Chapter Forty-Two
I regain consciousness just enough to see awful, soot-souled Blanck leap backward off my throat. He throws his hands in the air, as if innocent. As if he weren’t trying to strangle me. As if he weren’t a murderer, through and through.
The moment that follows is long and painful; I wished death upon someone, and I could’ve made it happen. But it didn’t happen, and I’m not sure why. I am grateful and ashamed and confused.
The reality of the power I tried to wield leaves me nauseated. I droop in this chair. Why would I do that again? It destroyed my literal existence before.
Doyle checks his pocket watch. “Nice expediency, boys.” He gives the police a detailed overview of the evening’s events, and ends his lecture with, “Everyone here believes that Kiyoko the Mystical, the performer you’ll find locked in the back room, is guilty.”
He continues, surprising me. “But gentlemen, her innocence is obvious. Mrs. McLean’s injury was on her forehead, and Kiyoko stood behind her.
It is impossible for her to have inflicted that wound.
So obviously, we must check the safe.” Doyle looks to me expectantly, as if I’d lead them forward from here.
I don’t know where the safe is. Nirav does, of course, if any of this wild evening went according to plan. So does Pax. But they’re gone, and I was distracted—nay, distracting—pulling off a charade of a séance.
The police untie my left arm. I caress my throat, massage the skin at my wrists.
Our Stella.
She’s okay!
We love ya, girlie. But we’re glad we didn’t have to welcome you over here yet.
The police order Blanck to show them the safe. We follow him from the foyer into the parlor, with the massive two-story bookshelves. He approaches a shelf in the middle of a row and removes three books: McTeague. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. And Dead Souls.
The irony.
Aye, what a knob.
A safe is built into the wall behind these titles. Blanck glares over his shoulder like a hyena guarding a carcass. “Only the cops.”
The police push us back. “C’mon, folks. A little room, wouldja?”
Blanck twists the knobs on the exterior of the safe, clickclickclickclickclick. The crowd is silent, and these small clicks fill the room, intermingling with our thrumming pulses.
Did anything go right this evening? I can’t imagine that there’s anything of interest inside that safe—when would that have occurred around all these mishaps?
The safe will be empty, and I’ll be tossed to the wolves.
Convicted, perhaps. Committed, most likely.
My every muscle clenches, clickclickclickclickclick. My heartbeat matches the pace.
At last he swings the door of the safe wide. I’m at the back of the crowd, but I hear the gasps as the cops pull out the contents and hold them aloft:
“It’s there! The Hope Diamond!”
“And that! That’s my pocket watch!”
“My grandmother’s brooch!”
“My emerald hairpin! How did he manage that?”
“My bracelet! Oh my!”
“I didn’t even notice my necklace was gone!”
The police excavate necklaces and earrings and wallets. Passports and pocketknives. Brooches and rings. The guests, in their drugged and disheveled state, torn and tousled and troubled, didn’t even notice their valuables were missing.
Blanck froths and roars, “I didn’t do this! I didn’t steal any of this!”
A tall, red-faced police officer with impressively large ears unclips the silver handcuffs at his belt. “Sir, I’m Sergeant Mullany. You are under arrest.”
Spirit shows me a symbol they’ve never shown before: a balanced scale, each side cradling a large pile of rice. Then, a single grain of rice is delicately placed upon one of the pans, and the scale, at long last, tips.
Rice falls like rain.
I exhale. Nothing about our plan, the plan we worked on for weeks, has gone the way we hoped. Except this. This. And it is delicious.
I regret that I’m the only here to see Blanck grovel. Well, me and Clarice. Our eyes meet briefly. I must commit his begging, his frothing to memory, to share with my friends later.
My friends. My musketeers. My merry band of bandits.
Lord, I hope there is a later in which I get to see them.
Sergeant Mullany slams Blanck against the bookshelf—oof!
Mullany wrenches Blanck’s wrists behind his back and cuffs them tight.
Blanck spits at the officer. Mullany is swift: He sticks out a leg and sweeps Blanck off his feet.
Without his hands to soften the blow, Blanck smacks the hardwood floor.
A tooth slices through his bottom lip and Blanck’s blood begins to spill.
Spirit pulses bright, and I recognize the light as laughter.
I can’t say I hate to see that.
I have never seen Spirit giddy at injury.
Sergeant Mullany puts a boot on Blanck’s back.
“Okay, everyone. We need to take these jewels with us as evidence. We will log every item and its value. Officer Hoogland over there”—the sergeant lifts his chin at a pimple-faced young man in an oversized uniform—“will keep a ledger of what belongs to whom. Please line up to claim what’s yours and keep things orderly.
Your valuables should be released from evidence in a few weeks. ”
Doyle, who has now shifted into the role of the guests’ ambassador, steps forward. “Sir, we’d very much like to take our valuables and put this awful evening behind us.” The guests simper and nod.
“Sorry, folks,” Sergeant Mullany replies. “I know you’re shaken. But there’s this new technique out of Chicago we’re using now called fingerprinting. It offers more evidence that the culprit did indeed commit the crime.”
Doyle lights up, and Spirit flashes me an image of a child being offered a lollipop. “Ah, yes! Fingerprinting! I’m familiar! So glad the boys in blue have finally caught up to my fictional Mr. Holmes!” He guffaws.
“It wasn’t me, I tell you!” Blanck shouts. “I have no idea how those jewels got into my locked safe. It had to be that awful entertainer locked in the back bedroom.”
I feel a deep unrest. Something about Blanck being detained… I’m not as satisfied as I thought I would be, seeing him in handcuffs. There are still so many loose ends here, so many unknowns. What will become of my merry bandits now? Especially Kiyoko.
Mullany heaves Blanck off the floor and shoves him toward the elevator. “Don’t worry. We’ll question her, too.” He nods to two additional officers. “Peterman, Jones? Check on the ladies in the back rooms. I’m taking this guy uptown. Hoogland? You come with me.”
Officer Hoogland heaps the jewels into a hefty, sagging black evidence bag, and follows Mullany into the open elevator.
Before the doors slide closed, I dash forward, rubbing the spot on my throat where his hands were, moments ago. I need to say this. This might settle my deep rage at long last. I lean in and snarl through the elevator cage, “This was for Daisy Bohdan and Julia Princip.”
Blanck howls, “I’m INNOCENT.” And Blanck’s guests are treated to watching Mullany give Blanck a swift swipe to the shin with his billy club as the elevator slides from view.
Oof.
That’ll smart.