carefully hid it among other, older pains.

  Still, he’d debated paying a call. But then she had sailed to Europe with her parents just before Easter and departed almost immediately for Newport on her return. Another winter season had come and gone, but he hadn’t participated much, mostly avoiding the parties and balls this year. His earlier desire to be social had faded.

  Genevieve, though, seemed to have attended every single one.

  Or at least, her column indicated that she had. She was now writing the society column for the Globe, the position for which had been vacant since the previous columnist, Jackson Waglie, had died some years ago. Rupert had done a good job of convincing several gentlemen that he and Daniel had gambled with them until daylight at the Porters’ costume ball, to the point that one of them even paid Daniel a decent-sized sum he swore he owed. The brief scandal of his and Genevieve’s supposed night in a hotel room had vanished, forgotten in the wake of larger, more important scandals.

  Of course, they had both been at the wedding the week before. Indeed, they had both been in the wedding party. But even amid the festivities, they had managed to avoid each other.

  Or she had avoided him, it seemed. He had kept hoping a reasonable opportunity to approach her would arise, but every time she was free and he took a step in her direction, something or someone else would occupy her attention.

  This time, he approached. She turned as he stepped closer, and he was disheartened to see a flash of wariness cross her face before she smiled politely, extending her hand.

  “Mr. McCaffrey.” Ah, they were back on formal terms, then.

  “Miss Stewart,” he said, picking up her cue and shaking her hand. “I did not get a chance to say, but you looked beautiful at the wedding.”

  Her nose wrinkled, some of the old familiarity between them emerging. “Really? I don’t think peach is quite my color, but it is nice for a June wedding.”