Chapter 38
Maggie stared at Dr. Holmes’ gloating grin as her stomach roiled with fear. Was he actually going to physically prevent them from leaving? From the way he was standing, blocking the whole doorway, she feared so.
“We’re taking our leave,” she told him shortly, grateful that her voice didn’t shake. “And you wouldn’t be advised to stop us.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t?” He cocked his head, seeming coldly amused.
“Of course, I have no issue with the two of you departing my premises, Miss O’Halloran.
As it happens, I was planning to dismiss Mr. O’Donaghue from his position.
He has, as you can see, become quite, quite useless.
” He glanced at Brendan, who stood behind Maggie, his fists clenched, his shoulders slumped.
Holmes paused, his eyes narrowing as his gaze swung back to Maggie.
“But, you see, I wouldn’t want you to leave with the wrong impression. ”
“I don’t know how you think you can stop us,” Maggie flung at him. He was only one man, after all, as terrible as he was. Determinedly, she moved to get past him, and he quickly blocked her way, his shoulder bumping hers hard enough to hurt, and she stumbled back.
“What was that you said?” he asked pleasantly.
“Let us go, Holmes,” Brendan demanded in a low voice as he took a menacing step forward, although Holmes didn’t budge. “You can’t keep us. You must know you can’t.”
“Oh, I have no intention of keeping you,” Holmes assured them.
“I just wanted you to know about the little chat I had with the police the other day. Such amenable gentlemen.” He shook his head sorrowfully as he continued, “But I’m afraid I had to tell them how you’d become disenchanted with me, after I found your work wasn’t up to standard.
I said how you might have said all sorts of ridiculous lies, delusions really, because the truth was you’d started stealing some of my pharmaceuticals for your own use.
Morphine, you know, and opium. So ruinously addictive.
I found the empty bottles in your room.” Maggie’s mouth dropped open as he stared at them both in obvious enjoyment.
“The police wanted to arrest you, of course,” he continued, “but I insisted I could handle the matter myself… for now. They are relying on my… generosity of spirit.” His smile widened, his eyes like shards of ice.
“So I wouldn’t go back to them if I were you, O’Donaghue, because you might find you have quite a different reception. ”
Brendan’s body tensed, his fists clenching all the more as he glared at the druggist. “You damned liar,” he whispered.
“I think you’ll find you are the one who is so accused,” Holmes replied easily. With a flourish of his arm, he stepped out of their way, ever the flamboyant gentleman. “And now you are, of course, free to go where you will.”
“Where’s Danny?” Maggie asked in a shaking voice.
“Oh, he’s doing a little job for me,” Holmes replied airily, still smiling. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, I’m sure.”
“We’re not leaving without him,” Maggie declared with more bravado than certainty. She could not possibly abandon her brother to this man’s wiles and ways.
“That, of course, is for your brother to decide,” Holmes replied. “But I will say he has become quite… devoted to me.”
Maggie glanced at Brendan in uncertain query, and he shrugged resignedly in reply.
Had her brother fallen prey to this awful man’s shallow charms?
She wouldn’t put it past either Holmes or Danny.
Her brother had been taken in before, by a member of the terrible Whyo gang back in New York, and allowed the man to lead him into all sorts of trouble. Was the same happening now?
“Even so,” Maggie managed, and grabbing Brendan’s hand, she marched down the hall, her legs trembling every step of the way.
Out in the street, she breathed in the fresh spring air, nearly collapsing with the anxiety of it all, while Brendan leaned against the building, raking a hand through his hair, his face gray with worry and fear. They were safe, for now—at least she hoped they were… But where was her brother?
“I’ll wait for Danny here,” Brendan told her as he straightened. “He can’t be gone too long. You should go somewhere safe.”
“I’m not leaving without you,” Maggie insisted.
Taking in Brendan’s haggard expression, his slumped shoulders, she feared he was no match for Holmes, or even Danny, if it came to that.
She didn’t trust him to bring her brother back, not in the state he was in, and she had no idea what Danny’s mood would be when they finally found him.
Would he insist Holmes was all right, that she and Brendan had completely the wrong idea about him?
Even now, Maggie doubted herself. It all seemed so horribly fantastical, the things she’d been led to believe about that man, awful as he seemed.
What if Brendan was on the drugs Holmes accused him of taking?
He looked ill enough for it to be true, so haggard and pale, and it could all make a terrible sense…
“He has a way of making you believe him,” Brendan stated in a low voice, his weary gaze steady on her. “It’s why I stayed so long. Why Danny’s happy to work for him even now. He can charm the birds out of the trees, I’ve seen it myself, but I’m not taking drugs, for heaven’s sake, Maggie.”
Maggie’s lips parted. “How did you know I was…?” she whispered.
“I could see it on your face,” he explained tiredly. “And I know you, maybe better than anyone. But I’m not lying. Holmes is.”
He kept her gaze, his own hazel one, even now so weary and pain-filled, familiar and even beloved. She could never doubt Brendan, Maggie knew. Even when she’d been so wayward and capricious, he had always been stalwart. “I believe you,” she said quietly. “And I hope Danny will, too.”
It was another interminable hour of waiting and worrying before Maggie finally saw her brother sauntering down the street, and relief and anger filled her in equal measure.
How could Danny look as if he didn’t have a care in the world, when so many terrible things were happening all around him?
When he might even be party to them, unbeknownst or otherwise?
“Danny!” she hissed, hurrying up to him, and the surprised look on his face was almost comical.
“Maggie! After all this time—”
“Never mind that,” she interrupted, grabbing his hand. “We have to leave. Now.”
“What?” Danny yanked his hand away. “Well, you’ve got high and mighty, haven’t you? I’m not going anywhere.”
“Danny.” Brendan stepped forward. “It’s Holmes. He’s threatened me. Us. He’s up to no good, no good at all. We have to go.”
Danny’s face twisted. “He told me you’d say something like this. That you’d been into his supplies—”
Brendan let out a mirthless laugh. “He told you that too? For God’s sake, Danny, I’m not a—a dope fiend! Has that demon really got you believing such guff about me? Are you so taken in by him and his ways?”
Danny drew back, offended. “I’m not taken in by anyone.”
“Enough,” Maggie snapped. The last thing they needed was an argument in the street, while Holmes gazed on gleefully.
“Danny, the man is dangerous,” she stated in a low voice.
“He nearly attacked me this very day. But we should go somewhere safe to talk about it, and if you won’t believe us, well then, as you’ve said yourself, you’re nearly a man, and you can make your own decisions.
” Her voice trembled as she imagined letting her brother go back to Holmes, but she knew already that she could not force him to do anything.
He wasn’t a little boy anymore. She could not compel him to do her bidding.
‘He’s expecting me back,” Danny said, but there was a note of fearful uncertainty in his voice that Brendan seized upon.
“And what did he have you doing this time?” he demanded.
“Taking women’s clothes to charity? Funny, how many lovely dresses all these women leave behind.
Silks and satins, and their trunks too, with their initials engraved upon them.
I saw them, Danny.” Brendan’s voice throbbed with both intensity and grief.
“Why would a woman leave behind all her belongings? Why would you have to take a trunk the size of a—a coffin—to the Cook County Hospital? And why does that—that murder castle smell like chemicals all the time? What the hell do you think he’s doing? ”
Danny stared at him, his eyes wide and his jaw slack in his pale face, unable to come up with a response.
Maggie glanced at the drugstore, and with a frisson of fear, she saw Holmes himself staring at them from the window, his mouth pursed and his eyes narrowed. Whatever the man was planning, she knew she didn’t want to stay around for it.
“We need to go,” she hissed urgently. “Please, Danny, listen to Brendan. At least hear him out. It’s too important, too dangerous, to stand on pride now.”
For a few awful seconds, she thought her brother was going to resist. Then, his face still pale, his eyes wide, he wordlessly nodded, and the three of them started down the street, away from Dr. Holmes and his horrible murder castle.