Eudora considered that briefly and then she visibly brightened. “Yes, I see what you mean. Perhaps he views it as an opportunity to conduct research for his next novel. He is very keen on that sort of thing.”
“Precisely. In fact, I believe he employed that very word when we discussed the subject. Research.”
“Well, in that case, perhaps I ought to take an entirely different view of the situation. It is clear from Trent’s improved mood that this research project is doing him a world of good. At the very least it will get him out of the house.”
“You’re pleased that he might be persuaded to get out more on my account?”
“I told you, my brother has become a recluse, Miss Langley. Make no mistake, from time to time, he does associate with certain individuals he refers to as friends, but I fear that, for the most part, they are not the sort that one can invite for tea, if you see what I mean.”
“No,” Calista said. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Let’s just say that he enjoys an odd array of associates. My point is that anything that encourages him to socialize with normal, respectable people is a very good thing.” Eudora paused. “Unless there is some danger involved?”
“As to that, I cannot say. I am also new to the investigation business.”
“Oh, dear. Now I am quite torn. I don’t know what to think.”
“Save yourself some time and energy because it is highly unlikely that your opinion will change your brother’s mind in any way. Trust me when I tell you that I tried to talk him out of the idea.”
“He can be quite stubborn.” A gleam of curiosity lit Eudora’s eyes. “Perhaps I can assist you both in the project?”
“Thank you for the offer but I have no idea what you could do.” Calista picked up one of the files. “For that matter I’m not sure what I should be doing.”
Eudora rose and walked to the desk. “Those are the files of the potential clients you rejected?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Only about a dozen. I have been able to narrow the list by removing a few who seem to be too elderly.”
“What were your reasons for rejecting them?”
“The reasons varied. Several were attempting to conceal their marital status. Others I suspected were fortune hunters. And then there are those who simply made me uneasy for no particular reason. I never argue with my intuition when it comes to selecting my clients.”
“Perhaps you should start by sorting the files into specific categories.”
“What do you mean? One way or another, I believe that all of the applicants lied to me.”
“I understand,” Eudora said. “But it sounds like you are looking for someone who has developed an obsession with revenge. Knowing precisely why each was rejected might help you narrow the field.”
“You appear to be very knowledgeable on the subject.”
“As it happens, my other brother, Harry, is a doctor. He is quite taken with the new science of psychology. He talks a great deal about the work being done in the field in Germany and America. He’s sure it will change the way certain areas of medicine are practiced.” Eudora contemplated the pile of folders. “May I take a look at your notes?”
Calista thought about that. “Would you, by any chance, be interested in accepting a temporary position as my assistant?”
Eudora’s eyes brightened with enthusiasm. “I would be delighted to accept such an interesting position.”
Calista smiled. “In that capacity it would be entirely proper for you to help me review and organize my notes.”
Eudora flipped open a file. “These are excellent. Quite detailed. Harry would approve.”
“Thank you.”
Eudora turned a page in the file. “This one appears to have lied about his inheritance.”
“A rather common problem in my business.” Calista paused. “You say you know something about psychology?”
“Harry is the expert, not me, but I have learned a few things from him.”
“I don’t suppose you would be interested in giving me your opinion on some of the people in those files?”
“I will see what I can do,” Eudora said.
Belatedly another thought occurred to Calista. “Your brother might not be pleased.”
“I make my own decisions, Miss Langley.”
“If you’re certain you feel comfortable about doing this—”
Eudora tightened her grip on the file she was holding.
“Yes,” she said. “Quite comfortable. In fact, I will look forward to it.”
It occurred to Calista that Trent might not be the only member of the Hastings family who had been drifting through life of late.
17
TRENT OPENED THE door of the cab and kicked down the steps. He got out and reached back to assist Calista. It was the second time he had touched her. This time she thought she had braced herself for the strange little thrill that had whispered through her a half hour earlier when he had handed her up into the carriage.
She was wrong. When his powerful hand closed around her gloved fingers, another rush of sensation swept across her senses. It reminded her of the energy one felt in the atmosphere just before a summer storm struck. The promise of lightning was enough to make her pulse quicken.
Judging by his broad shoulders and the lithe, coordinated way he moved, she had known that Trent was a man in his prime. But when she experienced the masculine strength in him as she did when he handed her down from the carriage, she was even more intensely aware of him. That awareness reached deep into the very core of her being.
They were both maintaining a façade of cool control but she knew that Trent was tense with anticipation. So was she—which was no doubt the reason for her heightened sense of awareness, she decided.
They were here because of the note from Mrs. Fulton that Trent had received three hours ago. At last they were about to take positive action. She was fed up with not being able to do anything except wait for the next memento mori gift to arrive. Now, thanks to Trent deducing the source of the coffin bell, they appeared to be on the verge of a revelation.
They stood quietly for a moment, studying the fog-drenched scene. All of the shops, including J. P. Fulton’s, were closed for the night. The rooms above the businesses were also dark. It was a quiet, respectable neighborhood that went to bed at an early hour. There were no taverns or music halls in the vicinity to draw an unsavory or boisterous crowd. No prostitutes congregated beneath the streetlamps. No pickpockets or drunkards hovered in the shadows.
“I shouldn’t have let you come with me,” Trent said. “I don’t know what the devil made me think this was a sound idea.”
“Common sense is what made you see reason,” Calista said. “Mrs. Fulton is a widow who no doubt lives alone. Furthermore, she is in the sort of business that demands an aura of dignity. If she is seen entertaining a single man in the middle of the night her livelihood might well be in jeopardy. My presence will reassure her and no doubt induce her to be more forthcoming.”
“She sent the note to me, not you. If she wants money she had better be prepared to be very forthcoming.”
“I would remind you yet again, Mr. Hastings, that this investigation is my affair. I appreciate your offer to assist me but I will not allow you to take control of it. I do hope that is clear.”
“I should not have sent word to you that I had received the note.”
“If you hadn’t told me about it, I would have been furious.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Afraid of my wrath?” She smiled, rather pleased. “That is good to know.”
He tightened his grip on his walking stick.
“Please don’t make me regret my decision,” he said.
She glanced at him but the collar of his coat was pulled up, c
oncealing much of his face. In the fog-and-gaslight shadows it was impossible to read his expression. He offered no more arguments, however. There was nothing additional to say on the subject and they both knew it. She was the reason he was involved in the affair in the first place. She had every right to be at his side.
He instructed the cab to wait and then clamped a hand around Calista’s arm to steer her across the street.
They stopped at the entrance of the shop. The shades in the windows had all been lowered but a faint, ghostly light seeped out at the edges. The lamps inside had been turned down very low but they burned.
Trent knocked quietly.
“She’s in there,” Calista said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she has grown anxious at the thought of meeting you alone.”
“Perhaps.”
Trent tested the knob with his gloved hand. It turned easily. He used his walking stick to ease the door open.
“Mrs. Fulton,” he said into the silence. “Miss Langley and I are here to speak with you.”
Calista moved into the salesroom. The dim light was coming from the coffin chamber at the rear of the shop.
“Mrs. Fulton?” Calista moved to the foot of the narrow stairs and raised her voice. “I do hope you don’t mind that I accompanied Mr. Hastings tonight. I thought you might be more comfortable if there was a woman present.”
Somewhere in the darkness a floorboard creaked.
“This is not good,” Trent said quietly. “We need to leave. Now.”
“No,” Calista said quickly. “We can’t leave, not yet. We must find out what she has to tell us.”
“Out.” Trent seized Calista’s upper arm and yanked her away from the bottom of the stairs.
He started to give her a push toward the door. She hoisted her skirts so that she could run.
A tall figure exploded out of the shadows behind the counter and blocked the path to the front door. The spectral light from the coffin chamber glinted on the blade in his hand.
He did not hesitate for even an instant. He lunged toward Trent, the wicked knife outstretched for a killing thrust.
Trent swung his stout walking stick in a short, slicing arc aimed at the knife in the man’s hand. Startled by the unexpected counterattack, the intruder reacted with a quick sideways movement and managed to retreat just out of range.
Calista knew there was little hope of escaping through the front door as long as the man with the knife was in the way, not unless Trent got lucky with the walking stick. And to do that, he would have to get closer to his opponent and risk the long blade.
Trent evidently came to the same conclusion. He hauled Calista back through the doorway of the coffin chamber. The man who was attacking them followed but more cautiously this time, wary of the walking stick.
The heel of Calista’s high-button shoe caught on the hem of her petticoats. Frantically she struggled with her skirts but it was too late. She was off balance.
Trent released her abruptly, putting himself between her and the assailant. Helplessly entangled with her gown and underclothes, she reeled sideways and fetched up hard against an elaborately decorated coffin. The lid was open. She landed on her knees and grasped one edge of the ornate burial box for support.
She was about to push herself upright when she saw the body in the coffin. Mrs. Fulton gazed up at her with eyes that were blank with the shock of death. Her throat was a bloody sash. The white satin interior of the box was stained a terrible crimson.
A primal roar of rage from the assailant made Calista whirl around. She saw that Trent had grabbed an urn off a pedestal. He used his free hand to heave the heavy object at the attacker.
Hemmed in by the closely spaced coffins, the attacker could not dodge out of the way. He threw up an arm to ward off the urn but it struck him with enough force to drive him back a couple of paces.
The big vase crashed to the floor, shattering into dozens of jagged shards. Both men ignored the debris.
The attacker recovered and surged forward again but he was careful not to get too close to Trent’s walking stick. The situation would have been a standoff, Calista thought, if not for her.
The attacker seemed to realize that at the same instant that she did. He switched directions and lunged toward her. But she was already on her feet, skirts and petticoats hauled up to her knees. The assailant was fast and quite athletic but Calista had one singular advantage—she had anticipated that he might try to use her as a hostage a few seconds before the same notion occurred to him.
She slipped between two coffins and rushed down an aisle created by twin rows of burial boxes. She could hear the attacker behind her. She glanced back and saw that he was in the process of climbing over the coffin that contained Mrs. Fulton’s body.
She raised her skirts higher and sidestepped between another pair of coffins.
Behind her she heard a soft, sickening thud. The unnerving sound was followed by an anguished howl of rage and pain. The attacker, Calista thought. Not Trent.
She reached the end of the row of coffins and grabbed an urn off a pedestal. It was similar to the one that Trent had employed. She had not expected it to be so heavy. She could barely hold on to it using both hands.
She swung around and saw that Trent had abandoned the walking stick in favor of a tall, ornamental iron stand designed to display a funeral wreath. It was long enough to be used against the attacker without making it necessary for Trent to get within striking range of the blade.
She realized that he had just employed the floral stand to reach across a row of coffins and strike the assailant.
Blood spurted from the intruder’s head, some of it cascading down his face. He howled again and dashed the back of one gloved hand against his eyes. Simultaneously he tried to retreat out of range but he was hampered by the coffins that hemmed him in on either side.
Trent moved between two coffins. He was now in the same aisle as the intruder, blocking the path to Calista. He readied the iron stand for another savage blow.
The assailant abandoned the attack. He clambered over the nearest coffin and ran toward the door.
He rushed out of the display chamber, across the salesroom, and disappeared into the night. The blood from his wound marked his path.
18
TRENT LOOKED AT Calista.
“Are you all right?” he said.
His voice sounded harsh and fierce, even to his own ears. The energy of the recent violence was still heating his blood. His heart was pounding and he was breathing hard from exertion and the gut-twisting knowledge of what had almost happened. My fault, he thought. I should never have let her come with me tonight. I was almost too late.
Another moment and the bastard would have had his hands on her.
I was almost too late.
“Yes. Yes, I’m all right.” She glanced out the display chamber doorway toward the front entrance of the shop. “Do you think he will return?”
“We are not going to remain here to find out.” He tossed the heavy iron stand aside and moved into the next aisle of coffins to retrieve his walking stick. “Come. There is one thing I want to do before we leave.”
“He killed Mrs. Fulton.”
“What?”
“She’s in that coffin.” Calista motioned toward a white coffin fitted with white satin. “See for yourself.”
“What in blazes?” Distracted, he went to the open coffin and looked down. Mrs. Fulton was, indeed, in the coffin. Her blood had soaked the satin lining. “It seems she will not require one of her husband’s patented safety coffin bells.”
“That villain who tried to kill you must have been a burglar who broke in shortly before we arrived. He murdered Mrs. Fulton. We no doubt interrupted him while he was searching for valuables.”
“That’s a possibility, but a rather remote one, I think.”
Cali
sta moved down the aisle of coffins, careful not to look into the white, satin-lined box.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
She wanted a logical answer but he could tell from the shock in her eyes that she suspected the same thing he did.
“I can’t be positive but I find it difficult to believe that, by sheer coincidence, someone murdered the proprietor of this shop within hours of me receiving the note that brought us here.”
“It was a trap.” Calista drew a shaky breath.
“It is the only logical assumption under the circumstances. We must leave.” He motioned her to go ahead of him down the aisle. “I can only hope the cab waited for us but with our luck the killer will have commandeered it.”
“What about Mrs. Fulton? There’s been a murder here tonight. We cannot ignore it.”
“We do not want to be found at the scene. When you are safely home I will send a message to my acquaintance at the Yard.”
“You know someone at Scotland Yard?”
“I thought I made it clear that my research has provided me with a number of connections at various levels of Society. Inspector Wynn is a very capable policeman. More to the point, he can be counted on to respect your privacy. I will give him an account of what happened here tonight and a description of the killer. There is no need for you to become involved.”
Calista did not argue. She understood as well as he did that getting caught up in a murder investigation would devastate her business.
He followed her into the salesroom. She went warily toward the door.
“One moment,” he said.
Calista paused, her hand on the knob, and glanced back. “What is it?”
“Mrs. Fulton’s journal of sales transactions. With luck it’s still here.”
He went behind the counter and struck a light. The leather-bound volume was precisely where he had watched Mrs. Fulton place it earlier that day. He picked it up and tucked it under his arm.
“Right,” he said. “Now we can leave.”