by Megan Chance
The bottle fell from his hands. I saw something come into his eyes—fear, knowledge, something—and he struggled to sit up-right. His voice became sullen. “Peter? I ain’t seen ‘im. Not for weeks. What d’you want to talk to me about ‘im for?”
I knelt on the mattress. The movement sent the smell of musty, mildewed straw and sweat and musk into my nostrils. “Because he saw you the night he died,” I said softly. Tommy’s eyes widened; I had his attention. “And I think you know something of what happened to him.”
Tommy swallowed. “Look, lady, I don’t know why you come ‘ere, but I got nothin’ to say.” He reached blindly for the laudanum. “I didn’t see ‘im.”
“I think you did.”
Tommy looked frightened.
I heard the other boy. “Hey. Hey! What’re you—”
Cullen caught his arm, holding him in place. “Quiet, boy.”
Tommy looked at Cullen and his friend and seemed to blanch. Then he looked back at me. “Listen, I didn’t… I didn’t kill Peter. I swear I didn’t! It was the other one. The one ‘e came for—”
“What other one?” I asked.
“You think ‘e even looked at me twice once ‘e ‘ad ‘im? We got into a fight, ‘ey—but it weren’t nothin’! I swear I didn’t kill ‘im!”
I leaned closer. The smell of laudanum that came from his breath was almost dizzying. “Think, Tommy. Tell me what happened. What night was it?”
He grappled for the bottle. I grabbed it first and held it away. “Tell me. What night?”
“Right before the storm. It was cold. I remember that.”
“You were at the club?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. Peter was supposed to meet me there, but ‘e never showed up, so I came over ‘ere to get somethin’ to eat and a drop.” He pushed his hand through his greasy hair. “I was gettin’ mad, you know? ‘E was supposed to be there.”
“What happened?”
“After a bit, ‘e showed up. But ‘e didn’t want me. ‘E was lookin’ for his new love.”
“He wasn’t that new,” said the other boy.
“’E was goin’ to leave ‘im too.”
“Not to come back to you, though.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Cullen, who gripped the boy’s arm tighter and said, “Quiet, you.”
I looked back at Tommy. “Who was Peter going to leave?”
“Benny. They was arguin’ about some new fella. Petey was in love.” Tommy snorted. “Left me for Benny, so I knew ‘e’d leave ‘im too when ‘e found somethin’ new. Told Ben that too, but ‘e didn’t want to ‘ear it, you know?”
Benny. The same name Willie Chesney, his assistant, had used for him.
“Benny,” I said hoarsely. “Benjamin Rampling?”
“Was that ‘is name?”
“Dark hair? Bearded?”
“Yeah. ‘E was Petey’s law partner. So ‘e said. I never believed ‘im none.”
A wave of nausea swept me. “Who were they arguing over?”
“Don’t know. Never saw ‘im. Someone Petey was seein’ at one of ‘is fancy ‘ouses. ‘E was moony for ‘im. Some spirit rapper.” Tommy laughed drunkenly. “’E believed that shit, you know?”
“What happened?”
“Ben was downstairs, whinin’ about another fight they ‘ad about that rapper. I was ‘appy they was fightin’—I thought maybe when Pete came down I’d get lucky. But ‘e was madder ‘an ‘ell when ‘e found Ben, and ‘e didn’t want me at all. I could just fuck myself and get lost.”
“He was a bastard, Tommy,” said the other boy.
Tommy looked at him as if he’d forgotten he was there. Then his green eyes filled with tears, which he dashed away angrily with the back of his hand. “Give me that bottle, will ya?”
I held it away. “What happened, Tommy?”
He seemed to melt against the wall. His eyes closed and his shoulders sagged; he fell to one arm. “The fight got rough. Matt told ‘em to leave. ‘E don’t allow that shit. But then they was out in the street fightin’, and I followed ‘em. I thought maybe Benny’d go off pissed and I’d be there, you know. But Benny was mad as I’ve ever seen ‘im. ‘E kept sayin’: ‘You was supposed to ‘elp me ruin ‘im, not fall in love with ‘im!’ and grabbin’ Pete’s arm, and Petey kept jerkin’ away and sayin’ at least he never tried to kill nobody, an’ ‘e was goin’ to the coppers.”
I was gripping the laudanum bottle so tightly that my knuckles were white. “Then what?”
“Petey went runnin’ off. Ben chased ‘im. Looked to get nasty, and I’d lost my taste for it. I never liked Benny much. ‘Ad a temper, that one, and I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. I figured if Petey wanted me, ‘e knew where I was. But ‘e didn’t come back.” Tommy’s voice went soft and plaintive. “I loved ‘im, you know? I would’ve taken ‘im back.” His voice broke. “I would’ve.”
I sat back on my heels. “Did you tell the police any of this?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Who would believe me? ‘E was an Atherton, for Christ’s sake. But if I ‘ad to guess, it was Benny who did ‘im. I’d lay money on it. ‘E was jealous as I’d ever seen ‘im. You want to find the one who killed Peter, lady, you find ‘im.”
30
__
THROUGH FRESH EYES
I understood now what Dorothy had known about Peter’s life, the secret he had kept from me, from all of society. I understood why she had not dared to voice it, even to me. Such things were not talked about. They were barely acknowledged to be true. Peter’s life had been a counterfeit, and I was part of it—I was the illusion.
It made me sad to think he had not trusted me with his secret, that he had allowed me to believe I was the one at fault in our marriage, but that sadness was overshadowed by the truth of his death, by the impossible news that Benjamin Rampling had been my husband’s lover. And I knew now that Benjamin had killed both Peter and Adele, and that I had played into his hands. I felt sick at the extent of his betrayal, at how naive I’d been to trust him so completely. I had thought he’d made such a valiant sacrifice in choosing to defend me against the murder charge, and now I wondered: what had he meant to accomplish? Had he meant only to keep the investigation from turning to him? Had he meant truly to save me? Or was it all a lie—were all his machinations intended only to serve his vengeance against Michel? I could not believe he would have let me hang, but what had he said to me once? That I trusted too easily. I thought he’d been referring to Irene Cushing then, but now I realized he could have been talking about himself. Nothing had been as I’d thought it was.
Now it all came down to the fact that I must somehow find a way to use this information to save myself, and I knew I couldn’t simply go to the police. It would have been one thing if Peter had talked to them, as Tommy claimed he’d intended to do. They would have listened to him. But they would not believe me, and even if they did, they would never proceed with such scandalous information—not when it involved such a prestigious Knicker-bocker. I would be ignored and scorned. I was a nobody. I was on my own once again.
“I’m falling in love with you, Evie.”
Or perhaps I was not on my own anymore.
When Cullen dropped me at the Bennett door, I told him, “Thank you. I may need you again, you know, to talk to the police on my behalf.”
“I know, ma’am,” he said. “Kitty knows how to find me.”
He waited there on the walk to see me inside safely. When I reached the front door, it opened before I touched the handle. Lambert stepped back to let me come inside.
“We’ve been looking for you, ma’am,” he said.
Standing behind him in the hallway was Michel.
I had never seen him look so angry. As Lambert closed the door behind me, Michel said tightly, “Might I see you in the parlor, Madame?”
Lambert took my cloak and my hat. Slowly, I pulled off my gloves and handed them to him. I felt the rise of Michel’s temper as I tarried, but he kept it i
n check, waiting stiffly as I preceded him into the parlor. Once we were inside, he closed the door.
He waited barely a moment before he exploded, “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours.”
The evening caught up with me at last. I sank onto the settee. “I was out.”
“Another errand? Who was that man in the yard?”
“It was Cullen.”
“Cullen?”
“Peter’s driver.”
The confusion on his face was comical. “Peter’s driver? You’re sneaking out to meet a driver?”
“You mustn’t be so jealous if we’re to work together. I dislike men with tempers.”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t provoke them,” he said, and then he froze as he comprehended my words. “What’s going on, Evie?”
I hesitated. I had no idea where to begin. Finally I just plunged in. “Were you my husband’s lover?”
“What?” He stared at me in shock, and then he laughed. When I didn’t laugh with him, he said, “Non—Evie, how can you even think it?”
“Did you know he was… that he liked…”
I felt him measuring his words. “I didn’t know for sure. I suspected.”
“I think he was in love with you.”
“Ah.” He looked wary. “Perhaps. I preferred to think of it as gratitude.”
“Do you remember that cuff link in your room? The opal you said you didn’t recognize?”
“What of it?”
“It was Peter’s.”
“Peter’s?”
“And I imagine somewhere in your room we’ll find his gun as well.”
“Mon dieu, how many times must I say it before you believe me? I didn’t kill your wretched husband—”
“I know.”
He looked stunned. “You know?” Then, “Where did you go tonight?”
“To a little café on Chatham Street, where I met a charming boy by the name of Tommy Miller.”
Michel went to the decanters on the sideboard and splashed a large amount of brandy into a glass. It was a measure of his discomposure that he offered nothing to me but only took a great gulp before he said, “Perhaps you should explain.”
So I did. I told him of my visit to the newspaper office, and my discovery that Benjamin had been Adele’s husband, and that she’d been found murdered in the same way Peter had been. I told him of finding Cullen and of my conversation with Tommy, and when I was finished, Michel sat next to me, leaning his head against the hard carved edge of the back, gimbeling his drink in his hand.
“I never knew,” he said. “Her name was Rampling?”
“I’m disappointed at the spottiness of your research.”
“I didn’t research her. There was nothing I wanted from her but—” He broke off with a quick glance to me.
“Was it worth it, then?” I asked. “Knowing what you did to Benjamin? How much he hates you?”
“He doesn’t hate me for her. It’s Peter he hates me for.”
“How it must have rankled him. Losing his wife to you, and then Peter too.”
“And now you,” Michel said quietly. When I looked at him, he was staring down into his glass. “Does he know, chère?”
I shivered. “I don’t think so.”
“Because once he finds out, you’re in danger.”
“He used me,” I said bitterly. “All this time, I thought we were friends—more than that. I thought he was trying to help me. I thought he even—” The words were a lump in my throat; I could not say them.
“Perhaps he did you a favor, eh?” Michel took another sip; his gaze met mine over the edge of his glass. “You don’t belong in that life, chère. You know it. Rampling only provided the way to see it.”
“He must have put the cuff link in your room himself. During one of the circles, I suppose. It would have been easy enough to slip away. He’s been asking me to look for Peter’s gun.”
“Then suppose we find it.” Michel rose. He put his glass on a nearby table and offered his hand to help me to my feet, and together we went to his room.
Once we were there, he lit the gas and turned to survey the room critically. “He wouldn’t have had much time to hide it. And he would’ve been sure to put it where he thought you’d find it.”
I tried to look at the room through fresh eyes. The cuff link had been in the box on the desk, and I had searched the rest of the desk well for the key to the drawers.
“He was always saying how clever you were,” I remembered. “He would have hidden it where I wouldn’t have questioned that.”
“Somewhere clever. Somewhere quick. Somewhere you would find it. Not much to consider, eh?”
“Where would you have hidden a gun?” I asked him.
“That doesn’t signify. I wasn’t meant to find it, chère—you were. The question is: where would you look?”
“In the armoire,” I suggested. “Perhaps in a boot.”
“That I might wear?” He lifted a brow. “Non.”
“Then in the drawer beneath.”
“Among my inexpressibles—oui, that is exactly where Rampling wants you, isn’t it?”
“I’ve been through the desk already. It isn’t there.”
“Or in the bed stand drawer,” he said dryly.
I glanced about the room. The mirror, the shaving strop, the basin. There was a side table upon which was a pile of books. No place there to hide a gun. On the back of the door hung Michel’s dressing gown and nothing else. The fireplace mantel was empty but for more books and a china urn. I went to it and picked it up, turning it over. Nothing but dust and a spider fell out.
“Ah, you insult me, chère,” Michel said, his voice deep with amusement. “How clever is that?”
The chairs before the fireplace were richly upholstered, but the cushions were not deep enough to slip a gun between. The drapes were opened and closed every day—a gun would have been quickly discovered. There was no place else. No place except the bed.
It was fashioned of richly carved rosewood, with decorative panels set into the headboard, inlaid with ivory to match the desk. I flushed at the sudden memory that came to me, of pressing my hands against them as Michel—
I shook the thought away and sat down upon the bed, running my fingers over the headboard. The inlaid pieces were firmly set, not drawers as I’d thought they might be, but as I sat, the mattress eased away from the headboard, leaving a space between them.
I hesitated. The space between was just big enough, wasn’t it? I reached into it, feeling along the planks of the bed stand beneath, along the edge of the mattress and just under the head-board, feeling for something that didn’t belong there.
He must have just let it fall. There’d been no attempt to shove it beneath the mattress, to conceal it well. Had I not known, I would have thought Michel ingenious for choosing such a hiding spot—no one would have found this gun without having been in the bed—
And there the slyness of what Benjamin had done struck me.
I pulled the gun loose. Peter’s gun, certainly. I had seen it enough to know. A small, short nose. A burled handle with his initials in gold. PMA. Peter Martin Atherton. I dropped it onto the coverlet, where it shone in the gaslight.
“Did you say he knew nothing about us?” Michel asked.
I looked up at him. “He must have suspected.”
“And when you found the gun, he would’ve known for certain.”
“He warned that you would seduce me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him you’d tried. It seemed best not to lie. It wasn’t in your nature not to.”
His smile was wry. “I don’t seduce everyone, you know.”
“It was what he told me. I believed him. I believed everything he said about you. It never occurred to me to think differently. And you must admit you did nothing to convince me otherwise.”
He sat beside me and brushed a loose hair from my face. “I was overcome. And bedev
iled. From the first moment.”
I glanced at the gun. “What should we do with it?”
“Contact the police,” he said. “Your watchman’s outside. I can call him—”
I grabbed his arm to keep him from rising. “No. What would we tell him? That we found Peter’s gun in your room? That we have the cuff link that was on him when he died? Who will they believe? You and me? Or Ben, when he says he knows nothing about it?”
He was quiet for a moment. Then thoughtfully, he said, “Oui—of course. There’s a better way. Don’t you know it?”
And suddenly, I did. “The circle.”
Michel smiled. “The circle.”
THAT NIGHT, I lay in his arms while we went over our plans.
“You can imagine her life,” he told me, stroking my arm as he talked. “It was very like yours. It’s why her spirit has an affinity for you. Her husband was distant; she was unhappy. She put her energies into her child, and when the boy died, she had nothing. She took to berating Rampling—she had a vicious tongue, that one, eh? He didn’t satisfy her, and she let him know it. Mon dieu, how she must’ve tormented him before she left.”
“So she ran off and fell into spiritualism—or mediumship, anyway. And then she met you.”
“She was dead from that moment.”
“Don’t joke. It was true.”
“I’m not joking,” he said softly.
“She left her things because she was certain you would call her back.”
“She returned to Rampling.”
“Where else was she to go? She had nothing. I think…” I hesitated, sorting it in my mind for a moment before I went on. “I think she thought to make you jealous by returning to her husband. But she was in love with you, and she felt nothing but contempt for him, and she couldn’t pretend otherwise.”
“She was never good at pretending.”
“And then he killed her. It’s such a sad story. If she tormented him so, why couldn’t he just let her go?”
His fingers drew lazy circles over my skin. “Ah, who knows? Perhaps it hurt his pride to lose her to another man.”
“He knew you,” I said, remembering how adamant Ben had been that Michel was a charlatan. “He’d told me you’d been run out of New Orleans. That you seduced a maid into pretending to be a spirit.”