A Crimson Warning

by Tasha Alexander

“I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “Irrelevant.” Colin did not take his eyes from the man’s face. “When you started to worry that wasn’t enough, that you might still be exposed, you kidnapped his fiancée and murdered her, too.” He picked the papers back up off the desk, rolled them up, and handed them to me.

  Mr. Barnes dropped his head into his hands. “I never meant to hurt Miss Dalton,” he said. “I only wanted to get hold of the evidence Dillman had against me. She refused to help me find it. And when it became clear to me that no one else was going to find it, either, what choice did I have? There was no other way to secure her silence.”

  “We found the evidence,” I said. “So you murdered her for nothing.”

  “I’m all too well aware of that,” he said. “It was a misstep.”

  “What about the paint?” I asked. “Didn’t it further increase your risk of exposure?”

  “It was diversionary,” he said, meeting my eyes for the first time since we’d accused him. “It took the attention off Dillman altogether. No one at Scotland Yard spent much time looking into his connections, not once my campaign got under way.”

  “You have destroyed so many lives,” I said.

  “I only exposed sins these people decided to commit,” he said. “Now they have to live like I do—trapped by their pasts. At least they chose theirs.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” Colin said. “I’d always liked you, Barnes. I thought you were better than most of the louts in society. I never would have guessed someone like you—whom I held in such high esteem—could improve my opinion of them. I’m disappointed.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Barnes said. “It was my only chance. I had to try.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Colin crossed his arms. “I’ll take you to Scotland Yard and we’ll get the rest of this settled.”

  “Please, I can’t face it,” Mr. Barnes said. “All the laughing, the mocking. I know what they’ll say—that this is what they expected from someone like me.” He looked Colin straight in the face. “Could you not give me a moment?”

  “Absolutely not. You will stand like a gentleman and face what you have done.”

  Mr. Barnes nodded. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “May I at least write my confession at my desk instead of in a cell?”

  “That I can allow,” Colin said.

  And then it was like a flash. Mr. Barnes opened a drawer, presumably to pull out paper. But instead of paper, he lifted out a small pistol and raised it to his head. Colin moved so quickly I could hardly see what was happening. He wrenched the gun out of Mr. Barnes’s hand, knocked him onto the ground facedown, and pinned his arms behind his back.

  “Don’t be in such a hurry, Barnes,” he said. “You will die, but not like this. I’m not about to let you take the coward’s way out.”

  * * *

  I could hardly keep my knees from banging together, I was shaking so hard. Colin had sent me to summon help, and I felt lost in the halls of Westminster. Almost without thinking, I went to Mr. Foster’s office.

  “Something terrible has happened,” I said. “Mr. Barnes has been behind this red-paint business. We need Scotland Yard at once.”

  “No,” he said. “No. It can’t be Barnes.”

  “Please, Mr. Foster, we must hurry.”

  He scrawled a note and handed it to his assistant, then turned back to me. “Now let’s go,” Mr. Foster said. “I must speak to him.”

  I filled in the details for him on the way to the office. Mr. Foster looked ill by the time we entered the room. Colin was still holding the gun. Mr. Barnes was back in a chair, but not behind his desk.

  “Simon—” Mr. Foster stepped towards his friend. “I don’t know what to say. Why?”

  “It was the only way forward,” Mr. Barnes said. “The only way to bring this country into a new age of enlightenment.”

  “Not like this, Simon, not like this. You wouldn’t have had to blackmail me.”

  “That was just insurance,” Mr. Barnes said.

  “You should have trusted me. Trusted me to reach these heights on my own,” Mr. Foster said. “And trusted me to keep you as my closest adviser.”

  Mr. Foster sank into a chair, and they both sat, silent, until Scotland Yard arrived. After the usual sorts of administrative detail, they formally arrested Mr. Barnes and took him away. As I watched him go, I almost wished I’d asked what secret about Colin he’d meant to expose. But I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know.

  “Excellent work, Hargreaves,” Mr. Foster said, slapping my husband on the back. “Capital job.” There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

  “Sorry the result wasn’t happier for you,” Colin said.

  “Nothing to be done,” Mr. Foster said. “Difficult to see one’s friend stoop to such levels.”

  “Yes.” Colin put the gun on top of Mr. Barnes’s desk. “But there is something we need to discuss. This match factory.”

  “Let me assure you I knew nothing about it.”

  “I never suspected otherwise,” Colin said. “But you are the registered owner of it.”

  “Would be deeply grateful if you could make it all go away,” Mr. Foster said.

  “Shouldn’t pose a problem,” Colin said. “I’ll personally see to fixing the records. The rest the government will have no objection to burying. Emily has already begun organizing a better situation for the people working in the factory.”

  “Do let me know if you require anything from me. I’ve money, whatever you need. I can’t tell you how distressed I am to have had my name associated with something like that.”

  “Barnes knew you’d feel that way,” Colin said. “Which is why he thought it would give him power over you.”

  “There’s something else,” I said. “All the rest of the fraud. You claim you knew nothing about it. Yet you were so jumpy when I broached the subject in my library.”

  Mr. Foster sighed. “Barnes came to me some weeks ago. He told me he’d learned that there had been tampering in my first election and was worried I might be exposed for it, even though there was no proof of any involvement on my part. I swear to you I knew nothing about it at the time.”

  “That was the beginning of his setting into motion the final part of his plan,” Colin said. “He was getting ready to exert his control over you.”

  Mr. Foster bounced on his toes. “Is this likely to haunt me in the future?”

  “I’ll make sure it doesn’t,” Colin said.

  “I appreciate it more than you could ever know, Hargreaves,” he said. “Pity to have one’s career ruined for reasons beyond one’s control.”

  “No one wants to see that happen,” Colin said.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Foster said. “And Lady Emily, don’t be a stranger. I’ll soon be in a better position than ever to help forward your political agenda.”

  Another smile, and he left us.

  “Are you absolutely certain he knew nothing about what Barnes was doing?” I asked.

  “As certain as I need to be,” Colin said.

  “Shouldn’t his possible role in all of it be examined?”

  “It would ruin him, even if in the end he was found innocent.”

  “Don’t you want to know the truth?” I asked. “To be sure? This doesn’t seem right.”

  “I understand how you feel, Emily, I do,” he said. “But there’s nothing more to be done. Take comfort in the fact he’s a decent man and will do good work for the empire. In the end, that’s all that matters.”

  “I don’t agree, Colin.” I crossed my arms. “The means matter just as much.”

  “In this case, we can’t have both,” Colin said. “And I’m willing to accept what’s best for England. You should be, too.”

  38

  “That’s all fine for the lot of you,” Jeremy said. “But I’m never showing my face in public again.” We’d gathered in the library, each of us still reeling from the events of the previous week. “It’s all over and I’ve got not
a single drop of paint to show for it. Not a drop! Meanwhile, our darling Em—my darling Em—is the only one of us to have made the cut. She gets paint.”

  “The paint was for Colin,” I said, centering on the table my favorite Greek vase, its black figures depicting the siege of Troy.

  “Right,” Jeremy said. “Hargreaves, the model of everything good in England, has something to hide? You’ll never convince me it wasn’t meant for you.”

  “This isn’t funny, you know,” Ivy said. “People are dead. And think of all those whose lives have been decimated.”

  “I hate to agree with old Barnes, but you can’t say they didn’t deserve it,” Jeremy said. “It never pays to live badly unless you’re happy for others to know.” He puffed on his cigar and looked contemplative for a moment. “I say, that was a bloody good phrase. You think Oscar Wilde would want it?”

  “You think too highly of yourself, Jeremy,” I said.

  “We shouldn’t be joking about this.” Ivy pressed her pink lips together. Her face was drawn and pale.

  “It’s all over now,” I said. “There’s no more need to worry.”

  Her whole body trembling, she started to cry.

  “Ivy, darling, what is it?” I asked.

  “I can’t live with myself any longer,” she said. “I’ve done something so wretched. Every day has been agony, waiting to see if my secret was the next to be exposed.”

  “You?” Jeremy doubled over, laughing. “Ivy, there’s no one in England—no, the world—less likely to have done something dreadful than you. I’ve seen you remove ants from picnic blankets in lieu of smashing them.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving,” she said, her voice raw.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Barnes has been stopped, and you’ve nothing more to fear.”

  “Nothing but your censure and my husband’s,” she said. “After all these weeks of worrying, I’ve decided I must confess everything. I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. And I certainly couldn’t live through another period terrified of exposure.”

  “There’s no need, Ivy,” Colin said, moving to sit next to her.

  “I must.” She took a deep breath. “I did something terrible when you were all in Vienna and Robert was in Newgate, awaiting trial for murder.”

  “That was a dreadful time, Ivy,” I said. “Anyone might have strayed into morally ambiguous territory. You were afraid your husband was going to be executed.”

  “Very afraid,” she said. “And although I had faith in your skills as an investigator, Emily, I still worried that you might not be able to clear his name. I was frantic. And I couldn’t think of any other way to save him.”

  “We were all frantic,” I said.

  “But I did something immoral,” she said. “I found a man, a poor man. A man with no income, an invalid wife, and more children than he could ever hope to feed. He’d lost his job in some dreadful factory and couldn’t find another that paid enough. So I made an offer to him.”

  We all sat, our stillness almost inhuman. Ivy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Colin handed her a handkerchief.

  “I told him that if he would agree to confess to the murder, I would see to it that his wife received the best medical care money could buy and that I would support his family in a style better than any in which they’d ever lived.”

  “But if he confessed—” I started, but she interrupted.

  “Yes, he would be hanged for the crime,” she said. “But he would die knowing his loved ones would be looked after in a way they couldn’t be if he were alive and trying to care for them.”

  “Oh, Ivy,” I said.

  Tears poured down her face. “I know how awful it was to do,” she said. “I’m ashamed of myself. But I’m not like you, Emily. I’m not strong enough to live without my husband.”

  “Ivy Brandon!” Jeremy rescued us from the heavy silence engulfing the room. “That you, of all people, would make me look a paragon of English goodness.”

  “It’s no joking matter, Jeremy,” she said.

  “No?” he asked. “I seem to remember Emily clearing Robert’s name and your husband being released from jail. Correct?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So, your working-class bloke? Did he ever make his confession?”

  “No.”

  “Which suggests—now, do correct me if I’m wrong for I’ve not Emily’s investigative mind—it suggests he was not, in fact, hanged?”

  “No,” Ivy said.

  “And do tell us, Mrs. Brandon, about the plight of his family today.” Jeremy had never performed with such bravado. “Did you, upon finding you didn’t need them, cut them off from all support?”

  “Heavens, no!” she said. “I’ve looked after them the whole time. They’re happily settled in Newcastle. The children have a governess. Their father has no need for a job.”

  “And the health of the man’s dear wife?” Jeremy asked.

  “She suffers from consumption, but receives the best care possible.”

  Jeremy threw his hands in the air. “Only you, Ivy, could turn a very nearly terrible sin into a great act of charity.”

  “I was going to let the man hang for a crime he didn’t commit,” she said.

  “I don’t believe for one second you would have ever gone through with it,” I said. “Look how tormented you are over just having thought about it. In the end, you wouldn’t have stood by and let it happen.”

  “And furthermore,” Colin said, “the police would require more than a vague confession. This man would never have been able to give them the necessary details to convince them he was responsible for the murder.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “I am,” he said. “And I agree with Emily. You would never have gone through with it.”

  “You don’t all despise me?” she asked, wiping away more tears.

  “Not in the slightest,” I said.

  “You may depend upon our undying friendship forever,” Jeremy said.

  “I don’t deserve you,” she said. “And can only hope Robert takes my confession as well as you all have. But I’m being so selfish and thinking only of myself. What will happen to Winifred?”

  “There won’t be any charges filed against her. Her husband didn’t want the additional embarrassment. Nor did Lady Glover,” Colin said. “Mrs. Harris returned the extortion money, and Lady Glover was given the option to forgive or to face charges of her own for staging the kidnapping.”

  “She made the right choice,” I said.

  “But why did Winifred do it?” Ivy asked.

  “She has secrets of her own that haunt her,” I said. “Her mother eloped with a cad of a man who turned out to be a complete profligate. He abandoned her eighteen months later, after which she took up with someone equally as bad and wound up infected with syphilis. She died trying to give birth to her second child, and lost the baby as well. Winifred, only two years old, was sent to live with relatives. She didn’t find out the truth about her background until she was an adult. At that point, she became obsessed with protecting her secret. She was convinced her husband would leave her if he knew what her mother had been.”

  “I don’t understand how that led to extortion,” Ivy said.

  “She was petrified when the paint started, convinced she’d be next, and as a result, starting keeping careful records about every secret she heard. And she heard quite a lot. She tried to analyze the facts and find anything that might enable her to identify who was spreading the gossip, and the paint. In the end, she found connections of one sort or another between each of the victims and Lady Glover. She came to the conclusion Lady Glover was behind the attacks.”

  “No doubt there were connections because she’s trifled with nearly every husband in London,” Jeremy said.

  “It wasn’t all affairs,” I said. “There were overlapping charities, servants who had worked for both Lady Glover and the victims, all sorts of things. As soon as sh
e found the pictures and then realized that her own husband had become embroiled with Lady Glover, she was terrified she’d be the next whose life would be ruined.”

  “She thought blackmail would keep Lady Glover quiet,” Colin said. “She’d also started writing to Mr. Foster. I thought this might be evidence of them working together, but it turns out she was campaigning to get him to introduce morality bills into Parliament.”

  “Morality bills?” Jeremy asked. “Are such things even possible? If they are, I’m denouncing my citizenship and moving to France.”

  “I wouldn’t be too worried,” Colin said.

  “What about Bucephalus?” Ivy asked. “Who was behind the attempted poisoning?”

  “Barnes,” Colin said. “He thought he’d make a bid to get us off the case, hoping I’d bow out if Emily was upset enough. When she stood firm after that scare, he sent her the note leading her to the body, thinking that might prove distressing enough to put her off.”

  “He did have a flair for drama, didn’t he?” Jeremy asked. “Which I suppose explains his choice of red paint.”

  “Barnes told us he’d made the bottle to help Dillman,” Colin said. “But in fact he left it for Dillman as a warning. He invented the whole story of Dillman coming to him for help. He waited until after he knew Dillman would have found the bottle, but heard nothing about it. No gossip, no rumors. He then realized his technique wasn’t dramatic enough. No one in England knew what it meant. So he switched to paint, which could neither be ignored nor hidden.”

  “He used the deaf factory workers to splash the paint,” I said. “He was confident no one else would be able to decipher their primitive sign language.”

  “And rightly so,” Colin said. “Scotland Yard weren’t able to understand them at all.”

  “Barnes was lucky no one had guards in front of their house waiting to catch the painters,” Jeremy said.

  “Some people tried that,” Colin said. “The vandalism was always done before the first light of dawn. Apparently, at least twice the ill-treated wretches in his employ didn’t leave paint as instructed because they saw signs of being watched.”

  “Which lucky families dodged the attention?” Jeremy asked.