Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Inspector, we found these two in the back room,” Constable James said as he and Constable Williams escorted a young man and a woman in her twenties up onto the stage, while the sergeant finished escorting the final stragglers of the guests into the smaller ballroom, including Tobias’s parents.
“They’re my staff,” Dodd said, twisting up into a sitting position. “Sally, what the Devil happened? You were meant to be on the table, not that girl? Who even is she?”
“You, stay silent,” Tobias ordered him before turning to regard Dodd’s assistant, who appeared rather nonchalant, but he could see the hint of fear in her eyes too. “What’s your name?”
“Sally Anderson,” she said, flicking her brown hair over her shoulder.
“And what happened here tonight?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not really sure, actually.”
“You better get sure, and quickly too,” Tobias replied. “Or else you’ll soon also find yourself in cuffs and in a cell for the night at Newgate.”
The woman gulped and hastily nodded. “Fine, I’ll tell you what happened.
” She took a deep breath. “Like he said, I was meant to be on the chopping block, but Tony and I were approached by another magician yesterday while we were setting up here, and he offered us a lot of money and a job each after tonight’s show, providing we switch around the routine a bit for him. ”
“How dare you both!” Dodd screamed. “I am the Great Dondaric! No other magician could offer you the privilege of being on the stage with me!”
“‘The privilege’?” She scoffed. “You’re a cheapskate, Caleb Dodd! A selfish bastard who pays like a miserly skin thrift! I was happy to take that man’s fifty pounds! So was Tony!”
“Enough!” Tobias hollered. “Speak again, Dodd, and you’ll be escorted to the back of a paddy wagon, immediately.” He turned back to Miss Anderson. “Describe this man and exactly what he told you to do.”
She shrugged. “He was an older man, a bit portly around his waist too, with a thick, white beard and matching hair on his head. But he was fit, which I thought a bit strange, cause he carried her”—she pointed over to Miss Brunham still lying on the table—“into the back room earlier tonight without even dropping a sweat.”
“Is he still here?”
“Nah, he left after dropping her off.”
Jack spoke up from behind them. “And you thought it was fine that he dropped off an unconscious woman?”
“She wasn’t unconscious when she was dropped off, just very drowsy and couldn’t stand probably, is all.
Mr. Patterson, that was his name, you see, said she was just nervous about performing on stage as it was her first time, so he’d given her a bit of a drink of laudanum to make her relaxed.
I think he gave her a bit too much, personally. ”
“And you didn’t think to question that?” Tobias asked.
Miss Anderson gave a quick shake of her head.
“The man was paying us fifty pounds apiece. That’s more than we earn in six months with lord muck over there.
” She flicked her head in Dodd’s direction.
“So yeah, maybe I did think it was odd, but she was alive, and when he told us he only wanted to ruin Caleb’s show, I was more than happy to help him. ”
“You traitor!” Dodd yelled.
“Get him out of here!” Tobias said to some of the constables below the stage. “Take him to my father’s study and secure him with multiple cuffs to my father’s desk, and also check his pockets for any lockpicking items.”
“Check along his forearms too,” Jack said. “Magicians often hide fine, metal wires on their skin and cover it with some glue and rubber, then blending makeup over it to make it look invisible to the naked eye, but you can feel the wire under the skin.”
“Adam.” Tobias turned to his older brother, who had stayed on the stage with them. “Will you accompany them and make sure Dodd is secure and checked?”
“I will,” his brother said as the officers came onto the stage and began to haul Dodd to his feet before escorting him out of the room, one officer on either side of him, holding him by his cuffed arms.
Tobias returned his attention back to Miss Anderson. “What happened after this Mr. Patterson dropped her off here?”
“Well, he told us to get her up on the table behind the curtain after Caleb started the show, then put a blindfold on her. He gave me a bottle of chloroform and a rag and told me to soak the rag with the liquid and then press it against her mouth so she stayed asleep while Caleb was doing his performance. That way, when he did his trick and she didn’t wake up, the audience would boo him and his reputation would suffer greatly. ”
“And you thought it was fine to drug a helpless woman?” Jack’s voice cracked like a whip, her disdain pain to see. “You’re as bad as Caleb!”
Miss Anderson’s eyes dropped and she took in a hasty breath. “But it was fifty pounds…”
“How long ago did you administer the chloroform?” Tobias said, drawing everyone’s attention back to himself.
“Maybe half an hour or so.”
“And why do you want to see Dodd suffer so much, Miss Anderson?”
She raised her chin and looked away. “Because he made me think he loved me, and then he went and had an affair with that trollop of a duchess, is why!”
“Is that why you also tampered with the guillotine for the Conjurer?” Tobias asked her. “Because you wanted Dodd to suffer further and be charged with murder for decapitating the woman.”
“‘The Conjurer’?” She gasped and her eyes widened. “Are you saying that man was the Conjurer? That killer?”
“Yes, I am,” Tobias confirmed.
“I had no idea that was him! I never would have agreed to anything, if I’d known.
And I didn’t tamper with the guillotine at all, I swear!
The only thing I had to do was make sure she breathed in more of the chloroform stuff.
The bottle’s still on the workbench out in the back room.
I swear, that’s all I did. I wouldn’t have helped the man if I’d known he was the Conjurer.
I just wanted Caleb to suffer. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, let alone die.
And that’s the God’s honest truth! I swear it! ”
Tobias stared at her for a moment longer, and he believed her.
Then he glanced over to Constable James.
“Fetch the bottle.” James nodded and rushed off down the stairs to get the item.
“What about you?” Tobias said, turning to the young man called Tony.
“What’s your name and involvement in all this? ”
The boy must have only been about eighteen, and he looked like he was close to throwing up.
He was holding his cap in front of him, his fingers twisting on its rim tightly, to the point the cap would be ruined.
“Anthony Wilcox, and I swear, Officer, I didn’t do nothing.
Just stayed silent is all when the man brought the girl in and took a quick look at the machine.
I swear I didn’t touch it. I thought he might have, but I think he was just appreciating the contraption is all.
And he offered to pay me a fifty pounds not to say anything to Mr. Dodd, so I kept my mouth shut, is all I did. ”
“Has he paid either of you yet?”
“He paid us half when he dropped her off,” the boy replied, “and said he’d pay us the rest tonight after the ball. We’re meant to meet him in the back alley behind here, at midnight.”
Constable James returned carrying a dark-amber bottle that had no label on it.
Tobias took it, then opened the lid and smelled the contents, confirming it smelled like chloroform. “Miss Anderson, you’re under arrest. Constable James and Williams, can you please both escort Miss Anderson and Mr. Wilcox back to the Yard.”
“You’re arresting us?” Miss Anderson cried. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“Unlawfully administering chloroform to assist a person to commit an indictable offense, in this case attempted murder, is an offense, Miss Anderson. And as for you, Mr. Wilcox…” Tobias turned to the young boy.
“You shall also accompany the officers back to the Yard and provide an official statement, and then I will make a decision on your fate.”
“Come on, then. You heard the inspector,” Constable James said to Miss Anderson and the boy, ushering them from the stage and out the ballroom, leaving just Tobias, Jack, and a still-silent Miss Brunham in the large ballroom.
*
“Do you think he’ll return to pay them?” Jack asked as the constables closed the door behind them to take the two stagehands back to the Yard.
“I doubt it,” Tobias replied. “Why would he bother? I doubt he needs to silence them, given he was clearly wearing a disguise when dealing with them. But just in case, I’ll have some men hidden down the alley.”
Jack nodded. “This must have been the missing illusion. Which means there are still two more to go.”
“I know,” Tobias agreed with a heavy sigh. “And God knows what sort of timing we’re looking at between them now.”
Jack had no idea, either, but she was clearly marked for his sixth and final illusion. Suddenly, the idea of taking things into her own hands seemed far preferable to waiting around for something to happen.
The door to the room opened and in walked a tall, thin man carrying a medical bag.
“Ah, Doctor Olstad, thank you for coming so quickly,” Tobias said as the doctor quickly made his way across the ballroom and up to the stage.
“When your mother calls, I will always come running. One doesn’t want to incur the countess’s displeasure,” the doctor replied. “Now, what have we got here?”
“We think she’s been drugged with chloroform, and possibly before that, laudanum.” Tobias quickly explained what Miss Anderson had told him.
“Very well. Let me examine her.”
Jack observed the doctor as he checked Miss Brunham’s pulse and then pulled open her closed eyelids, peering into them before bending over and sniffing close to her mouth.