Page 21 of The Devil in Oxford
“Do not fear for my future, Miss Vaughn.” He gave me ahopeless smile. “I have lost my dearest friend in this world in the ghastliest way imaginable. I do not care much what happens to me. But tell Miss Abernathy to be careful. Tell her I thank her and appreciate her kindness more than she could ever know. And yours.”
Careful of what?was on the tip of my tongue when the door burst open. It sailed into the yellowing wall behind it with a crash. Jack, the young constable, stood in the doorway, his earlier carefree expression marred with worry as an older man grabbed him roughly by the sleeve of his woolen uniform jacket and shoved him into the cell with us. Jack stumbled on the stone floor but caught himself before falling and gave me an apologetic grimace.
My ten minutes had ended earlier than expected.
The older man glowered behind him, clad in a freshly pressed police uniform. Buttons shining in the dim light of the cell. The fellow’s face was sour and round, flushed pink with anger. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the inspector that Jack had been worried about. Beecham, I think he’d said. The man was a sturdy enough fellow with a mean expression—taller than me with a chest like a whisky barrel. The sort of man a romantic soul might imagine serving as a boatswain on a ship a century ago—with likely the same amount of humor. He had a bristly mustache covering his thin lips. “Out.” He pointed at me with a thick forefinger. “I don’t know what you said or did to make this idiot allow you to be alone with a murderer—but out!”
“Accused murderer,” I replied hotly, oddly protective of both Mueller and the poor young constable. It wasn’t Jack’s fault that I’d manipulated him into allowing me down here. “Mr. Mueller didn’t kill Julius Harker, he had no motivation to do so!”
The inspector glared at me, a bulging purple vein in his neck pulsing visibly. “Would you like to have a permanent room in the adjoining cell, Miss Vaughn? I could arrange it for you.”
I kept my mouth shut and stormed out of the cell, Inspector Beecham at my heels.
“Lock him back up or else it’s to the cowshed with you, you bloody idiot,” Beecham spat at Jack as the inspector pushed me up the stairs to the main lobby of the police station. “As foryou…I read all about you and your unnatural habits in the paper this morning.”
My spine straightened and I paused, spinning around on the narrow stair, making me stand a full head taller than the inspector. “Whatdid you say?”
He wasn’t at all affected by my biting temper. Inspector Beecham met my stare with one equally as cold. “Dabbling in police affairs, living with an unmarried gentleman—”
This again.It was always a particular narrow-minded sort that grew fixated upon my particular living arrangements. Granted, it wasn’t aided by the fact Mr. Owen had a reputation in his youth that rivaled my own. “A gentleman whohappensto be my employer.”
“And who in all of Britain would be naïve enough to believe thatthe notoriousRuby Vaughn needs some old viscount’s money?”
Mr. Owen’s title still sat uneasily with me. I’d not known that Mr. Owen was the Viscount of Hawick until only recently. Nor had I known that the old man had been a bit of a rake in his youth. Neither of which bothered me in the least.
“He had better take you in hand soon. A woman of your age should have her mind to rearing children. Obeying her husband and tending to her household. Not prancing around the countryside sticking her nose in police business and encouraging wild stories about a mummy’s curse!”
My nostrils flared. Of all the insufferable, backward notions. “Only the vilest, weakest, and most cowardly of men seek to control another, and I assure you that Mr. Owen is none of those things. The only person I obey is my own conscience. And if my existingin the same room as a corpse is enough to cause some muckraking reporter to dream up stories about curses—well that sounds as if it isyourproblem, not mine.”
He grabbed me hard by the arm, pulling me close to him. His breath stale. “MissVaughn. I don’t know what game you think you’re playing at, but this is police business. I have half a mind to lock you up alongside Mueller. And if it weren’t for the fact you have such powerful friends…”
The little bell rang above the door as an elderly woman entered the station escorted by a young man, interrupting the inspector’s threats.
I jerked my elbow from his clammy grasp. “Then it’s a very good thing I do have powerful friends.”
“I don’t want to see your face here again. Do you understand me?” he hissed.
“Perfectly.” The word was ice as I brushed past the woman and started out onto the rainy streets of Oxford. I’d simply have to find another way to aid Leona and Mr. Mueller. One that did not involve the authorities—but that would entail a trip back to Harker’s museum to see what the police had missed. I checked my watch. The sun would set in a few hours, and then later, under the cover of darkness, when most people were abed, I could return to the museum to see what Harker might have left for me to discover.
CHAPTERNINECaught, at Last
AFTERmy poor reception by Inspector Beecham, I did not feel much like going home. Leona was right to be worried about Mueller’s hasty arrest—and against all better sense, I was determined to get to the bottom of it. My reluctance certainly hadnothingto do with the fact Ruan Kivell was likely still there. Nor was it avoidance of the inevitable conversation that would ensue once I laid out my plans for this evening. The man had aided me in past investigations, but I got the distinct sense that burgling remained at the remotest edge of his morality map.
Breath visible in the cold midmorning air, I waited on the curbstone for a passing motorcar before hurrying across the street. A few cold drops of rain splattered my cheeks as I tucked into the Covered Market for shelter. The tall wooden-buttressed ceiling gave the entire structure an airy open affect, aided in no small measure by the high windows allowing in what pitiable light broke through the rain clouds. It was an utterly dreary day, made doubly so by the discoveries of the last twenty-four hours.
Mrs. Penrose had asked me to pick up a few bits and bobs while I was in town—utterly unaware that I would be once againinvestigating a murder. Besides, she took far less umbrage at my erratic comings and goings when I brought her little gifts. Nothing pleased my housekeeper more than a chance to experiment with an unusual spice, a new vegetable, or a curious cheese. The woman adored a challenge, which was likely the reason she agreed to come work for me in Exeter earlier this year, for we both knew that I wasnothingif not challenging.
Four pigeons pecked around on the cobbles for forgotten crumbs from a previous patron. A peculiar sound caught my attention, and I turned back to the street as the rain began to pour from the heavens. There in the distance at the corner of Cornmarket stood a slight, fair-haired man. He wore a long military-style overcoat and leaned against the stone front of a building, smoking a pipe in the shelter of the eaves. A thick beard a shade or two darker than his hair disguised his face. At this distance, I could not make out his features, other than to know without a doubt that he was watching me. Something about his shape pricked at my memory, an achingly familiar sensation. Iknewhim somehow, and yet I could not place it.
The man remained there for several seconds watching me, before he dipped his head in polite acknowledgment and turned, walking off into the rain, without even an umbrella to keep him dry. How very strange.
I stared in his direction long after the man disappeared, half wondering if I’d hallucinated the whole thing. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen people who did not exist, but that had been during the darkest days of the war. And in truth, I think most of us were half-mad during that time, for madness helped make sense of a senseless situation.
Hallucination or no, staring off into the rain wasn’t going to get me any closer to clearing Mr. Mueller’s name. And as I was trapped by the weather for the foreseeable future, I made the most of things—dipping into a nearby produce stall and setting to workto earn the forbearance of my housekeeper and forget the burgeoning unease in my belly.
AN HOUR ANDa half later, newly acquired umbrella and sack of produce in hand, I found myself in a nearby tearoom waiting on the rain to finally ease for my walk home. I took a seat at a table near the front window. The glass was terribly fogged, casting the outside world in impressionist shadows. Shapes and hints of color hidden behind the moisture. An occasional droplet of water would slip down the pane, cutting a narrow line to the outside world. A gash as raw as the wound in my heart. An imposter. Another murder. The mess I’d made with Ruan. I was adrift in a sea of turmoil and uncertainty and wanted none of it.
The winter sun had already sunk below the horizon. This time of year, it was scarcely overhead at all, always hanging in that middling space just past dawn and before nightfall. A perpetual twilight that left me craving the long days of summer with their endless hours of sunshine and the scent of the sea on my skin. I missed the water when I was this far inland. It wouldn’t be long though. A few more weeks and the days would lengthen again. Perhaps I could convince Mr. Owen to go on a Mediterranean holiday once we returned to Exeter.
