City of Secrets

by Victoria Thompson

  Elizabeth exchanged an uneasy glance with Priscilla, just as they’d practiced, and she picked up the envelope that had been lying on the table beside the sofa and handed it across to Reverend Honesdale.

  With steady hands, he opened the flap and pulled out the photograph. Once again, some emotion flickered across his face but only for an instant. Then he slid the photograph back into the envelope. “That is indeed shocking.”

  “So you see why we’re concerned,” Elizabeth said.

  “And yet there is no reason. While this is . . . unfortunate—and I must confess, I am disappointed in Mr. Knight for having left such a thing behind where his wife might stumble across it—I don’t think it should cause you any further concern.”

  “No concern? Why not?” Priscilla asked.

  “Because whatever his”—Honesdale glanced down at the envelope, which he still held—“sins, Mr. Knight is dead. He is beyond shame or scandal and even retribution. God will judge him, certainly, but nothing in this world can hurt him now. The only person this photograph can hurt now is you, Mrs. Knight.”

  “Me? But how could it hurt me?”

  “Scandal, Mrs. Knight. Scandal and gossip. Although you are completely innocent, people won’t particularly care about that when they spread their rumors.”

  “Oh dear!” Priscilla said, suitably horrified.

  They all looked up in surprise when the maid tapped on the door and brought in the coffee. She set the tray down on the table nearest Priscilla’s seat and slipped quietly out. No one spoke until she had gone.

  “So what do you advise Mrs. Knight to do, Reverend Honesdale?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Forget this photograph ever existed. In fact, I will take it myself and see it destroyed, so you’ll never even be tempted to look at it.” He tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket.

  “Are you sure?” Priscilla asked. “I mean, shouldn’t we inform someone? The authorities, perhaps?”

  “The police, you mean? To what end?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems very bad of someone to have tormented him so.”

  “Judging from the contents of the photograph, Mr. Knight deserved to be tormented. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Miles?”

  Elizabeth widened her eyes at the shock of being asked her opinion. “Yes, indeed.” She turned to Priscilla. “I think Reverend Honesdale is right, and he’s only thinking of your best interest.”

  “Well, if you agree, I . . . I suppose I’d be just as happy to never think of it again.”

  “That’s very wise of you, Mrs. Knight. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be going.” Honesdale rose abruptly.

  “Must you? Don’t you want some coffee before you go?”

  “Thank you, but no. I’m afraid I’m late for a pressing engagement,” he said, giving the lie to his claim of having canceled all his appointments for the afternoon.

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “I’ll see Reverend Honesdale out.”

  She followed their guest out into the mercifully empty hall—Gideon had managed to make himself scarce—and to the front door and found his overcoat hanging on the coat tree.

  “I hope we can trust your discretion, Reverend Honesdale. Priscilla would be mortified if anyone knew about this.”

  “I have no intention of telling anyone, and as soon as I get home, I will destroy the photograph. You need have no concern about this, Miss Miles.”

  “Thank you for your help,” she said as she opened the door for him.

  “My pleasure.”

  Elizabeth wondered exactly what part of this encounter he had found pleasurable.

  She waited for a long moment, her hand still on the door from pushing it closed, to make sure he was truly gone.

  “What were you thinking?” Gideon demanded in a furious whisper as he came out of the study where he’d retreated during Honesdale’s exit. He was obviously conscious of the fact that Honesdale might still be nearby and managed to convey his anger while also keeping his voice low. “You let him take the photograph. Without it, we don’t have any proof that—”

  She held up the envelope so he could see Honesdale had not, in fact, taken the photograph.

  His amazement was almost comical. “Where did you get that?”

  She merely smiled and gave it to him and returned to the parlor, where Priscilla was pouring coffee for the three of them.

  “He was lying,” Priscilla announced triumphantly as they came into the room. “He knew exactly what photograph we were talking about. In fact, he knew it was a photograph before we even told him. I’m sure of it.”

  “So am I.” Elizabeth turned to Gideon. “Mothers always know when someone is lying.”

  “You aren’t a mother. And how did you get this from him?” he added, holding up the envelope.

  “He dropped it when he was putting on his overcoat.”

  “That was convenient.”

  “You don’t sound as if you believe me,” she chided, taking her seat and accepting a cup of coffee from Priscilla. “Were you able to hear everything he said?”

  “Most of it,” Gideon said, taking the chair Honesdale had vacated and accepting some coffee from Priscilla. “And Mrs. Knight is right; he already knew what you’d found.”

  “You should have seen his face when he saw the photograph,” Elizabeth said. “He wasn’t shocked at all. He actually looked more annoyed than anything.”

  “You may be right, but why would he have been annoyed?” Priscilla asked.

  “Probably because it had been found,” Gideon said. “Without it, we would have had no idea what happened to all of the money.”

  “But we did find it and we do know,” Priscilla said. “What do we do now?”

  Elizabeth looked at Gideon but he didn’t meet her eye. “We’ll need some more proof,” he said. “We know Knight was being blackmailed and why, and we believe the Honesdales were involved, but we don’t have anything to actually prove the money went to them.”

  “How can you prove that?” Priscilla asked.

  Gideon still wouldn’t meet Elizabeth’s eye. “I need to speak to your banker, to see if he has any idea where the money went.”

  “And surely, he’ll know,” Priscilla said.

  “Yes, surely,” Gideon agreed.

  But Elizabeth knew he was simply humoring her. The banker would most likely have no idea. Blackmailers didn’t take checks. Knight had probably withdrawn the blackmail payments in cash, and after that, the money would be untraceable. She wasn’t going to tell Priscilla that, however, especially because Elizabeth wasn’t depending on some banker to help retrieve money paid in blackmail.

  CHAPTER TEN

  WOULD ELIZABETH KEEP ATTENDING THESE MONDAY NIGHT salons after they were married and she no longer lived with her aunt? Gideon wondered as he helped Anna out of the cab that had delivered them to the big house in Chelsea. At least he would no longer be expected to escort Anna every week.

  Cybil greeted them warmly, kissing Anna on both cheeks. “Elizabeth hasn’t come down yet,” she said.

  Anna looked up at the imposing staircase and said, “Here she is.”

  Gideon instantly moved to the stairs to meet her and was shocked to see an attractive young man following her down the stairs. The only rooms upstairs were bedrooms, and no young men had any business upstairs in this house.

  The young man said something to Elizabeth, and she looked back up at him and smiled the way he’d thought she only smiled at him. Then she turned back and held out her hand to Gideon. He took it in both of his, and when she reached the bottom step, he pulled her in and kissed her soundly, staking his claim for the young man’s benefit.

  “Oh my,” she said with obvious delight when he was done, and Gideon couldn’t resist a glance at the young man to gauge his reaction.

  Oddly
enough, he merely seemed amused. “So, Lizzie, this must be your fella, because if he’s not, your fella better be worried.”

  “And who are you?” Gideon asked more defensively than he’d intended.

  “Gideon, this is Jake,” she said.

  Jake? For a moment he couldn’t remember who Jake was. “Your brother.”

  “Half brother,” he said. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bates.” He offered his hand, and Gideon had to release Elizabeth’s to take it. For a moment, he thought Jake would engage in a little friendly competition to see which of them could out-squeeze the other, but then he released Gideon’s hand before he could react.

  Jake didn’t look much like Elizabeth. His hair was dark and his eyes were brown. Only his smile hinted at the relationship.

  “I’ve never seen you at the salon before,” Gideon said.

  “I’ve never been here before, and I’ll probably never be back. Oh, hello,” he added with interest, having caught sight of Anna.

  “Anna, this is my brother, Jake Miles. Jake, my best friend, Anna Vanderslice,” Elizabeth said.

  “Miss Vanderslice, it’s an honor to meet you,” Jake said. “I had no idea Lizzie even had friends.”

  This surprised a laugh out of Anna and brought color to her cheeks. So Jake Miles had a bit of his father’s charm and a bit of his sister’s wit.

  “I’m sure Elizabeth has many friends, Mr. Miles,” Anna said. “Come with me. I’ll see to it you make some new ones as well.”

  Gideon watched in amazement as Anna took charge of Jake Miles and ushered him into the parlor, where Cybil’s intellectual friends and students were gathering. He smiled as he heard her say, “Let me introduce you to Miss Adams.”

  “Poor Jake,” he said to Elizabeth.

  “Were you jealous?” She seemed intrigued by the prospect.

  “Of course I was jealous. How do you expect me to feel when I see my fiancée leaving her boudoir with another man? Which begs the question of why you were in your boudoir with another man even if he is your brother.”

  “Jake had some information for me, and he thought I’d want it right away.”

  Before he could ask about the information, the front door opened and more guests arrived in a burst of cold air and high spirits. Gideon couldn’t imagine why people enjoyed these gatherings so much, but obviously some did.

  “Come out to the kitchen,” she said, taking him by the hand.

  The kitchen was filled with people helping Zelda arrange hors d’oeuvres on plates, but Lizzie pulled him into the butler’s pantry, which was, for the moment at least, deserted. He tried to take her in his arms when she’d closed the door, but she held him off.

  “Don’t you want to know what news Jake had?”

  “Not particularly.” He reached for her again.

  “I hired him to follow Honesdale.”

  That erased all thoughts of romance from his mind, at least momentarily. “Matthew Honesdale?” was all he could think.

  “No, the Reverend Mr. Peter Honesdale. And his wife as well.”

  “Why? And why didn’t you tell me you were going to do this?”

  “Because I wanted to know if Honesdale needed to tell anyone else that we’d found the photograph, and I was afraid you’d object to having your minister followed.”

  Since he probably would have objected, he couldn’t argue with that. “But who would he need to tell?”

  “His partners, if he has any. I wanted to know if the Honesdales did this alone or if they had help.”

  “And why would you think they’d need help?”

  “Because how much experience would a minister and his wife have with blackmail? And even more importantly, how much experience would they have with the kinds of activities for which Endicott Knight was being blackmailed?”

  “You have a point. So did Jake follow Honesdale?”

  “He did. He followed him from Priscilla’s house.”

  “And where did he go?”

  “Home.”

  “Probably to tell his wife what happened.”

  “Probably, since we’re pretty sure she’s involved.”

  “Then where did he go?”

  “Nowhere. He stayed home.”

  “That doesn’t sound like very important news to me.”

  “Remember, I also told Jake to follow Daisy Honesdale.”

  Gideon nodded, finally understanding. “And Daisy went somewhere.”

  “She did. She left her distraught husband—because he must have been a bit rattled when he found out we had the photograph, and then he calmed down when he took it from us, but when he discovered he no longer had it—”

  “You never did explain how you really got it back.”

  “Every grifter knows how to pick a pocket. You never know when you’ll need to do that.”

  “Good heavens.”

  “Yes, good heavens.”

  “And does every grifter know how to follow someone?”

  “Some do, because when you put a mark on the send—”

  “What?”

  She sighed. “When a mark is ready to give you his money, he usually has to return home to get it, or at least have it transferred to another bank in another city. Someone follows him to make sure he doesn’t get distracted, and when he gets the money, you follow him to make sure he doesn’t get robbed.”

  “Oh.” That made sense in a twisted kind of way, he supposed.

  “So imagine how upset Reverend Honesdale must have been when he realized he no longer had the photograph. Daisy must have been livid.”

  “And where did she go with all her anger?”

  “She went to see Matthew Honesdale.”

  * * *

  • • •

  GIDEON HADN’T SLEPT WELL. HE’D KEPT THINKING ABOUT Elizabeth’s news that Daisy Honesdale had visited her husband’s cousin, who also happened to operate a string of brothels. Why would a respectable minister’s wife visit such a man? Alone and, according to Jake, veiled.

  Well, the veil was easy enough to figure out. She didn’t want anyone to recognize her. But what business could she have had with such a man? And why hadn’t Peter gone instead?

  Elizabeth thought it indicated Matthew was a partner in the blackmail scheme, regardless of how innocent they had thought him when they met him. That did seem to be the only logical answer, and the man was a pimp, so he could hardly sink lower morally. Blackmail might even be a step up for him.

  Gideon had reached that conclusion about the time he’d finished breakfast this morning, and now he was sitting in his office, thinking through it all again and wondering how he could have so misjudged the man on their first meeting.

  Smith interrupted him. “You have a visitor, Mr. Bates. He does not have an appointment.” His expression reminded Gideon of what Smith thought of visitors with no appointment.

  Gideon didn’t care. He needed a distraction. “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Matthew Honesdale.”

  Gideon managed not to react, or at least he thought he had. Smith’s frown indicated he wasn’t completely successful. “Show him in.”

  By the time Honesdale came into his office, Gideon had control of his emotions again, and hopefully of his face as well. He shook Honesdale’s hand and offered him a seat.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Honesdale?”

  He hadn’t smiled when Gideon greeted him, and now he stared across the expanse of Gideon’s desk solemnly. “I wanted to clarify some things you told me at our last meeting, Mr. Bates.”

  “Of course.”

  “You asked if I was planning to foreclose on Mrs. Knight’s house, and I assured her that I had no intention of doing so. Is that also your recollection?”

  “Yes, it is.” What did this have to do with the blackmail, and more importantly, with
Daisy Honesdale’s visit to him last evening?

  Honesdale reached into his pocket, pulled out a key and slapped it on Gideon’s desk.

  “What’s that?” Gideon asked.

  “A key to Mrs. Knight’s house.”

  Gideon stared at the key for a moment, trying to make sense of this. “Did you receive a key when you made the loan to Mr. Knight?” And if he had a key, that meant he had access to the house, so maybe he was the one who had taken the photograph and . . .

  “No, I did not. I only received it yesterday.”

  Gideon’s nerve endings twitched to life. “From whom did you receive it?”

  Matthew Honesdale frowned. “From a friend.”

  “The same friend who asked you to take the mortgage on Mr. Knight’s house in the first place?”

  Gideon could almost see the inner struggle as Honesdale silently considered his answer. He must have decided that revealing this small detail could do no harm. “Yes, the same friend.”

  “Why did this friend have a key to the house?” Which was a question Gideon very much wanted answered.

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  But Gideon knew. Peter and Daisy Honesdale had had a key to Endicott Knight’s house, the house where Knight had indulged his appetites and the Honesdales had tricked him into betraying himself.

  How much of this did Matthew Honesdale know, though? And should Gideon reveal his own knowledge?

  “Why have you brought the key here, Mr. Honesdale?” he tried.

  Honesdale shifted uneasily in his comfortable chair. “I don’t feel it’s proper for me to have a key to Mrs. Knight’s house.”

  Which was true, of course, even if he did own the mortgage on it. But more importantly, could Matthew Honesdale be as confused as Gideon had been about the houses? “I’m glad you are willing to respect Mrs. Knight’s privacy.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t have used the key, even if I hadn’t promised her she could continue to live in the house,” Honesdale said, a bit affronted.

  Which answered Gideon’s unspoken question. “Mr. Honesdale, are you under the impression that Mrs. Knight lives in the house for which you own the mortgage?”