by Blythe Baker
“Nearly finished?” I asked, stepping forward, eyes trained on the still unburnt stack of papers Albion had in his lap. What information did they still hold? “How many more men are going to die?”
“Perhaps, it is better this way,” Albion mused as though I hadn’t spoken. “It will be nice to have a witness to my death. Someone who can tell the world what happened. And why. A witness does a great deal to spread a story.”
“I’m not spreading anything for you,” I said, my lip curling back. “When you die, I will not utter your name again. You could have been mourned, but your actions are unforgivable. You are no longer worthy of remembering.”
Albion looked up at me and smiled. “I truly do admire your tenacity, Rose Beckingham. So much so that I almost regret I will not live long enough to rescind the order for your death.”
My heart clenched in my chest, and my entire body went still. I knew I was in danger, but to hear it confirmed sent a chill through me. “How have you justified my death? I played no part in handing out punishment after the war. I was little more than a child.”
“You killed my men,” he said simply. “Two of them. And while it was an impressive feat, I have to admit it inconvenienced me. I considered letting you live, but then you came to New York, and I became uncomfortable with how close you came to me. Your second night in the city, you ended up in my home. I could hardly believe it was a coincidence.”
“You do not have to do this,” I pled. “Write a letter. Sign something. Retract the order.”
Albion shook his head. “It is too late. My assassin is already in position. In fact, he might have already struck.”
I pulled my brows together, wondering if Albion wasn’t losing his clarity as the poison coursed through him. “I’m standing here in front of you. You know I have not been killed yet.”
His lips lifted in a smile of pure, sinister amusement. “I was not referring to you, dear. I issued the order for your death in conjunction with another. That of Charles Cresswell. The assassin will be at his house now.”
Wet coughs ripped through Albion’s chest and this time I saw the blood splatter across the pages on his desk. He tried to catch his breath, but the coughs were coming too fast. When he inhaled, the breaths were shallow, and I could see the skin around his lips turning purple. Albion Rooker was dying.
“Who is the assassin?” I asked, moving around the desk and taking the papers from Albion’s lap. He didn’t resist or fight as I took them. He just coughed and stared at me. I shuffled through the pages, but there was no list of assassins like the list of targets. Just information on the targets—names, addresses, family members, places they frequented.
“You will not find anything there,” Albion wheezed. When I met his eyes, he tipped his head towards the fireplace and the small pile of ash sitting in the bottom. “I burned it.”
The page he’d selected out and burned had been the list of assassins. Albion had confessed to me, but he still had one more secret he wasn’t ready to reveal.
Another violent coughing fit claimed his attention, and I no longer cared to stay and talk. Albion Rooker would be dead in a few minutes, but if I was not quick, so might Charles Cresswell.
As I ran from the room, Albion’s coughing ceased and was immediately replaced by choking, clawing gasps for air. I heard a large thud like something slamming into the floor, and I thought it might be Albion falling from his chair, but then I closed his front door behind me and ran down the path, leaving him to die alone.
17
Pre-dawn had given way to the sunrise since I’d been in Albion’s home, and there were considerably more people on the streets than there had been before. People watched and remarked on my odd behavior as I ran from Albion’s home and down the street, but I didn’t have time to concern myself with their opinions.
I paused just long enough to grab the arm of a passerby. I said that someone was dead or dying in the house behind me, and although I was privately certain the time for medical care was past, I suggested they send for a doctor.
Then, I rushed on without delay. If Albion had been telling the truth, Charles Cresswell was in imminent danger.
I did not allow myself to consider the possibility that I would be too late and Charles was already dead. Charles knew he was being targeted, so perhaps he had been able to overwhelm his attacker the way I had Mr. Barlow in Simla. Or perhaps, he was fighting off his attacker now, and my arrival would provide an upper hand. I lowered my head and ran faster.
The house, in a similarly nice area, though closer to the street than both Aunt Sarah’s and Albion’s, was dark. All the curtains were pulled closed and the movement happening on the street as people readied for the start of the day had not yet reached Charles’ home. I mounted the stairs and pushed the door open without knocking. Was the fact it was unlocked a sign that I was not the first to arrive?
The house was eerily quiet and nothing like the warm, bright home I’d been in the night before. Just like Albion’s, I couldn’t hear even a whisper of movement in the entire house, and I did not call out. If possible, I wanted my presence in the home to go unnoticed. Even if Charles had already been killed, the assassin could still be in the house, and I wanted to have surprise on my side.
The doors to the sitting room on the right and dining room on the left were both pulled close, offering no hint of what lay inside the house. So it was that when I unlatched the French door into the dining room and pulled it open, I gasped at the sight beyond it.
Bodies. A servant girl was lying across the arm of a sturdy wooden chair, her thin brown hair covering her face. Another woman had collapsed in the middle of the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, the swinging door held open against her hip.
I stumbled from the room in surprise, laying a hand over my furiously beating heart. I took several deep breaths before moving into the room again. If the servants were dead and the house quiet, there was little hope for Charles’ survival, I knew that. But as I walked towards the woman on the floor, I noticed the movement of her chest. Then, I realized there was no blood. I knelt down next to her and laid a hand on her chest. Her heart rate was strong and steady, her chest rising and falling as though asleep rather than dead. I scrambled to the girl lying across the dining chairs and realized she, too, was alive and well. Whatever they had been given had simply made them unconscious.
When I walked into the kitchen, I found another unconscious body. This woman was lying next to a half-eaten pastry, her fingers loosely wrapped around the treat. That was when I noticed a basket of pastries on the countertop. Without touching anything, I examined the basket and found a note attached to the handle. I appreciate all you do for my future husband, and will strive to be a good mistress when I join the household. Enjoy these pastries as a sign of my gratitude.
The handwriting was looping and fanciful, but although it was signed Lady Catherine, it was nothing like my cousin’s neat, regimented script. The note was a fabrication, and I suspected the pastries—or rather, what had been baked into them—were what caused the servants to collapse. I slipped the blade from beneath my cardigan and gripped it in my sweaty palm. It was possible I was too late and the servants would awaken to realize that, while they had been unconscious, their employer had been murdered. But until I knew for certain who was in the house and who was alive, I would take precautions. I proceeded blade first from the kitchen and down the servant’s hallway towards the rest of the house.
The main floor living areas were empty. I did not see or hear anyone—unconscious, dead, or otherwise. So, carefully, I moved up the central staircase to the second floor. One servant was sprawled across the landing. He was still breathing, though I noted a large bruise forming above his eye. Apparently, he had not eaten the pastries as the other servants had, and the bruise proved that the assassin had already been in the house. Or was still. I took a quiet, calming breath and continued on.
The first room to the right was a private sitting roo
m that was, thankfully, empty, and I moved quickly through it and through the second set of doors that led into the library. The library had a door out to the landing or a second set of doors that led into an office. I could hardly stop spinning in circles, doing my best to cover every entrance and exit in the rooms. There were many places to hide, and I felt woefully unprepared to monitor all of them.
Charles’ office, in direct opposition to Albion Rooker’s, was orderly and clean. The desk was bare save for a lamp, a fountain pen, and a few decorative pieces that seemed to be awards Charles had accrued throughout his career. I moved around the desk to check beneath it, ensuring Charles was not slumped on the floor, and when I found the chair and floor clear, I loosed a sigh of relief.
Clearly, Albion’s assassin had attempted to end Charles’ life, but for reasons I did not know, Charles was not home. Perhaps, the assassin left to try again another day, giving me time to warn Charles, convince the police of Albion Rooker’s crimes, and put an end to the long chain of deaths that had for so long ruled my life.
I had almost convinced myself that this convenient outcome was not only likely, but probable, when I heard a single footstep in the hallway.
The sound stopped my heart, and I spun towards the door, blade extended. My entire body trembled with fear and anticipation, so much so that it took me a moment to register the familiarity of the sound.
The footstep had not been a simple creak of the floorboards, but rather a sharp tap similar to dance shoes. It was a noise I’d heard before. The night before, actually.
I shook my head, already trying to stave off the realization I was coming to. It could not be true. I did not want it to be true. And yet, I could not deny my own instincts.
“Graham?” I called, my voice wavering with a deep, yearning hope that I was wrong. “Graham, is that you?”
The question was met with silence for several long seconds until the door handle turned with a squeak. And Graham stepped into the office.
18
“Hello, Rose.”
I had not seen him since his proposal the night before, and when I’d closed the door between us, he had looked crestfallen and disappointed. But now, Graham’s face was split into a cold smile, and his voice was devoid of emotion. He looked and sounded so differently from the kind man I had come to know, that I almost couldn’t believe him to be the man I’d met in Simla and crossed the ocean with.
“What are you doing here, Graham?” I asked in hope that his answer would explain everything away. That he would have a good excuse, and our friendship could continue on as expected. However, I knew it would not be so.
As I stood there behind the desk, looking at the man I had come to call a friend, I knew it had all been a lie.
Suddenly, Graham’s desire to be close to me, both in Simla and New York, made sense. He had attached himself to me at once and assisted me in my investigation without any questions. At the time, I had attributed it to his affection for me, but now I could see that it was a sense of duty that kept him close to me rather than attraction. That he did not find my requests odd—such as bringing him a curved assassin blade I’d discovered—because it was his role to stay close to me. To monitor my investigation as it progressed.
And then, the night I’d killed Mr. Barlow, I’d gone to the ruins expecting to see Graham waiting for me in his stead. I’d predicted Graham as the assassin, but when I saw Mr. Barlow, I’d assumed I was wrong. It never crossed my mind that there could have been two assassins in the same location.
“I can see in your face that you know the answer,” Graham said, his anger thinly veiled. Malice seemed to roll off of him in waves, and I wondered how he had managed to keep it so well contained beneath his friendly façade.
I wanted to cry. And be sick. I was disgusted with myself that not only had I not suspected Graham, I had entertained the idea of marrying him. How could I have been such a fool? Achilles Prideaux had warned me against Graham. He had told me that Graham’s attachment to me was unusual, but I had counted his suspicions as jealousy. Just as I had attributed Graham’s strange behavior to his affection for me, I thought Achilles must be so in love with me that it clouded his judgment. When had I become so vain?
“You are an assassin,” I stammered, holding the blade steady in front of me. I would not lower it until the fight was over. Until one of us had stopped breathing. Graham had fooled me long enough, and I would not allow it again.
Graham nodded and grinned. “Are you surprised?”
I had to look away. The smile was evil, and yet, too similar to the smile of my friend for me to stomach. It felt as though he was killing the Graham I’d thought I’d known. It felt as though I was mourning a man who had never existed.
“You knew who I was when we met.”
He nodded again. “I received word you were to arrive in Simla with the Hutchins’, and I made the appropriate connections so we would meet. I must admit, though, I did not expect to earn your trust so easily.”
It felt like a slap to the face. Another proof of my incompetence. How could I have been so blind?
“Mr. Barlow was tasked with killing Mr. Hutchins and I was tasked with monitoring you, so our work had a great deal of overlap. He was a great help to me. Until you killed him.”
“Before he could kill me,” I said, embarrassment and shame turning into anger sharp as a knife. I gripped my blade. “If I was your target, why would Mr. Barlow kill me?”
Graham rolled his eyes. “He was also the man who threw a bomb in the middle of the Simla square. Subtlety did not suit him. Despite my assurances otherwise, he became convinced you were on to him, and he needed to take you out to protect his position. I only followed along to be sure he wouldn’t share my secrets and then leave you alive.”
I remembered Graham showing up the night I fought Mr. Barlow amidst the ruins. He’d shown up at the end of the fight, distracting me in the final moments of the battle when Mr. Barlow was closing in. Seeing him had given me comfort at the time. It spurred me on to fight harder, ultimately killing Mr. Barlow. Now, I realized, I had been in more danger than ever. If Mr. Barlow had accidentally let slip Graham’s true role, Graham likely would have killed me.
“Mr. Barlow had been in the game too long,” Graham said, shaking his head and taking a step towards me. I raised my blade and twisted it towards his heart. He raised an eyebrow, but stopped moving. “Mr. Barlow was suspicious and reckless. He allowed himself to be seen by the locals, and if it had not been you, someone else would have defeated him. He thought too highly of himself and underestimated you. I will not make the same mistake.”
“Why wait to kill me?” I asked, side-stepping to the corner of the desk, giving myself more options of escape when Graham grew tired of talk. “We were on the ship to New York together. We’ve been alone many times since then. Last night, even. Why now?”
“Mr. Barlow’s lack of subtlety in killing your father had lasting repercussions,” he said coolly. “The police in Simla still believe the attack to have been committed by a local extremist. However, if Mr. Beckingham’s daughter turns up dead by suspicious means only a few months after the death of her entire family, people may begin to have doubts.”
“So, you were waiting for the right time,” I said, remembering Graham’s proposal the night before. He had poured his heart out to me, confessing his love and desire to be with me. It had seemed so genuine. I did not for a single second doubt his sincerity. The memory of it sent a shiver through me. “Would the right time have been after we were married?”
Graham’s smile flattened. “I must admit your hesitation surprised me. I expected you to accept my offer.”
“Perhaps you are not as smart as you think.” I would never admit that I had considered it. That, given more time to think, I may have accepted his offer.
Graham ignored me and continued. “When you made a covert visit to Charles’ home last night and then did not respond to my proposal of marriage, Albion decided it was tim
e to act. The risk of you uncovering the truth and revealing everything before he was ready was greater than the risk that your death would bring unwanted attention to the Beckingham bombing case. If you had simply accepted my offer, we could be with your family now celebrating the good news rather than here with a knife between us.”
He said it as if I was supposed to have regrets. As if I was supposed to want that scenario instead of the current reality. But how could I want that? It would have been a lie. A temporary happiness until Graham found the right time to end my life and remove me as a threat. The romantic attention and proposal had all been meant as a distraction, and I was lucky to be able to say that it had not worked. Rather than dwell on my feelings for Graham, I left and got a confession from Albion Rooker before his death. I would much rather know the truth and be in danger than be unaware of the threat around me.
“But instead,” he continued. “I was ordered to kill Charles, and then you. I never believed I’d be so lucky as to kill you both at the same time, however. The servants will be unconscious for several more hours, which should be enough time for Charles to return from wherever he has been.”
“I did not love you,” I said suddenly, as though it had any power to hurt him. Really, it was my own kind of distraction. I sensed our conversation was coming to an end, and I needed to get closer to the door to the hallway. Graham was standing in front of the double doors that led into the library, but if I could draw him closer to the desk, I could escape into the hallway, down the stairs, and out the front door before he could attack me. It was my only chance at survival.
“Even if I had accepted your proposal,” I said, “it never would have been for love. Your Lieutenant façade was dull, and now that I see the man who lies beneath it, I’m even less impressed.”
Graham bit his lower lip, and his nostrils flared. Clearly, even though it had all been a lie, he was vainer than he let on. “You seemed to enjoy my company enough.”