Chapter Seventeen
There was a quiet strength in the woman sitting proudly before him as she told him of her mother’s murder. A strength that Tobias had to admire.
Jack Maguire had been right when she’d said he’d had a privileged life.
Though violence and death had been a part of his world for over fifteen years since joining the police, it had never touched him personally.
His parents were both still very much alive, and as maddening as they could be, with his father regularly admonishing him on his choice of apparently lowering himself to work as a police officer, and his mother’s continual matchmaking efforts to see him married, he knew he was fortunate to still have them in his life.
While Jack had no family left.
“What do you know of Dondaric?” Tobias asked her, trying to turn her thoughts away from such haunting memories of her past.
“He’s all show and little substance,” came her rather cryptic reply. “He was only an apprentice of my father’s for about six months before the fire.”
“Would he have learned all your father’s illusions in that time?” It seemed a short period to Tobias, but he really didn’t know much of magic, apart from him not liking it being used on him.
“No. He’d only touched the surface of some of the ticks before my father died.” She plucked at some lint from her blue dress, strangely focused on the task for a moment, before she glanced up back to Tobias. “However, he later learned most of them all, from me.”
Tobias didn’t know why, but his previous dislike for the man solidified greatly. “This is ‘the long story’ you mentioned earlier, I’m guessing?”
“Not that long, Inspector, but yes, it is. Caleb was there the night of the fire and saw me outside after you’d rescued me, so that’s how he knew I was still alive.
Shortly after that, once he heard my father had perished, he disappeared into the crowd.
I didn’t see him again for another six years, when he found me picking pockets in Mayfair. ”
Her eyes suddenly went as wide as saucers, as she belatedly realized what she’d said.
“Not that I actually took the wallets, of course,” she hastily added. “I was simply keeping my sleight of hand skills sharp, that’s all…” Her voice trailed off and she gave him a half smile.
“No doubt,” he replied, not believing her for a second; however, he couldn’t blame her for doing whatever she’d had to to survive.
London was a cruel and merciless mistress for those alone in the world, and it showed no quarter, most especially not for children.
“What led you from bumping into him to then teaching him your father’s illusions?
” He didn’t really want to know, especially as he’d guessed what it had been.
The magician might have been a fool, but he was what Tobias supposed a woman would consider handsome.
Jack was silent for a moment before raising her chin and staring defiantly across from him. “Caleb Dodd was a dashing twenty-four-year-old, up-and-coming magician who was gifted with a silver tongue and an ability to completely charm anyone he had a mind to.”
“And you were taken in by his charm?”
The woman sitting before him didn’t seem as if she would be taken in by anyone, let alone that snake of a man, but when it came to women and scoundrels, it seemed even the most sensible were not immune from them.
“I was nineteen at the time, Inspector, and he made me feel special and as if I belonged. Two things I hadn’t felt since my father’s death.
So yes, I was foolishly taken in by his charm, and because of that, he was able to convince me to teach him my father’s repertoire.
Which I happily did, imagining he and I would travel the world together continuing my father’s legacy.
Yet once he’d learned all he needed to from me, he disappeared, without even so much as a note goodbye. ”
“I’m guessing you didn’t allow him to simply disappear?”
“Certainly not,” she agreed. “I found out the name of the new theater he was going to perform at, and before his first show, I slipped in unnoticed behind the stage and tampered with all of his props, so that they either wouldn’t work or would reveal the actual trick to the audience.
The Great Dondaric wasn’t so great that night and was in fact booed off the stage. It was a glorious sight to behold.”
A genuine smile graced her face, and for a moment, Tobias was captivated. She was stunning, with her auburn hair twisted into a bun, wisps of it curling around her cheeks, and her blues eyes twinkling in amusement.
“The perfect revenge,” he said. “But could he be trying to have his own revenge against you now with these murders?”
She blinked and her smile was replaced with a frown.
“I honestly don’t think he has the capacity to be a killer.
He didn’t even like the sight of the fake blood on stage.
Even though he can charm people out of anything, killing them in such a meticulously, cold-blooded manner?
No, I don’t think so. Charm is his weapon, not a blade. ”
“He’s not the only one who can charm people.” His eyes stayed steady on hers as a rosy blush spread over her cheek, before she hastily averted her eyes to look back out the window.
“His charm is the reason why he’s doing so well,” Jack continued.
“He’s not particularly talented as a magician, in truth, even though he’d disagree with that assessment.
However, he’s an adequate magician, and he does excel in showmanship, which goes towards a great deal of the success of a magician. ”
“He was overly arrogant, boasting of being the best magician in London,” Tobias said.
“Oh, he would say that,” Jack confirmed. “He likes to think of himself as great, but he knows he’ll never be as good as my father was, nor as good as I am. And if it weren’t for his charisma, he wouldn’t be nearly as successful.”
“So even if he’s not the killer, do you think he might be involved in the murders somehow?
” He found himself genuinely curious to hear her thoughts on the matter, which was odd, as he’d never really thought he’d be discussing the topic of murder with anyone outside the Yard, most especially not a woman, who owned an investigation agency with a reputation for taking on risky jobs.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Jack replied. “The Caleb Dodd I knew, and bear in mind I haven’t seen him in nearly ten years, but the man I knew was far too absorbed in himself to have the patience or calculation to be involved in anything apart from making money in his own magic shows.”
“And apart from yourself, he’s the only other person who knows the details behind your father’s illusions?”
Jack nodded. “Yes. Well, apart from the baron, who insisted on knowing as part of the agreement he made with my father to fund his show.”
Tobias was thinking that perhaps he needed to go pay the baron a visit at Broadmoor. “Are you certain no one else apart from the baron and Caleb Dodd knows the details of your father’s illusions?”
“As I mentioned, magicians are notorious for guarding the secrets of their illusions. The only people who know the truth of them are generally the magician himself, his apprentice, and his stage manager. My father had two apprentices, and his second apprentice, Tommy, died in the fire too, leaving only Caleb. Additionally, my father’s stage manager, Jeremiah Black, whom you met this morning, is unfortunately no longer with us to divulge my father’s secrets to anyone.
So no, Inspector, no one else knows the details of my father’s illusions. ”
The hackney came to a halt in front of the Borland Street Theater, and immediately, Jack was confronted by advertising posters and playbills of the Great Dondaric and his performances plastered across the exterior of the building.
There was a look in Caleb’s painted eyes that reminded Jack of a snake about to strike, though whether that was from her own experiences with him or the artist also recognizing the falseness in the man, Jack wasn’t certain.
What she was certain about, however, was she wasn’t feeling nearly as upset by the thought of seeing Caleb again as she’d imagined she would have been.
At one point in time, she’d built a fairy tale around the man, believing they would marry and start a family, and that she’d finally belong again.
Instead, the man had ripped away her foolish illusions in one fell swoop.
He’d done her a favor, really, given she’d let go of her childish dreams and vowed she would never be so vulnerable or foolish about a man ever again. Perhaps she should thank him? The thought brought a small smile to her lips.
“You don’t have to come in and speak to him with me, if you’d prefer not to,” the inspector said, and Jack could see the genuine concern in his eyes.
Odd for someone in his position to even give a thought to her feelings, let alone seem to care about them.
Though she was starting to understand that this man was not the typical police officer with whom she’d previously had dealings.
The fact that his father was an earl, yet he’d still chosen what any would argue was a far inferior profession to the one presumably planned out for him, was admirable, and did say a lot about his character.
“It was over nine years ago, Inspector, and I’m no longer the naive, easy-to-manipulate nineteen-year-old I once was.”
“Naive and easy-to-manipulate are not terms I would ever use to describe you,” he replied, his lips quirking up at the corners while he gestured with his arm, motioning for her to go ahead of him to the entrance.
The theater itself was an old Georgian building with white stone walls and large, white columns lining the steps up to the foyer.
Caleb had done well for himself to be booking such a fine theater in Mayfair for his shows.
But he’d always been a survivor; that was something she’d had in common with him.
Five minutes later, after the inspector had spoken to the stage manager, they were both being ushered through the theater towards the stage, where Caleb was yelling at some theater hands, demanding that they take more care.
His temper was still intact, she noted, as Caleb spotted the inspector and instantly, his whole demeanor changed.
“Inspector!” Caleb smiled down at Tobias.
“I didn’t think to see you again so soon after our chat yesterday.
” Then his eyes swiveled over to Jack, and his smile stayed firmly in place, but he wasn’t quick enough to hide the slight tightening at the corner of his mouth upon seeing her.
“Jack… is that you?” He shifted on his feet, almost as if at a loss of what else to say.
Good. He should be uncomfortable. “Hello, Caleb. It’s been a while.”
Caleb blinked. “Um, yes… it has. What brings you and the inspector here?” His eyes turned back to Tobias, far more caution in their depths now.
“Lying to an officer of the law, Mr. Dodd, in the course of a criminal investigation is an offense,” Tobias stated pragmatically.
“‘Lying’?” Caleb exclaimed, his voice sounding shrill as it echoed through the empty theater, all his staff having stopped what they were doing to watch the show.
“I don’t know what you mean, Inspector Flint.
I would never lie,” he continued, moderating his voice.
“Perhaps we should discuss this in my dressing room, though? Please, do follow me.”
Jack glanced to Tobias, and he nodded, so they both climbed the stairs up to the stage and followed Caleb behind the red velvet curtain onto the backstage area.
For a minute, memories of her past came cascading back into her awareness.
She’d grown up in theaters, and the backstage of them were more of a home to her than her parents’ townhouse had been.
She’d loved every aspect of magic and her father’s shows, until the very thing she’d loved had taken everything from her.
Shaking her head free of the memories, she was determined not to think of everything she missed about not being around magic, even though it felt as if it flowed through her very veins.
A laugh nearly burst from her. She’d told the inspector she was no longer naive, but perhaps she was, if this was how she was feeling from merely stepping onto a stage again.
Even the very smell of the wooden floorboards and the sound as they creaked under her feet while she followed Caleb to his dressing room were stark reminders of her parents and her childhood.
Perhaps she should have waited outside… but then the image of what had been done to Jeremiah surfaced, and she knew he deserved justice.
She would do whatever she had to to find who had killed him and ensure he felt the fires of hell for his atrocities.
And if Caleb knew anything about Jeremiah’s death, God help him.