Chapter Nine
“Thank goodness, you’re both fine!” Sera declared, jumping to her feet as Jack and Cordy walked through the doors into Jack’s office.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” Jack asked.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Sera waved her hands in the air. “Perhaps because you put yourself and Cordy in the middle of a vipers’ nest?”
None of them had great opinions of the police, Sera’s own poor opinion rivaling Jack’s.
“We were fine, Sera,” Jack assured her, striding over to the side of the room and yanking on the bell pull for the housekeeper, Mrs. Thompson, to attend.
Then she hastily pulled off the blue dress that had been her third costume change for the day, hidden in the paint tins, tossing it onto the spare lounge before walking over to her desk and sinking down into the leather of the chair.
Cordy likewise discarded her dress too, revealing the pants and shirt she’d worn when masquerading as a painter. “I don’t know how you regularly wear a costume change under your normal clothes, Jack. It’s obviously handy, especially after having to escape, but it’s so uncomfortable.”
Mrs. Thompson’s knock on the open door interrupted them as she stood at the threshold to the office holding a silver tray with tea and scones crammed on it.
“Some tea and scones for you, ladies?” she asked, her kind, brown eyes twinkling in merriment as she walked into the room and placed the tray on the middle of Jack’s desk.
“I took the liberty of assuming you’d be hungry. ”
“You know us too well, Mrs. Thompson, and it was exactly why I was calling you.” Jack smiled at the housekeeper, a woman who kept everything well-ordered and organized, and all of the ladies fed.
She was a bit like a mother hen to all of them at the townhouse that doubled as both Jack’s agency headquarters and her lodgings, as well as Cordy and Serafina’s too.
Her business partners of a sort and closest confidantes.
“Of course, Miss Hart, and fresh out of the oven the scones are too. I’ll leave you all to it, then.
And, as usual, I’m very glad you’re both back safe and sound.
” Mrs. Thompson smiled at them and then paused at the threshold.
“Oh, I nearly forgot. This was delivered for you earlier.” She pulled out a small envelope from her apron pocket and handed it over to Jack before nodding, then turning around and heading out the door, back down to the kitchen.
“See! Even Mrs. Thompson had concerns,” Sera said, marching over to Jack’s desk, while Jack put the envelope down before she took a fresh scone from the tray.
As Jack bit into it, the scone crumbled in her mouth, its texture both hard and chewy, more reminiscent of a biscuit rather than the soft butteriness of what a scone should taste like.
Well, Jack hadn’t hired Mrs. Thompson for her baking skills, though the woman did try and was definitely improving in the culinary department since she’d started with Jack over three years ago.
Sera’s cranky face came into view as she leaned over the other side of the desk. “Well? How did it go?” she asked, always the most cautious of the three of them.
Jack finished her mouthful, swallowing down the food and quickly having a sip of tea to wash the grittiness down. “As you can see, we’re fine.”
Cordy took an opposite seat at the desk, then leaned over and took a scone, cutting it half and adding a large dollop of jam and cream to each side of it.
“I find more jam and cream required for Mrs. Thompson’s, um, special scones.
” Then she cautiously took a bite, chewing rather vigorously.
“At least they taste rather good, even if they are rather doughy and crunchy too…”
“Scones!” Serafina scoffed, throwing her hands up in the air, her long, black hair cascading with the movement.
“Here I am, worrying about the two of you, having arrived back to read the cryptic note you left me, Jack, about infiltrating New Scotland Yard, of all places, without further explanation!” She glared at Jack, placing her hands on her hips.
“And now you’re both having tea and scones as if you’ve been out shopping on Oxford Street.
Honestly, you two, I’ve been worrying myself silly over you both! ”
“Oh, Sera, you knew we’d be fine,” Jack replied with a shrug. “We were in and out with them barely noticing.”
“Your infiltration skills are extraordinary, Jack, we all know that,” Sera agreed. “And it’s not those I worry about. It’s your overconfidence in the kinds of risks that you’re willing to take.”
“‘Risks’?” Jack raised her eyebrow. “You’re the safecracking jewel thief, Sera. If anyone takes risks out of us all, it’s you.”
“You know it’s not stealing when I’m retrieving items on the behalf of the rightful owner!” Sera’s violet eyes narrowed upon Jack.
Sera particularly hated to be called a thief, given her father had been dubbed ‘the Jewel Thief of Mayfair’ and sentenced to life in prison after being caught red-handed stealing from the Duke of Northumberland, when he had been a guest himself at the man’s ball.
Her father’s incarceration resulting in Sera and her mother being ostracized by polite society, losing all their property and position.
Her mother, later taking her own life, unable to bear the stigma.
And given Sera was actually Lady Serafina Cavendish, or at least she had been before taking on the new identity of Sera Montague, she didn’t like to be reminded of her status as a jewel thief just like her father.
“And what do you mean ‘barely noticing’?” Sera’s crossed her arms over her chest. “Did someone notice you there?”
Jack shrugged, her mind instantly drawn back to the intense eyes of the inspector. “It was nothing I couldn’t handle, presenting as only a minor inconvenience.”
“I don’t know about that, Jack,” Cordy said, her voice wary. “The inspector I saw at the scene of the murder didn’t look like a man who’d take kindly to being cuffed to his own filing cabinet drawer with his own handcuffs.”
“You didn’t, Jack!” Sera exclaimed, her mouth dropping. “Not an inspector?”
“It was the only way to escape,” Jack replied.
“Cordy is right. Men do not take well to being outdone by a woman, Jack, especially men in positions of power. You know that better than most.” The pointed look Sera was sending Jack was full of knowing, her friend clearly referring to Caleb.
Jack’s first and last mistake in trusting a man.
A young magician who’d pretended to be in love with her simply to trick her into revealing the full secrets to her father’s illusions, and who was currently cashing in on them as the Great Dondaric, the Master Illusionist of Mayfair.
The bastard. Especially since he was never as good at performing the illusions as Jack herself had been.
“Men are absorbed by their own interests,” Jack replied. “And this inspector is going to be far too busy catching this killer to worry about finding me.”
Her thoughts went back to the picture board in the CID office and all the horrifying photographs of the scene.
The black-and-white images hadn’t in any way detracted from the gruesomeness of what had been done to that poor woman.
Anger rose in her throat at the thought that some monster was using her father’s illusion to perpetrate such evil in the world.
She dropped her scone back onto the plate, her appetite vanishing in an instant. “Trust me, after the photos I saw of what that vile creature did to that woman, the inspector’s full focus will be on catching him, not me.”
“It was that bad?” Sera asked.
Jack nodded and took in a deep breath. “He makes the Ripper seem like an amateur.” She gave an involuntary shiver just remembering. “Which is why I’m confident the inspector’s attention will be directed elsewhere.”
“But what if he thinks you were involved in the murder, Jack?” Cordy asked. “You were found snooping around in his office. Perhaps he thinks you were there to find information at the killer’s behest?”
Damn it, Cordy could be right, and it was a possibility Jack hadn’t considered. Especially as she’d told him she was there doing just that, though for a journalist.
“Did you cover your tracks well?” Sera asked, and Jack could already see the calculations her friend was making in her head around the possibilities of being found. Sera not only had a gift for thieving, she had a gift for strategy and planning that Jack made great use of in her business.
“We did,” Jack confirmed. “By the time the police even knew to look for two men who’d left the building, Cordy and I had already had a costume change back to women, and then we separated and individually returned back here, making sure we weren’t followed.”
“Good,” Sera said. “You should lie low for the next few days, though, just in case the police are looking for you.”
“I will,” Jack confirmed.
“Did you find anything linking this killer to your father?” Cordy asked.
“Not really.” Quickly, Jack told them of the pictures and the conversation she’d overheard between the inspector and his detectives. “So though it looks like the killer was mimicking my father’s illusion, that seems to be the extent of it.” At least she hoped so.
“Well, that is good news, I suppose,” Sera said.
“It is,” Jack agreed. “And trust me, I have no intention to get any further involved with this investigation.” She was more than happy to leave the inspector to deal with that monster. As far as Jack was concerned, her part in the whole thing was done.
She caught sight of the envelope she’d discarded on her desk, so she picked it up. Instantly, fear twisted in her stomach as she read to whom it was addressed.
“Jack, what is it?” Sera asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“This can’t be a coincidence…” She stood and strode over to the bell pull, once again yanking on it hard. Belatedly, she realized her hand was lightly shaking. Taking in a deep breath, she focused on calming her nerves.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” Cordy now asked, twisting in her seat to stare back at her.