Chapter Sixteen
“What makes you think I need your help?” Tobias asked, staring at Jack Maguire with both skepticism and intrigue, given the idea of her working with him did have some merit.
“What makes you think you don’t need my help?” She raised her brow. “Two murders in the space of three days, and I’m guessing no suspects, given you thought I was involved? I’d say you most definitely need my help.”
He stayed silent, his eyes fixed upon hers, knowing she was right.
Though it rankled his pride to think he needed help, he wasn’t willing to risk the lives of anyone else for his pride.
After all, he wasn’t just chasing a criminal, he was chasing an evil he’d not encountered before.
“I don’t like involving a civilian, let alone a woman, in a murder investigation, particularly not one of this brutal nature. ”
“I’m already involved,” Jack replied. “So, either with or without your help, I’ll be investigating this matter, and ensuring this killer pays for what he’s done. Jeremiah will be avenged.”
“We prefer to call it ‘seeking justice.’” The look of retribution he saw in her eyes was nothing short of scorched earth, and he knew she meant exactly what she was saying.
“You’ve seen the depths of depravity this monster has sunk to,” she replied, raising her chin a notch, boldly defiant. “Surely, even you know that justice will not have the means to properly deal with someone this evil, let alone contain him?”
“What I know is that if we allow ourselves to go beyond the bounds of the law and the justice system, then we’re no better than the murderer. We must trust in the system.”
She laughed, though it sounded bitter. “It must have been nice to have grown up and lived in such a privileged world, being an earl’s son. But the evil I’ve seen in my life, especially coming from those with power, has taught me very quickly that you cannot rely on the system for anything.”
He’d seen many instances of the same thing himself since joining the police. “A lot of corrupt officers have been sacked from the Yard over the years.”
“A good start, but even you would know there’s far more to go.
” She straightened her spine. “I’ve done whatever was necessary to protect myself since I was left alone on the streets after my father’s death when I was just thirteen.
I didn’t have the luxury of a family or a rank to protect me from the evil in the world.
In my life, Inspector, justice is nothing more than a lofty ideal.
True justice doesn’t come from trusting in the system; it comes from taking matters into your own hands. ”
“Words of a vigilante.”
“Perhaps a vigilante is exactly what’s needed to catch this demon.”
He couldn’t argue with her. Whoever was responsible for these murders was unlikely to ever face enough justice for the evil perpetrated.
“When you’re with me investigating this matter, you will obey the law, Miss Maguire.
” His words were brooking no argument. “That is absolutely nonnegotiable. Am I being clear?”
“I always obey the law, Inspector,” Jack replied with a half shrug. “Though I cannot promise I won’t sometimes bend it.”
Tobias felt his headache getting worse. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to regret this working partnership with you?”
“Perhaps you’ll learn something from me. I do, after all, get outstanding results for my clients.”
“I am not your client,” he made sure to clarify. “However, your skills will probably come in handy. But I want your word here and now that you will never use them or any tricks on me again. Do you understand?”
“You would trust my word?” There was surprise and suspicion in her voice.
“If you give it to me. Yes.” And he would.
Because even though she seemed to have no qualms in bending the law to her own purposes, Tobias got the sense that if she gave him her word, she’d keep it.
He was trusting she would. And trusting a woman was not something he’d done in a very long time.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t regret his decision.
*
As Jack stood there, considering the inspector saying he’d believe her, she didn’t know whether to be impressed or worried.
He certainly seemed to give the impression he was speaking the truth, and normally, she could spot if a person was lying, given everyone had tells that a magician had to be able to detect in seconds.
A skill Jack had honed over the years, except when her feelings were involved.
Not that her feelings were involved with this man, even if his very nearness was occasionally sending her heartbeat jumping. “I give you my word. Provided you give me yours that we will be partners in this investigation. Unofficially, of course.”
He stood there quietly assessing her before he nodded. “Very well. Agreed.”
His hand extended out towards her, treating her as he would an equal rather than a lady, and Jack reached out and shook it, her pulse strangely flittering at the contact. Quickly, she let go and he raised an eyebrow but let it pass.
“Come along, then,” he said. “I need to speak to a certain magician again, and I have a feeling you’ll be of use when I do so.
” He stepped back and indicated for her to proceed out the door.
“I’ll meet you around the back entrance.
I just have to go give the details of the vic—of Jeremiah Black to my men so they can start to make some inquiries about his last movements. I’ll meet you out the back shortly.”
“What makes you think I won’t disappear on you again?”
“You want to be involved in the investigation, don’t you?” He cocked one of his eyebrows.
He was right, damn him. “Fine. I’ll wait.” She watched as he headed to the front stairs before she made her way down the back stairs to the back alley of the building.
Five minutes later, she saw him striding down the cobblestones towards her. The fact that she was noticing his broad shoulders and athletic figure, as Cordy had called it, while he walked over to her was entirely frustrating.
“We’ll need to hail a hackney to get to Mayfair.” He indicated the far end of the alley, and she nodded, falling in step alongside him.
“Which magician do you need to speak to?” she asked.
Though she’d stayed out of that world, she’d kept track of it all thanks to Jeremiah catching her up when they’d had their monthly afternoon tea catchup.
The very thought they’d never do that again nearly stopped her short.
Images of what had been done to him had her heart clenching in pain, and for a moment, she had to blink back the tears that were threatening to fall.
“Caleb Dodd, the Great Dondaric.”
His words instantly changed her tears into a white-hot furnace. “You think Caleb is the killer?” She would kill the bastard herself if he was.
Tobias cocked one of his brows as they exited the alley. “You know him?”
“He was an apprentice of my father’s.” He’d been a lot more to her than that too, but she wasn’t going to talk about such matters with the inspector. Who, she noticed, didn’t seem surprised by that bit of information, either. “But you already knew that.”
“I did. But to answer your question, I don’t think he’s the killer, given he had an alibi for the first murder.”
Jack scoffed. “Alibis are far too easy to manufacture, especially for a magician.” Caleb might not have the same talents as her father had had, or that she did, but he was still a very good magician, and she wouldn’t put it past him to be able to trick a person or an audience into thinking he was somewhere when he was in fact somewhere else.
As much as she still loathed the man, though, for using her and breaking her heart, she didn’t truly think he could perpetrate such horrid acts. At least she hoped not. The possibility he could have made her sick to her stomach.
“How so?” the inspector asked as he hailed a hackney and gave the driver the address for a theater in Mayfair.
Jack stepped into the carriage and took a seat on the bench. “Magicians are masters of misdirection.”
“But he was on stage at the time of the first killing,” Tobias said, settling into the seat across from her as the hackney pulled away from the curb. “A perfect alibi, in fact.”
“Perhaps,” she answered. “However, a magician’s whole purpose is to make the audience think that what they are focusing on is the illusion.
But the true illusion is happening off the stage in the shadows, with the audience none the wiser.
And that is the true magic of making people believe in the impossible: misdirection. ”
“Do you think he could be the killer?”
“Caleb Dodd is a lot of horrible things, but a killer?” She just couldn’t picture it, perhaps because at one point she’d thought herself in love with the fool. “I don’t think so.”
“Do you have any idea of who this killer could be, then? Especially since whoever it is clearly wants you involved in all this,” he said, his eyes giving nothing away as the sunlight from the carriage window flickered through the glass.
“I honestly have no idea, and trust me, I’ve thought of little else since this began.
However, whoever it is clearly knows my identity, and apart from my two closest friends, whom I’d trust with my life, and Caleb Dodd—which is a long story.
” She forestalled the question she could see in his eyes.
“But apart from them, and Jeremiah who knew too, then no one else knows I’m alive. ” Or at least she’d thought not.
“What about anyone from your father’s past? Was there anyone who bore him any ill will? Perhaps an audience member or a fellow magician obsessed with him or his illusions?”
“The only person who was obsessed with my father was Edward Clorren, the Baron Denton. Though he was more obsessed with my mother, whom he killed after she refused his advances, and then at his trial, he vowed to kill my father too. However, since he’s been locked up in the Broadmoor Asylum for the past twenty years, I doubt he’s our suspect.
Unless you think he might have escaped? Though I’ve never heard of anyone doing so from Broadmoor. ”
“There’ve been four escapes since it was established,” Tobias said.
“Three were over twenty-five years ago, all recaptured and returned, and the fourth was five years ago; however, he’s still at large.
But it’s not the baron. It was a man named James Kelly, who fashioned a key out of a corset stay and a piece of metal he found in a workshop within the grounds. ”
“Resourceful of him. But how was that not reported in the press?” Reading the papers was a necessary part of her work, and she would have definitely noticed if someone had escaped from Broadmoor.
“It was kept quiet to avoid panic.”
“Are you certain it wasn’t the baron who escaped?” The very idea that her mother’s killer could be out in London made her breath catch.
“James Kelly was twenty-seven years old upon his escape, so no, it wasn’t the baron. However, I will make some enquiries and confirm he’s still there, and whether he’s had any visitors over the years. Was the baron a magician, by any chance?”
“No.” Jack shook her head, remembering the rather charismatic baron, who had funded her father’s performances until his obsession with her mother had made him go mad.
“Though he was fascinated, perhaps even obsessed, by magic. He’d wanted to be a magician, I believe, and was getting my father to teach him some tricks occasionally, but he didn’t have the skills or dexterity to do them well.
The only way he could really be involved in a magic act was to finance my father’s shows. ”
“And that was how he became obsessed with your mother?”
“Yes. He knew she was happily married to my father—everyone knew that—but the baron didn’t seem to care.
The man even had his own wife and child too, but apparently, he convinced himself that my mother should be his mistress.
When she refused, he became enraged and stabbed her to death… I thought he’d never stop.”
“You saw him stab her?”
Jack nodded and glanced out the window, her mind reliving the incident in vivid detail.
It was a memory that rarely resurfaced now, but some nights after a particularly busy day, she’d dream of it.
Or rather have a nightmare about it. Nightmares that had seemed to increase in number and intensity over the past few years.
“My mother was on the stage doing final checks for my father’s show later that night,” she replied, “when the baron entered the theater and joined her up there. I was off to the side, practicing my card tricks, so he didn’t see me.
I glanced up over to them after I heard my mother yelling and saying no and to leave her alone.
That was when I saw the baron pull out a knife and stab her, again and again.
I thought they must have been practicing a new magic trick… but they weren’t.”
“How old were you?”
“Eight.” She shook her head, clearing away the images.
“In any event, my father and some other men rushed in, obviously having heard her screams too, and they apprehended the baron. But it was too late. When my father rushed over to my mother and cradled her in his arms, begging for the Lord to take him instead of her, I realized then that it wasn’t an illusion. That it was dreadfully real.”
“I’m so sorry, Jack.”
Jack’s blinked and then flicked her eyes back to his.
“My father was never the same after. Me, either, I suppose. In any event, ‘the Bloody Baron,’ as the press dubbed him, was sent away to Broadmoor for the rest of his life, where he’s still rotting to this day.
So, apart from him, Inspector, no, I don’t know of anyone else who would have a grudge against myself or my father’s memory.
But clearly someone does, and I intend to find out who. ”