Well Kept Secrets (The Adventures of Xavier & Vic Book 4)

by Liza O'Connor

  Please let it be a servant!

  “The Minister’s wife. Catherine Meridan.”

  Stone groaned. If Xavier had searched all of London, he could not have found a woman more prone to minding Scotland Yard’s business. He had already lost two good investigators over the woman’s belief they had failed to solve crimes quickly enough.

  “Well, I will no doubt get a call to fire you and Conrad.” A horrible possibility came to mind. “Please tell me you did not use the name of any of my officers.”

  “No, and it turns out she knew who I was anyway, and I admitted Conrad was not with Scotland Yard either, although I told her he was a policeman.”

  “Well, that should be interesting. I might finally get rid of Conrad assuming his connection is less influential than Meridan.”

  “I asked her not to get involved, unless I failed to achieve that objective on my own.”

  Stone sighed with exasperation. Damn it all! The only good thing that could have possibly come of this fiasco and Xavier stopped it from occurring—unless the woman ignored him and did what she wished. “Any reason you expect the lady to give a damn about what you want?”

  “It appears my father and she were lovers and she has fond memories of me as a boy.”

  Stone choked at his unexpected answer. It was hard to imagine Catherine Meridan as anyone’s lover.

  “If she likes you, then why did she have you poisoned?”

  “Gads! Did you hear nothing I said? All she did was ask her butler to bring me a cup of tea. He brought me coffee that tasted like soot instead. Thus, she was clearly not part of this attempted murder.”

  “How do you know that? I assure you many people who meet you would be willing to kill you if they believed they could get away with the crime. And trust me, Catherine Meridan would never be charged, not even if she’d been successful.”

  Xavier threw up his hands. “Wonderful! I’ll keep that in mind if I need an assassin for a future mission. However, I am quite certain she had nothing to do with me being poisoned.”

  “Has Vic taught you his ability to leap to the correct conclusion, or have you proof?”

  “When I set my poisonous brew down, she did not encourage me to drink more.”

  Connors spoke up, “The dosage was so high, had he even swallowed a teaspoon, he could have died. Fortunately, he spit out the sip he took, so all he incurred was moderate stomach pain.”

  Xavier moved his glare to the doctor. “All? I challenge you to take a sip and see how you like the pain.”

  “Arsenic is not normally that powerful…” Stone protested.

  Connors explained, “This was a very high dosage. Fortunately, this arsenic had been purchased through proper channels and thus was mixed with soot. The soot made the coffee undrinkable.”

  “Then all is fine?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Connors replied. “We have purged whatever remained in his system. And he seems to be responding fine.”

  “Everything is not fine!” Xavier yelled. “You have a Parliament member whose butler likes to poison policemen.”

  Stone ignored Xavier and focused on the doctor. “I would send a man to retrieve the cup. However, I expect the fellow washed it the second Xavier left. I could ask for a search warrant, but given this is a powerful member of Parliament’s house, without a death to justify the request, I wouldn’t get it.” Stone kept to himself that he’d be let go for even asking for a search warrant. While that was a very big issue to him, Xavier would only chide him for allowing personal matters to interfere with his job.

  “Then ask Catherine for permission to search,” Xavier yelled.

  Stone understood his friend was out of sorts over being poisoned, but there was a limit to the amount of abuse he would endure.

  “I am not on a first name basis with Lady Meridan, so I would never presume to ask any such thing. All I can do is to remind my officers they are never to accept food or drink while conducting interviews.” He smiled at the idea of telling them what happened to Xavier. That would improve morale more than their two pence raise. But it would cause him a great deal of grief when it got back to Xavier, and it would, he had no doubt.

  “Then you’re wasting our time,” Xavier declared and waved Stone off.

  Connors followed Stone from the room. “He’s still in pain, probably will be for a week.”

  Stone wished he had Xavier and Vic’s freedom to go barging in, the laws be damned. Nor did he understand why Xavier was insisting Scotland Yard solve this. All the man needed to do was send Tubs into the house during the night and if the poison still remained, the giant would find it. And if the butler tried to stop him, then they’d be short one murderous butler.

  Assuming he left no evidence, then Tubs would be fine. Why involve Scotland Yards in the matter at all?

  ***

  Vic had returned to the apothecary wearing her fake hair and more importantly, her lethal hair comb within the half-hour window. But the whole matter had put her out of sorts, so instead of dusting, or reading, she glared out the window to make sure Jacko had followed her instructions.

  He wasn’t there, so she supposed he had. Thus, her thoughts returned to other issues, such as his insistence that the reason he kissed her was because she was pregnant. She couldn’t be! A baby would destroy everything.

  “He’s not gonna stick,” Schnell’s surly voice spoke from the storage room door.

  For a moment she thought he was talking about Xavier when he learned of the baby, but then realized that wasn’t possible. “Who?”

  “Jacko.”

  She had told Schnell his name was Jack, which meant he had gotten information from a different source. God, what if he knew Jacko worked for Xavier? She pulled the comb from her hair and fingered it, slipping her fingers into the rings.

  “Jack?”

  “His name is Jacko. I’m guessing he never mentioned he’s a Gypsy, thief, and pirate.”

  She tilted her head. “What? No. You have him confused with someone else. Jack is a gentleman.”

  Schnell walked behind the counter and placed his hand upon her shoulder. If he squeezed to hurt, Vic would slam the comb pick right into his heart.

  “I’m sorry I have to be the one who tells you. But Jacko Black is not the man you think. He’s a womanizer of legendary repute.”

  She closed her eyes. At least he didn’t seem to know Jacko’s connection to Xavier. Still she had no idea how to reply without getting herself strangled for being so pathetically stupid.

  “I believe he got his reputation from making me his mistress. His wife spread it about town.”

  “Oh, Jane,” he sighed. “If only that were true. Jacko’s had more women than you could count.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, but it still doesn’t change how I feel.” She turned and faced him. “Don’t you think if I could have stopped loving him, I would have done so when he married Alice?”

  His hand pulled away from her, no doubt disgusted by her stupidity and stubborn determination to be used by a scoundrel. Honestly, if she were in his shoes, she’d want nothing more to do with Jane.

  Unfortunately, annoying Jane had evidently provoked him to take on stronger measures. He moved toward her and leaned in. She would have slipped off the stool and escaped his intention to kiss her, only she forgot she was wearing a skirt. So instead, her skirt got tangled in the stool and the next moment she’d landed on the floor, her head smacking hard enough that her ears rang.

  “Jane, are you all right? Here let me help you.”

  In a dazed state, he led her to his parlor and insisted she lay upon the sofa while he retrieved the old deaf woman to care for her. He had just begun talking with his hands when someone knocked on the storage door.

  He sped up his conversation with the old woman and then rushed to the door, evidently moving whoever was on the other side back into the apothecary shop.

  Dizzy or not, Vic wasn’t wasting the opportunity to search this room unattended. The second th
e old woman disappeared into the kitchen, she sat up and frisked the sofa for anything between the seat cushions.

  She didn’t expect to find anything, but Xavier was always harping at her for ignoring the obvious and easy tricks of the trade.

  Between the far side of the seat cushion and the arm, her fingertips struck something hard and pointy. She dug deeper and extracted a calling card.

  Lord Princeton Thurman the Fifth

  Minister of Her Majesty’s Parliament

  She shoved it in her pocket as the old woman returned with a smelly poultice. Vic stood and waved her hands in what she hoped translated to “I don’t want the foul rag anywhere near me.”

  When the woman continued her approach, Vic placed the couch between them, and kept it between them, to the old woman’s frustration.

  They had been play ring-around-the-sofa for nearly three minutes when Schnell returned.

  “Would you tell your woman I don’t want her poultice? I’m fine.”

  His hands spoke her silent language and thankfully the old woman left…her alone with a man who had just tried to kiss pathetic Jane. Damn!

  “I’m glad to see you’ve recovered. Allow me to apologize for my actions before. I was carried away with my admiration for you. But you still love Jacko, and I while I do not understand why, I will respect your tenacious desire to love against all odds.”

  Really? Vic thought it quite absurd herself. “May I return to work then?”

  “Of course.” He seemed more than willing to let her leave. In fact, he opened the door for her.

  As the door quickly shut and locked behind her, she realized she’d just been politely but imperatively removed from the parlor. Why?

  ***

  Mr. Schnell hurried to a fine painting by someone call Renoir and lifted it off the wall, exposing a small safe. He dialed his combination, opened the door, and extracted a letter from Margaret Thurman. Upon closing the safe and returning the painting to its place, he carried the letter to his desk.

  After reminding himself of the manner in which Margaret spoke and formed her letters, he composed his own letter.

  My dear Alice,

  I have dire news, I hardly know where to begin, but begin I must, for I could never allow you to hear this from anyone but your dearest friend. How I wish you did not need to hear it at all, but if I do not tell you, someone else, less charitable, will certainly do so.

  Your husband, Jack, has a mistress in town. I have seen them with my own eyes, on the street, kissing passionately. I did not want to believe it, so I got closer, and there was no mistake. Not about the people, nor the passion.

  I made inquiries. The very beautiful young lady’s name is Jane Ear and they had formed a great love before you and Jack met.

  Alice, I am convinced from what I’ve learned that Jack still has strong feelings for you, but you will lose him if you do not demand his return to the estate. Do not delay, my dear! Retrieve him at once.

  I give you this advice as your dear friend,

  Margaret Thurman.

  Satisfied with his penmanship, forgery being his finest skill, he left through the back door, personally delivered it to the post office, and paid the young man to stamp it as if it had been received from a West End location.

  He then returned home and waited for his cleverness to do its trick.

  Chapter 13

  Xavier Thorn had no choice but to follow his doctor’s advice to remain in bed and drink lots of water to fully flush the poison out of his system. While he would have gladly ignored Connors and checked up on Vic, his legs remained so weak that Tubs had to carry him upstairs as if he were a helpless baby.

  A knock on his bedroom door sounded. “What?” He snapped.

  Tubs stuck his giant bald head in. “Do you need anything?”

  He needed his strength back, but Tubs couldn’t help him there. “No, I’m fine.”

  Instead of disappearing, Tubs entered the room. “Shouldn’t we call Vic back, sir? He’s going to be most put out when he learns you were poisoned and we didn’t tell him.”

  Tubs was right about that. “If this were any case other than Pete’s, I would do it. But we’ve yet to discover what Schnell is doing that required Conrad to slice Maggie’s throat.”

  “Does Vic know Schnell and Conrad are the murderers?” Tub’s brow furrowed.

  “Yes. It’s the pup’s theory. I keep insisting on proof, but after following Conrad about today and getting myself poisoned in the process, I am conceding to Vic’s intuitive skill. Schnell and Conrad are our murderers.”

  “I could take care of them and have Vic back here by tonight,” Tubs offered.

  Xavier smiled at his lethal and most obliging employee. “Tempting, but I want Pete to see justice can be obtained through the courts.”

  Tubs scratched his bald head, no doubt thinking it the wrong thing to teach a child of the streets. Justice rarely served the poor.

  “Let’s leave matters as they are,” Xavier said. “Truth is, as much as I would like to have my pup safe at home with me, he gets out of sorts when I’m nearly killed. Better he stays where he’s at, and with any luck, he’ll never hear about my poisoning at all.”

  Tubs brow rose in challenge. “He will when the fellow’s charged. That’ll make the papers for sure. Butler poisons Sher…I mean Xavier Thorn.”

  “No, you were right the first time. They’d call me Sherlock Holmes.” God, had he known Doyle intended to make a whole series of novels loosely based upon his drunken pontifications, Xavier would have thrown the man out when his half hour was up. Instead, he let Doyle stay for hours as he recounted cases he’d solved while they finished two bottles of his best whiskey.

  “Never talk to a man who says he’s thinking about writing a book. That’s the best advice I can give you, Tubs.”

  “I won’t,” Tubs dutifully promised.

  “Fortunately, Scotland Yard has decided it’s too inconvenient to arrest the poisonous butler since I had the bad manners not to die.”

  “Seriously?” Tub’s scowl indicated he did not like that at all.

  “He works for a Parliament minister. No judge would approve a warrant to search for anything in the minister’s home.”

  Tubs snorted with what sounded like admiration. “That’s really clever, that is. All a bloke needs to do is get himself a job in a protected house and he can do whatever he likes as long as the evidence stays inside.”

  “Had he actually murdered me, I suspect a warrant would have been granted,” Xavier pointed out.

  “Yeah, but you’re important. Bet this bloke didn’t know that, did he?”

  “No…he didn’t. In fact he looked quite upset when Lady Meridan showed me to the door with a great deal of unnecessary affection.”

  “You want me to ask him why he wanted to murder you? I’m pretty sure he’ll talk.”

  Xavier gave the matter serious thought. Sending Tubs into the house of a Parliament member was risky, but Tubs was very good at his job. If on the faint chance Tubs got caught, Xavier could declare he had no choice but to investigate since Stone decided not to.

  “I would like to speak to the man. Bring him to visit me, say around two in the morning. Take Davy so you have a carriage. But first, go downstairs and get me paper and pen. I wish to write a letter.”

  If Xavier got Tubs arrested while Vic was on a mission, his pup would never forgive him.

  When Tubs returned with pen and paper, Xavier wrote:

  Catherine,

  I have requested your butler to accompany my employee so I may ask him a few questions. Had time not been of the essence, I would have procured your permission first. However, given the hour, I thought you’d prefer to sleep.

  My apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.

  Xavier

  He smiled at his cleverness. He folded the letter and handed it to Tubs. “Keep this on your person and if something goes wrong and the master or mistress of the house is awakened, present t
his letter at once.”

  Tubs’ brow furrowed. “I ain’t gonna wake the master and mistress.”

  “Excellent. Then you can leave it on the foyer table on your way out.”

  “Don’t normally leave through the front door,” Tubs grumbled.

  “Then leave it in the butler’s room if you wish. I don’t want to make your job harder, I just want to make certain I get you back. You are much too valuable to be used without every precaution taken that you’ll return unharmed to us in a timely manner.”

  Tubs smiled and grew a few more inches in height, which was disturbing since the man was already seven foot tall.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to scout the location in advance,” Tubs said.

  Xavier was most impressed with the request. “By all means. But help me down to my office first. I’ll go mad sitting in this bedroom.”

  ***

  Having nothing to do in his office, Xavier pulled out Vic’s notes on a past case. Just hearing her voice in her perfectly typed words soothed him.

  When the clock chimed midnight, he looked up from her notes. Why the hell couldn’t ‘superior’ people go to bed at a decent hour? It made for a long night for those who wish to break into their homes and remove things. In this case, it was their butler Xavier wished to have removed, but he suspected normal thieves resented their hours as well.

  He rolled his neck, listening to the cacophony of clicks and snaps. God, he felt a million years old! A man shouldn’t feel this decrepit by the years of seven and thirty. But then, most men his age hadn’t nearly died seventeen times either. It took something out of a person, hanging on the edge of death, sometimes for months.

  Xavier cheered himself with an idea. Maybe he and Vic could take some time off, relax and enjoy life.

  He grimaced at the thought of Vic’s reaction to slowing down and smelling a flower or two along the way. She loved being an investigator, and she was amazingly good at it. Better than he was at her age. How could he convince her to slow down? The pup was barely in her twenties.