I didn’t want to believe it. Sweet, beautiful, grieving Hannah Grogan was an accomplice. And the bon voyage dinner had been a ploy. A way to entice Xavier Horne and Adele from their home, leaving it free and clear for Grogan. My grandfather had known it, too. He’d set everything up to keep Grogan in place until my uncle could find him.
“But you were sick,” Adele said, still sounding confused. “We all saw you at my father’s dinner. You couldn’t have —”
“Sacrifices must be made to achieve your goals, Miss Horne. I ate a chili pepper before entering your father’s party. Believe me, I was sick.”
I recalled how he’d been sweating profusely. A whole chili pepper would set a person’s throat and mouth on fire, for sure.
“But your body,” Adele protested again. “They found it in the wreckage. It was buried in the cemetery!”
I heard Grogan chuckle. “They buried a body, yes, but not mine. It was a medical skeleton, actually.”
A medical skeleton? Where on earth would he have gotten one of — I nearly gasped. Dr. Philbrick! He and Mr. Horne had been friends, a fellow art collector. Could he have trusted Dr. Philbrick with the Degas’s whereabouts? Had Grogan and Dr. Philbrick been working together? And of course … he’d verified the remains of Neil Grogan. I’d just known Dr. Philbrick was a wretched man!
Adele suddenly whimpered, and the sounds of a brief struggle followed. I needed to see what was happening, but with my obstructed vision, the only thing I saw was the very edge of Mr. Horne’s open wall safe. I revealed myself, what more could I possibly do? I could do more by making myself invisible, just as my grandfather had advised.
“Get the Degas, Leighton,” Detective Grogan ordered. “I’ll take it and be on my way.”
“I know your plans for me,” my grandfather said. “But what of Horne’s daughter?”
There was a stretch of silence. I didn’t dare even breathe.
“Miss Horne, finding you here has been quite a surprise. My wife told me you’d decided to attend her dinner party tonight,” Grogan finally said. “It’s unfortunate you chose not to.”
Now I knew why Grandfather had shoved me behind this curtain. He’d done it to protect me.
“Harming a young girl isn’t very sporting, Neil.”
Grandfather sounded so conversational, as if he was suggesting Detective Grogan lessen the amount of salt he was sprinkling on his dinner.
“A young girl. An old man. It makes no difference to me.” Grogan’s cold reply sounded as if it had come from another person, not the quiet and intelligent Detective Grogan I’d known.
Coming within my restricted sight, my grandfather bent over and slipped inside the safe box. When he came back out, he had in his hand a small statue of a ballerina. The brown, waxy statue shimmered in the yellow lamplight. It was so basic and rough-looking. I couldn’t believe this little statue was worth throwing away a career, dignity, and principle. Obviously, Detective Grogan did.
Horse hooves on pavement and the rattle of a carriage reached through the cold glass window at my back. Without moving the rest of my body, I turned my head so I could peer outside. There, pulled up along the curb, sat a dark carriage. I couldn’t distinguish more than its box shape, but I knew who it must be. Uncle Bruce had arrived just as my grandfather had predicted.
“Set it on the desk,” Neil Grogan instructed, apparently unaware of his partner’s arrival.
For my grandfather to be following his orders, Detective Grogan must have had a weapon trained on Adele. Once he had the statue, what more would he need with my grandfather and Adele? They were liabilities. Let them go, and the police would be setting up a hunt for Neil and Hannah Grogan before dawn.
“Now, Miss Horne, I do hope you’re not averse to small spaces,” Grogan said, and then he was within my view, steering Adele straight inside her father’s wall safe.
The heavy safe door with its shelves of books muffled her whimpering pleas as Grogan shut it. I stared at the back of his knee-length overcoat, at his head of fine, blond hair. When his profile came into view, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling relief that he wasn’t dead. Knowing he was a fraud ate into that relief a little bit. The small pistol in his gloved hand erased it altogether.
“And you, Leighton, are to lead the way downstairs. We have one last red herring to see to.”
My stomach plummeted. The only red herring Grogan knew how to plant was fire. I had to get Adele out of the safe. She was already pounding on the inside of the door, but I had to give her credit: She wasn’t yelling for me to help her. In fact, she’d done an admirable job pretending I wasn’t in the study at all.
As soon as the room faded to blackness, and footsteps could be heard on the stairwell leading to the second floor, I pushed back the velvet curtain and raced to the deceiving shelves of books.
“Get me out of here!” Adele screamed. Her voice sounded like it was coming from underneath a stack of feather pillows.
I reached inside the cold hearth and ran my hands blindly over the stones. “Where’s the handle?”
“I don’t know!” Adele replied. “I didn’t even know my father had a safe in here.”
I ducked inside the deeply set fireplace, palms sweeping around flat against the rough stone. I needed to get downstairs and stop Detective Grogan from harming my grandfather.
Sweat beaded up on my back. I pounded my fist against the stone — and felt it sink inward. Dizzy with relief, I pushed it farther in, and click, the door to the safe popped open.
Adele rushed out, gasping for air. “I do happen to have an aversion to small spaces,” she huffed. “As if he cared!”
I went to the window and peered out again. Uncle Bruce’s carriage was still there, his driver sitting placidly in the box. I threw up the sash and leaned my head out into the cold, spitting rain.
“Up here!” I shouted, waving my hand over my head. The driver perked up and twisted his head up to the third-floor windows. “Send Detective Snow inside! Hurry!”
Adele and I then rushed into the black hallway.
“Where do you think they’ve gone?” she asked.
“Wherever Grogan can start a fire easily,” I answered. “Where does your father keep his spirits? Or the house’s oil stores?”
The mention of fire propelled Adele forward. She beat me down the staircase.
“I think in the cellar,” she answered. She grabbed my elbow as I passed her down the hallway. “No. This way, just in case.”
She opened a door and dragged me into a closet. But then she was pulling me down a flight of steps — a servant stairwell. At the bottom, we jogged down a short corridor and then Adele stopped me. We’d come to another door. This one, I presumed, led to the kitchen. We pressed our ears to the wood and listened.
“We can’t do anything until your uncle gets here,” Adele whispered.
“Speak for yourself,” I said, and grabbed for the knob. I was finished with hiding.
Inside the kitchen, a few candles sat flickering on the copper countertops. They seemed to have been lit for Beatrice’s benefit. The old woman sat on a kitchen stool with her hands and ankles bound.
“Beatrice!” Adele went to her side and began scrabbling with the rope’s knots.
“Miss Adele!” Beatrice gasped, her voice raspy. “I’ve seen a ghost! Detective Grogan came through here not two minutes ago.”
“Did he do this to you?” Adele asked as the ropes around her ankles fell away. Looking closer, I saw what appeared to be a gag hanging loose around Beatrice’s lace collar. Who had taken it out of her mouth?
“No, it was that other one who broke in about fifteen minutes before,” she answered. Grandfather. Ashamed, I started in on the rope around her wrists.
“It wasn’t a ghost,” I told her. “Detective Grogan is alive. Where did he go?”
Beatrice nodded toward an open door next to a long wooden hutch filled with crystal and china. I started forward, but a hissing voice stopped me in my tracks.
“Suzanna? Suzanna!”
Adele, Beatrice, and I all swiveled toward the doors that led into the Hornes’ dining room. The paneled kitchen door swung aside and Grandmother strolled in across the black-and-white checkered tiles.
“Grandmother?” What on earth was she doing here? She was supposed to be at the Copley!
“There you are!” she exclaimed.
“Shhh!” Adele and I said in unison.
Grandmother balked at us. “I will not shhh. You hollered for us to come inside. Bruce took off running and then Will —”
I held up my hand to halt her. “Wait. Uncle Bruce already came inside? Where is he?”
Beatrice tapped my shoulder. “He went down into the cellar right after Detective Grogan.”
A rash of cold gooseflesh prickled my entire body. Uncle Bruce must have been the one to free Beatrice of the gag. I stared at the open door to the cellar. Uncle Bruce was already down there with Grogan and Grandfather. There should have been shouting. There should have been a scuffle happening. But it was quiet. Too quiet.
I started for the cellar door, taking down a cast-iron frying pan from a pot rack as a makeshift weapon. “We need to help —”
But Detective Grogan appeared in the doorway, within an arm’s length of me. He had his pistol in one hand and the Degas statue in the other. He shut the door with a kick of his foot.
“It’s too late for help, Suzanna.”
Grandmother screamed. I worried she’d keel over into another one of her fits, but she stood rigid, her look of astonishment fast turning to anger. The iron frying pan weighed heavy in my hand. My arm shook.
“You should have escaped while you had the chance,” Grogan said to me.
Had he already lit the fire? The lamp oil and liquors, the wine and spirits were all down in the cellar with Grandfather and Uncle Bruce.
“Don’t threaten my granddaughter, you despicable …” Grandmother sputtered as she searched for a piercing word. “Nincompoop!”
It was about as piercing as a blade of grass. First, Grogan chuckled at her choice of insult. But he then deepened his laughter. His shoulders shook with it. Four words streamed through my mind: The element of surprise. I brought the iron pan down as hard as I could on his hand holding the pistol.
The weapon clattered to the tiles and I kicked my foot out to knock it farther away. It spun underneath a butcher block and well out of his reach. Grogan broadsided me with his shoulder, pushing me to the floor. Abandoning the lost weapon, he darted toward the back kitchen door with the Degas clutched to his chest.
“Stop him!” Adele shouted, already running in pursuit.
Grogan threw open the back door, but another figure blocked the exit. Will! Grogan tried to shove past him, but Will put down his head and rammed into Grogan’s chest as if he was a bull and Grogan was a red flag.
Grogan hit the floor, the back of his head smacking against the tile. I quickly opened the cellar door. A plume of thick smoke poured out, and with it stumbled Uncle Bruce. He staggered into the kitchen, a handkerchief pressed against his nose and mouth. Even in the dim light and through the cloying smoke, I could see an ugly red welt on his temple where Grogan must have hit him.
“Stay down, Neil,” Uncle Bruce rasped as he walked unsteadily to Grogan’s side.
Detective Grogan was trying to rise up from the floor, but he must have hit his head hard. He groaned as Uncle Bruce shoved him over and slapped on a pair of handcuffs. Once freed, the Degas statue rolled onto the floor and landed on its side. The Little Dancer’s outstretched leg and pointed toe lay reaching up into the air.
“How could you do this?” Uncle Bruce asked. Grogan didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure Uncle Bruce really wanted one right then anyway. In the last handful of minutes, he’d learned his partner had deceived him. Had made a fool of him. But at least Grogan had proved Matthew Leighton wasn’t guilty. Well, not for this crime, anyway.
I turned back to the cellar door, expecting to see my grandfather hacking for air. He wasn’t there.
“Where is Leighton?” I asked, a flutter of panic in my chest.
“Trying to put out the flames,” my uncle answered, still coughing on the smoke. It was filling the kitchen fast and thick.
He heaved Grogan up from the floor. “Will, go to the telephone in the front hall and put a call in to the police station and then to the firehouse. Suzanna, fetch the Degas — my hands are full at the moment.” He gave Grogan a thrust forward. “The rest of you, follow me.”
Will rushed from the smoky kitchen, and Uncle Bruce and Neil Grogan followed. Grandmother and Beatrice, both coughing from the billows of smoke, leaned against each other and started for the dining room.
“Suzanna, hurry. Come along,” Grandmother called back. I could barely see her, the smoke was so dense. It had to be unbearable in the cellar.
“I have to go help him,” I said, and started for the door. Adele tried to pull me back, but I shrugged out of her grasp.
“Zanna, you can’t go down there.” She grabbed my arm once again.
“But he needs help!”
She pulled at me again. “Let’s just get the Degas and go!”
I yanked free, but even as Adele left my side, I was squeezing back painful tears. My eyes were starting to burn. My throat felt like it was swelling shut. I had to get outside into fresh, clean air. But I couldn’t leave my grandfather behind when he’d gone so far to help catch Detective Grogan. When he’d gone so far to protect me.
“Zanna!” Adele cried. “I can’t find it. I can’t find my father’s Degas! You’ve got to help me look.”
“What?” I dropped to the floor where the smoke wasn’t as thick, and crawled to where Grogan had crashed to the tiles. The Little Dancer hadn’t rolled more than two feet away from him. I swept my arms across the floor, connecting with Adele’s as she frantically did the same.
“It’s gone,” I said, my eyes watering. But I could see the truth well enough.
There was only one kind of person who could have moved stealthily and silently through plumes of smoke in order to snatch it up.
A thief.
Detective Quote: “In order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.” — Henry Christopher Bailey
I DIDN’T WANT TO GO TO MISS DOUCETTE’S academy the next morning. Grandmother said I didn’t have to, that it had been a long night and I was entitled to a day of rest. I also didn’t want to see Adele. She hadn’t said much after escaping her smoke-filled kitchen, but I knew she had to be angry. The fierce look she’d given me after I’d admitted Matthew Leighton was my grandfather had proved that guilt by association was nearly as bad as actual guilt. I didn’t think I could handle another dose of it today.
But after less than ten minutes of lounging in bed beneath a thick duvet pulled up to my ears, I knew I’d end up driving myself mad if I didn’t go to school. At least there I would be able to fill my head with French lessons and embroidery, with long division and elocution. I wouldn’t have to think about my thieving grandfather or how gullible I’d been. I wouldn’t have to think about how desperately I’d wanted him to have reformed, or how I’d selfishly believed he might change his ways now that he knew me. As if I had that kind of influence. As if I could change anyone that drastically.
I rang for Bertie and told her I’d need the carriage brought around after all. I then dressed quickly, the scratchy uniform providing a nice distraction. My braids were done hastily and probably looked that way, too, but I didn’t care. I nabbed a slice of toast from the griddle in Margaret Mary’s kitchen and stuffed it into my mouth before heading to the foyer.
“Is Grandmother doing better?” I asked Bertie as she held the cloak out for me.
Grandmother had been devastated to hear about Dr. Philbrick’s involvement with Grogan. His illustrious career as Lawton Square’s finest physician was officially at an end.
Bertie shook her head and opened the door for me. “I fear she’s more upset about Dr. Phi
lbrick than she is about Detective Grogan.”
I agreed completely. The young doctor brought in by the police officers to check Grandmother’s lungs last night had suffered the effects of her outrage. She’d taken in a little smoke, but despite her past breathing attacks, she had not had one after the fiasco at the Horne house. To distract her and help the vexed doctor holding a stethoscope to her chest, I’d asked why she and Will had been with Uncle Bruce earlier that evening.
It seemed when my uncle got to the bon voyage dinner and realized Adele and I had stayed back at the Horne house, he’d tried to leave right away. My grandmother and Will had stopped him, knowing by the look on his face that something was wrong. He’d confessed to them about his trap for my grandfather, and they’d insisted on going with him to the Horne house. Thank goodness they had.
I said good-bye to Bertie and went outside. Grandmother’s carriage was ready to go. The driver smiled at me, but I couldn’t muster more than a disheartened hello.
Maybe I should have stayed in bed after all. Surely everyone at the academy would be attempting to cheer up Adele and me. Either that or barraging us with questions. Adele and her father had been able to stay in their home last night, the fire having been extinguished quickly as soon as the firemen had arrived. The kitchen and dining room had received little damage, but Mr. Horne and Adele had not cared one bit about that. It was the Degas they mourned. Not just for the value of it, but because it had been Adele’s mother’s favorite piece. Now it was gone, just like her mother. And my grandfather was to blame. How would Adele be able to look past that?
I climbed the short stack of steps into the carriage, and the driver shut the door as I was seating myself. A sharp, brief scream erupted from my throat as I saw a figure seated across from me on the opposite bench.
“Miss Snow?” the driver called through the door.
The Mastermind Plot Page 14
