by C. J. Archer
"I knew it," Willie spat. "That lying, cheating dog."
"Good," Matt said with decisiveness. "This means we have a reason to investigate. We'll inform the commissioner now."
Willie caught his sleeve as he went to walk off. "Look." She nodded at Annie Oakley, on the arm of a whiskered gentleman. "Want me to interrogate her?"
"We're not officially assigned to the case yet," Cyclops said.
"So? It ain't never stopped us before."
"What do you hope she can tell us?" Matt asked.
Willie shrugged. "All sorts of things."
"She could tell us who the blonde woman from the pub was," I said, looking at the remaining mourners. "There's May and Danny. Let's ask them."
"We ain't assigned yet," Cyclops said again.
"So?" I asked, echoing Willie.
Cyclops appealed to Matt, but Matt simply held up his hands. "As far as I'm aware, we're simply sharing memories about the deceased with fellow mourners."
We greeted May and Danny with kind words of sympathy. I introduced them to Matt and watched on as he employed his charm to full effect.
"I never met him," he said with a solemn air, "but Willie told me so much about him that I wanted to pay my respects today. She called him a masterful poker player, the best she'd ever come up against."
"She called him a cheater to his face," Danny sneered with an arched look for Willie.
"I call everyone who beats me a cheater," Willie said. "It don't mean anything. Emmett beat me, fair and square."
Danny held her gaze. "Your friend hit him."
May placed her hand over her husband's arm and Danny swallowed his next words. "It's lovely of y'all to come," she said. "Unfortunately, not many could."
"We saw Miss Oakley," Willie said, gazing off in the direction of the Earls Court exhibition grounds. "They were close?"
"Not particularly." May dabbed at the corner of her eye with her handkerchief and sniffed. "She had a run-in with Emmett."
"She lost to him at poker too?"
May nodded. Her husband's fingers tightened on her arm and she winced. "But not very much, I believe," she added. "Annie flared up then immediately calmed down again and forgot all about it, and about Emmett. She's like that."
"Me too," Willie said. "That's what happened the other night. Emmett beat me, I got all riled, but I got it out of my system. Hell, I wanted to play him again."
That perked Danny up. He displayed his dimples to full boyish effect. He really was quite beautiful when he smiled. "Come to The Prince of Wales tonight. I'll play you."
"Danny," May chided. "Not tonight. We should be honoring Emmett's memory."
"Playing poker will honor him. It was his favorite thing. He always had a deck of cards in his pocket," Emmett said to us. "Sometimes you'd see him wandering around, holding them, flipping them, doing tricks—sleight of hand, that sort of thing. It's like he was born with a deck. I was glad to see he'll be buried with them."
May gave him a wan smile. "You two got along, despite him always beating you. Very well, play a few rounds tonight in Emmett's memory, then no more. You lose too much."
"He beat you regularly, did he?" Matt asked Danny.
Danny bristled. "It weren't regular."
"It was quite regular," his wife said.
Danny fell into a broody silence.
"Maybe your luck'll change tonight," Willie said cheerfully. "I think I will come. To honor Emmett, of course. Win or lose, it doesn't matter."
I doubted a single one of us believed she meant it.
"There was a pretty blonde at the pub," I said. "She seemed pleased when Duke punched Emmett. Do you know who she is?"
"This here's the prettiest blonde," Danny said with a jerk of his head toward his wife.
"Stop, Danny, you're making me blush," May said, dipping her head coyly. "I've seen the woman you mean, but she's not one of us."
How mysterious. Before I could ask more questions, however, Matt changed topic. "What did Emmett do before he joined the troupe?"
"Don't know," Danny said, "but I've got a suspicion it weren't good or he would have mentioned it."
"It must have been a shock to hear of his passing."
"It was awful," May said, dabbing at her eyes again. "Bill told us all the morning after they found him."
"It was fortunate we weren't there when it happened," Danny added. "We left The Prince of Wales only a little while before."
Matt circled his arm around my waist and hugged me to his side. "I was worried when I heard about it. India said she'd been there only the night before and met Emmett." He stared into my eyes and spoke softly, as if he were speaking to me, not two strangers. The effect was mesmerizing and I was unable to look away. "Imagine if she'd gone that night too and stepped out of the pub at the wrong time. The thief could have attacked her. It doesn't bare thinking about." His arm tightened and his eyes turned dark, grim.
I blinked up at him, trying to play my part of self-assured woman yet finding myself sucked into his act.
May's sniff broke the spell. "Unless she entered the laneway, she would not have met a grim end at the point of the thief's gun."
"You think the thief used his own weapon and not Emmett's?" Matt asked.
The rapid change of pace left my head spinning. It threw May off guard too. She opened and closed her mouth several times before finally answering. "Isn't that what the newspapers say?"
"Aye, it is," Danny said, sounding distracted as he checked his watch, a simple open faced piece with a crack through the glass. "May, we have to be getting back. Nice to meet you, Mr. Glass. Miss Johnson, I hope to see you tonight. I feel like Emmett'll be watching over us, helping us both win."
"Then he'd better send a couple of unsuspecting greens our way," she said, touching the brim of her hat.
We watched them go then returned to the carriage.
"I had so many more questions for them," I said as Matt assisted me up the step.
"Too many questions," Willie said, getting in unaided. "You'll scare them off. I know it's hard for you, India, but you got to try to be subtle."
I snapped my skirts out of her way as she sat beside me. "You want me to take subtlety cues from you?"
"That's the spirit. Speaking of subtle, who else thought they overdid it?"
"Overdid what?" I asked.
"Their performance."
"What performance?"
"Just now." Willie turned to me. "You mean you didn't notice? India, you are an innocent."
"I am not!"
"She's trusting," Matt said to Willie. "It's not a character flaw."
"Can you tell me what you're referring to?" I pressed. "Are you saying that May was acting sad?"
"She might have been," Matt said. "But we're referring to their efforts to get Willie to the pub tonight to play poker. Willie is supposed to believe that Danny was genuinely hopeless the other night and wasn't working with Emmett. They're relying on that perception to draw her back."
"He's working the swindle alone now," Cyclops said. "Risky."
We turned a corner a little too rapidly, sending Willie and I sliding along the bench seat. Matt and Cyclops hardly moved, however, their broad shoulders ensuring they were wedged together opposite us.
"No one's mentioned the obvious, yet," I said, resettling my skirts. "Emmett was a paper magician, and we already know a paper magician."
"You think Emmett and Hendry are related?" Cyclops asked.
"It's a possibility," Matt said. "It's worth asking Hendry if he knew Emmett."
We'd met Melville Hendry when investigating the death of the editor of The Weekly Gazette. He'd sent threatening letters to Oscar Barratt, urging him to stop writing his articles about magic. Fearful for his life, business and relationships, he'd not wanted attention drawn to himself. It was an angry former lover who'd committed the murder, to implicate and punish Mr. Hendry. Our involvement in unraveling the sordid mess had not endeared him to us, however.
&n
bsp; Matt met with Commissioner Munro alone at Scotland Yard, leaving the three of us waiting on Victoria Embankment, watching the water craft pass by. Patience not being Willie's strong suit, she was the first to begin pacing up and down. Cyclops soon joined her, while I resorted to tapping my fingers on the embankment wall.
When Matt finally returned, he was smiling. "Brockwell will see us now."
"Munro agreed to let us investigate?" I asked.
"You sound like you doubted my powers of persuasion."
"Not for a moment."
"Liar." He grinned and offered me his arm to cross the road.
Without the threat of imminent death hanging over his head, Matt had returned to his more amenable self, and with that came the charm he possessed in spades. Some gentlemen thought being charming meant performing a slick routine, but it came naturally to Matt. It was that genuine charisma that won most people to his side.
A constable led us to Brockwell's office, hidden away in the bowels of the new building. Commissioner Munro must have informed him of Matt's visit because he appeared to be expecting us.
"I see you've brought your posse, as you Americans say," Brockwell said, shaking Matt's hand.
"Duke ain't here," Willie informed him, also offering her hand.
Brockwell hesitated before shaking it and Cyclops's too. He hesitated again, perhaps waiting for me to offer mine, but by the time I'd decided I should, he'd sat again.
"My apologies for the lack of chairs," he said, smoothing his hand over his tie which didn't remove a single crumple. "I rarely have so many visitors."
Cyclops and Matt remained standing, leaving the chairs for Willie and me, however Willie decided she preferred to stand with the men so I sat alone. Brockwell watched us with an amused gleam in his eye, mostly directed at Willie.
"The commissioner informs me that you have reason to suspect the victim was a paper magician," Brockwell said. "Why is that, Miss Steele?"
"I felt magical warmth on the cards placed beneath his hands in the casket. I accidentally brushed them," I clarified, lest he think I liked touching dead bodies. "Emmett also liked to play poker and won easily. So easily, in fact, that Willie here suspected him of cheating."
"Only I didn't know how he did it, at the time," she said.
"And how could magic help him cheat?" the inspector asked.
"We can't know for sure," Matt said. "Perhaps he simply felt the heat in certain cards that he himself placed there. Or perhaps he used a spell that allowed him to identify them. It's a question we'll ask Melville Hendry."
Brockwell's left eyebrow arched. "The other paper magician? Is interrogating him wise, considering his state of mind after the Baggley murder?"
"His state of mind is irrelevant," Matt said. "You know that."
Brockwell's lips flattened.
"We'll be delicate," I assured him. "It's our belief that gentle questioning will be the only way to get him to talk to us."
"Agreed." He rested his elbows on the chair arms and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. "A woman's touch is needed. Perhaps the interview should be conducted without men present. Miss Steele, perhaps Miss Johnson can join you."
"Willie?" It burst out of me before I could control it. That and the spluttering laugh.
She crossed her arms. "Why not me?"
"Why not indeed," I said. "But let me do all the talking."
Her lack of agreement worried me. "We'll go today," was all she said.
"Report back immediately," Brockwell said. "Will that be all?"
"You're yet to inform us of what you've learned so far," Matt said, employing the same commanding tone as the inspector. "Munro made it clear we're to work together on this, and since my friend is a suspect, I can assure you I'll do everything I can to clear his name."
"Your loyalty is commendable."
"So he's still a suspect?" Willie asked.
"Until proven otherwise, yes."
She clicked her tongue and muttered something under her breath.
"Pardon?" Brockwell prompted. "Did you say something, Miss Johnson?"
She lifted her chin. "I called you a son of a—"
"Willie!" Matt snapped. "The inspector is only doing his job. You know that."
Willie looked away, her nose in the air. Brockwell's lips twitched ever-so slightly before settling into his usual dour expression.
"You were about to tell us what you've learned so far," Matt said.
Brockwell scratched his sideburns.
"Commissioner's orders," Cyclops reminded him.
"Very well. There are a few important things I've discovered. The first is the victim's weapon. It was found in his room when my men searched it."
"You sure it was his?" Willie asked.
"The handle was engraved with his initials and his colleagues confirmed it belonged to Cocker. He had others, too, which he used in the show, but this was his everyday one, the one he carried with him. Apparently he liked to walk around the city with it."
"So?" Willie said. "Lots of people do."
"No, Miss Johnson, they do not. Not here in England."
"That's because you English folk are strange. Where I come from, a man never leaves home without his gun. Some women, too. If it was his everyday gun, why didn't he have it on him that night?"
"That's a question I'd like to find the answer to."
"Did it shoot the bullet that killed him?" Matt asked.
"It's the right sort, but more tests need to be conducted."
"Where was he staying while in London?"
"The cast members have rented various lodgings near the exhibition grounds. The show's stars have houses on Philbeach Gardens, whereas the lesser known members rented rooms in houses located in less grand streets. Mr. Cocker was residing in the loft of a house in Childs Street along with three others, including a married couple." He searched through the papers on his desk, shifting torn scraps aside, making an even bigger mess of his already untidy paperwork. He eventually found what he was looking for and handed it to me. "The address."
"Your men have conducted a thorough search?" Matt asked.
"Of course. Excepting the gun, there was nothing else of note in Cocker's room. The other lodgers were questioned but all claimed to be asleep at two in the morning, which is when the coroner estimates time of death occurred. However, they'd seen him earlier that evening at The Prince of Wales where he liked to play poker, as Miss Johnson learned to her detriment, I believe."
"He cheated," she declared.
"So it seems. The married couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Draper, were among the last to see him."
"Danny Draper also cheats at cards," Willie said. "They were in it together, although he ain't a magician."
Matt told the inspector how we suspected Danny, and perhaps May, were involved in the duplicity and were most likely continuing to use the initial set-up to fleece unsuspecting players. "It's a ruse that can last only a little longer now that Emmett is dead. Without him and his magic, it'll be much harder to win all the time."
"Their acting skills ain't that good," Willie clarified.
"They're reasonably good," I said.
Brockwell nodded slowly in thought. "So they're unlikely to be suspects in the murder. It's in their interests to have Cocker alive to continue with their scheme."
"Perhaps that's why May was so upset at the memorial," I said. "She was lamenting the lost winnings Emmett would share with her husband for playing his part. If her tears were genuine, I mean."
"It's likely," Matt said. "Considering how many people Emmett cheated, the murderer can probably be found among their number."
"There's more." Brockwell searched his papers again, but this time found what he needed near the top. "I sent a telegraph to my American counterparts when I learned of the murder, and this morning I received a response. It seems Emmett Cocker was wise to come to England when he did." He passed the message to me.
"He was wanted by the law?" Willie asked, peering over my sh
oulder.
"No," I said. "But he was known to them. He was being hunted by a man known as Jack Krane."
"Krane!" Matt joined Willie in looking over my shoulder.
Willie swore. "Remember him, Cyclops?"
"I remember," Cyclops said darkly. "He ain't a man you want to cross. Did Emmett cheat him too?"
"It seems so," I said, passing the message back to Brockwell. "According to this, Krane is wanted by the law, along with members of his posse, for several crimes, including murder."
"Emmett was a dang fool to cheat him," Willie said.
"What do you know of this Krane?" Brockwell asked Matt.
"I've never met him, but I've heard of him," he said. "He and his posse are a menace."
"Do you think they'd cross the Atlantic to get their revenge?"
"It's doubtful, but not impossible. I don't know him well enough but if I had to guess, I'd say he's too busy in America to chase one man all the way over here."
"Depends how much Emmett cheated him out of," Willie said. "I've known men get obsessed with revenge. It don't matter how much it costs them, or how many lives have to be lost, if they can satisfy their lust for it, they will."
"’Specially if they've been humiliated," Cyclops added. "For some, that's worse than death."
"I won't rule Krane out then," Brockwell said.
"I think we'll notice if an outlaw posse come to London," I said. "Do you remember the Dark Rider?" Finding him had been our first investigation together. The outlaw had tried to hurt me to get to Matt, only to fail thanks to my watch saving me. My old watch. My new one had so far lain dormant in my reticule in times of danger.
"I remember," Matt said, laying a hand on my shoulder. "If Krane comes here alone, he will be harder to detect. I'll make some enquiries."
"That's all I have at this point in time," Brockwell said. "You have my permission to speak discreetly to Hendry and follow the magical line of inquiry. Thank you for the information about the cheating, and about the Drapers in particular."
"There's one other thing," I said. "There was a blonde woman at The Prince of Wales, that night we were there. She isn't part of the show, but she seemed to know Emmett and looked rather pleased when Duke punched him."
Brockwell scratched his sideburns again. "I'll see what I can find out about her."