Bianca had returned, and they had removed the message tied to her leg. Tom had the strip of paper unfurled on his knee, reading aloud.
“Tom, you are a handsome and charming man. You deserve a bottle of French champagne served with your lunch.”
Margaret’s laughter rang out. “It says no such thing! Look, here is Sir Beckwith. Perhaps he can read it for us. We can’t make sense out of all those dots and dashes.”
His tension eased. He’d never expected a message to be intercepted by the Drakes, but at least Lucy had the sense to write in Morse code. He held out his hand.
Good heavens, Lucy must have been in a chatty mood, for he rarely sent such lengthy messages via pigeon. His eyes traveled along the code, translating quickly.
He could actually feel the blood drain from his face. He felt light-headed and overheated at the same time. What Lucy had to say was a catastrophe.
I intercepted another message. Direct quote: In light of TR’s progress with ICC, move up the date for action. Release additional funds to delay votes. Fire when ready.
“Well?” Margaret asked. “We have been dying of anticipation. What does it say?”
He felt the weight of six people staring at him while he scrambled for a suitable reply. He prayed no one here was disguising an ability to read Morse code, or this weekend party was about to become a dangerous operation.
“Just Reuters business,” he said. “The quality of tea service often slips when I am not in the office, and my secretary thinks it warrants attention.” He slid the note into his pocket. It appeared the team of conspirators was larger than just Tom and Mr. Moreno, because at least one other person in New York was involved in the plot and sending messages. “Forgive me, but Bianca has had a long flight, and I should ensure she has a proper meal.”
“Oh, we’ve been feeding her bits of cookies with raspberry jam,” Margaret said. “She seemed delighted.”
His mouth turned down. That amount of sugar was the worst thing for a homing pigeon that had been flying for five solid hours. His bird needed plenty of water and nutrition-dense seed to restore her strength. He coaxed Bianca onto his finger.
“Nevertheless, she should be returned to her cage for some undisturbed rest. I will rejoin you all shortly.”
He didn’t care about his rude departure. He needed time to strategize, for the president’s life might depend upon it.
Lucy had been working twelve-hour days ever since Colin left. She couldn’t risk being away from her station if the tiny lightbulb tucked behind the geranium pot signaled a message from the Moreno Law Office. She also wanted to be here should a pigeon arrive from Colin.
Her thoughts were interrupted as a message came over the Moreno wire. She quickly opened the circuit and began translating. Within a few words, her heart was seized by plain, stark fear:
Urgent: NYC police here asking questions about ICC. Denied all knowledge. Info came from Colin Beckwith of Reuters. His secretary says he is at Oakmonte. A spy? Stop him. Shooting accident?
Good heavens. Oh, good heavens. So Sergeant Palmer had taken her seriously after all, apparently with Colin’s help, but by beginning an investigation, he had inadvertently put Colin in terrible danger.
She had to warn Colin at once! Even now, he could be heading out for a shooting expedition with her loathsome cousin.
She left her lunch half-eaten at her station and dashed to Mr. Tolland’s desk. “I need to leave for the day.”
He glared over his glasses. “You’re scheduled to work until seven o’clock this evening.”
“I can’t. Something came up.”
She didn’t even wait for a reply, but scurried to the far side of the room to punch her timecard. She might lose her job over this, but Colin might lose his life unless she warned him in time.
She had no bird with which to send an alert about the danger. Even if one arrived immediately, it would need to rest for several hours before heading back out. By then it would be nighttime, and homing pigeons couldn’t navigate in the dark. Obviously telegrams were out, and there was no telephone at Oakmonte.
There was no help for it. The fastest way to get Colin out of danger was by boarding a train and telling him in person. She’d never been to Oakmonte, and the prospect of walking up to Uncle Thomas’s front door and asking for admission was terrifying, but it had to be done.
It was time to head into the lion’s den.
Chapter
Sixteen
Colin was accustomed to weekend house parties, but hosting them was a new and terrifying affair for Mrs. Drake, and her anxiety was spilling over to infect the rest of the household. The harried servants were busy pressing linens, polishing silver, and carting in loads of fresh food. There was room for twelve people at Oakmonte’s dining table, and the seats would be filled with guests coming from as far as Albany. It was Margaret’s opportunity to shed the taint of new money by flaunting her titled old-world visitor before the people who had snubbed her. She desperately wanted to please, rolling out allegedly spontaneous entertainments with the rigidity of a general preparing for battle.
A special chef had arrived from Albany to handle the finer aspects of the Saturday evening feast, which would feature quail, a salmon soufflé, turtle bisque, steamed oysters, and two cuts of beef. Margaret’s inexperience with gourmet preparations ratcheted her tension higher, leading her to hover over the kitchen staff.
Colin was tempted to suggest she try to relax and take pleasure in the weekend. How could guests enjoy themselves if the hostess was so tightly wound she might detonate on contact? The best hostesses displayed effortless charm and trusted their staff to keep the household running like well-oiled clockwork. Then again, those women had centuries of training behind them, whereas Margaret Drake was the daughter of a greengrocer and desperate to overcome it.
The mood darkened Saturday morning when Felix Moreno received a telegram, putting him into an unusually grim temper. Even Margaret noticed and asked if all was well, but Mr. Moreno simply gave a curt nod and glared out the window, his hands fisted in tension. It made the situation even more awkward. It did not ease until Mr. Moreno disappeared with Tom Jr. for a few hours to go skeet shooting. They didn’t invite Colin, for which he was grateful.
Mr. Moreno’s mood had not improved at lunch, and Tom’s gauche behavior was even worse than usual. Colin tried to steer the conversation by asking seemingly innocent questions about their plans for the summer. Both men were curt and noncommittal, and Colin decided to escape the tension in the house by inviting Mrs. Schroeder to the grassy lawn behind Oakmonte before the local guests began arriving for that evening’s grand dinner. There was nothing he could do to help, and his presence seemed to agitate Margaret even more, so a nice walk in the countryside with Mrs. Schroeder would be a welcome respite. As much as he despised her husband, he liked Henrietta and wondered if she had any idea what her husband did behind the walls of that sanitarium.
He used the pigeons as an excuse to coax Mrs. Schroeder outside. “We’ll let them fly around a bit, and I’ll show you how I call them back,” he said. “It will be fun.”
Mrs. Schroeder seemed relieved to join him. “Margaret is desperate to be accepted by the local community. Some of these families are very old indeed and quite proud of their heritage. The Drakes’ house is larger and grander than their colonial homesteads, and it’s caused a bit of resentment.”
A sundial on a granite pedestal rested at the far end of the formal lawn. It looked like it had been there since Adam and Eve left the garden, with its artificially aged copper face covered with a green patina and raised etchings. There was enough room to set the birdcage on the top of the pedestal. Colin opened the door, lifted Bianca out, and offered her to Mrs. Schroeder, who seemed delighted to accept the bird onto her outstretched hand.
“It’s admirable how tenderly you care for these birds,” she said.
“They work hard for me, and I am ridiculously fond of them,” he said. “If taking them
out for a bit of fresh air lets us escape the mayhem inside, I’m grateful for the excuse.”
He showed Mrs. Schroeder how to raise her arm to summon the birds, and her laughter was as delighted as a young girl’s as she practiced the movement. After a while, it was time to give the birds a rest, and he scattered a little seed on the face of the sundial. The pigeons lazily pecked away as he and Mrs. Schroeder reminisced about performances they had attended at Carnegie Hall.
Before long, he saw Tom Jr. striding across the lawn, a shotgun propped on his shoulder and a sour expression on his face.
“That’s a six-hundred-dollar sundial your birds are pooping on.” The rancor in his voice was excessive even for Tom.
Colin glanced at the sundial. Sure enough, one of the birds had made a mess. “My apologies. I’ll rinse it off promptly.”
Tom’s lip curled. “As if some pampered aristocrat would ever lower himself to do real work like that. I’ll bet you were planning on leaving it there, weren’t you?”
He had been. It wasn’t as if sundials didn’t regularly get hit by wild birds all year long, but if the Drakes felt this piece was somehow special, of course he would rinse it off. The way Tom flexed and clenched the stock of the shotgun seemed odd.
“Take it easy, Tom. It’s only a sundial.”
“Which you don’t mind defiling, just as you’ve come to our country to defile our women. Blue-blooded freeloader.”
“Have you been drinking?” It could be the only explanation for such bizarre hostility. It seemed Tom was deliberately picking a fight, but Colin didn’t pander to spoiled children.
“Why?” Tom demanded. “Is knocking back liquor what British aristocrats do in the middle of the day instead of rolling up their sleeves to make a mark in the world?”
Colin passed a tight smile to Mrs. Schroeder, who looked mortified at Tom’s behavior. “Come along, ma’am. I think we’ll find the air more pleasing back at the house.”
“You do, do you?” Tom snarled.
He swung the shotgun like a bat at the sundial, startling Beatrice and Bianca into flight. Tom hoisted the gun and took aim.
“No!” Colin roared, but it was too late. Resounding blasts of the gun echoed over the clearing. Both birds fell from the sky, dead.
Without thinking, Colin hauled back to punch Tom, but the younger man sidestepped, the smirk on his face infuriating. The brat had come out here with the intention of shooting his birds. Tom pivoted to lope back to the house. Colin lunged forward, tackling him from behind, the shotgun flying off to the side. He delivered a series of swift punches to Tom’s gut before rising and snatching the shotgun.
“Children shouldn’t play with guns,” he spat. “I’ll return this to your father and let him decide if you’re old enough to have it back.”
Tom curled in the grass, gasping for breath, but Colin whirled away. If he lingered any longer, he’d do more than land a few punches. Blistering hot anger pulsed in his veins as he strode toward the first of his slain birds.
Beatrice lay on the grass, the pellet wound an ugly gash in the center of her soft feathers. The pain in his chest made it hard to breathe, but he couldn’t simply leave her here. He rolled her onto her back and picked her up by the feet, then did the same for Bianca, carrying them both in one hand and the shotgun in the other. Mrs. Schroeder watched, dumbfounded, clasping a hand to her throat. He wished he hadn’t lost his temper before her, but he loved these birds. He’d fed them through an eyedropper for weeks after they’d hatched.
Tom followed close on his heels all the way back to the house, where people had heard the gunshots and come running. Dr. Schroeder was on the patio, as were both elder Drakes.
“My heavens, what has happened?” Margaret asked, her voice appalled as she looked at Beatrice and Bianca dangling from his hand.
“Your son shot my birds,” he said between clenched teeth.
“Oh dear,” she gasped.
Thomas tried to smooth things over. “We’ll gladly buy you a new pair.”
“I don’t want a new pair!” Colin roared. “These two birds had more valor, more endurance, and more sheer heart than your spoiled son has in his entire body.” He turned to glare at Tom. “Good luck on your run for Congress. The rest of the world won’t be so eager to kiss your rear end as your parents have been.”
Thomas stepped forward to defend his son. “I beg your pardon! You are a guest in this home.”
“This isn’t a home, it’s a trophy,” Colin spat.
Margaret looked shocked, her jeweled hand flying to her throat. Her ring contained a diamond the size of an acorn. How many people paid exorbitant prices for the Drake valve so Margaret could enjoy that lump of rock on her finger?
Colin couldn’t mask the acrimony from his voice. “Your money can buy diamonds and doctors and a fancy country estate.” He swallowed hard. “I’m afraid it can even buy you friends, but it can never buy you decency or basic human compassion.”
“Now then,” Dr. Schroeder interrupted in a calming voice, “I have my medical bag and plenty of tonics for an overexcited temper.”
“Keep away from me,” Colin growled. “You’re no better than the rest of them.” By all that was holy, if that revolting psychiatrist took one step closer, Colin would flatten him.
“Calm down!” Mrs. Schroeder said, laying a gentle hand on his arm. “Do you hear me? Please! You must calm down.”
Her face was white with alarm, and he understood. Henrietta Schroeder knew exactly what her husband did behind the walls of that sanitarium, and she was warning him.
He took a steadying breath. Time for a cool-blooded response and formal reserve. He’d been trained in it all his life. Anger pulsed, his heart raced, and he wanted to punch the lights out of Tom Jr., but he forced his tone to be calm as he looked at Margaret.
“Your son picked a fight and shot my birds for no reason,” he said to both older Drakes. Even speaking the words brought a fresh surge of anger.
“I’m sure it was an accident,” Mrs. Drake said.
Colin turned to Tom, whose face still smoldered. “Tom? Was it an accident?”
“I don’t have accidents with guns.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Then you need to apologize, Tom,” Margaret said, sounding as though she was reprimanding a six-year-old.
Tom didn’t look like he was in the mood to apologize, and Colin didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m afraid I am not yet ready to accept an apology from the future congressman. You must be so proud of your son.”
An awkward silence descended on the group. The polite thing would be to smooth things over by following Margaret’s lead and pretending it was a simple accident, but he wasn’t feeling polite.
Margaret twisted a handkerchief between her clenched fingers. “I certainly hope this won’t interfere with dinner tonight. You are the guest of honor.”
Ah yes, the all-important dinner party to flaunt her titled friend before the local snobs. No wonder Margaret looked panicked. She sensed a storm cloud about to cast a pall over her glittering extravaganza all because of a silly argument with her son.
“I need to bury my birds.”
“We can have a servant do that,” she said quickly. “Don’t worry about it at all.”
“I’ll do it myself. I wouldn’t want to risk them ending up a featured attraction in your conservatory.”
The insinuation that his birds might find their way to Margaret’s taxidermist and her revolting animal tableau was clear to everyone. Margaret flushed in embarrassment, but he didn’t care. She should be embarrassed.
“But then you’ll come back and dress for dinner, won’t you?”
“Of course he will,” her husband said in a silky tone. “Sir Beckwith and I have an arrangement. Right?”
An agreement for five thousand dollars in exchange for being trotted out at just such a social event. Every instinct urged Colin to slam out of this house, but he couldn’t afford to leav
e. Two birds in exchange for five thousand dollars. It would be enough to start the most urgent repairs at Whitefriars, even though it meant bartering his companionship in exchange for cold, hard cash.
“I will join you at six o’clock for dinner.”
He swallowed back a wave of self-loathing and left to bury Beatrice and Bianca.
Colin carried the birds to a secluded copse of trees half a mile from the house for burial. A groundskeeper loaned him a shovel, and he selected a spot amidst a cluster of mulberry trees, for his pigeons had loved gorging on mulberries. Beatrice and Bianca weren’t his first pair of birds. He’d had three sets of homing pigeons since training his first pair when he was fifteen years old, so he’d long known what it was to lose a pet. It was the way he’d lost them that was so infuriating.
After burying the birds, he walked for a solid hour to calm his nerves. The stench of gunpowder lingered in his nose, making him restless and on edge. He couldn’t go back among the others until he felt more himself. Perhaps it had been irrational to make such a commotion over a pair of birds, but Tom’s pointless act of brutality incensed him like nothing he’d ever experienced.
Tom was a gauche and conceited young man, but his hostility today was drastically out of step with his behavior earlier in the week. Something must have happened, and Colin suspected it related to the mysterious telegram Mr. Moreno received this morning. Maybe Tom had been passed over for the Olympics, spoiling his congressional aspirations.
Colin delayed joining the others for as long as possible by reading the local newspaper in the privacy of his bedroom. The sound of soft laughter and carriages rolling up the drive trickled up from below, but he ignored it. He’d be a lousy conversationalist with anger still roiling in his veins, and reading helped.
His eyes instinctively tracked to the bylines of the stories that had been reported by Reuters. He saw three—one about the untimely death of a thirty-five-year-old mayor, one on the failure of an Italian bank that lost the savings of its investors, and a third on the cholera outbreak in northern India.
A Dangerous Legacy Page 17