Page 82 of Speculations in Sin

The heavy vase still held flowers, and water poured down as the marble crashed to my forehead and sent me to the floor.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, my first thought was that I was happy to be alive.

The second was that there was very little light. The third, that the room I’d woken in was cold. My head hurt in a way it hadn’t since I’d lived with Joe, and any movement sent it throbbing.

I sat up gingerly, suppressing a groan, and supported my back on whatever was behind me. The fact that I knew how to be gentle with myself after being beaten down was sad testimony about my married life.

Crisp footsteps tapped toward me, and I looked up into the cold face of Miss Swann.

Oh dear.

24

As Miss Swann regarded me icily, I winced and put a hand to my head.

A glance at the large object I leaned against showed me a tall cabinet with many drawers, all shut, all fitted with keyholes. The rest of the room held many such cabinets. There was one window, very high in the wall, that let in the fading afternoon light.

A strong room, I presumed. The little-used one, perhaps where Mr. Stockley had died.

“How did you carry me up here?” I asked, rubbing my aching temple. “I am not a small woman.”

“I had assistance,” Miss Swann said coldly.

I wondered by who, but I knew she would not tell me. The thin but strong doorman? One of the other bankers or clerks in her thrall? “How did you lure Mr. Stockley here? Did he offer to show you evidence of the embezzlement? Or the extentof it? Something like that could not get about to your shareholders. Can’t have a panicked run on Daalman’s, can you?”

“Stockley was an arrogant idiot who also did as he was told.”

“Why not give Mr. Kearny to the police?” I asked her, wanting to keep her talking. “He is clearly guilty.”

“He’d never still his tongue,” Miss Swann said. “He’s too weak, and he knows too many secrets. Mr. Millburn knows nothing, so he can give nothing away. The thieving will stop now, in any case, and we can go on.”

Her priority wasn’t the money, I realized. Mr. Kearny might want the riches for what they could buy him, but for Miss Swann, the only important thing was reputation—of her family and of the bank.

“Mr. Kearny is too high up in the hierarchy, isn’t he?” I said in understanding. “If there are other irregularities, he’d talk about them to save his own skin. Such as how Daalman’s survived the panic of ’73, when so many other investment and joint stock banks were going under. Were you here then, Miss Swann?”

“Of course I was. I have always been here. And yes, I did what I had to in order to save us. You would not understand it, so I will not explain to you.”

I likely wouldn’t understand at all—the chicanery banking institutions went through to keep afloat was beyond my comprehension. But an investigation by financial experts would certainly reveal the fraud.

“Mr. Millburn was expendable,” I went on. “Is that why you encouraged Mr. Zachary to hire him?”

Miss Swann made an almost imperceptible shrug. “He had a good mind. I thought he might be useful one day.”

Her casual dismissal of Sam made my blood boil. “Pleasedo not speak of him in the past tense. Mr. Millburn still has a very good mind, and a good heart. When he began to bring what he’d found to Mr. Stockley, you grew worried. Mr. Stockley, whom you call an arrogant idiot, was likely honest enough to want the embezzler stopped and, yes, arrogant enough to think he could take matters into his own hands. You brought him up here to find out what he knew, then when you couldn’t make him agree to shut up, you struck him down. Like you struck me.” I rubbed my forehead again and laughed feebly. “I suppose I have a harder head than Mr. Stockley did.”

“I did not mean to kill him, not then,” Miss Swann said. “But you have the right of it. Mr. Stockley was more frail than I anticipated.”

Her words,not then, chilled me. I suppose she meant she’d planned to kill him later, in a more secret place, and now had decided to do the same to me. I could only hope that Daniel, finishing the chase for Mr. Kearny, would return to find me.

“If you killed him, why did you then ask Mr. Kearny to help you unlock the door, knowing Mr. Stockley would be found?” I asked.

“I hadn’t wanted that to happen either,” Miss Swann answered. Her irritation at those who thwarted her plans was unnerving. “Mr. Stockley was missed, and Mr. Millburn so helpfully said he was on this floor, where the two of them had been meeting privately. I assumed Mr. Millburn knew all about me. So, instead of having Mr. Stockley transported to the river and disposed of, I decided Mr. Millburn should be taken for killing him. That way, his meddling would be finished, Mr. Kearny would obey me, and all would be well.”

“All would be well for everyone except Mr. Stockley and Mr. Millburn,” I corrected her. “What will you do about Mr. Kearny? He will be arrested today.”

“No, he will not. I recruited help, in the form of a ruffian I’d seen wandering nearby—ironically, he was looking for Mr. Millburn. They are dangerous, these street men. Violent, even.”

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