Chapter Fourteen
Before Tobias had even seen the fluttering of the curtain from the window of the building overlooking the scene of the murder, he could sense he was being watched.
The same tingle of awareness he’d felt on Sunday with the woman who’d called herself ‘a ghost.’ Then, when he’d unobtrusively glanced up to the window, he’d seen her standing there.
No ghost, but very much a woman looking like she’d seen one herself.
But the lady now standing before him in the empty office was staring at him calmly, and he could see the intelligence and confidence in her eyes.
This lady was no ghost, and clearly, she wasn’t intimidated by him, or the situation of being caught, in the least. Not that he could blame her for her self-assurance, given she’d effortlessly escaped him before.
A situation he had no intention of repeating.
“No fireworks to help you escape this time?”
Her lips twitched very slightly at the corners, and she shook her head. “I don’t need fireworks to escape from you, Inspector.”
“You did the other day.”
“That’s because there were over twenty officers in the outer office area. For you, I just needed your own cuffs.”
“That trick won’t work again.”
“I have a few other tricks up my sleeve, Inspector.” Her eyes glanced pointedly towards the left side of his jacket, where he kept his revolver nestled snuggly in his shoulder holster.
“As it seems you do too. Though I must warn you, I’m equally skilled with revolvers as I am with cuffs.
Would you like me to demonstrate how I can disarm one in seconds? ”
“No, and stay where you are,” Tobias commanded with quiet authority as the woman took a step towards him, then halted. “A revolver is not something to play with,” he continued. “And, lady, I have no intention of letting you get that close to me again.”
“What a shame,” she murmured. “I rather thought we shared a moment the other day.”
His first instinct was to laugh at her audacity, even though a part of him had felt the same, but then he felt confused, given he knew he should have been furious with her, but for some reason wasn’t.
This woman was like no one he’d met before. Most were intimidated by his frown, but not her. No, there was an innate confidence in her entire being to which he was strangely drawn.
But then the gravity of the situation hit him, and he remembered she could very well be a suspect in these murders—murders that were the most heinous he’d ever seen. “What’s your involvement in these killings?”
She pressed her lips together and for a moment, her confidence was gone, a haunted look in her eyes. “I have nothing to do with them.”
He raised a brow. “You just so happen to be at the scene of a murder, after having been caught in my office searching for information. And yet you say you have nothing to do with them?”
“It’s the truth.”
“You must take me for a fool if you’d think I’d believe that.”
She stared at him a moment more before she broke eye contact and took in a deep breath. “I’m not involved in them. At least not intentionally.”
He crossed his hands over his chest. “Explain yourself before I haul you into the Yard and arrest you for murder.”
“‘Murder’?!” she exclaimed, outrage in her tone.
“I am no murderer. And the fact that you even think that leaves me with little doubt that you have no clue as to who the actual killer is. As I suspected, I’m going to have to investigate this matter myself.
Though I’m not surprised, given the level of utter police incompetence I regularly witness. ”
Tobias gritted his teeth together. “Most police would arrest you for that comment alone.”
The lady smiled, though there was little humor in the expression. “You’re welcome to try. Though might I remind you, it didn’t work well for you the other day.”
“I said, most police,” Tobias clarified. “I am not most police. Now, I will give you one last chance to explain your presence here.”
It seemed as if she was calculating her odds of getting past him, but given there was no escape out of the room except through the doorway he was blocking, the slip of a woman had no chance of budging him.
Tobias, at six feet two inches, had a good ten inches on her five-four stature, not to mention he had a good hundred pounds on her too, given she couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds herself.
But perhaps she realized that too as she raised her chin and nodded.
“Very well,” she began. “I’m here as this was delivered to me this morning.” She went to reach into her pocket.
“Stop right there,” he cautioned, his voice brooking no argument, and her hand halted halfway to the pocket of her cloak.
“You have a revolver on your person, Inspector,” she said, her eyes boring into his. “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to draw a weapon on you.”
“Then what are you reaching for?”
“A note and a playing card.”
His whole body went on alert. “Use only your thumb and index finger to retrieve them, then.”
She followed his instructions and pulled out a card before flicking it at him with a panache that demonstrated she was more than adept with handling cards, as it landed directly at his feet. It was a Jack of Hearts.
“And you say you’re not involved in these murders. Lady, you’re involved up to your pretty, little neck.”
*
“I don’t want to be involved in any of this,” Jack replied, noting that the inspector didn’t seem surprised in the slightest to see the playing card at his feet. “But it seems whoever this murderer is has other ideas.”
She paused, wondering just how much she should tell him.
She didn’t trust the police as far as she could throw them, but somehow, he seemed different to other officers with whom she’d had interactions.
She couldn’t explain why, but she knew there was a decency in him, and she hoped, trustworthiness too.
“I received the card on Sunday evening, and then a note this morning telling me to attend this alley if I wanted to see my father’s legacy in action. ”
“Clearly, then, you are involved in all this,” he noted, his gaze flicking down to the card then back to her before he bent down and picked it up. “Another card, essentially identical to this, was found on the victim today and on the first victim too.”
“I saw you retrieve the one from today,” she replied. “But I promise you I had nothing to do with the murders.”
He pulled out two other cards from his jacket pocket and flashed them at her. “Then why is the killer leaving the same cards with the bodies, as the card you flicked at my feet?”
“Because the killer obviously wants to involve me.” Jack noticed that the card he was showing had the words ‘number two of six’ written on the back of it. “‘Number two,’ as in the second of six victims?”
“I believe so.” He nodded. “The first card on the first victim had ‘one of six’ written on it. Perhaps now you can see why I’m a bit short of time.” He glanced down at Jack’s card. “What does this mean about you being the Burning Lady?”
“It’s the name of an illusion. I think the killer is advising me that I might be the last on his roster of victims.”
“How on earth are you involved in all of this?”
“My father’s nickname for me was the Jack of Hearts.
” A slow, burning anger began to grow in the pit of her stomach, with the thought that this monster wanted her involved in his madness.
Well, she would not be cowed. She would not be intimidated.
And if this fiend wanted her involved, his mission was a success because involved she was, and she would see him roasting in the pits of hell before she was done.
“And what does that have to do with these murders?” the inspector asked.
“Clearly, the killer wanted me to see how he’d desecrated my father’s illusion, the Palingenesia, to murder the only man left in this world who cared about me.”
“You not only knew the victim,” the inspector began, his eyes narrowing upon her, “but the killer used your father’s illusion to murder him?”
“That’s right, Inspector. My father was James Maguire, the Magnificent Maguire.” It was a risk to tell him the truth, but she didn’t have much choice now. She couldn’t afford for him to arrest her, and besides, perhaps he could help her to find justice for Jeremiah.
“James Maguire only had one child. A son, Jack.”
“A daughter, actually, named Jaqueline,” she countered. “Though I prefer ‘Jack’ for short, and I do go by the name ‘Jack Hart’ currently.”
There was a flare of surprise in his eyes before he quickly masked it. “Records indicate that Jack Maguire died alongside his father in a fire.”
“The records are incorrect. And if it hadn’t been for a young constable who rescued me the night of my father’s death, pulling me from the back dressing room of the Eddington Street Theater right before the room was engulfed, I would have died.
Sadly, though, I don’t think the constable survived, given he very valiantly went back into the inferno trying to find my father.
The roof collapsed a short time after he disappeared inside. ”
She gathered that it was rare to surprise the inspector, but he certainly seemed to be surprised, his eyes boring deeply into her own, an expression of incredulity in them as he continued staring at her.
“Oh, that constable survived, Miss Maguire,” the inspector said, his voice solemn, seeming to have now accepted she was who she claimed to be. “He still has a scar on his back from that night, but he’s alive and well, and standing right before you.”
Now it was Jack’s turn to be surprised. “That was you? You saved me?” It had been so dark with smoke everywhere that Jack hadn’t even seen the face of her rescuer, and then when she’d realized her father was dead, she’d run from the scene, desperate to escape in case the man her father had been arguing with and who had locked her in that room to die had still been in the area watching.
Slowly, he nodded, crossing his hands over his chest. “Yes, that was me.”