Chapter 4
While Oscar gave our names to the butler who greeted us, I watched the cart driver unload the luggage.
He’d stopped behind the carriage that had delivered Mr. Defoe and his companion.
I was surprised to see it still there, since it must have arrived several minutes ahead of us.
The reason became clear when the coachman stepped down from his perch.
Hands on hips, he twisted from side to side, his gaze scanning the trees and bushes of the garden beyond the fence opposite.
He seemed to be looking for something. Or someone.
I peered into the semi-dark, trying to determine if any of the shadows were person shaped, when I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. A maid emerged from the steps leading down to the neighboring house’s basement service area. Her gasp reverberated around the quiet, curved street.
She stared at me, eyes wide with fear.
I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way, but all it did was force her back a step. The hand on the black iron railing tightened its grip.
“You’ve got nothing tae fear from them, Agnes.” Mr. Kinloch’s coachman jerked his head at Oscar and me. “They’ve just got off the train at Waverley, so it’s not them.”
Not us? What was he referring to?
Agnes’s grip on the railing loosened a little, then she ran back down the steps and disappeared into the house.
I cleared my throat in an attempt to get the coachman’s attention. It worked, but instead of a polite ‘Aye, sir?’, I received a scowl that put me back in my place. Their conversation had been a private one, and it was none of my business to intrude.
I set aside my curiosity and turned back to Oscar as Mr. Kinloch’s butler invited us to wait in the entrance foyer.
The towering fellow peered down his nose at us. “I’ll see if Mr. Kinloch’s taking callers.” I was surprised to hear he was English.
“We know Mr. Defoe is already here,” Oscar said tightly.
“Oscar,” I hissed.
Oscar drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
He forced a smile for the butler. “We’ll be waiting.
” He turned to me. “Gavin, ask the coachman to take down our luggage.” He indicated the valises still strapped to the top of the carriage.
“We’ll leave them here in the foyer until our business is finished. ”
I glanced at the coachman, only to find he was still watching me. Light from the streetlamps reflected in his eyes, making him look as though he was lit from within like a supernatural creature. The shadows cast by his craggy features only added to the devilishness.
I swallowed heavily. “Perhaps you should ask him, Oscar.”
With a shrug, he trotted back down the steps and spoke to the coachman.
The coachman said a few words in return then climbed back up to his perch. He flicked the reins, and the horses moved off. Oscar returned to me without the valises.
“Our luggage!” I cried. “Where is he taking it?”
“He’s driving around to the mews. We’re to collect them from the coach house when we’re finished with Kinloch.” Oscar ushered me back into the foyer as the butler returned.
“Mr. Kinloch will see you now,” he intoned. “Follow me.”
He led us up the staircase, past walls with rectangular patches on the wallpaper where paintings must have once hung for many years.
Were they sent off for cleaning, or had he sold them?
If the latter, it would seem Mr. Kinloch was experiencing financial trouble.
That would make him quite desperate to get what he could for the rare book, making our task of purchasing it even more difficult.
We could offer him a good sum, but not a large one. Unlike a railroad magnate.
The butler led us into a comfortable if rather old-fashioned reception room where an array of knickknacks were clustered on every inch of table surface like barnacles on the posts of a seaside pier.
Seeing all the clocks, candlesticks, and little dog statues put to rest any notion that Mr. Kinloch was experiencing financial difficulty.
Those would be the easiest and therefore the first to sell off.
A man approached and extended his hand to Oscar.
“Good evening. I’m William Kinloch. Mr. Barratt, I presume?
” His accent was an educated English one with the merest hint of Scottish brogue.
His age was difficult to guess with the threads of gray through his beard but not his sandy-colored hair.
The only lines on his face appeared at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, which he did throughout the greeting.
He was impeccably dressed in a pin-striped suit, but the tie’s knot was a simple one and sat slightly askew.
A good valet ought to have done better. Perhaps Kinloch didn’t have a dedicated one and instead had his butler or a footman perform double duties.
Mr. Kinloch shook Oscar’s hand then turned to me. “And you must be Professor Nash.”
I wondered how he’d managed to guess correctly. “A pleasure to meet you,” I said. “We’re sorry to intrude.” I nodded an awkward greeting to the two familiar figures seated on the sofa.
The beautiful woman gave a slight nod in return, as if she were barely deigning to acknowledge our presence.
She sat stiff-backed beside Mr. Defoe who sprawled into the corner of the sofa as if he owned it.
Indeed, as if he owned the entire place.
He could certainly afford to buy the house several times over, even though it was one of Edinburgh’s finest, so Oscar had informed me when he’d learned of the address.
Unlike the woman, Defoe smiled, but it didn’t improve the equine features that the thick, black sideburns attempted to soften.
Indeed, somehow it made him seem condescending, as if he were smiling because he knew he’d already beaten us to the book.
He couldn’t have been more than forty, younger than I expected for a wealthy magnate.
Then I remembered he’d inherited his fortune, not made it.
“Thank you for receiving us like this,” Oscar said to Mr. Kinloch. “We hope we’re not too late to make an offer for the Mackenzie tome.”
“Not at all. Mr. Defoe has made me an offer, but I’ve declined to entertain it until speaking to you.
You were the first to contact me, after all, so it’s only fair you are given the right to make the first bid.
I expected to see you tomorrow, as planned, but since you are here, we can begin.
Allow me to make the introductions. Mr. John J.
Defoe and Miss Adele Wheeler, please meet Mr. Oscar Barratt and Professor Gavin Nash. Miss Wheeler is Mr. Defoe’s assistant.”
That cleared up one mystery.
Oscar hadn’t taken his gaze off her since shaking her hand. “Then it must be you, Miss Wheeler, who arranged for Mr. Kinloch’s coach to collect you from the station. Please forgive our attempt to borrow it.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said, voice silky smooth.
“I offered to collect Mr. Defoe and Miss Wheeler,” Mr. Kinloch said. “Given they’re new to our shores, I thought it the hospitable thing to do.”
Mr. Defoe lifted a hand from the sofa arm in dismissal, the motion little more than a twitch as if he could hardly be bothered. “I trust you won’t attempt to steal what’s mine again, Barratt.” The American drawl held a hint of steel that had my pulse leaping.
“How is your foot, Mr. Barratt?” Miss Wheeler indicated Oscar’s foot that had been stabbed by the end of her parasol at the station.
He waggled it. “Fortunately these shoes are my sturdier traveling pair.”
“That’s good to know.” The unspoken words ‘for next time’ hung in the air.
Oscar’s eyes brightened with amusement.
Miss Wheeler looked annoyed that her comment had done as little damage to his ego as her parasol had to his foot, which only made Oscar’s eyes brighten more.
Mr. Defoe reached into his inside jacket pocket and removed a cigar and gold vesta box embossed with his initials. “Mind if I smoke, Kinloch?”
“I… er…” Mr. Kinloch trailed off as Mr. Defoe plugged the cigar into his mouth and struck a match. “Not at all, if Miss Wheeler doesn’t mind.”
“She’s used to it.” Smoke billowed from Mr. Defoe’s mouth along with his words.
Miss Wheeler sat as calm as could be beside him, not looking at all perturbed. Not moving a muscle either.
Mr. Kinloch signaled to his butler. “Three whiskeys, Redmayne, and a cup of tea for Miss Wheeler. Or do you prefer sherry?”
“I prefer whiskey,” she shot back. “I hear your distillery makes a very fine single malt.”
Mr. Defoe’s chuckle erupted from the depths of his chest as if she’d said something amusing. We all glanced at him, but he didn’t share the joke with us. Miss Wheeler gave no reaction. It was as if he wasn’t even there.
Redmayne glanced at his employer who nodded. The butler bowed out of the drawing room.
Mr. Kinloch asked how our journey had been. Oscar answered politely while Mr. Defoe merely grunted and puffed on his cigar. He left it to Miss Wheeler to explain that it had taken them almost two weeks to reach Scotland from New York. As the cigar smoke drifted across to her, she suddenly stood.
“Don’t get up,” she said as Mr. Kinloch, Oscar and I went to stand out of politeness. “I’d like to take a turn about the room. I need to stretch my legs.”
“You must want to freshen up after the long journey,” our host said.
“And miss the negotiations? I’ll stay, but thank you for the offer.”
Mr. Kinloch asked me about my work at the university. He listened while I told him I’d resigned from my position some time ago to co-write a book with Oscar, and now we planned to travel together.
“Mr. Barratt’s first book created quite the stir on this side of the world,” Mr. Kinloch explained to Mr. Defoe and Miss Wheeler. “Indeed, it changed the course of history.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Oscar said. “It merely explained magic to the artless. History was changed by others.”
“Your letter said you’re a magician.”
Oscar nodded, but did not clarify that he was an ink magician. “Are you a magician, Miss Wheeler?”
She’d been standing beside a round table by the window where a newspaper was perched on the edge, but now looked up. She opened her mouth, but Mr. Defoe answered before she could speak.
“I am a magician—iron, of course.”
Miss Wheeler’s lips flattened, and she turned away to look out of the window.
Mr. Defoe sucked on his cigar.
Oscar wouldn’t be put off. “Are you American, Miss Wheeler?”
“I’m English,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. “But you knew that from my accent.”
“You may have been brought up in England and moved,” he shot back, unperturbed. “How long have you worked for Mr. Defoe?”
She crossed her arms. “Has anyone ever accused you of asking too many pointless questions?”
“Frequently, but in my defense, they’re rarely pointless, it’s just that no one knows it except me. In this instance, my questions are most definitely not pointless.”
Miss Wheeler studied him beneath thick dark lashes as if trying to assess if he were teasing her.
Mr. Defoe withdrew his cigar from his mouth and grunted a laugh. “You’re wasting your breath, Barratt. Adele has been subjected to the flirtations of more charming men than you and has ignored them all.”
Rather than be put off by the caustic remark, Oscar laughed softly. “If that’s considered flirting where you’re from, then it’s no wonder she has ignored these so-called charmers. Forgive my journalist’s nosiness, Miss Wheeler. It’s a habit I’ve found difficult to break when someone intrigues me.”
Miss Wheeler suddenly turned back to the window, as something on the street caught her attention.
Or perhaps she simply didn’t want to risk being sucked in by Oscar’s warm eyes and easy manner.
He was a very good flirt. Many women had fallen for him after only a brief conversation.
Indeed, sometimes he didn’t have to speak at all.
I’d once seen a young widow leave a soiree in his carriage after their gazes connected across the room.
He was very handsome, after all, and after his relationship with Lady Louisa ended, he used his handsomeness to his advantage.
He’d become quite indiscriminate of late, taking a different lover every month, or so it seemed.
Not that he ever boasted about his conquests.
Indeed, he was rather discreet, and most of his friends wouldn’t have realized.
I spent a great deal of time with him and could be quite observant when I put my mind to it.
Redmayne entered carrying a tray with a decanter and four tumblers but did not immediately set it down.
He blinked at Miss Wheeler, still staring out of the window.
If it wasn’t for that blink, I’d have thought he hardly took notice of any of us.
He had an air of professional indifference about him.
But that blink, accompanied by the hasty depositing of the tray and his striding toward her, had me wondering what had upset him.
He reached past her and snapped the thick curtains closed, then snatched up the newspaper. “Would you like me to pour, sir?”
Mr. Kinloch signaled for him to leave. The butler bowed out, newspaper clutched firmly in his hand. Miss Wheeler watched him go with a narrowed gaze.
I’d caught a glimpse of the headline before he left. As with the newspaper at the station, it was an article about the second girl to go missing in a week. But this newspaper’s headline was more provocative: Witchfinder Strikes Again.
The subheading was less attention grabbing, but more informative: Second Woman Magician Missing from Moray Place.
We were currently sitting in a townhouse on Moray Place, discussing the sale of a book about the persecution of witches. The coincidence was striking.
Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence at all.