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

by C. J. Archer

  There was no time for me to worry about Miss Glass walking down the stairs into danger, however, because the windows suddenly blew inward. Glass shattered, spraying sharp, jagged shards over the entrance hall.

  I flung my arms up to protect my face and head. I didn't see what happened to Willie but I heard her gasp of pain.

  And then came the swish swish of something flying through the air.

  The cards.

  They were no longer outside, and Mr. Hendry was going to use them to cut us to shreds.

  Chapter 16

  I cowered beneath my arms, not daring to peek out. I could feel something tugging at my skirt, dragging at my sleeve. Fabric tore. Something sharp as a blade nicked the skin on the back of my hand, drawing blood.

  I opened my mouth to scream at Mr. Hendry.

  It was drowned out by the boom of a gunshot.

  It reverberated around the hall and echoed in my head. The swish swish of the flying paper suddenly stopped. I peeked through the cover of my arms and saw Mr. Hendry squatting amid a shower of papers floating to the floor. He'd stopped chanting his spell and now peered into the shadows.

  Time seemed to slow. I registered the strangeness of my surroundings. The settling papers made it look as though a snowstorm had struck. Pages of a newspaper were among them, and then I spotted a book I'd been reading. I'd left it in the sitting room. The library wouldn't have been a good place to hide after all.

  Willie lay flat on the floor, her hands over her head, sheets of paper partially covering her.

  Something in the shadows at the back moved. The shooter?

  Mr. Hendry's whispers began again. He'd been distracted only, not shot, by the hidden shooter. He could not be allowed to start his spell again. There was an abundance of potential weapons for him already surrounding us.

  I hauled myself to my feet and threw myself at him, slamming into his crouching form.

  He toppled backward, smacking his head on the floor. I fell on top of him and clamped my hand over his mouth. His gaze shifted to a point past my shoulder as someone emerged from the shadows.

  "You can get off him, India. If he speaks again, I'll shoot."

  I couldn't believe my ears. "Miss Glass!"

  She stood a few paces away, Bristow at her side. She clutched Willie's gun in both hands. They shook but the determined gleam in her eyes left me with no doubt she would follow through on her threat.

  Bristow cupped her hands, raising them slightly. "You want to kill him, not castrate him," he said.

  I took a moment to steady my jangling nerves and to take stock. I crouched at Willie's side. The back of her arm was covered in blood and the back of her waistcoat sported several tears, but she was alive. She sat up with my assistance and frowned at Miss Glass.

  "That's my gun!"

  Sometimes, her priorities were a little skewed.

  "I didn't think you'd mind if I borrowed it," Miss Glass said.

  "Bristow?" I prompted.

  "We heard the noise and investigated from the landing," he said, nodding at the staircase. "Miss Glass suggested we locate Miss Johnson's weapon. We didn't load it, however. We only intended to threaten him."

  "I always keep it loaded," Willie said.

  "We came down via the service stairs," Bristow went on.

  "Just in time, too," Miss Glass said, her hands lowering again. "This becomes heavy after a while."

  Bristow took over and we all breathed a sigh of relief. I still wasn't sure where the first bullet had ended up. Thankfully, not in either Willie or me.

  The front door suddenly burst open and Matt rushed in, Brockwell and two constables on his heels. All paused and took in the sea of paper, Bristow with the gun, and Mr. Hendry lying on the floor.

  "Blimey," one of the constables muttered.

  "India." Matt waded through the papers, kicking them aside. He clasped my arms and dipped his head to peer into my face. "Are you all right?"

  I nodded.

  "Willie?" he said. "Aunt?"

  "You're bleeding," Brockwell said, inspecting Willie's arm. He pressed his handkerchief over the shirt sleeve at the cut.

  She thanked him and took over, her fingers touching his before he withdrew. "It ain't too bad. Could have been worse."

  Matt spotted the paper cut on my hand and kissed my knuckles. "Any other injuries?" he asked.

  "Only to my dress and my nerves." I inspected a tear on my skirt. The card had cut cleanly through it. If that card and the others had been directed at my throat then I would need hospitalization with life-threatening injuries like Dotty. Or I may not have been as lucky. I didn't for a moment think Mr. Hendry missed on purpose, but rather he had trouble controlling his magic with so much paper around. The result was chaos that proved too much for him.

  Brockwell sent his constables outside before asking us what happened.

  "Mr. Hendry came here to learn how our investigation was proceeding," I said. "He hoped to glean some information about Dotty’s whereabouts."

  Willie kicked Mr. Hendry's foot. He drew his legs up. "He realized she wasn't dead when the papers didn't mention her body was found near Cocker's, so he wanted to finish the job," she said.

  "When he learned we'd found her, and that we knew he murdered Emmett, he spoke his spell and this happened. Paper came from everywhere."

  Matt picked up a sheet near his left foot. "This is from my office. It'll take all day to put it to rights again."

  "The broken windows?" Brockwell prompted.

  "He had a deck of cards in his possession which we threw outside for safekeeping," I said. "I think they belonged to Emmett."

  "They did," Mr. Hendry said, sitting up. He rubbed the back of his head and winced. "You hit hard, Miss Steele."

  "You punched him?" Matt asked me.

  "I sort of threw myself at him and he hit his head on the floor." I spotted my watch half hidden beneath a piece of paper and picked it up. "It didn’t even chime."

  "The broken windows?" Brockwell asked again. "Are you saying the cards broke them?"

  "Aye," Willie said. "We threw the cards outside thinking he couldn't use them out there. Seems we were wrong. They smashed the windows and flew in here. Underneath all this paper are shards of glass."

  "I'll have the servants set it to rights immediately," Bristow said.

  Willie took the gun from him and aimed it at Mr. Hendry. I got the distinct impression she was keen to use it.

  "Yes, do clean this up," Miss Glass said, reaching out a hand toward Matt. "Take me to my room, Harry. I need to lie down. All this excitement is overwhelming."

  "Harry?" Brockwell asked as he watched Matt escort Miss Glass up the stairs.

  "She suffers from memory loss, particularly in times of high excitement," I said. "She thinks she's a young woman again and that Matt is his father, her brother, Harry. She'll be all right by the morning."

  I went in search of Polly and sent her up to Miss Glass's room with a pot of chocolate. By the time I returned to the entrance hall, Brockwell had left, taking Mr. Hendry with him, and the clean up operation had begun, led by Mr. and Mrs. Bristow.

  Willie tucked the gun into her waistband and patted the handle as if it were a good pet for obeying orders. "There was only one bullet in it."

  Bristow paused, papers in hand. "So he could have kept speaking his spell and there was nothing we could have done about it?"

  "We could have punched him in the mouth," she said.

  "Should have done it anyway," Mrs. Bristow chimed in. "On account of him making all this mess for us to tidy up."

  Matt returned just as the front door opened. Cyclops and Duke stopped on the threshold, twin expressions of shock on their faces.

  "What happened?" Cyclops asked.

  "Mr. Hendry came here and spoke a spell," I said. "He's the murderer. Emmett wanted his spells, Hendry refused, so Emmett threatened to make up terrible stories about his…proclivities."

  Duke gathered some papers near the door. "He
just came here and confessed?"

  "We confronted him," I said. "Dotty was found in hospital and she told us—"

  "She's been found?" He straightened. "And no one thought to tell me?"

  "Sorry," Matt said with a sheepish shrug. "We were busy."

  Duke shoved the papers into Matt's chest. "Then you can clean this mess up yourselves. I'm starving."

  "Dinner's in the warming pot in the kitchen," Mrs. Bristow called after him as he marched past her. "Help yourself."

  "I better go too," Cyclops said. "Before he eats it all."

  "Where've you been?" Willie asked him.

  "I met Duke at Dotty's house."

  "You've been there the whole time?"

  "For the last hour."

  "And before that?"

  "Waltzing with the queen in Buckingham Palace," he said over his shoulder.

  The tidying up operation took almost an hour, and that didn't include sorting through the papers. We stacked them on Matt's desk in his office but he put the task of re-organizing them off until the morning.

  "I can't believe his spell did all this," I said, slapping the top of one of the piles. "Although I don't think he intended to. He just wanted to use the cards as weapons and this was an unintentional consequence." I sighed. "He'll hang for murdering Emmett."

  "Try not to think about it."

  It was impossible not to. No matter how different I was to Mr. Hendry, we were connected by our magic. I understood some of his struggles, although not all. Not nearly all.

  "I wonder if paper magic will die out with him," I said. "Neither he nor Emmett had children, after all."

  "It depends if they had siblings or other cousins."

  "Coyle and his friends would know." That was a troubling thought, although I couldn't quite explain why. Another troubling thought was the failure of my watch. "It didn't chime, despite the danger," I told Matt. "I've tinkered with it dozens of times since Mr. Sweeney's arrest, yet it still doesn't work."

  "I'll take it back to Mason's and inform him, shall I?"

  "Don't joke, Matt."

  "Perhaps you need to tinker with it hundreds of times. You'd had your old watch for years and this one mere weeks. Give it time, India."

  "I'm beginning to think it's something my father did to my original watch. Perhaps there's nothing I can do. Perhaps the magic was already in the old one when I received it." I blew out a frustrated breath. "I wish I knew."

  Matt took my hand and led me to the chair behind the desk. "Sit down and try to relax."

  "I can't."

  It turned out that I could relax quite easily when he massaged the tension from my shoulders. Even time seemed to slip away without me noticing.

  "That was wonderful," I murmured when he stopped. "Come here and let me thank you."

  He leaned over me from behind and gave me an upside down kiss. I smiled against his mouth until he deepened the kiss. It was just what I needed after the evening I'd had.

  "No wonder you two are still up here," came Willie's voice from the doorway. "Come down to the drawing room and have a drink with us. We've opened the good brandy."

  "I should have closed the door," Matt muttered.

  "We'll join you as long as no one plays poker," I said to Willie. "I can't face a deck of cards for some time."

  I spent the following morning mending my dress while Matt put his paperwork to rights. A glazier had come first thing to measure up for replacement windows and the household was getting back in order, including Miss Glass, who was her usual self once again.

  "You must visit the dressmaker for a final inspection, India," she said. "Now that the investigation is over, we can go today."

  "If you wish."

  "And check with Mrs. Potter about the menu."

  "She has it all in hand," I said.

  "What about the flowers?"

  "They'll be delivered fresh on the morning of the wedding."

  She did not mention the invitations, for which I was grateful. Willie, however, wasn't quite as tactful.

  "I think you should invite Jasper," she said.

  It took me a moment to remember that Jasper was Detective Inspector Brockwell. "Any particular reason?" I asked slyly.

  "He's become a friend," she said, returning to her sewing. Like me, she'd been fixing the tears in her clothing, only she was all thumbs and much slower.

  "So I've noticed."

  Willie pricked her thumb, drawing blood. "The devil take it," she muttered. "I hate sewing."

  "Give it to me," Miss Glass said. "You are quite hopeless at all the feminine arts, Willemina."

  "You're an angel, Letty." Willie passed the waistcoat, needle and thread to Miss Glass. "I can deliver an invitation to Jasper tonight if you like, India. I've got to return his handkerchief anyway."

  "Tonight?" Miss Glass asked.

  "He'll be busy all day with work."

  "Leave the poor man alone when he's off duty. He won't want to be bothered with you after a long day."

  Willie opened her mouth but I vigorously shook my head at her. It was best for Miss Glass not to know everything Willie got up to.

  Cyclops entered and requested to speak with me privately. I followed him across the hall to the library. He checked the vicinity before closing the door.

  "Is something the matter?" I asked.

  He leaned back against the door. "Have you given any more thought to helping Ronnie with his test?"

  "Are you referring to helping him study for it?"

  "No."

  "I didn't think so." I sat down near the fireplace and asked him to sit too. "Cyclops, I know you're worried, but it's not possible to sit the test for him without getting caught. Anyway, I thought you and Catherine were against the idea."

  "She is. Don't tell her I've talked to you about it."

  "Dishonesty is not a good foundation on which to build a relationship."

  "We don't have a relationship."

  I cocked my head to the side and raised my brows.

  "I've been thinking about it and decided Ronnie's right," he said, forging ahead. "Abercrombie'll make the test too hard for him to pass. Ronnie's clever but he ain't you, India."

  "Flattery won't work, Cyclops. What you're asking me to do is absurd."

  "What does it matter if you get caught? You won't be doing anything against the law, just against guild rules—and you ain't a member anyway." At my hesitation, he plunged in. "I want the best for Catherine. She desperately wants to open this shop with Ronnie. She needs her independence, India, and she's too vibrant to stay in her parents' shadows. I want her to be happy."

  "It sounds to me like you ought to court her."

  "That's a different issue."

  "Is it?"

  He glared at me, so I let the matter drop and returned to the one at hand.

  "You're asking me to cheat, Cyclops. I don't feel right about it."

  "Abercrombie is the one who's cheating. He's going to make the test too hard for anyone except you to pass. That ain't fair."

  "No, but I don't like being a party to anything nefarious." I could hear an invisible Willie whispering in my ear about how safe I was being, how dull and sensible.

  "We don't have to tell Matt," Cyclops added.

  "Of course I do. We have no secrets from one another."

  The words tasted like ash in my mouth. With the turmoil of the last few days, I'd pushed thoughts of my agreement with Lord Coyle to the back of my mind. But they would not go away completely. They never would while his favor hung like a guillotine above my neck.

  Bristow knocked on the door and entered. "Lord Coyle is here, madam. He'd like to speak to you and Mr. Glass."

  My conscience was a powerful thing, to conjure him up at the very moment I thought about him. "What does he want?"

  "He did not specify."

  Of course he wouldn't confide in the butler. Bristow waited for my response and I waited for… I didn't really know. A miracle, I supposed.

 
Cyclops rose and made his excuses but I caught his hand.

  "Stay," I said. "Please."

  He frowned. "Why? Matt's on his way down, ain't he, Bristow?"

  "Fossett is fetching him, sir. Is everything all right, Miss Steele? Shall I ask his lordship to return another day?"

  Bristow and Cyclops waited for my decision, but I never got the chance to make it. Matt strolled into the library, leading Lord Coyle.

  Bristow bowed out and Cyclops followed, closing the door behind him. I considered leaving too, but that wouldn't solve anything if Lord Coyle had come for his repayment.

  His lordship eased himself into one of the deep armchairs with a groan. The leather creaked beneath his weight as he settled. He pulled out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed at his flushed, sweating forehead. He looked as if he'd walked here, yet I could see his carriage through the library window, waiting at the curb.

  "You seem troubled, Coyle," Matt said.

  His lordship continued to dab at his face with his folded handkerchief. "I am greatly troubled, Glass. Indeed, I'm angry."

  My own face suddenly felt very hot yet the rest of me went cold. "What about?" I asked, my voice small.

  "The police arrested Hendry."

  Oh. That was all. Thank goodness I had avoided the confrontation. For now.

  "He's going to be executed," Coyle went on. "And you two had a hand in the investigation and his arrest, I believe."

  "Did Whittaker tell you that?" Matt asked.

  Coyle's gaze locked with Matt's. "I asked you to be gentle with Hendry. You assured me you would treat him carefully."

  "That was before we learned he was a murderer."

  Coyle thumped the chair arm. "Bloody hell, Glass! Do you know what you've done?"

  "Helped get a dangerous man off the street?"

  "He was the last of his kind. He and his cousin, Emmett Cocker, were the only paper magicians left in the world."

  "That you know of."

  "The line dies with Hendry. Paper magic will become extinct. Doesn't that sadden you?"

  Matt merely glared at him.

  Lord Coyle appealed to me. "You understand, don't you, Miss Steele? We're about to lose a precious resource."

  "It is hardly our fault," I shot back. "Blame Mr. Hendry for killing his cousin. As to the line dying with him, I can say with some confidence that it would have done so anyway. You know his proclivities. He wouldn't have fathered children."