He tried to lead her toward his front parlor, but she frowned. “I prefer your study. The windows there open onto the back of the house.”
“I suppose they do,” he said irritably. “But I don’t understand this great need for secrecy. So what if someone should happen to see you calling upon me? Everyone knows we are old friends, aren’t we?”
She didn’t answer him, and he thought he had seen more liking on the faces of some of his enemies. But he gave over arguing, deciding to humor her.
Preceding her into the study, he lit the desk lamp, while she made sure the brocade draperies were drawn tight. The room was a little close, still smelling of his last cigar, but the surroundings were comfortable to him. The shelves were well lined with books, not as many as that oaf, Morrison owned, but at least his were read occasionally.
Strolling over to a small sideboard, he offered Cynthia a drink, but she didn’t want it, so he poured himself a tall brandy. He offered her a chair, but she didn’t want that either. His nerves near to the snapping point from her cold silence, he plunked down behind his desk, no longer troubling himself to play the host or the gentleman.
“Well, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this evening? That request you sent round sounded most urgent.”
Request? It had been like a damned command, and he was more than a little annoyed with how slavishly he had complied.
Instead of answering his question, she reached beneath the folds of her cape and produced a newspaper. She laid it face up on the desk before him, the late edition of the New York World.She tapped one gloved finger on the headline, an unnecessary gesture for his eyes were already riveted upon it: Addison Murdered: Killer still at large.
The story that followed was brief, providing more lurid details of Addison’s demise and Morrison’s sensational escape from the police. Decker noted that the article mentioned nothing about balloons. Obviously O’Connell had somehow suppressed that detail, finding it either too incredible to be believed or too humiliating.
As Decker perused the newsprint, he was aware of Cynthia’s eyes upon his face, fixing him like points of ice. He moistened his lips. “I didn’t know you subscribed to the World, Cynthia. It’s a working man’s paper. I would have thought the Post more up to your style.”
“I didn’t come here to discuss my taste in reading material.” She sounded calm, but Decker retained the impression that she was very angry. Yet with Cynthia, who ever could tell?
“Perhaps when you have done with your pleasantries, you will get around to telling me what all this means.”
He felt a wild urge to deny all knowledge of any of it. But he brought himself up short. There was no reason he should lie, not to her. Damnation, sometimes he acted like he was half-afraid of the woman.
Taking a large gulp of his brandy, he hunched his shoulders in a posture of assumed carelessness. “I took a gamble that I could deal with our little problem regarding Mr. Addison. I almost pulled it off, but my plans went slightly awry.”
Her finely chiseled nostrils flared. “Your plans? What business had you to be making any plans?”
“Well, damn it. Something had to be done and you seemed to be doing precious little. I warned you how close Addison was getting. He called a press conference the other day. He had evidence pointing to ‘that respected member’ of society whoowned a chain of brothels and sweatshops in the East End, who had been paying off the police, skimming from the city treasury to keep the operations running. That all points to me, Cynthia.”
“So it does, my dear Charles.”
“You needn’t think you would have stayed in the clear for long either, partner. I tell you, Addison was getting close to uncovering everything.”
“So you had Addison murdered. Brilliant, Charles. What a perfect way to turn an insignificant reformer into a martyr, to lend credence to what otherwise could have been dismissed as wild accusations.”
Decker flinched under her biting tone, wishing she would sit down, stop hovering above him that way, making him feel like an errant schoolboy called to account before the stern headmistress.
“You fool!” she said. “Didn’t you stop to think that the investigation into Addison’s death will only raise more questions, make everything twice as bad?”
Decker took another pull at his drink. “That was the cleverness of my plan. There wasn’t to have been any investigation because his killer was supposed to have been caught on the scene. That’s why I had Morrison kidnapped as well. If Addison were killed in some sordid brothel fight by Morrison, that would discredit both of them.”
“And you expected John Morrison to oblige you by confessing to this crime?”
“No, I expected him to be shot, escaping from the police.”
She received his words with a frozen stillness, her facial muscles pulled taut. Nothing moved but her eyes, which glinted strangely.
“I believe,” she said quietly, “that I had intimated to you that I had plans of my own for Mr. Morrison.”
Decker squirmed, but he mustered enough belligerence to say, “So you did. But you never chose to confide in me what those plans were. I never have been able to fathom your interest in that underbred ruffian, all muscle and flashing teeth, his only intelligence in his fists.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate John Morrison, Charles. That mistake already appears likely to cost you.”
“Humph, the way you talk about him, sometimes I’ve wondered if you haven’t been planning to marry the fellow.”
When she made no effort to deny his charge, he continued to goad her. “Is that it, Cynthia? You were ever were a greedy wench. Attracted by the prospect of marrying all those millions? Well, you should take more interest in safeguarding the investments you’ve already got.”
