Chapter 29 The Sting #4
Alice’s eyes shine with thinly veiled glee.
“Thank you, dear friends,” she cries, clasping her hands before her heart. “You have all made this a momentous day in Württemberg’s
history. Perhaps another cordial to celebrate?”
Mr. Vandemeer grimaces. “Might you have anything more palat—er, a bit less sweet?”
The ambassador laughs, both hands slapping his impressive belly. “Perhaps this calls for a toast of Württemberg rye.”
“Quite like the sound of that,” Mr. Ogden says.
Vandemeer nods smartly. “Hear, hear!”
Dagmar has a new pep in her step as she pours contents of a second decanter into seven crystal-cut glasses.
Alice’s eyes flit to Cora’s but do not linger. Still, the message is clear: It is done.
Now all they need to do is to get out the door.
“And to celebrate in true Württembergian fashion, I have taken the liberty of reserving a private room at Sherry’s for our
inaugural lunch.” Alice downs the whiskey in her glass, eyes still bright with victory. “Shall we be off?”
The procession out to Sherry’s begins with Mr. Vandemeer, naturally, resulting in an irate outburst from Peyton Senior, who
apparently believes his superior stake in the mines should grant him the right of first departure.
Senior is further outraged when his son refrains from assuming his position behind the handles of the wheelchair, instead escorting Arabella Ames out the door. Not Cora, who trails behind them, Alice notes. Not that it matters one whit now.
She turns away to smile, catching Dagmar’s eye, as well as that of her ambassadorial sweetheart.
Konrad leaves his place beside the still-unspooling ticker tape. “Vee vill just make sure everything eez in order.”
“Very good, Ambassador,” Alice answers with a satisfied nod, and allows herself the luxury of one little playful wink in Dagmar’s
direction.
In answer, Dagmar scans the departing crowd and, apparently assured no one is looking, hoists her skirts for a brief little
tap dance before following her beau into the ambassador’s office and locking the door behind them.
Now only Alice remains in the quiet, stately space . . . apart from one other, lingering by the doorway.
Alice stifles a sigh. She should have predicted Ogden would want to escort her out.
“How kind of you to wait,” she says, approaching the exit.
“It is my pleasure, dearest,” Ogden breathes.
But instead of holding the door open for her, he shuts it. Blocks it with his body.
“How else could I engineer a moment of celebration for just the two of us?”
Blood rushes cold through Alice’s body. He can’t mean to try again. Midmorning, in an embassy . . . with the door shut and,
as all others have already departed in their carriages, no witnesses. No one to hear me scream. No defenses.
Except one.
As he draws closer, like a leopard stalking prey, her hand fumbles for the gun in her pocket. It cannot come to that, surely. This has all been so clean, and nearly completed. How could she not have guarded against this?
She’d been thinking mainly of Peyton, she realizes. That putrefying old man, as bad as she remembers. But she got it wrong,
didn’t she?
Peyton is the greediest of them. But he isn’t the worst.
Ogden lurches for her. She reels back and slaps him, hard, across the face.
There’s a moment of astonishment as Ogden processes the rejection. Alice uses it to dart backward, behind the table, as Ogden
recalibrates, snarling, “Drop the pretense, Marietta. I know you want this as much as I do. And European aristocrats are not
exactly known for their virtue.”
He snatches for her across the table, coming up empty as she flies to the side. His arm, desperately grabbing, sideswipes
the ticker on the mantle, which falls to the floor.
They both stare. Alice swears her heart stops beating completely for a good three seconds as she takes in what Ogden is seeing.
That ever-unspooling line of ticker tape, showcasing not what should be the current values of emeralds on the commodities
market downtown but blank paper instead.
Because no one is typing false values. Because Béa is gone.
“You’re right,” Alice says quickly. “I want you desperately, but not here. Perhaps a hotel . . .”
His eyes rise to hers, hot with understanding—not of what she’s just said, but rather, of what she’s just pulled off.
She extends her arms in entreaty, but he rushes heedless past her to the door of the ambassador’s office. One arm joggles
with the false safe built into the wall, the other with the knob.
“Brett, please!” Alice cries. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you!”
With a roar of frustration, he steps backward, then charges at the door to the office with a fierce kick that splinters the
edges of the doorknob. And then another, until the door is flung wide, revealing . . . very little.
An empty room. A telegraph machine. And an open window through which Alice’s co-conspirators have already escaped.
“You bitch,” Ogden growls. “You sharper, you swindling trollop!”
He whirls around, ready to attack.
But Alice has already crossed the room toward the window . . . and pulled out her gun. “I’d take care how you speak to me,
Mr. Ogden.”
Eyes trained ahead on Arabella, Cora follows the elated, boisterous crowd into the vestibule and then finally, blessedly,
out into the shocking bright white of Tuesday morning. Her team’s intended ride to this supposed luncheon, Ward’s carriage,
is parked down the road, near the corner of Fifty-Seventh and Fifth, and also houses a patiently waiting Cal Archer. Béa,
Dagmar, and the short-lived ambassador Konrad have no doubt already climbed inside their own hansom cab, having left via the
back room’s window to the street. The marks’ carriages, meanwhile, are still parked in the style of a front-and-center parade
directly outside the embassy.
Vandemeer’s coach pulls away from the curb, already off for Sherry’s, Mrs. Witt’s cab on his heels. Ahead, Harry and his driver
attempt to lift the blustering Peyton Senior into theirs.
Now it’s time for one more magic trick.
“Arabella,” Cora calls as the girl climbs the carriage stairs to join her parents.
Arabella turns, looking curious, and doubles backward.
“Oh, Cora, I really must thank you,” the girl says, eyes shining as she approaches. “You were right. I am so very glad I was
here today—”
“As was I.” Not much time, Cora, best be quick.
She gently leads Arabella away from the curb and out of earshot. “We are friends, are we not, Arabella?”
Arabella laughs, confused. “Of course, why—”
“Then before we lose ourselves to today’s festivities, allow me the honor of presenting you with an engagement gift.”
Arabella shakes her head. “Please, Cora, you’ve already given me so much.”
“Well, this is a secret gift, to be revealed in due course, and meant only for you. Do you understand, dear friend?”
“Meant only for . . .” Arabella’s hand drifts to her chest.
“Come now, Arabella!” Mrs. Ames barks, her bulbous frame leaning halfway out of the carriage. “You do know how your father
hates to wait!” Her eyes brighten when they fall on Cora. “Miss Ritter, it is high time to royally celebrate, don’t you think?”
“High time, indeed!” As soon as Mrs. Ames slides back inside, Cora presses hastily, “Promise me, Arabella, just for you?”
Clearly perplexed, Arabella says slowly, “I do not know what I am promising, but yes, I give my word that— Oof!”
Arabella startles, though soon relaxes into Cora’s embrace, squeezing back.
When they pull away, Arabella’s eyes are welling. “Goodness me, always getting so emotional. Mother tells me it is most unbecoming.”
Cora says kindly, “And I might tell her that she does not know everything.”
Arabella flashes her a conspiratorial smile. “May I sit beside you, when we get to Sherry’s?”
A strange sort of sadness overtakes Cora. A vague, regretful ache for what might have been, in another life. “It would be
an honor, my friend.”
Arabella climbs into her family’s carriage . . . unknowingly carrying along with her the team’s showstopper Colombian emerald,
as well as Cora’s engagement ring, both now tucked safely inside Arabella’s purse, thanks to Cora’s quick fingers.
Cora can only hope her friend will discover the bounty at an opportune time. Based on Alice’s prior comments about the team’s
budget and the emerald’s cost—plus Cora’s new knowledge about the price of gemstones—Cora estimates there may be close to
$25,000 now on Arabella’s person. Nothing close to the thirty million they’ve just swindled, but certainly enough to provide the Ames girl a fresh start.
In a moment, the Ameses are off, following the carriage train of the rest of the defrauded investors, all but one car gone
from the curb.
Cora frowns. She’s certain she saw Vandemeer leave, as well as Mrs. Witt, the Peytons too, the Ameses. Which means . . .
Cora looks toward the doors, studies the flat windowed facade of the embassy, the sense that something is amiss only mounting.
She hurries toward Ward’s carriage, where he loiters outside, smoking a cigar.
“Is Alice with you?” Cora asks.
Ward lazily turns around with a puff. “I’d assumed she was with you.”
Cora pokes her head inside the carriage, finding only Calvin waiting there. No Alice.
“What’s wrong?” Cal asks. “Where’s my sister? Cora!” he calls after her, but she’s already off and running, back around the
block to the embassy, outside of which Ogden’s carriage remains. And still no Alice or Ogden in sight.
Cal hustles to catch Cora, drawing up beside her.
She peers up at the embassy building, a sickening feeling growing in her stomach, just as a flash of blue silk slides by the
elevated, parlor-level window. She can make out a hand pressed against the glass, scrabbling desperately inside the folds
of fabric.
And emerging with a gun.
“No.” Cora’s voice quivers. “Cal, she’s still up there with Ogden!”
Cal’s jaw tightens. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, wait, just—” Cora huffs, grabbing at his arm to stop him, mind whirring like a magic lantern. “It would be far better