Out of the Darkness
Diana Crawford and Rachel Druten
Copyright
© 1999 by Barbour Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Truly Yours, PO Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683.
All of the characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
one
Johannesburg, South Africa
January 1905
Colin Reed felt his friend’s hand on his shoulder.
“What are you grinning at?” Henry asked.
“A woman.”
“That good, huh?” Henry Harcourt leaned forward, squinting out the third-story window as if he, too, could see what Colin spied through the telescope.
Colin’s smile broadened. He glanced up at his always enthusiastic, ever curious chum who’d aimed his new telescope, not toward the stars, but two miles away at the main street of the booming gold rush town. “Actually, I was wondering what your charming wife would say if I brought someone like that to one of her tea parties.”
“Let me see.” Henry nudged Colin aside and put an eye against the finder. Hunched over his latest toy, Henry’s pudgy fingers eagerly twisted the knobs, as if finding the woman were some new and exciting game.
Colin marveled at the short, stout man. It seemed Henry had changed hardly a whit since they roomed together at Oxford University. Even with a wife and two small children, he lived life with the same carefree exuberance. . .a trait that still engaged the more intellectual and competitive Colin. Henry was always good for a laugh—a much-needed tonic now that Colin had been appointed district magistrate to this northern province.
His chest tightened at the thought. Sometimes he wondered if he’d bitten off more than he could chew in this job. Ever since the civil war, there had been such bitterness between the Dutch Boers and the English that maintaining order up here was next to impossible.
He shifted his gaze to the windows along the west wall of Henry’s third-floor sanctuary. Why couldn’t the tranquillity of the rolling hills of the veldt spill over into the rest of Transvaal on this balmy summer’s day?
To make matters worse, he had to deal with the riffraff pouring into Johannesburg from every corner of the world. He pictured the gold fields to the northeast, men crawling over the mutilated land like maggots devouring a decaying carcass, every one of them determined to strike it rich by hook or by crook.
More often by crook, judging from his overcrowded jail.
Henry laughed. “I see your woman! You’re right, ol’ chap. Sylvia would have both our hides if you brought that kind of lady to tea. She’s got more plumage than a peach-faced lovebird.”
“Plumage?” Colin turned back to Henry. “I’d hardly call a gray shirtwaist and skirt plumage. Who are you looking at?”
The shorter man stepped aside and Colin eased his own eye down again to the finder, careful not to move the scope. Even from this distance he could clearly see one of Fourth Street Ryzzi’s brassy-haired women languishing in a doorway while a couple of men haggled over her—none of them in the least concerned that the district courthouse—his courthouse—was just three doors down. “That’s not the woman.”
“Then find me someone else out there worth looking at.”
Colin moved the scope, hoping to catch another glimpse of the little gray wren who’d caught his eye. “Ah, there she is.” He watched her angle across the wide street, weaving between the wagons and street vendors’ carts and a various assortment of ne’er-do-wells loitering in front of the farmers market exchanging bottles—and outrageous lies.
In her path, blacks and coloreds meandered with serpentine grace through the clusters of Europeans, their dusky skin gray with the street’s dust. He saw her give a wide berth to a man lounging in front of the barber shop.
Colin flinched, recognizing the fellow as one he suspected of procuring girls from Russia and New York to service the miners.
And through this milieu marched that small, simply dressed woman. She carried herself stiff as a sergeant-major, her modest bonnet squarely on her head, determination in every stride. There was such honesty in every move. . .and something else. A vulnerability. Perhaps it was the way she clutched her little purse to her breast.
But what was she doing down there alone? Any decent woman would know she shouldn’t be on the streets of Johan-nesburg unescorted.
Yet there she was, so resolute, so focused. . .too focused. “For heaven’s sake, woman, get out of the middle of the street,” Colin said aloud. “That wagon missed her by a whisper.”
“My peach-faced lovebird?” Henry asked, hovering at Colin’s shoulder.
“No. My little gray wren.”
“Let me see this wren of yours.” As soon as Colin stepped back, Henry moved in to take over again. “That plain one? She’ll surely be no competition to the other ladies on the block,” he snorted. “Really, Colin, your taste has certainly deteriorated since our college days. Here, Sylvia has been introducing you to the cream of genteel society, the prettiest young things for miles around—and you’re interested in her?” Henry shook his head.
In truth, Colin was interested. Maybe because she didn’t look like she belonged “on the block,” as Henry put it. Either block. And maybe because there was something familiar about her that intrigued him. But he wasn’t about to admit that to Henry. “I didn’t say I was interested.”
“Well, that’s a relief, because Sylvia’s invited a beauty to tea that you won’t be able to resist.”
“Ah, no. Not again.” A weariness settled over Colin. He raked a hand through his unruly black curls. “You said it would just be the three of us this time.”
“So I did.” Remorse stamped Henry’s freckled face. “It was supposed to be. But then Sylvia’s friend from England suddenly arrived with her father. And well, you know Sylvia, she wanted to be the first to entertain her. Trust me, old man, this time you won’t be disappointed.” He put his eye again to the scope. “She’s absolutely stunning, and a British aristocrat to boot. Certainly not some common little street sparrow.”
Colin groaned. The gold strike had made Henry’s banking family as rich as Eastern potentates. His gaze scanned his friend’s ballroom-size hideaway cluttered with eccentric in-ventions and expensive gadgets. Yet no amount of Henry’s money could purchase what Sylvia coveted most—a place in England’s upper class. Ever since she’d returned home to South Africa after the Boer War, the elegant order of that faraway life was all she’d striven to recreate.
And, more irritating, all she ever talked about.
Which was precisely what Colin had been trying to avoid ever since his forthright mother died and his father had married an older, more accomplished, more sweetly manipulative version of Sylvia.
In these days of a newly united and grandly prosperous South Africa, would nothing more substantive be produced in the way of marriageable maidens than a useless English lady? If that were so, Colin just might become what Sylvia was already calling him—a confirmed bachelor.
He grimaced. Maybe he’d be better off just chucking it all and becoming a professional hunter—live his life in the wilds.
“Why that villain,” Henry murmured. “He just absconded with two live chickens.” He looked up at Colin. “This is a good vantage point for surveillance, old friend. You might just have to deputize me.”
“You’d like that,” Colin muttered, taking th
e toy for himself.
He scanned the street, but didn’t find the thief. And where had his little gray wren gone? Then he found her, striding toward the dry goods store. She looked over her shoulder as a man in an expensively tailored suit approached her. Uh-oh. Colin knew him from the Athletic Club, the solicitor who usually had had one too many.
The man tipped his bowler.
Now she’s in for it. I wouldn’t trust my grandmother within a mile of that lecher.
If the set of her chin was any indication, the girl shared his opinion. . . Ha! She was giving him an earful—feisty little thing. “The scoundrel!” Colin exploded. “He just grabbed her.”
“Who?”
“The girl.”
“Let me see.” Henry tried to regain the telescope, but Colin wasn’t about to relinquish it this time.
The young woman’s gray bonnet sailed through the air, releasing a cascade of auburn curls that blew across her face. She was holding her ground, fighting the man off. She drew back. With all her might, she smacked the lout across his mouth with her purse. Out of her hands it flew, the contents scattering in all directions.
“Why won’t someone help her? My men. Where are my men?”
Colin’s outrage fueled his sense of duty. He thrust aside the telescope and purposefully rose to his full six-feet-three inches. “I have to go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Henry had assumed the telescope again. “She’s two miles away. By the time you arrive it will all be over—atta girl. She just kicked him in the shin.”
“Let me see.” Colin tried to grab the instrument, but Henry wasn’t budging.
“Ah, at last.” Henry began a running discourse as Colin paced. “Johannesburg’s finest has just arrived. Constable Peterson, all decked out in his starched best, brandishing his faithful nightstick.”
“It’s about time.” With some force Colin pushed his friend aside.
“So you like my new toy,” Henry murmured.
Colin didn’t bother to placate him; his attention was riveted on the scene two miles away. “That dunderhead, Peterson. He’s arrested the wrong person. He’s taken the girl into custody.” Colin wheeled away and strode to the double doors. “I must go back to town and straighten this out.”
“Straighten what out?” Henry caught up, grabbing Colin’s arm. “You don’t know what’s been said down there. There’s probably a lot more to it. Besides, you can’t go now.” His voice rose in panic. “Sylvia will kill me—”
“I have to, Henry. It’s my duty.”
Henry was at Colin’s heels as he headed down the stairs. “You know Sylvia’s going to blame me for this. She’ll murder me, and then you’ll really have your hands full.”
“Tell her I’ll return within the hour. Explain the urgency. She’ll understand.”
“What? That you left her party to go chasing after some floozy? I doubt that.”
Colin took the steps two at a time down the sweeping spiral staircase. He crossed the ebony-floored foyer, dodging the marble-maiden fountain and the potted palm. He’d just reached the front door as the bell clanged. Without waiting for the servant, he pulled it open.
He came face to face with an elegant young lady, her afternoon gown such a gossamer shade of green, it looked to have been spun of the sea. From beneath the brim of a flower-bedecked bonnet, an incredible pair of sapphire eyes smiled up into his.
Colin paused, then breathed in the scent of lilacs that wafted on the halo of sunlight surrounding this vision.
two
Mary’s heart pounded. “I didn’t do nothin’,” she railed, struggling to break the viselike grip on her arm. But the ape of a man in the khaki uniform paid her no heed as he dragged her, the innocent victim, up the steps of the Johannesburg police station.
Even back home, in a city huge as New York, nothing like this had ever happened to her. Officer Chancy had been more than just a policeman on the block, he’d been her friend, her protector.
“Why don’t you believe me?” Humiliation coursed through her as she felt the curious glances of passersby. “I didn’t do nothin’—”
“So you say,” the policeman returned, not slowing one whit. “The gentleman says—”
“He’s no gentleman—”
“The gentleman says you were trying to steal his wallet.”
“I wasn’t. That’s not the way it was at all. When I wouldn’t go with him, he grabbed me.”
“Now, missy, I ask you.” The beefy-faced man gave her an insulting smile. “Who would you believe if you was me? An ignorant guttersnipe, or a gentleman—a gentleman,” he repeated, “with a bloody nose.”
“He deserved it!” Even as she trembled with trepidation, Mary’s eyes held righteous indignation. “And if he’s a gentleman, I’m the Queen of England.”
“The Queen of England doesn’t filch wallets.” The officer pushed her through the open doorway. “You foreigners may think anything goes, but filching a gentleman’s wallet is just as much against the law here as anywhere else. At least as long as Constable Peterson’s on the job.”
“Why won’t you believe me?” The more she struggled, the tighter her captor’s grip became. Suddenly, fury at the injustice of it swept away her fear. And her good sense. “Unhand me you—you. . .oaf!!” she sputtered, grappling with renewed vigor.
“Just calm down, missy.” The constable squeezed her arm until she winced. “It’s not going to help your case to resist arrest. I’ll just have to add it to my report.” His unctuous tone echoed through the central hall as he shoved her into an office on their left.
The fair-sized room held six desks, three on either side, facing front. At the struggling pair’s noisy entrance, an officer glanced up briefly, then returned to the newspaper he was reading.
No help from that quarter.
Mary took a deep breath. You’ve been through bad scrapes before, lass. New York with your dad was no stroll in the park. You survived him. You can survive anything.
And she had. With a drunken lout of a father, the responsibility for two younger brothers had fallen to her when their mother died of influenza. Her life had consisted of working at the factory from dawn to dusk, six days a week, then rushing home to get food on the table.
No, indeed, life had been no bed of clover. She’d just have to look at this as another hurdle to overcome.
She’d handle it—and everything else the day had wrought.
She had no choice.
Mary drew herself up to her full five feet three inches and, with a bravado she was far from feeling, looked sternly into her captor’s eyes. “I’ll thank you to unhand me, sir.”
“Well, ain’t we the hoity-toity one, all of a sudden.” A taunting smile played beneath the constable’s mustache as he looked down over his considerable girth. But finally, he did release her and, with mock courtesy, ushered her to a chair angled before a desk in the rear.
Mary sat, her back stiff, her hands clutched tightly in her lap.
Removing his cap, Constable Peterson lowered himself behind a scarred desk. His bulk filled the chair as he rocked back, assessing her through pale, narrowed eyes.
She tightened her lips to keep them from trembling and met his scrutiny with an unflinching gaze. “I’d be obliged if you’d return what belongs to me. Namely, my purse.” She looked down. It lay on the desk where the constable had dropped it, a drawstring pouch that appeared more like a dead bird, lying between them, gray and lifeless.
He covered it with a beefy hand. “It’ll be safe with me, missy,” he informed her as he pulled a form and pen from the middle desk drawer. Elaborately, he dipped the tip into an inkwell and poised it above the sheet before him. “Name?”
“I done nothin’ wrong.” Her voice rang louder than she’d intended, and the officer at the middle desk glanced up. Constable Peterson rolled his eyes and shrugged. Clearly, her name was of little consequence. He wouldn’t believe her anyway.
Beneath her bravado, Mary’s heart sank.
“Address?”
“So you can go and paw through my belongin’s like you did my purse?” She leaned forward. “You can’t do this to me. I have my rights. I’m an American citizen.”
“So you are, missy, so you are.” A cold, cunning smile pierced the officer’s eyes. “And no doubt one of Ryzzi Kryzika’s loveliest. Brought all the way from New York to entertain the miners.”
Horrified, Mary drew herself upright. “I ain’t no such thing. I may have been on the same ship as him, but I ain’t one of his girls, that’s for sure. He’s my husband’s. . .acquaintance. Just an acquaintance. Nothin’ more than that!”
“You have a husband?” The constable’s bushy eyebrows lifted.
Mary nodded, hope springing into her heart.
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“You didn’t give me no chance,” she answered, emboldened by his reaction.
“What kind of husband would allow a decent woman to go out alone on the streets of Johannesburg?” His eyes narrowed once more. “You sure your husband’s connection to Fourth Street Ryzzi isn’t business?”
Mary’s heart faltered, but righteous indignation lifted her chin again. “How dare you—”
“Very well. Where can we find him?”
“His name’s Ed McKenzie. But—” Mary’s voice lost power. “I don’t know where he’s at.”
“Uh-huh.” Not even bothering to look at her, the man sent a line through something on the form. Everything about him bespoke his disbelief.
“He heard about a new strike in the north. . .yesterday.” It sounded false even to her.
“Inconvenient for you,” Constable Peterson murmured, filling out more spaces on the page.
Oh, how Mary wished she could read so she’d know what he was writing.
“Ed left a note.” A note she’d had to rely on the desk clerk to read to her. “It said Mr. Kryzika had offered to look after me. Ed didn’t know he was a vile peddler of flesh. He wouldn’t have left me here if he had.” She heard her voice rise again in desperation.
Out Of The Darkness Page 1