Comfort and Joy

by Sandra Madden

  With his shrewd eyes narrowed on her, Edgar Dines stroked his mustache. “You haven’t been in my gallery before.”

  “Oh, but I have.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Maeve O’Malley.”

  At that moment, Bill “Spit” O’Brien pulled aside the curtain separating the gallery from what appeared to be a back room. “Ain’t ye Shea O’Malley’s sister?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.” Maeve’s pulse raced erratically. Her stomach spun ‘round like a carousel.

  Spit grunted. “I seen you at the hall.”

  She forced a bright, warm smile. “And I’ve seen you.”

  O’Brien kept his squinty eyes on her as he ambled to Edgar Dines’s side. “She’s the interferin’ lass who pulled Rycroft from the alley.”

  Maeve whirled on her heel and marched toward the door. “I’ll come back another day.”

  But the big boxer beat her to it.

  Edgar Dines locked the door.

  She hadn’t counted on this.

  “Take her into the back room and tie her up,” Dines snapped at O’Brien.

  O’Brien spit toward a corner brass spittoon and grabbed her arm.

  “Why would you want to tie me up?” Maeve asked in a trembling voice. “I’ll just come back another day.”

  “You think I have Rycroft’s sketch, don’t you?” Dines demanded.

  She blinked. “What sketch?”

  The skinny, bespectacled leprechaun stepped up to her until he was within inches of her face. “Did Rycroft send you?”

  His sour breath smelled of onion. “No. No, he doesn’t know I’m here.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Maeve knew she’d said the wrong thing.

  “Take her to the back.”

  Maeve dug in her heels but O’Brien put his big hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming and easily yanked her back through the black curtain.

  She found herself in a small, cold room. The fire in the wood-burning stove was close to dying. And maybe she was as well. A deep, hard shudder rocked her body as the fighter tied her to a straight-backed chair.

  “Please let me go. I won’t say a thing. And you know,” she lowered her voice to an ominous pitch. “If I am harmed in any way my brother will certainly kill you.”

  Apparently O’Brien did not fear Shea. He simply grunted as he tied a red wool scarf around her head and tightly against Maeve’s mouth. She gagged. Standing back to check his work, O’Brien gave an abrupt nod and strode out of the room.

  Maeve looked around her. The fire would soon go out and only drops remained in the kerosene lantern. Soon she would be alone in pitch blackness, the prisoner of two ruthless men.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charles took the stairs two by two. He could swim the Atlantic, sail round the world single-handedly, run to Stockbridge and back. Filled to overflowing with a sense of liberation, Charles burst into Maeve’s rooms without bothering to knock. Alone at last with his Irish bride! Alive with anticipation, his heart fairly sang.

  “Maeve?” She was not in the sitting room. “Maeve?”

  Nor did he find her in the bedroom.

  His exuberance burst like a bubble pricked by a pin.

  He ran downstairs. “Dolly, where’s Maeve?”

  The ruddy-faced housekeeper offered a hapless twist of her lips and shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t say, Mr. Rycroft. She left the house shortly after your mother and Miss Hampton departed this morning.”

  Charles glanced at his pocket watch and then to the window. It would soon be dark. The lamplighters were already at work. Maeve did not stay out after dark. He knew she would be home soon.

  “I’ll be in my study,” he told Dolly.

  Disappointed and somewhat disgruntled, Charles poured a brandy, lit a cigar, and settled in his favorite wing-back chair to read a long-neglected manuscript. He’d been spending more time with Maeve and very little time attending to business.

  Although he could not have imagined feeling fortunate to have Martin heavily involved in the publishing company, he did. While they didn’t always agree, they had reached a meeting of minds and forged a foundation that promised success.

  It seemed eerily quiet in the house with all of the women gone. Charles found the silence discomfiting. Yet he had enjoyed the very same solitude, or thought he had, until Maeve came into his life. The little bit of Irish heaven had been followed quickly by the arrival of his mother, Stella Hampton, and her snarly pet. His big brownstone had suddenly seemed smaller and indisputably noisier. But this was no time for reflection, he had a manuscript to read.

  Some thirty minutes later, sorely pressed to concentrate on his work, the sound of the door knocker brought Charles to his feet. Maeve!

  But why would she be knocking?

  He sat down again.

  Less than a minute later came a soft rap on his study door.

  “Yes?”

  Charles’s butler opened the door. “There is a Mr. Lynch to see you, sir. Do you wish to speak with him?”

  Charles tossed the manuscript aside. “By all means.”

  Other than Maeve coming home, the only news that could possibly give him any solace would be word of his stolen sketch.

  “Mr. Rycroft.”

  He rose to greet the intense, ever-frowning private investigator. “Mr. Lynch, have you news?”

  “Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. I’ve been working long and hard on this case.” He paused to scratch his rather billowy, untrimmed side whiskers. “My original suspicions have been recently confirmed. Confirmed.”

  “How is that?”

  “I have been shadowing Maeve O’Malley.”

  “You’ve been following my wife?”

  There! He’d said it again. Wife.

  “Your wife?” Lynch repeated in a rasp.

  Outraged, Charles bellowed, “What sort of private investigator are you? You did not even know Maeve was my wife?”

  Lynch smacked his lips. His deep frown brought his bushy brows together at the bridge of his nose to form one furry line. “No, Mr. Rycroft, I didn’t know. You never mentioned it”

  “And you are supposed to be an investigator.”

  “Well, I know she’s the woman who saved you from freezing to death in the alley after you were beaten. After you were beaten.”

  “And so?”

  “Suspicious coincidence,” he whispered, nodding his head sagely. “Suspicious coincidence.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That she should just happen along.”

  “My wife did not attack me and steal my sketch, if that’s what you’re implying.” Charles took a menacing step toward his investigator.

  The Civil War veteran backed up. “I didn’t say that, didn’t say that. Before I knew the lady was your wife I suspected she might be an accomplice.”

  Charles turned away and slammed his fist against the mantel. “If you knew anything about Maeve O’Malley you could never suggest her as an accomplice to any illegal or unkind act.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “While engaged in following my wife, have you discovered anything of significance?” Charles asked caustically as he turned to face his inept investigator once again.

  Lynch did not reply immediately; he looked thoughtful as if he were weighing the effect of his answer. “Just an hour ago I saw Miss O’ Ma...Mrs. Rycroft go into Edgar Dines’s gallery. Edgar Dines.”

  “What?”

  “I’m hating to say this in light of the fact she’s your wife but all along I thought the two might be working together.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “I may,” he hesitated, “I may be wrong.”

  “You are fired.”

  Charles strode to the door and held it open.

  Herbert Lynch stood his ground. “How was I to know the O’Malley woman was your wife without you giving me all the facts? All the facts. Now that I know, I’ll investigate another avenue. Avenue.”

 
“No, Mr. Lynch. You are off the case.”

  Charles could barely contain the anger shooting through his blood in a red-hot stream. “I’m holding the door for a reason. This is the way out.”

  “She stayed in Dines’s gallery a long time. A long time.”

  “You can pick up your payment at my office.”

  “She may still be there. Still there. I watched for an hour and Miss O’Malley ... Rycroft, didn’t come out.”

  Lynch’s words hit Charles like a fist to the stomach. “What?”

  “Your wife is with Edgar Dines.”

  “Impossible.” Charles turned on

  his heel and strode to the window. He peered out into the dark, expecting her to bound up the steps, out of breath and eager to reach the warmth and safety of Rycroft House.

  But no one raced to the door. The street was deserted save for the light, powdery snow falling from the dark night sky. He clenched his jaw and drew a deep breath. The only thing the Irish vixen feared in this world was being alone in the dark.

  What had Maeve got herself into? Why had she gone to Dines’s gallery and why hadn’t she come home yet?

  Charles turned back to the investigator. “Are you carrying any kind of weapon?”

  “A small pistol.”

  “Come,” Charles commanded. “We’re going to pay a call on Edgar Dines.”

  Herbert Lynch’s frown lifted.

  Charles instructed Stuart to bring the town coach around and called for Dolly. “On the chance that Maeve returns before I do, sit on her if you must, but do not let her leave the house until I return.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Charles did not miss the amused twinkle in the housekeeper’s eye. Dolly believed Maeve led him a merry chase. And she was right. Except in this instance, it was not so merry. He was sick with worry, a new and exceedingly unpleasant feeling.

  “We will devise a plan on our way, Lynch,” Charles said, as he donned his cloak. “More than likely Dines has closed his gallery by now.”

  The private investigator gave a smug, twisted smile. “I’m skilled in the art of forced entry, sir. Skilled in the art.”

  Charles felt heartened to hear the man was skilled at something.

  As he marched out the door and down the steps to his coach, a steady pain burned within Charles’s chest. His pulse throbbed hard and fast as if he’d been galloping for miles astride a runaway horse.

  It seemed improbable that the bespectacled art dealer was behind all this. But if he was and if he had harmed Maeve in any way, the sparrow man would pay. Edgar Dines could steal from Charles, attack him, even kill him. But if he hurt so much as a hair on Maeve’s head, Charles would see that he spent the rest of his life behind bars.

  * * * *

  Alone in the dark with tears streaming down her cold cheeks, Maeve said her prayers and lashed out at the wee people, blaming them for her present distressing predicament. She hummed every Christmas carol she knew in a futile attempt to gather the threads of her composure.

  She had been left to die. Sour-faced and unsympathetic, O’Brien had bound Maeve tightly to a wooden chair centered in the back room. Her hands were tied behind the chair and her feet lashed together at her ankles. Flailing and kicking at the thug had done no good. The back spindles of the chair dug into her and she shivered with the cold. Second only to the frightening blackness was the numbing cold. Maeve could barely feel her toes.

  Her heart crashed against her chest. Tension gripped her body in its tight, powerful fist until she could barely breathe. The soggy woolen muffler stuffed in her mouth tasted like an old fuzzy boot.

  Before he left her to die, Dines had written a ransom note which might mean he intended for her to live. The art dealer did not strike Maeve as a man with the heart of a killer. He might be smug, and sly, but he wasn’t a killer. He might be dull-witted, but not deranged.

  Dines seemed almost childlike when he’d confided that the ransom note offered the return of Maeve and the sketch of St. Nick both, for only a thousand dollars more than Rycroft’s reward.

  Maeve was not at all certain Charles would pay for her return when he planned to divorce her in a matter of days. But she did not share her concern with greedy Edgar Dines.

  Stroking his mustache and grinning rather wickedly, Dines had dispatched his boxer henchman to carry the note to Rycroft Publishing. “Rycroft works well into the night. Leave it, but don’t let him see you leave it.”

  “Aye.”

  After O’Brien left the gallery, Dines shared his plan with Maeve as if he were used to talking to himself. “Now, Miss O’Malley. In my ransom request I have informed Mr. Rycroft that you and the sketch he wishes are safely hidden where he will never find either one. He has been instructed to leave the ransom money in a satchel at the base of the George Washington statue in the public gardens at dawn tomorrow.”

  Dines appeared quite lighthearted as he put on his hat and cloak. “I shall visit my mistress, Lydia, now and make arrangements for you to spend the night with my lady. Under the circumstances, I am certain she will be glad to see me again, and only too happy to accommodate us in this small matter. She does so enjoy a rich man, as I will be soon.”

  Maeve pleaded with her eyes and a smothered burbling sound for the little man not to leave her.

  “In the meantime, you’ll be safe here. Forgive me for not leaving a light burning but since the great fire of last year it would not be the thing. Further, a light might intrigue any passersby.”

  Maeve blasted him in a muffled manner.

  “I should have liked the time to plan this better, but one must seize the opportunity when it occurs, Miss O’Malley.” His smirk reminded Maeve of a cat stalking a canary. “Don’t go away now.” He pointed a finger and chuckled. “I will be back for you within the hour.”

  It seemed as if two hours had passed since he’d left her to the mercies of the dark, cold night.

  In the stillness Maeve heard the hands of a clock tick and the rustle of rats. She feared she would swoon from pure terror before Dines returned. Attempting to free her hands only made matters worse as the rope cut deeper. She’d rubbed her throat raw with strangled cries that evidently no one could hear.

  In the deadly dark, Maeve struggled to control her anxiety. She’d come so close to obtaining the sketch of St. Nick. She was so close to it now. Maeve had no doubt the stolen sketch resided in the safe beside Dines’s desk, only a few yards away.

  * * * *

  Rushing headlong through the night, Charles’s town coach came to a hurried stop in front of Edgar Dines’s gallery.

  “There’s no light, no sign of anyone in the gallery,” he barked at Lynch. “Are you certain Maeve did not leave?”

  “Certain, sir. Certain.”

  Charles jumped out of the coach, hoping against hope that his private investigator was right about something. Although he’d kept his eye on the street during the drive, he’d not seen many people walking, and no women who resembled Maeve in size or stride.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  “I’m waiting for you to authorize a break-in.”

  “Do your best,” Charles growled. No authorization from him would make what Lynch was about legal.

  Hunched in a stealthy manner, much like a mole approaching his burrow, the investigator scurried to the door and rumbled at the lock for a full minute before Charles heard the door give.

  Stepping in front of Lynch, Charles pushed the door open. A soft creak gave way to a jangle of bells. He closed the door quickly.

  “Can’t see a thing,” Lynch hissed.

  “Did you hear something?” Charles asked.

  “Bells. Bells.”

  Charles carried a box of cigar matches in his coat pocket. Groping in the darkness, he found the box and using his fingers to guide him, as a blind man might, he struck a match against the side of the box. The illumination was enough to see a kerosene lamp set on a table in the center of the gallery. He burned his finger
before he reached the table. But on the second match he was able to light the lamp.

  “Doesn’t appear to be anyone here now,” Lynch whispered, hovering behind Charles.

  “Do you hear that?” Charles cocked his head, straining to hear the sound.

  “What?”

  “Humming.”

  “Humming?” Lynch looked at him as if he were mad.

  “Humming, coming from the back. Let’s go.”

  Holding the lamp up with one hand, Charles pushed the dividing curtain aside.

  “Dear God!” His heart slammed against his chest. “Maeve!”

  The humming abruptly stopped.

  Bound and gagged, her beautiful blue eyes wild with fright, Maeve brightened with evident relief when she saw Charles. To his horror her little body trembled involuntarily, in fits and starts. Tears spilled down her cheeks, pale as the snow on the window ledge. Her gleaming raven curls tumbled in total disarray about her shoulders, and her jaunty, holly-green hat sat at a precarious angle.

  Shoving the lamp at Lynch, Charles rushed to her side and tore at the ropes holding Maeve and then loosed the muffler covering her mouth. Within seconds he pulled her up from the chair and gathered her into his arms. Charles crushed her against him, silently vowing never to let her go.

  Maeve cried out his name on the ragged edge of belly-deep sobs. “Oh, Charles! Charles!”

  At length he stepped back. Holding her by her forearms, Charles scrutinized her anguished face and skirted his gaze down her cold body, looking for signs of physical harm. “Are you all right? Have you been hurt?”

  “No. No, I’m, I’m fine,” she stammered.

  Thankful to find his brave little wife in one still-perfect piece, Charles’s heart overflowed with happiness. If anything had happened to Maeve, life would never have been the same for him.

  He could no longer deny it. He loved her!

  Maeve’s sobs subsided. Still clinging to Charles, she wiggled in his arms to point behind her. “The sketch of St. Nick is in Dines’s safe. I’m certain you’ll find it there.”

  “Is that why you came here?”

  She lowered her eyes. “I wanted to recover the sketch and give it to you on Christmas. I couldn’t think of anything you would like more. Dines must have had O’Brien steal the sketch from you so that he might sell St. Nick again. I’d hoped that was the case and that he would sell the sketch to me.”