Chapter 12
A lengthy debate ensued between Gabe, Alex and Willie about attending the Saturday races at Epsom Downs. Gabe wanted to go, but the other two were reluctant given that someone had been following them.
“No one has followed us for a while,” he pointed out as the motorcar idled in front of my lodgings. “With both of you by my side, nothing will happen. This is one of our best opportunities to observe Goreman and anyone else whose name appears in one of the invisible ledgers. If we see them talking to any bookmakers, we’ll add them to our list of suspects.” He didn’t mention Thurlow’s name, but I suspected he was the one Gabe truly wanted to observe.
Willie wouldn’t entertain the idea for even a moment. “You’re an idiot if you think you’ll be safe at a crowded racetrack.”
“It’s not an important race day. It won’t be crowded, and we won’t let anyone get too close.”
“That won’t save you from a bullet.”
“Whoever is behind this is not trying to kill me, or he would have told the Rosebank Gardens patient to stab me in the neck, not the shoulder.”
I leaned forward from the back seat. “That could have been a random attack, unrelated to the kidnapping attempts.”
My voice was drowned out by Willie disagreeing with Gabe. “It’s too dangerous. You ain’t going to the racetrack.”
Alex was swayed, however. “Gabe’s right. This is an excellent opportunity to observe Goreman, Thurlow and anyone else on the list we can find.”
“Then you and me will go and Gabe can stay home.”
“No,” Gabe said.
Alex kept speaking as though she hadn’t interrupted. “He’s also right about it not being crowded and the kidnapper is a kidnapper, not a killer.”
Willie threw her hands in the air. “You don’t know that!”
“We’ll go home to change into racewear, and I’ll telephone the Yard. My father said we can have as many resources as we need for this case. I’ll request four constables to accompany us to Epsom. No one will come close to Gabe with six of us surrounding him at all times.”
Willie crossed her arms and slumped into the seat with a humph .
With that battle won, Gabe faced the next one with just as much determination and self-assurance. “Sorry, Sylvia. I don’t trust Thurlow when it comes to you. He’s up to something with Mrs. Hobson. Hopefully I’ll find out more tonight at the ball, but until then…” He shrugged an apology, stopping short of ordering me out of the motorcar.
It was a battle that I couldn’t win, so I gracefully surrendered. Besides, I had other plans for my afternoon.
I had gone over what I would say dozens of times in my head on the bus ride to Smithfield, but as I stood on the front porch of the house where Fred Laidlow lived with the two Hendry sisters, it was as if the words were blown away like autumn leaves on a windy day. When Naomi Hendry opened the door, I tried to gather them up again, but it was hopeless. All I could do was stare at her.
She smiled tentatively. “Are you all right, dear?”
“Uh, yes. I am. I was just…passing by and…and I wanted to ask you some more questions.”
Naomi glanced over her shoulder. “I should check with Myrtle first.”
Myrtle would probably close the door in my face. Again, I tried to think of something to say that would make Naomi open the door wider.
In the end, I didn’t have to. Myrtle appeared behind her sister. “Let her in, Naomi. I want to talk to her.”
They led me to the parlor where Myrtle directed me to sit on the sofa and her sister on one of the two armchairs as if she was choreographing a scene in a play. Something cooking in the kitchen smelled delicious.
The two sisters appeared to be alone, but I wanted to make sure. “Your husband isn’t in?”
“No,” Myrtle said as she sat on the other armchair.
Her sister rose. “I’ll make tea.”
“No tea. This isn’t a social call. Is it, Miss…”
“Ashe.”
“I thought that’s what you said the other day. Interesting name.”
I swallowed heavily beneath her stern glare. She reminded me of a schoolmistress I’d once had who always made me feel guilty, even when I’d done nothing wrong.
This time I did have something to feel guilty about. I’d kept something from Myrtle and Naomi. Even though I simply suspected Melville Hendry was my father, I’d still not mentioned my suspicions.
I clasped my hands tightly in my lap and waited for the interrogation to begin. I had a feeling I knew what her first question would be. I wasn’t wrong.
“How did you know the book you found in your library contained invisible writing? If you had to take it to an ink magician then you’re not one yourself, yet you knew it was there. So how could you tell?”
Myrtle’s question didn’t surprise me, but it did surprise her sister. Naomi frowned at her, then turned to me, her lips parting with a soft gasp as she realized the answer before I gave it.
“I’m a paper magician.”
Naomi pressed a hand to her chest. “How wonderful. Another paper magician. Do you know if there are any Ashes in our family tree, Myrtle?”
Myrtle didn’t look at her sister as she replied. “There are no Ashes in any paper magician’s family tree. Names are important in the magician world. They have meaning. Some have been distorted over the years, many became Anglicized when the family moved here from the continent. But Ashe…” She shook her head. “Fire and paper make ash. Fire is paper’s natural enemy.”
“Perhaps the paper magic is in her mother’s family,” Naomi said. “It’s not her fault she fell in love with a man named Ashe.”
I didn’t want to hide the truth from these women anymore. It felt important that I be honest. “My mother wasn’t a paper magician, nor was anyone in her family.”
“Oh? So, if your father is the paper magician, perhaps he inherited it from his mother who married an Ashe. Family trees are complicated.”
Some more than others, I could have said but didn’t. “Not every surname has a meaning.”
And yet I knew with bone-deep certainty that Myrtle was right, that my surname did have a meaning. After discovering that my mother was Marianne Folgate, we realized she’d changed her first name to Alice, so it made sense that she changed her surname too. When considering which name to choose, she’d decided on Ashe, the result of burned paper. The choice was meaningful. Either she wanted to destroy the paper magician who’d fathered me, or she felt destroyed by him.
Either way, her choice of name proved she loathed him.
I felt sick.
When I was a child, I’d made up stories about my father and reasons why my mother wouldn’t talk about him. She was too upset after the love of her life died, or he was a foreign king who couldn’t acknowledge us and she was protecting his identity.
But the truth was no fairy tale. James and I were the product of a destructive relationship with a man our mother couldn’t bear. That man could very well be Melville Hendry. Even his own sisters didn’t like him.
One of those sisters was now looking at me with concern in her soft, gray eyes. Naomi offered me a cup of tea again, but I declined.
“I should go.”
“But you haven’t told us the reason for your visit,” Naomi said.
“Right. Yes, of course.” I’d tried to convince myself that the reason for calling on the sisters was to ask about the paper rose on the hall table, but that wasn’t the entire truth. The real reason was simply to see them again. Did I still think they looked like me? Or had I convinced myself they did because I desperately wanted to know my family, even if my father turned out to be the brother they didn’t like?
But this second meeting proved it wasn’t hope coloring my perceptions. In fact, I was now surer than ever that the Hendry sisters were related to me. Even so, I wasn’t ready to tell them. Myrtle unnerved me.
To account for my visit, I mentioned the paper flower. “I detected magic in it,” I told them. “Who did you say made it?”
Myrtle rose, an unmistakable indication she wanted me to leave. “We told you, it was a long time ago and we can’t recall now.”
“But if neither of you are paper magicians, and you haven’t had contact with either Melville or Rosina in nearly thirty years, why is the magic still very warm to the touch?”
“There are other paper magicians in the family,” Myrtle said tightly. “Distant relatives. Now, if you don’t mind, we have pies to prepare.”
I exited the parlor and passed the hall table with the paper rose in a vase. It was a beautiful, complex piece of art that drew the eye no matter which angle it was observed from. My fingers twitched with the urge to touch it, but Myrtle ushered me to the door before I could. After brief farewells, she closed the door firmly behind me.
I stood on the pavement and blinked up at the rectangle of sky above the narrow street. Should I tell them my suspicions? Would they welcome me as their niece, or tell me I was wrong, that I couldn’t possibly be their brother’s daughter? Would they want nothing to do with me?
I’d been so lost in my own thoughts that I’d not noticed the door behind me had opened until Naomi whispered in my ear. “Miss Ashe? I want to apologize if we came across as unwelcoming. It’s just that your visit the other day dredged up difficult memories for us.”
“I understand, and I am sorry that we had to ask those questions.”
I thought that would be the end of it, but she didn’t return inside. She closed the door softly behind her and stepped closer to me. “It was an awful time. The police wanted to question Melville, but couldn’t find him, Rosina and the children went missing, and then Daniel dying… It all seemed to happen at once. It didn’t, of course, but that’s how it felt.”
“Can you clarify the timeline of Rosina’s disappearance and Daniel’s death for me?” I asked. “As you say, it’s all quite jumbled in everyone’s memories, but I think you and Myrtle are best placed to offer some clarity. Begin with when Daniel lost his job at Harrods.”
She blew out a breath. “Let me see. He finished at Harrods in mid-1890. June, I think.”
“It upset him a great deal?”
“He was quite distressed. Fortunately, that didn’t last long, merely a few days, then he just got on with it. He perked right up. Rosina, too. They became quite flush with money. Rosina said Daniel found work with a private client who paid well, but she wouldn’t elaborate. For the rest of that year, they were both very happy with their lot. We were happy for them too, of course. She’s our sister.”
“But?”
She sighed. “But Rosina was rather vulgar about their good fortune. They spent money on the most frivolous things. Myrtle called Rosina selfish and said she ought to donate some of it to the poor. They argued over that.”
“When did it all go wrong?”
“That’s easy to pinpoint. It was early 1891, shortly after that book about magic came out.”
“By Oscar Barratt?”
She nodded. “That’s when the troubles between magicians and artless started. It didn’t affect us, since Myrtle and I aren’t magicians, but it was around that time that Melville got into some difficulty with the authorities. Then in February, Daniel and Rosina changed. They became anxious and kept to themselves. After a week or two passed, Rosina and the children suddenly disappeared without saying goodbye.”
“And Daniel continued to remain anxious?” I asked when she paused.
“Oh, yes, for a number of weeks. Then in early April, I think it was, his mood changed again. He seemed to relax as if a weight had been lifted. He talked about Rosina and the children coming home. Then the next day, he was dead.”
“It must have been a very difficult time, especially with Fred’s accident on top of it all.”
“It was awful. He couldn’t come to Daniel’s funeral. For a man to lose his hand, it’s a devastating blow. He had to stop working, and without money coming in, things got desperate there for a while.”
“His employer didn’t offer financial assistance considering it happened there?”
“The accident didn’t happen at the factory. He was here in the shed, fixing a piece of furniture when the saw slipped. He cut himself so badly the hand couldn’t be saved.” She shuddered. “Don’t mention I told you what happened when you see him next. He’s embarrassed that his own folly caused it, so he tells people it happened at the factory.”
Despite the grim subject, my heart swelled. She’d said when I next saw him, not if. She wanted to see me again. Indeed, she expected it.
She must have recognized the emotions on my face because she smiled gently. “I do want to see you again, Miss Ashe. Perhaps we can explore the connection between our families a little more.”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you.” On a whim, I gave her the address of my lodgings.
It wasn’t until later that I castigated myself. What if they were involved in Daniel’s death? I wasn’t sure how or why they would be, but not only did I suspect they’d lied about not knowing who put the spell into the paper rose, but now I also suspected Fred’s accident was tied to our investigation.
I would tell Gabe tonight, when I saw him at the ball.
Daisy insisted I wear her best summer evening gown, a stunning aquamarine column of finely pleated silk with a wide scooped neckline, belted in matching fabric at the waist. The classic Grecian design suited my figure. Once Daisy and Petra finished styling my hair, they added a little color to my lips and cheeks and darkened my lashes and lined my eyes with Lash-Brow-Ine, a product Daisy had ordered from America after seeing an advertisement in one of her magazines. They were both very pleased with the end result.
I felt more anxious than ever. “I shouldn’t go. I wasn’t invited.”
Petra handed me a small, beaded purse with a silver clasp that Daisy had inherited from her grandmother. “Pishposh. No one will question you when you waltz in with a confident air looking like you just stepped out of the pages of Les Modes .”
Daisy asked me to perform a twirl. “Petra’s right. That gown could have been made for you.”
“It’s too long.”
“It’s supposed to be long.”
“But I’ll trip over the hem.”
“Not when you put shoes on.”
Daisy insisted on coming with me all the way to the host’s house in Belgravia. Although she said it was because she wanted to see what the other guests wore, I suspected she was just making sure I followed through on our plan and didn’t back out at the last minute.
We only got as far as the pavement outside the neighboring house, however. I’d spotted the familiar cream Vauxhall Prince Henry parked there, but it was Daisy who approached it when she saw Alex leaning against the passenger door, cigarette in hand.
He was about to take a puff when he saw us. His smile started slow and ended in a grin. It was entirely for Daisy’s benefit. I doubted he even saw me until I was directly in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Daisy explained that I was going to the ball as her, using the invitation she’d handed to me before we left her flat. “It’ll be a lark,” she said.
“It will certainly come as a surprise to Gabe.”
I flinched at his warning tone. “I should have mentioned it this morning, but at that point I’d decided not to go. I changed my mind, but…perhaps I shouldn’t. There’s really no need for me to be in there and I’ll just get in the way.”
“Nonsense,” Daisy said. “The Hobsons are investigating you , and you have every right to question them alongside Gabe.”
Alex blew out a puff of smoke. “I can’t disagree with her logic.”
Daisy looked delighted with his response.
“I’d had too many martinis when the idea was first suggested,” I told him.
He chuckled lightly. “Good luck.”
“Before I go in, tell me how it went today at the races. Did you learn the names of any new suspects?”
He shook his head, but I got the feeling he had something to say. Something troubling. “What happened? Is Gabe…?”
“He’s fine.” He angled his chin towards the house. “He’s inside with Willie.” He drew on the cigarette before lowering it to his side and tapping it to remove the ash. “You’re right, something did happen. We must have been followed to Epsom, but we didn’t see anyone.” He shrugged. “It seemed like nothing, at first. A man at the bar spilled his beer on Gabe. We thought it was an accident. No harm done. Then a while later, in the betting circle, balls of paper were thrown at him.”
“Thrown or sent his way by magic?” I asked.
“We think they were thrown. They weren’t accurate, but most struck him and not Willie or me. Again, no harm done, and we brushed off the incident. Then someone tripped him up. I caught the fellow and I could tell from the fear in his eyes that it must have been a deliberate attempt, otherwise he’d just apologize and tell us it was an accident. But he tried to run off.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No. We questioned him, and he admitted a stranger paid him. Tall fellow, strong, reddish-brown hair.” The description could have fit any number of men, but no one immediately came to mind.
“Why would they do all those things?” Daisy asked.
“We think they were testing Gabe to see if he used magic to avoid the incidents.”
“Like he did to avoid bullets in the war? Allegedly,” she added quickly. “All those silly reports in the papers have led to this. Those journalists ought to be ashamed of themselves. It’s because of their reports that Gabe is now in danger.”
“The incidents today weren’t dangerous. He was never going to be harmed by them, even if Willie and I weren’t there. We think they were experiments that failed.”
Failed experiments usually led to a modification of the hypothesis and further tests, and further tests might be successful if the experiments endangered Gabe or someone he loved. It was only a matter of time before the mastermind realized that was the trigger to activate Gabe’s time-altering magic.
Perhaps they already knew it, but were just making sure.