Perfect Romance

by Duncan, Alice

  Having read about such things in various newspapers and magazines, Loretta had a hunch that many of Mr. Tillinghurst’s trimmings had come from archeological sites or treasure-recovery operations like the one Malachai had carried out for him. He was a well-known supporter of such expeditions. Also, unless Mr. T. kept immaculate records, the provenance of the items was probably murky at best.

  Loretta shook her head sadly, and wondered if this magnificent chair might have come from an ancient Oriental potentate’s palace. It ought to be on display somewhere. Somewhere accessible to the public, who could be educated as to the potentate’s culture and career. It didn’t seem right to her that a person should horde up beautiful and historical objects like this. They should be in museums, where everyone could enjoy and learn from them.

  Grimly, she remembered the time she’d told her father something like that, and he’d told her not to be an idiot, that a man deserved the trappings of his success and if he appreciated antiquities, then he should be able to enjoy them in peace, without a bunch of rabble rousers pestering him. Her father was not, Loretta reminded herself, a scholar.

  Well, she wasn’t, either, if it came to that, but she had a fine appreciation of the way things ought to be. And in her considered opinion, these rare and beautiful artifacts ought to be in a museum.

  That, however, was neither here nor there at the moment. Pushing her eyeglasses up her nose, she ventured down the hallway, deciding to begin with the room farthest away and work her way back to the staircase. Then she could tackle the other wing.

  As she had anticipated, the search wasn’t all that simple, since Tillinghurst’s house was a mansion, and it didn’t have mere rooms and a hallway, but suites of rooms and several hallways. And in each one of them, Loretta found evidence of hasty packing. A couple of the rooms—they looked to her like a sitting room and a bedroom—were stacked with boxes, and all the pictures and hangings had been removed from the walls.

  If Mr. Tillinghurst had indeed been informed of a family emergency, it looked to her as if he planned to move in with it.

  Family emergency, my foot. He’s escaping, is what he’s doing.

  So fascinated was Loretta by her adventure that she lost track of time.

  # # #

  “Well,” said Tillinghurst ungraciously. “You might as well sit down, Quarles.” Tillinghurst himself took a seat on an overstuffed chair and surreptitiously jammed the bronze statuette behind a cushion.

  “Thank you. Don’t mind if I do.” As he did so, Malachai decided it was silly to pretend any longer, and that there was no point in mincing his words. After all, if Tillinghurst tried to escape, the police were surrounding the house even as they sat here.

  “All right, Tillinghurst, what are you up to? I can tell that you’re packing up your household. Why?”

  Tillinghurst jerked in his chair, completely taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why are you leaving? Did you aim to tell anyone before you bolted?”

  “Well, of course! And I’m not bolting, as you call it. I—I—I . . .”

  “Huh.” Malachai decided it would be better not to give him the time to think up an excuse for all this hasty packing. Opting for the direct approach, he said, “I know you kidnapped my men. I’m pretty sure you stole the missing artifacts, too. Where are they?”

  Tillinghurst, whose thin face now sported two vivid banners of red across his sallow cheeks, giving him the look of a pileated woodpecker, sat up straight in his chair and tried to appear offended. “Good God, man, I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “I saw you stuff that statuette behind the cushion, Tillinghurst, and I recognized it from the artifacts I recovered in the Canaries. I know damned well it’s not the only artifact you stole. You can’t escape now. Your whole place is surrounded by the San Francisco police department.”

  “What?” Tillinghurst leaped to his feet and scurried to a window, bringing to Malachai’s mind images of rats rushing across the deck of a sinking ship.

  He rose, too, and followed his erstwhile business partner to the window. Sure enough, the place was swarming with coppers. What a refreshing sight! “The game’s up, Tillinghurst. Tell me where my men are.”

  “I . . . I don’t understand. What are those people doing inside my gates?”

  “Searching for the stolen treasure and Jones and Peavey would be my guess,” said Malachai dryly.

  “S-searching? But, good God, man, they can’t do that!”

  “Can, too. Got a search warrant from Judge Fellows. You remember Fellows, Tillinghurst. He’s the chap who gave you the key to the city a few weeks ago, along with the mayor.”

  He recalled the scene with delicious irony. Malachai, too, had been given a huge, symbolic key to San Francisco that day, amid much pomp and circumstance. Not a man who enjoyed ceremonies, Malachai had barely been able to tolerate that one, but Tillinghurst had basked in the day’s glory. He heard Tillinghurst gulp.

  “But . . . but this is incredible!”

  “Fairly,” agreed Malachai.

  Tillinghurst spun around. “This is absurd, Quarles! This is all your doing too, isn’t it?” All of the creases on his bony face quivered, and the patches of color on his cheeks were now a sickly burgundy-orange shade.

  “Not really. The credit belongs to Miss Linden.”

  “Miss Linden!” Tillinghurst spat Loretta’s name out as if it tasted bad. “That silly bitch.”

  Malachai’s humor fled. “Don’t call her names, Tillinghurst. I won’t allow it.”

  “You won’t allow it?” Tillinghurst, while resembling a rodent, could spew scorn with the best—or the worst—of his fellow beings. “I’ll be damned if I’ll let you get away with this!”

  “You don’t have any say in the matter anymore,” Malachai pointed out. “The police are already conducting a search outdoors, and my beloved is searching upstairs.”

  “She’s what?”

  He made as if to dart past the large obstacle in his way, but Malachai was too quick for him. He grabbed Tillinghurst by the collar of his dressing gown. “Not so fast, partner. Before I let you go anywhere at all, you’re going to tell me where my men are.”

  Helpless, Tillinghurst dangled from Malachai’s big fist for a second before gurgling something incomprehensible. Realizing he was choking the man, which wasn’t a bad idea but would have to wait, Malachai set him on his feet again, although he kept a firm grip on his skinny shoulder.

  “All right, where are Peavey and Jones?”

  Dropping defiance for the moment, Tillinghurst said sullenly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Malachai gave him a sudden hard shake, making his head pitch violently and his teeth clack together. “St-stop it!”

  “Not until you tell me where Peavey and Jones are.” Although he wouldn’t have minded snapping Tillinghurst’s worthless neck, Malachai quit shaking him. No sense killing him until he had the information he needed. “Well?”

  Tillinghurst put a hand to his throat and gasped several times, as if he were unable to speak. Malachai didn’t believe it. “Well?” he demanded again.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Seeing Malachai’s hand reach out to clasp him again, Tillinghurst backed away from his opponent, raising a shaking hand. “I mean it. I don’t know the men’s names.”

  “Ah.” Malachai took a deep breath. By God, Loretta was right on all counts. However would he live this down? She’d be lording it over him for the rest of his life. “But you know who I’m talking about.”

  “Well . . .” Another step forward on Malachai’s part sent the words scuttling out of Tillinghurst’s thin-lipped mouth. “Yes. Two of your men. They—”

  He broke off suddenly. Malachai understood how difficult this confession was for the bastard, although he couldn’t summon up any sympathy for him.

  “Let me at least sit down, can’t you?” Tillinghurst said querulously.

  Malac
hai gestured for the man to take any old seat he wanted. “Feel free.”

  Tillinghurst went over to a teakwood chair covered in a fabulous bright red brocade. He sat with a huff and said nothing.

  Malachai cued him. “Go on, Tillinghurst. My men what? Saw your men stealing the artifacts from the ship?”

  “Saw them? They did it!” For a brief moment, Tillinghurst looked defiant.

  With a sneer that doused his partner’s flare of defiance, Malachai said, “I know damned good and well they weren’t involved in the theft. But they saw your men taking artifacts, didn’t they?”

  Scowling hideously, Tillinghurst snapped, “Yes.”

  “I see. Clever of you to steal the treasure before it had been inventoried by the university or the museum. However, lest you expect to escape with anything at all from Moor’s Revenge, Tillinghurst, let me tell you that I’m a businessman.”

  “Of course you are.” Tillinghurst sounded like a whiney schoolboy. “That’s why I allowed you to go into partnership with me.”

  “Bilgewater. You thought I was a dim-witted sailor who didn’t know how to run a real business operation. If you’d known the truth, you never would have gone into business with me.” He saw from the nasty grimace Tillinghurst shot him that his assessment of his partner was correct. “That was an error on your part, Tillinghurst. I’ve been on my own since I was fourteen, and I haven’t lived this long or prospered this well by being an ordinary roughneck sailor.”

  Tillinghurst grunted, acknowledging the unhappy truth.

  “Too, this isn’t the first treasure-recovery expedition I’ve handled. Every single item that my men find is documented by me personally as it comes out of the water. You didn’t know that, did you?”

  It was as well that he didn’t expect an answer, because he didn’t get one. Tillinghurst sat like a lump, staring at the expensive Turkish carpet under his slippered feet.

  “When the police recover all the artifacts you’ve got stashed, I’ll check them against my inventory. If anything’s missing, you’ll have to explain it. I suspect you’ve already sold off some of the better items.”

  Again, he got no answer.

  “You son of a bitch.” Although Malachai was trying his best to keep his temper under control, the perfidy of William Frederick Tillinghurst chafed him. The knowledge that Loretta had been right all along also grated on his disposition, which was, according to others, irascible even under the most favorable conditions. Malachai had never considered himself touchy, but he felt his dander rising as he watched the man cowering before him in a chair that probably cost more than most people earn in a lifetime. Malachai recognized it as very like one he’d seen in Japan once. He imagined Tillinghurst had stolen it. Maybe from an art gallery somewhere.

  Silence reigned in the opulent room. Malachai glowered and Tillinghurst sulked, and, Malachai presumed, Loretta was busy rooting around upstairs. He supposed she’d be all right up there. Tillinghurst wasn’t a trusting sort of man; he probably hadn’t enlisted his household help with his vicious scheme. The fewer people in on his wickedness, the fewer there were to turn on him when he was cornered.

  He didn’t know how long they sat there, but it was several minutes before Tillinghurst became restless and stirred in his chair. “Look here, Quarles, this is ridiculous. Why don’t I simply tell you where you can find your men. I had planned to release them as soon as I’d made . . . er . . . arrangements.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “It’s true. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I only wanted the rewards of my own efforts.”

  Malachai could hardly believe his eyes, when Tillinghurst’s expression altered from one of defeat to one of self-righteous indignation. “Your efforts?”

  “My money, then.” Tillinghurst sniffed significantly. “You want to make a profit from our venture, too, don’t you? Why don’t we go into partnership?”

  “We already did that,” Malachai pointed out grimly. “It didn’t turn out so well.”

  “That’s only because I . . .” He paused, presumably to think up with an excuse to explain his perfidy.

  “Yes?”

  “I didn’t know you were an intelligent businessman.”

  “Insulting me isn’t likely to win me over to your side, you know.”

  “It wasn’t an insult!” Tillinghurst sat up straight and tried to look dignified. Since he was clad in dressing gown and slippers and had been caught out in a crime, the effort wasn’t too successful. “You said yourself that no one would have figured you for an astute businessman.”

  “Huh.”

  “But, see here, Quarles, we can go into business together long-term. You can see for yourself that I know how to make money.” He swept his arm out in a gesture meant to indicate his lavish estate.

  “I do, too, and I don’t have to worry about the police taking it all away from me and locking me in jail.”

  “That’s nonsense.” Tillinghurst’s cheeks flamed again. “I have most of San Francisco’s politicians in my pocket.”

  “That won’t get you far when news of your nefarious activities makes it into the newspapers. The politicians will trip over each other trying to distance themselves from you.”

  The shaft hit, and Tillinghurst winced. “It doesn’t have to be like that,” he said without conviction.

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  Their conversation ended abruptly when a series of gunshots shattered the quiet of the day.

  # # #

  So far, Loretta hadn’t encountered any maids to question or footmen to avoid. She hadn’t found any treasure, either. In fact, she was muttering to herself in frustration as she opened door after door, gathering her courage in both hands each time, only to find nothing but boxes, packed and ready to be sent somewhere. She wondered where. She also considered this exercise a considerable waste of good courage.

  “I know he’s the one,” she grumbled. “But where is the cursed loot?”

  Muffled voices came from the other wing of the house. Loretta presumed Mr. Tillinghurst’s staff, having finished in this wing, were now packing the other one. Curse it, she couldn’t very well walk over there and ask his minions if they’d packed up any stolen treasure, could she? Even if she managed to couch her question in more subtle terms, she doubted that the maids and footmen were in on the game.

  Borrowing an epithet from one of her best friends, she muttered, “Bloody hell.”

  Her heart nearly flew out of her mouth when she heard gunshots rip through the air.

  “Malachai!”

  Her feet racing to catch up with her heart, Loretta fumbled in her handbag as she ran down the hallway to the staircase. As she rounded a corner, she saw the maids she’d previously envisioned, charging toward the staircase from the other wing.

  Loretta beat them to it. She had just managed to disentangle her Chinese knife from her handkerchief—and why she hadn’t thought to bring a revolver, she’d never know—when she came to the head of the stairs. Before she could lift her head or determine her precise bearings, somebody running upstairs from below hurtled into her, slamming her against the far wall of the hallway.

  She screamed, sure she was a dead woman.

  A man cried, “Oof! Agh!”

  And then she heard Malachai’s cherished voice. “Loretta, God damn it, what the devil are you doing now?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes with the knowledge that Malachai hadn’t been the recipient of any of those shots she’d heard. She whispered, “Thank God.”

  And then she saw William Frederick Tillinghurst stagger away from her. His eyes bulged from his bony, pasty face. His mouth formed an incredulous O.

  Then her eyes took in the fact that his hands had flown to the hilt of a Chinese ceremonial knife that was sticking out of his dressing gown at about stomach level. Even as she watched in horror, she saw thick red blood ooze over the fabric and onto his hands and begin a relentless drip, drip, drip onto the hall carpet.

  “Loretta
!”

  Malachai’s voice had come closer, and she realized he’d pounded up the stairs after Tillinghurst. His huge hands grabbed his partner’s shoulders before Tillinghurst could fall backwards downstairs.

  Loretta said, “Malachai?” in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own.

  “Loretta!” Malachai thrust Tillinghurst aside as if he’d been a sack of potatoes instead of a man, and he reached for Loretta.

  And then the world went black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “She fainted?” Marjorie MacTavish’s green eyes fairly popped from their sockets.

  “She fainted.”

  “Sweet Jesus, have mercy,” whispered Marjorie.

  Loretta glanced from Marjorie to Malachai, not liking the note of disbelief in Marjorie’s voice and actively resenting the jubilance she heard in Malachai’s. “For heaven’s sake, I’d just stabbed a man,” she snapped. “It was a shocking thing to do, even if I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  Jason laughed. “What was it you didn’t do on purpose? Stab the fellow or faint?”

  She felt heat creep into her cheeks. “Both.”

  At the moment she was residing indecorously on Malachai’s lap with his arms firmly around her, and the four of them, along with several representatives of San Francisco’s police department, were gathered in William Frederick Tillinghurst’s front parlor. Tillinghurst himself, after having been examined by Jason and pronounced able to travel once his wound had been stitched and bandaged, was on his way to the jail ward of the hospital.

  Other representatives from the police department were in the process of interviewing Mr. Derrick Peavey—Loretta feared they wouldn’t get much information of a useful nature out of him—and Mr. Percival Jones. Mr. Jones seemed a clear-headed individual, so they would probably all know exactly what had happened soon.

  Loretta squirmed slightly. She didn’t really want Malachai to shove her off his lap, but she was conscious of the indelicacy of their situation. She wished she wasn’t, as she was a modern young woman, and modern young women weren’t supposed to be embarrassed by public displays of affection, but she was anyway. Her feelings didn’t matter, however, since Malachai seemed to have no inclination to release her. She repressed the urge to snuggle into him.