The Cheater's Game: Glass and Steele, #7

by C. J. Archer

  "That's not what I meant." Mr. Delancey's deep brow furrowed. "Why did you decide to follow them without discussing it with us first?"

  Sir Charles waved his hand. "It was a whim of mine. I'm sorry I didn't mention it."

  "But you discussed it with Coyle. Why not us?"

  "As I said, it was a whim. A passing notion and not one I wanted to admit to. What if I was wrong? I didn't want to appear a fool in front of everyone."

  "You have to admit the idea does sound absurd," Coyle said.

  Louisa made a sound of protest. "On the contrary. I think it plausible. Well done, Sir Charles. I like the way your mind works."

  Mr. Delancey's frown deepened. He sipped his tea and fell into silence.

  "And what did you learn?" Professor Nash asked. "I haven't seen Annie Oakley myself, but I've heard she's a marvelous shot."

  "I'm still not sure about her," Sir Charles said. "But while watching the cast members, and following them here and there, I did come to suspect another fellow of being a magician." He nodded at me. "Miss Steele recently confirmed my suspicions. One of the sharpshooters was a paper magician."

  "How does that help him shoot accurately?" Mrs. Delancey asked.

  "It doesn't. It helped him cheat at cards."

  Nash pushed his glasses up his nose. "You said 'was’ a paper magician."

  Mrs. Delancey gasped. "It's that fellow who was murdered, isn't it? It was all over the newspapers."

  "I rarely read them. That does explain Mr. Glass and Miss Steele's involvement."

  "You're helping the police?" Louisa asked. "How noble. Does this mean they know you're a magician, India? If they're aware of magic then that's quite a step forward, wouldn't you say? It's only a short leap from there to official recognition."

  Lord Coyle held up his hand. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Louisa. It's not in the police's best interests to publicly acknowledge magic."

  "It's not in anyone's," Mr. Delancey said.

  Louisa picked up her teacup. "Except for magicians who wish to practice in the open, raise their children without fear, and create beautiful things with their talent."

  Mr. Delancey gave his wife a withering look, as if he blamed her for bringing the rebellious Louisa into their midst. Mrs. Delancey did not look up from her teacup.

  Only the professor looked intrigued by Louisa's statements. Indeed, not intrigued, but in awe. It wouldn't surprise me if he was half in love with her already.

  "I want to apologize to you both," Sir Charles said to Matt and me. "When you called on me yesterday, you caught me off guard. I wasn't sure how much to tell you without checking with Coyle first. He has been the driving force behind this."

  "Of course," Matt said with a smile. I couldn't tell if he believed Sir Charles or not. It made sense to me that Sir Charles was reluctant to divulge too much without checking with Lord Coyle. Coyle was, after all, a powerful man. If Sir Charles displeased him, there could be all manner of consequences.

  "Can we assume that our presence here means you approve of Sir Charles telling us everything he learned?" I asked Coyle.

  "You can," he said. "Proceed, Whittaker."

  "You asked me about the victim's lineage," Sir Charles said. "You wanted to know if he was related to Melville Hendry, the paper magician in Smithfield."

  "Melville!" Mrs. Delancey cried. "Don't tell me he's involved in this murder too?"

  "He wasn't involved in the last one," I said. "Although he was implicated by his…friend."

  "Are they related?" Matt asked.

  Sir Charles nodded. "We keep records of magical families, following each branch as best we can. There are gaps, of course, but in the case of Hendry and Cocker, the link was evident. They share one set of great grandparents."

  "Did either of them know?"

  "It's likely they did, considering Cocker paid Hendry a visit the day before his death."

  Matt sighed and I sat back, deflated. Part of me hoped Hendry hadn't lied. The last thing I wanted was for Hendry to be a suspect in our investigation. He'd been through so much, and he wasn't an emotionally strong character. Our investigation would upset him.

  "How intriguing," Mrs. Delancey murmured.

  Lord Coyle eyed his pipe with longing then reached for another slice of cake. "We're telling you this on the condition you don't interrogate Hendry. We don't think he has the stomach for murder anyway, nor do we want him to feel intimidated."

  "We wouldn't do that," Matt assured him.

  "He's skittish, easily frightened, and he has no ties."

  "You're afraid he'll leave London?" I asked. "England?"

  Sir Charles leveled his gaze with mine. "We're afraid he'll leave this mortal coil, Miss Steele."

  "Oh." I felt rather ill at the thought of Mr. Hendry taking his own life because of us. Surely he wouldn't if he were innocent.

  Yet the more I thought about our last investigation, the more I realized that didn't matter. Mr. Hendry had no one, and that, more than our questioning, upset him. He was quite alone in the world. It was immeasurably sad.

  "We'll conduct our investigation around him," Matt said. "But he is now a suspect, and if we have no other recourse, we will question him."

  "Gently," I added.

  "He's not guilty," Mrs. Delancey said. "I like him."

  Her husband grunted. "The one does not equate to the other, my dear."

  "Why does he have no ties?" Louisa asked. "Has he never married?"

  Nobody answered her until she prompted Mrs. Delancey.

  "Marriage is not on the mind of his kind," Mrs. Delancey said.

  "He has, er, relations with men," her husband said, the twist of disgust evident in his voice.

  "Ah." Louisa contemplated the teacup and saucer clutched in her lap. "That doesn't mean he will never marry, however. Indeed, he has good reasons to find a wife. It will protect him from gossip and, even more importantly, it might result in children."

  "Why more importantly?" Mrs. Delancey asked. "He might not want to be a father."

  Louisa looked at her friend as if she were dim-witted. "The lineage must continue."

  I blinked at her, unable to form words to express my shock. Were we no different to race horses to her?

  "You really do have only one thing on your mind," Mrs. Delancey said with a tart smile.

  Nash scooted forward on his chair, his eyes bright. "She's right. We must think of the future."

  "I'm not sure we have a say in the matter of Hendry fathering offspring," Lord Coyle said. "Anyway, I prefer to think of the present. And presently, we have the problem of a paper magician's death—a death that Mr. Glass and Miss Steele have been commissioned to investigate. Now that you know what Whittaker was up to, and that Hendry and Cocker were related, you can continue on."

  "Carefully," Sir Charles added. "Particularly with our skittish paper magician."

  "Who is not guilty," Mrs. Delancey said with a pointed glare for her husband. "Despite his proclivities."

  We thanked them, although I wasn't quite sure why. We hadn't learned much and I was still convinced that Whittaker hadn't been acting on behalf of the club, despite what he and Coyle said. I told Matt as much on the way home.

  He agreed with me. "For one thing, the others weren't aware of it. And for another, I don't trust Coyle."

  "Do you think they had a private arrangement?" I asked.

  "I do. Whittaker was spying for Coyle, only we caught him. They couldn't risk us telling anyone else, so they decided to beat us to it."

  "I wonder if any of them realize it."

  "I wonder what they're up to," Matt said heavily.

  "Perhaps they're not up to anything. Coyle seems like the sort of man who likes to gather information to use against people in the future. Others trade in goods, he trades in secrets. It's dirty."

  He took my hand and kissed my glove. "The less you have to do with him, the better I'll feel."

  I stared out of the window but saw nothing of the passing scene
ry through the tears stinging my eyes.

  We sat in the sitting room as Matt told Cyclops and Duke about the meeting. No one had any good suggestions for what to do next so it was fortunate that distraction arrived in the form of Willie. She yawned without covering her mouth and threw herself into a chair.

  "Bristow says I missed breakfast," she whined. "Now I'm going to starve."

  "He won't let you starve," Matt said. "And it's almost midday."

  "Well?" Duke said slyly. "What did you and Annie Oakley get up to last night?"

  "Nothing."

  Both he and Cyclops snorted.

  "It's true! We had a few drinks together and that was it. I came home."

  "At five this morning." Duke sounded amused. "Don't deny it. I heard you clomping up the stairs like a sow."

  "Five!" I cried. "Willie, what did you two get up to? And don't pretend you just had a few drinks. For one thing, The Prince of Wales would have closed well before five. And for another, what is there to do in this city at that time?"

  "You'd be surprised," she said. "But I don't expect you to know, India."

  "True. I am busy polishing my halo at that time of morning."

  She pulled a face.

  "So what's she like?" Duke asked.

  "Fun," Willie said, a secretive smile teasing her lips. "Real fun."

  "So what fun things did you two do?"

  "I told you, we drank together and that was it. I came home."

  Cyclops chuckled. "You don't remember, do you?"

  "Course I remember." She sniffed. "I just ain't going to tattle."

  "Leave her alone," Matt chided. "Just as long as the police don't come knocking on the door, I don't care what you do."

  A knock on the sitting room door had everyone sitting forward, and Willie swore under her breath. Matt glared at her.

  Duke hissed, "What did you do?"

  Willie swallowed and looked to the window, as if deciding if it was worth the risk to climb out of it. The sitting room was on the second level.

  Bristow entered on Matt's command and announced the arrival of Melville Hendry. Willie excused herself and beat a hasty retreat.

  "Mr. Hendry," Matt said, rising and offering his hand. "Welcome. We're glad you came. Bristow, bring in tea and some of Mrs. Bristow's finest cakes."

  "I won't be long," Mr. Hendry said, wiping the palm of his hand down his trouser leg as he sat. He smelled faintly of coconut, a scent that seemed to emanate from his hair. "I have to get back to my shop. I don't like closing it for long."

  "I understand. Is this about the invitations?"

  Mr. Hendry tugged on his cuffs. "No. They're with the calligrapher now."

  Duke and Cyclops left, closing the door, putting Mr. Hendry a little more at ease, although he still seemed agitated.

  "Are you all right?" I asked. "You seem upset."

  "Not upset. Just…" He drew in a shaky breath.

  "You're not in trouble," Matt assured him. "You're not a suspect in Cocker's murder, if that's your concern."

  "I'm not? Oh, thank God." He took a few deep breaths before going on. "I came to tell you that I lied to you yesterday. That man did visit me."

  Matt nodded. "Thank you for informing us."

  "I was afraid you'd think I killed him to keep our magic connection a secret, that's why I didn't tell Miss Steele." He pressed his fingers into the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm on edge these days. Ever since Patrick betrayed me, I can't trust anyone."

  "You can trust us," Matt said kindly. "India's situation is not that different to yours. She wants to keep her magic a secret too."

  I bit my tongue and told myself he was only saying what he thought Hendry wanted to hear, mindful of Hendry's delicate state of mind. "You can trust us," I reassured him. "We want to find out who killed Mr. Cocker, and you might inadvertently know something about his movements in his last few days that could help. So he did visit you. Why?"

  "He wanted to learn my spells."

  "He asked you? Just like that?"

  "He was brazen, that's for certain. He got my name from his grandmother, many years ago. Or, rather, he learned of my grandfather's name—they were cousins. I am my grandfather's only living descendent, and I still run the shop that was once his. Emmett Cocker said I wasn't difficult to find. We had a long talk, but I'm rather ashamed to admit that I didn't particularly like him. He was too…uncouth. Too abrupt, brash. He cheated at cards. Not just once or twice, but all the time. He laughed about it. He offered to teach me how, but I declined, of course."

  Bristow brought in tea then discreetly left again.

  "Did Emmett infuse his magic into the cards?" I asked, pouring the tea. "Is that how he cheated?"

  Mr. Hendry nodded. "He knew a spell that allowed him to see the card from a distance with the card facing away from him. Of course, it meant he had to place spells on each card before the game. Apparently the only times he lost was when an opponent insisted on using a different deck, but then Emmett realized he could whisper the spell into the cards he held. Over the course of an evening, he would have placed his magic on most of the cards in the deck, allowing him to cheat."

  "Did you tell him what you thought of his scheme?" I asked.

  "I did. He laughed," he said, his voice distant. "It was a horrid laugh, brittle and cruel. He didn't care that he was hurting people, effectively stealing from them."

  "Did he know what spells you could do?" Matt asked, accepting the teacup I handed him.

  "Not at first. When he told me what he could do, then asked what spells I knew, I told him." He stared into his cup. "I told him everything, stopping short of giving him the words."

  Mr. Hendry not only knew how to make strong paper of the best quality, he also knew spells to fold paper into interesting shapes without touching it, and how to turn paper into a weapon. I had a sick feeling that Emmett wanted to know the latter most of all.

  "I thought nothing of it, at first," Mr. Hendry went on. "He merely sounded curious, like a family member catching up on news. But then he asked if I could teach him the spells."

  "And you refused?" Matt asked.

  "I did. He grew very angry. He shouted at me. I thought he'd become violent. I'd seen the gun strapped to his hip and became scared he'd use it, so I told him I'd give it some thought, just to get him out of my home."

  "When was this?"

  "Early evening on the night he died. I read about his murder in the newspaper the next morning. I was shocked. I think I was still in shock when you came to see me. I wasn't thinking clearly. That's the only explanation I have for not admitting the truth immediately."

  I reassured him that he'd done the right thing, but my thoughts wandered in a different direction. According to Hendry, Emmett had his gun with him the night of his death. That meant someone had returned it to Emmett's room later, and that someone had to be the killer.

  "Such anger seems out of proportion," Matt said. "And out of character, from what I've heard."

  I agreed. Emmett had been charming, on the whole, although he'd displayed evidence of a temper when Willie stopped playing poker. Perhaps that charm slipped when he didn't get what he wanted. I'd found that to be true for most men with false charisma.

  "He was likeable at first," Mr. Hendry said. "But when I refused to tell him my spells, he changed." He lifted his gaze to Matt's. "I've seen desperation, Mr. Glass. I've seen it in myself, and I know what it looks like. He was desperate to learn the spell to turn paper into a blade."

  Matt stroked a finger over his top lip and I could see he was warring with himself. He suddenly sat forward, his gaze not wavering from Mr. Hendry's. Hendry sat forward too, enthralled by the attention and the understanding that Matt was about to tell him something he should not.

  "The police informed us that Cocker is being hunted in America," Matt said. "He cheated a man at cards. Cocker didn't know it at the time, but that man is a dangerous outlaw."

  M
r. Hendry swallowed. "Do you think the outlaw came here and…and found him? Killed him?"

  "It's possible."

  "It's a long way to travel for revenge."

  Matt sat back and picked up his teacup. "Some people will go to great lengths for revenge. Their pride drives them. So I believe."

  Mr. Hendry nodded slowly. He picked up his cup too but did not sip. "You think Emmett wanted my spell so he could turn his cards into weapons if he found himself in trouble and without his gun."

  "We do," I said.

  "Sometimes it's not feasible to draw a gun," Matt added. "The outlaw has a reputation as a quick draw. Cocker couldn't defeat him in a gunfight."

  "No one would expect him to kill with cards," Mr. Hendry finished. "Giving him an advantage." He dragged a hand through his hair, yet when he drew his hand away, his hair was still perfectly arranged. "If I'd given him the spell, he could still be alive."

  "We don't know that," I rushed to reassure him. "You shouldn't think about it; it'll only upset you."

  "He was family, Miss Steele. My only family." His voice cracked. "I should have had more of a care for him instead of dismissing him. Family ought to help one another."

  "No cards or papers were found on the body," Matt said. "It's unlikely your spell could have helped him that night."

  Mr. Hendry looked reassured by that more than by my attempt to comfort him. Matt was better at reassurance than me, at least where Mr. Hendry was concerned.

  After Mr. Hendry left, Matt and I headed to Emmett Cocker's lodgings on Childs Street. Or, rather, we headed to the rear of the property. Matt knocked on the back door while I kept watch at the gate to the alley running behind the row of terraces.

  "I'm going in," Matt whispered from the door—the door that was now open. He had a knack for picking locks that he'd learned from his time in his grandfather's gang. It was quite a useful trick.

  I joined him at the door but he shook his head.

  "Someone has to keep watch," he said.

  I glared at him, hand on hip, but he shook his head again and disappeared into the kitchen beyond. I returned to the gate and waited.

  And waited.

  We'd decided to look around Emmett's lodgings while the Drapers and the other lodger were performing in the afternoon show. It was easier than facing their questions. With only one room to search, I'd not expected Matt to be long, however time dragged. I checked my watch on no less than eight occasions. I paced, sighed, huffed, and glared at the back door, yet no amount of willing him to reappear actually resulted in his appearance.