Death, Diamonds, and Deception

by Rosemary Simpson

  “Embezzlement?” Prudence suggested. “Surely he’s cooked the books?”

  “Where on earth did you pick up that phrase?” Geoffrey asked. He never ceased to be surprised by the things she came out with sometimes.

  Josiah blinked and concentrated on keeping his mouth closed. He wanted to be in on the discussion he knew was going to turn into an argument as soon as Miss Prudence reached for her coat. There was no way Mr. Hunter would want her involved in Everett Rinehart’s capture. Josiah was certain the man would be armed. And he’d seen the familiar Colt .45 disappear beneath Mr. Hunter’s jacket into its leather shoulder holster. Amos Lang, he knew, never went anywhere without protection. They were expecting trouble, which was no place for Miss Prudence to be.

  “I’m coming with you,” Prudence said quietly.

  Here it comes, Josiah thought, sidling back toward his desk, out of the way of the fireworks about to explode.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Amos Lang slipped out of the office to wait in the hallway. Nobody noticed he’d left.

  “I’ll need you here to coordinate with the police when the time comes,” Geoffrey began.

  “Josiah can do that,” Prudence said, perfectly aware that Geoffrey had no intention of bringing the police in on the operation. If there was anything a Pinkerton gloried in, it was circumventing the cumbersome apparatus of official law enforcement. Ex-Pinkertons were even more determined to sidestep officialdom.

  “Your aunt would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

  “And I’ll never forgive you if you shut me out of this. I’ve been in on it from the beginning, Geoffrey, and I have a right to see it through,” Prudence insisted. She felt the tiny derringer concealed in her reticule as she shoved her arms into her coat and secured her hat with a wickedly long, sharp pin. Gloves on against the February cold, and she was ready. If she knew anything about Josiah, he’d already summoned Danny Dennis. The hansom cab drawn by the enormous Mr. Washington was probably waiting at the curb downstairs.

  “Stay behind me and out of sight,” Geoffrey temporized.

  “Of course,” Prudence promised, having no intention of keeping her pledge.

  Josiah picked up the telephone to inform Her Ladyship of where her niece was going, reflecting as he waited for the operator to respond to his impatient clicks that the argument he’d been looking forward to witnessing had turned out to be a bust. Miss Prudence and Mr. Hunter were definitely getting along better since they’d come back from that murderous wedding in Georgia.

  Hardly a really angry spark between them.

  He thought he knew why and wondered when they’d figure it out for themselves.

  * * *

  “That’s him,” Prudence said, pointing toward a bearded gentleman in slightly shabby clothing who emerged from the De Vries building carrying a square leather banker’s bag. “He’s wearing a really awful beard and a suit off a secondhand rack, but it’s definitely Everett Rinehart.”

  “I wonder how he got past his secretary without attracting attention,” Geoffrey said, taking in the changes in Everett’s appearance that hadn’t fooled his sharp-eyed partner.

  “Sent him on an errand, then slipped away as soon as the outer office was empty,” Prudence decided. “He’s hailing a cab.”

  “Grand Central Depot,” Danny Dennis called down through the trapdoor in the hansom’s ceiling. Drivers had a system of hand signals that allowed them to tell each other where they were going without a word being spoken.

  “Don’t get too close,” Geoffrey instructed. “We don’t want him to spot us.”

  “Do you think he’s heading for Canada?” Prudence asked.

  “I’d be surprised if he weren’t. He’ll get a compartment so he can lock himself in and not have to speak to anyone but the porter. Everett is carrying a fortune in that case. He won’t feel safe until he’s across the border.”

  “Poor Miss Bouwmeester,” Prudence sighed.

  “Her parents will take her on a European tour,” Geoffrey prophesized. “By the time they get back the scandal will have been forgotten. Or at least been replaced by something more outrageous.”

  “I don’t see any sign that the police were watching him,” Prudence said. She’d looked for a telltale presence lingering outside the De Vries building or hailing a cab after Everett came out, but no one on the sidewalk or across the street had seemed interested in the scruffy man hurrying toward New York’s most important train station. “Surely they’ve put two and two together after reading Russell Coughlin’s story.”

  “William paid them off to stay out of his family’s affairs,” Geoffrey reminded her. “They’ll be slow to react, especially if Everett has kept up his uncle’s bribes.”

  “There will be an outcry if it’s thought the police deliberately let him get away.”

  “No worse than the other public condemnations they’ve survived,” Geoffrey said. Someday a reformer would come along to clean up the New York City Police Department, but until then it was a grab bag of bribes, payoffs, intimidations, and outright thievery. Nothing of value remained in the property rooms longer than it took someone to decide to lift it.

  The hansom cab taking Everett Rinehart to Grand Central Depot slowed down at an intersection to edge its way around two other cabs whose drivers were determined not to give an inch. One of Danny Dennis’s street urchins ran out of nowhere to attach himself crablike to the back of the cab, signaling with a thumbs-up that the man he was being sent to follow into the train station wouldn’t get away from him.

  “I wonder how old he is,” Prudence said, watching the boy find precarious handholds where it seemed none existed.

  “Probably ten or eleven,” Geoffrey said. Too many of the city’s abandoned and orphaned children froze or starved to death in doorways and alleys. Every now and then one of the newspapers ran a story about their short, miserable lives, but no one seemed to know how to solve the problem. Or perhaps no one cared enough to bother.

  “I’ll remind Josiah to make sure we always have plenty of clothes and shoes in the storage closet,” Prudence said. “And a jar full of nickels.” Flashing larger coins meant their ragged possessors would be beaten up or robbed.

  “We’ll wait until he’s bought his ticket and found the right platform,” Geoffrey said as the boy riding on the back of Everett’s cab jumped off and blended into the crowd making its way through the doors of Grand Central.

  Amos Lang climbed down from his seat beside Danny Dennis and ambled his way after the newly bearded Everett.

  “You haven’t told me when you’re planning to pick him up,” Prudence said, itching to be out of the close confines of the hansom cab.

  “On the train,” Geoffrey said. “Between Grand Central and one of the next stations. We have to be able to prove that he was taking the diamonds out of the city.”

  “Of course he is,” Prudence snapped.

  “We have to be able to prove it,” Geoffrey repeated. Telling her to be patient would make his partner edgier than she already was. “He’ll be trapped in his compartment once he’s aboard the train. No crowd to lose himself in. No well-intentioned onlooker to come to his defense. No chance he’ll shoot an innocent bystander.”

  “I’ll pull into the hansom stand,” Danny Dennis said as they climbed out of the cab. Mr. Washington snorted and tossed his huge white head.

  Prudence slipped a nickel into the grimy hand of the boy who guided them to a platform where they stood behind a pillar and watched Everett Rinehart approach the Chicago-bound train scheduled to leave in less than fifteen minutes.

  “What’s he doing?” Prudence hissed. “I thought you said he’d make a run for Canada.” The train for Montreal steamed on the other track of the same platform.

  “Like I told Mr. Lang, the man bought a ticket for Chicago,” the boy said, slipping his nickel into his pants pocket. “Look, there he is.”

  Amos Lang was already
aboard the Chicago train, a newspaper held casually before him as other passengers found their seats in the car where they would sleep sitting up all night.

  “Good man,” Geoffrey said.

  “If Everett doesn’t hurry up and get on, the train will pull out without him,” Prudence fussed.

  “Not a chance,” Geoffrey assured her. “He’s just waiting until the last possible moment.”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure he hasn’t been followed.”

  To the all-aboard bellows of its conductor, the Montreal train began to move out of the station, its mighty wheels striking sparks from the track as they gathered momentum.

  For a moment, Geoffrey and Prudence lost sight of their prey as friends and relatives strode along the platform, waving farewell and keeping pace with the slow-rolling cars.

  “Where is he?” Prudence called out, a lick of panic forcing her voice above the clatter of the departing train.

  She didn’t hear Geoffrey’s answer.

  One second he was beside her, the next he was lunging toward the Montreal train, reaching out for a handhold, leaping aboard as it gathered speed.

  Prudence didn’t hesitate.

  Picking up her skirts, she followed Geoffrey at the fastest run she’d ever managed.

  One hand clutching an iron handhold, the other in a porter’s tight clasp, her booted feet slipping on the steps of the last passenger car, she was unceremoniously hauled aboard.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” a voice boomed in her ear as she settled her hat and smoothed down her skirts. The porter who had saved her from falling onto the tracks melted into the background.

  “I’m either your partner or I’m not, Geoffrey. Make up your mind!”

  CHAPTER 30

  Thanks to an enormous bribe and Geoffrey’s habit of carrying considerable amounts of cash, they were able to buy a private compartment in the same car where Everett Rinehart was hiding out. Without Amos Lang to assist with the takedown, Geoffrey was forced to consider his options, none of which he liked.

  “There’s no reason why I can’t take Amos’s place,” Prudence argued.

  “You don’t have a decent gun with you,” Geoffrey pointed out.

  “Whose fault is that?” The tiny, nearly useless derringer was the only weapon that would fit into a lady’s reticule. The rest of her was so tightly laced that anything wider than a whalebone stay would ruin her silhouette. Fashion was Prudence’s greatest enemy and frustration.

  “I’m not blaming you for anything,” Geoffrey said, attempting to soothe his partner’s ruffled feathers. He really wasn’t. When he took a moment to think about it, he had nothing but commiseration for the plight of intelligent, ambitious women. There just didn’t seem any way around it. Society was an implacable ruler. “I don’t know that in your place I would have attempted that leap onto the train.” He’d caught only a glimpse of Prudence’s mad scramble and effort to catch her breath, but it had been enough to leave him with his heart in his mouth. Fear, not anger, had caused him to berate her.

  “I accept your apology,” Prudence said. She’d had her own moment of panic when she felt her boots sliding off the train car steps before her scrabbling feet finally found a purchase and the porter hauled her to safety. “But what do you propose we do?”

  It was already turning dark outside. The scenery flashing by their compartment window was a series of dusky shapes lit here and there by flickering candles or dim lantern light. They were nearing the outskirts of the city, miles of open farmland lying ahead of them before the next station.

  “I think we have to wait,” Geoffrey said. “Allow Everett to feel safe. He probably won’t go to the dining car; he’ll order the porter to bring something to the compartment. He may allow the berth to be let down and made up as the night progresses.”

  “I don’t think I’d sleep a wink if I were on the run.” Prudence peeled off her leather gloves and removed the wide-brimmed hat she was wearing. It had almost defeated her, catching the departing train’s rush of air as the porter pulled her onto the car’s rear platform. Why did every garment she wore have to be uncomfortable or get in the way of easy movement?

  “The porter has agreed to keep us informed.”

  “What excuse did you give?”

  “I said Everett was an adulterous husband deserting his wife and children,” Geoffrey explained.

  “And he believed you?”

  “Turns out our porter doesn’t have much sympathy for men who abandon their responsibilities. It didn’t hurt that I was able to pay him as much as he makes in a month of riding the train back and forth between New York City and Montreal.”

  “I could use a sandwich,” Prudence decided. “We missed tea and who knows when we’ll be able to eat a decent meal again.” If they weren’t to do anything about William’s nephew right away, they might as well see to their own well-being.

  “There’s an element of danger to this, Prudence,” Geoffrey warned. He didn’t expect to run into a problem he couldn’t surmount, but his partner’s blithe disregard of the possible complications made him uneasy. He’d disarmed and handcuffed more criminals than he could remember, but he never relaxed his guard until he heard the final click of the steel bracelets and felt the sag of a defeated prisoner’s body. Even then, there was always the chance you’d run into the one in a hundred crooks who knew how to disengage the lock immobilizing him.

  “What’s the porter’s name?” Prudence asked, moving toward the door of the compartment.

  “Henry,” Geoffrey answered.

  “I’ll ask for sandwiches, cake, and tea,” Prudence said. “Or do you want coffee? Either one should keep us awake.”

  It was no use trying to corral her. Prudence simply bulled her way through barriers. She reminded Geoffrey of her English aunt in moments like that. He didn’t know whether to smile or groan.

  * * *

  “He let me make up his berth,” Henry told Geoffrey and Prudence when he came to pick up their cups and dishes. “Quiet gentleman. Wouldn’t never tag him for runnin’ out on his family.”

  “Did you hear him lock the compartment door behind you?” Geoffrey asked.

  Henry paused a moment and cocked his head, as if listening for the sound of a bolt sliding into a door frame. “Yessir, I believe he did. Most folks like a little privacy of a night.”

  “Can you open it?” Prudence asked, knowing this was the information Geoffrey needed.

  “All us porters got keys to the compartments. Have to, in case somebody needs help.” Henry stiffened his back, not liking the direction this conversation was going.

  “Henry, what if I told you that the man in that locked compartment was responsible for taking the lives of at least two people?” Geoffrey fastened his eyes on Henry’s face, willing him to believe what must seem far-fetched at best. “He’s a dangerous person I’m following until I can take him into custody.”

  “You a policeman?”

  “I used to be a Pinkerton. Now I work for myself. As a private detective.”

  “You got papers?” Henry asked. “I got to see some papers. Got to talk to my conductor, too.”

  Prudence laid a placating hand on Henry’s uniform sleeve. “We may not have time for that,” she said persuasively. “I think you’re just going to have to trust us.”

  For a long few moments the porter stared at the two well-dressed and well-spoken white people who, he sensed, were about to involve him in a situation he’d be lucky to get out of with his job and skin intact. Then he thought about the shabbily dressed man whose clothes didn’t quite fit and whose hands never left the expensive leather briefcase that didn’t match the rest of him. He remembered thinking that something wasn’t right about the passenger’s beard when he’d inched open the compartment door to accept the tray containing the dinner he’d ordered. As if it had somehow slipped a little. Which wasn’t possible unless it was pasted on instead of grown hair. And the eyes. Cold blue and w
ithout a hint of real interest in anything but himself. Henry had served hundreds of passengers. Sizing up a man or a woman was second nature; he did it without conscious intent.

  “We’ll need that door unfastened,” Geoffrey urged. “But our man can’t hear the sound of the key turning in the lock. Can you manage that, Henry?”

  “Yessir, I can.” Mind made up, Henry touched the master key hanging from the watch chain looped across his chest. He wouldn’t mention the number of times he’d performed exactly that service for a man in his dressing gown or a slippered woman swathed in fur. Folks felt free to do things aboard trains that they’d never consider chancing at home.

  “In about an hour then,” Geoffrey instructed.

  “Midnight it is, sir,” Henry agreed. He backed out of the compartment, tray of dirty dishes in hand, wondering when to broach the topic of an additional tip for extra services rendered.

  “I’ll take him in his sleep,” Geoffrey told Prudence. “A lot safer that way.” He smiled reassuringly at her, noting the worried frown gradually fade from her forehead.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she said. “Your backup.” She’d heard Geoffrey and other ex-Pinkertons use that term dozens of times. The prudent investigator never stepped into a dangerous situation without being sure there’d be someone he could count on if things went wrong.

  “I’d rather you stayed in the corridor,” Geoffrey said, making it sound like a suggestion instead of an order. Prudence never responded well to direct commands.

  “In the corridor then,” she agreed. “But I’ll have my derringer out, just in case.”

  She pictured the operation in her mind’s eye, looking for unlikely happenstances they might fail to anticipate. Geoffrey’s broad back in front of her, his Colt .45 trained at Everett asleep in his berth. Shaking the man awake with the same hand that slipped on the handcuffs in one smooth movement. Tugging him to his feet. Shoving him into the seat Henry created by folding up the sleeping berth. Sitting opposite him, weapons at the ready, until the train reached a station where she and Geoffrey could hustle him onto the platform and turn him over to a policeman. Or arrange to take him back to the scene of his crimes themselves. Telegrams winging their way to and from Metropolitan Police Headquarters in New York City. The end of a very messy case.