A Sudden Passing

by Blythe Baker

  “Thank you for your help,” I said again. “Until we meet again.”

  Achilles moved down the alley, raising his cane high into the air in lieu of a wave. “Until we meet again, Mademoiselle Beckingham.”

  Once Achilles disappeared around the corner, I leaned against the brick wall and closed my eyes, allowing myself thirty seconds to think.

  Mr. Beckingham, General Hughes, and Charles Cresswell were all three respected men in the world of politics, and now two of them were dead. Charles’ nervousness had been a mystery to me because I did not understand the shared connection between him and the dead men. But Charles had no doubt made the connection. Catherine claimed her fiancé had grown nervous a few weeks before the time of her letter, which would have been around the same time as news came out regarding General Hughes’ suicide. Charles must have realized what I was only just beginning to see: someone was picking off important men from the 1919 Paris negotiations one by one.

  “Rose?”

  I opened my eyes and pushed away from the wall, spinning to find Graham standing in the open doorway that led into the restaurant. His eyes were wide with concern, forehead wrinkled. “Is everything all right? You were gone a long while, so I came to make sure you were not ill. Are you ill?”

  I looked down the alley to be certain Achilles was not still lingering there, and then nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid I am. I have not been feeling well, and I came outside for a bit of fresh air. Sorry, I did not realize I’d been gone so long.”

  Graham rushed forward, placing a hand on my back. “Are you feeling better or—?”

  “I should probably go home,” I said, holding a hand to my stomach and offering an apologetic smile. “I am sorry to ruin the dinner you planned.”

  “I am sorry you do not feel well,” Graham said, leading me down the alley and around the block to the front of the restaurant where we would meet the driver.

  During the drive home, he spoke at length about rescheduling our dinner as soon as I felt better, and I nodded along without hearing him.

  Mr. Barlow was dead now, which meant he could not be the man hunting Charles Cresswell, but there had been other assassins working in the ring. Achilles and I had tracked one down in Tangier. How many others could there be? Charles Barlow had told me he was hired by a man called “The American” who supplied him with a list of targets, and I knew immediately I had to uncover who “The American” was if I ever wanted this to end. If I ever wanted the killings to stop.

  13

  The driver dropped us off in front of Aunt Sarah’s home, and Graham grabbed my hand and pressed my knuckles to his lips firmly, lingering there before looking up at me. “I hope you feel better soon, dear Rose.”

  “Thank you,” I said weakly. “A bit of rest will do me wonders, I believe.”

  “And please eat something,” he insisted. “I know we could not stay at the restaurant, but I do think a good meal will help to rejuvenate you. Should I come in with you and tell the servants to bring something to your room?”

  I shook my head. “No, you have done enough, Graham. Thank you for your kindness, but I can see myself inside.”

  Graham seemed uncertain, but ultimately agreed and left after placing one more kiss on the back of my hand.

  He was so concerned about my wellbeing that I almost felt guilty for lying to him. Though, not guilty enough to reveal the truth. As soon as Graham turned the corner at the end of the block, I walked down the steps, through the front gate, and turned in the opposite direction.

  I only knew where Charles Cresswell lived because Catherine had provided me with the address should it prove useful in my investigating. Since Catherine had asked me to investigate covertly, I had not intended to use the address, but now seemed the right time to involve Charles in my investigation.

  Mr. Cresswell barely managed to hide his shock when a servant girl fetched him, and he found me standing in his entryway.

  “Miss Beckingham,” he said, a question in his tone. “Is everything all right?”

  “Perfectly,” I said with a smile. “I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted something. I know I’ve shown up unannounced.”

  Charles blinked and shook his head, seeming to remember his manners. “I’m sorry. That is no way to greet a guest. Of course you have not interrupted anything. I’m always pleased to welcome family into my home. Because we are soon to be family, after all.”

  He placed a special kind of emphasis on family, and I wondered whether he wasn’t concerned my impromptu visit had something to do with what would be completely inappropriate feelings towards him.

  “I’m pleased to know you feel that way. Catherine is a dear friend to me, as well as a cousin, and it is lovely to see she has found a man who appreciates her family as well as he appreciates her.”

  Charles smiled at the mention of Catherine. “She is a wonderful woman. I count myself lucky to know her and anyone who loves her is an immediate friend to me.”

  “Then may this friend request a word with you?” I asked, still smiling. “Privately.”

  Charles hesitated. I could not blame him. I had hardly spoken to him since my arrival in the city, and suddenly I was standing in his entrance hall asking for him to invite me inside. It was all very unusual, though necessary.

  Finally, he stepped aside, gesturing for me to move into the sitting room. “Of course. Let me ask for some tea to be sent in. Should I send for Catherine, as well? She has been anxious for the two of us to get to know one another since you arrived in the city, and I’m sure she’d be pleased to know you have come here.”

  Charles Cresswell was an intelligent man. I could see him studying me, weighing my reaction to his suggestion. If I panicked and insisted he not invite Catherine, he would know I had come for some nefarious purpose. If I agreed and said Catherine could come, he would be immensely more comfortable and know I was a true friend to my cousin and, therefore, to him. I chose the third option.

  “While I would love for my cousin to join us, I do believe the matter we will be discussing requires as few ears as possible.”

  Charles’ eyes narrowed, but he tipped his head for me to sit and then turned to speak to the same servant who had answered the door. She dipped in a quick curtsy and then hurried off to the kitchen to make tea. When he returned to the room, he took the chair opposite me and positioned himself on the very edge as though he planned to stand up and leave shortly.

  “You’ve caught my attention, Miss Beckingham,” he said, the kindness from a moment before gone from his voice. “What could be so urgent that it required such a late visit?”

  “Please, call me Rose,” I said. “And once again, I am sorry to intrude, but I wanted to ensure I could speak to you alone.”

  “As you’ve said.” Charles folded his hands one on top of the other on his knee. “We do not know one another well, so I am curious what we could have to discuss that would require secrecy.”

  “Were you familiar with my father, Charles?”

  He weighed each of my words carefully before responding. “Not personally, no. We shared acquaintances, as I told Catherine.”

  “What of General Thomas Hughes?”

  The question caught him by surprise, which was obvious in the raise of his brows and the parting of his lips. “I do not understand your line of questioning, Miss Beckingham.”

  “Rose,” I reminded him. “And this is not meant to be an interrogation. I only wish to know how many acquaintances we share.”

  “You knew General Hughes?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately, no,” I said sadly. “I did not have the pleasure of meeting him before…”

  Charles’ eyes went wide, and he shot to his feet. “I shall send for Catherine. She would be distraught to know she missed the opportunity to talk just the three of us.”

  “If Catherine arrives, we will not be able to talk,” I said, leveling my gaze at him.

  Charles met my eyes and held my stare for several seconds before dropping do
wn into his chair as though exhausted and running a hand through his gray-speckled hair. “What is it you know, Rose? I hardly know you, yet it is obvious you know something about me. I beg you to make it clear and save me the speculation.”

  I considered how to address the matter for a moment before settling on what I believed would secure the best outcome. “Catherine sent for me.”

  At the mention of his fiancé, Charles’ eyebrows pinched. “She sent you here?”

  I shook my head. “Not here exactly, but she requested I come from India to meet you.”

  “Whatever for?” he asked, voice slightly frantic. “Is she having second thoughts about our marriage? Did she need you to come and confirm we are a good match? If so, I apologize for treating you harshly, it is just that—”

  The man was spiraling, which meant I had landed my blow perfectly. Charles struck me as a strong confident man, but if he had any weakness, it was Catherine.

  “Her only doubts stem from your sudden nervousness,” I admitted. “Catherine noted a change in your behavior, and it worried her enough that she wanted me to come and help her uncover what was wrong.”

  Charles sagged between his shoulder blades, face in his hands. His voice came out muffled between his fingers. “I cannot believe I worried her to that extent. I did my best to keep her separate from my troubles.”

  “She loves you, Charles. Your troubles are her troubles. You are a bright man. Surely you know that.”

  He looked up at me, and I could see the exhaustion in every line of his face, in the downturned angle of his eyes. “My troubles are a burden too large for her to bear. It is unfair of me to place it on her. I thought, perhaps, I could solve the problem myself, but I am beginning to think that impossible.”

  “What is the burden?” I asked. “I have plenty of my own and have no qualms about taking on yours, as well.”

  He shook his head. “I cannot say. Please do not ask again.”

  “Charles,” I started. “Consider the questions I have asked you already and—”

  The servant, a young woman not much older than Alice, came in carrying a tray of tea. She set it down carefully on the table between us, and I could tell she was keenly aware that she had interrupted our conversation. She stood back and folded her hands behind her back. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Cresswell?”

  “That will be all, Francis. Thank you,” he said with a wave.

  The girl, clearly attuned to the secretive nature of our conversation if not the content, closed the doors behind her.

  “Consider the questions I have asked you already,” I repeated. “If it is not clear to you that I have a suspicion as to what may be causing your troubles, then perhaps your troubles are not what I thought.”

  Charles paused to study me, and I could tell he was weighing not only whether to lay his burdens on me, but whether he could trust me with them. I was Catherine’s cousin, but we hardly knew one another, and I suspected he had good reason to be suspicious of most people.

  After a few moments, he leaned forward, eyes settled on my face, and spoke quietly. “I know it may be difficult to believe, but I have reason to suspect I am the next target of an assassin.”

  “And I know it may be difficult for you to believe,” I repeated, leaning forward, as well, “but I believe you wholeheartedly.”

  “You do not know me well enough to believe me on trust alone,” he said, standing up and pacing towards the fireplace. “Which means you must have proof.”

  “I was right. You are a bright man.”

  “What do you know?” Charles asked wearily.

  “You never answered my question before. About General Thomas Hughes.”

  “I know him,” Charles said before correcting himself. “Or, I knew him, I suppose. He died a few weeks ago.”

  I nodded. “Did you hear of the circumstances surrounding his death?”

  “Suicide,” Charles said. “Though many who knew him have their doubts.”

  “As they should,” I said. “I have it on good authority that General Hughes was murdered.”

  Charles’ eyes narrowed. “Who told you this?”

  “The killer,” I said without flinching. “The same man who murdered my father and mother.”

  “You spoke with the killer?” Charles asked, taking a step forward. “When?”

  “Before I killed him.”

  Charles opened his mouth and closed it several times before shaking his head and falling onto the end of the sofa where I was sitting. “Did the man reveal his motives?”

  I shook my head.

  “And you really killed him?” he asked, expression cautious yet hopeful.

  “I did,” I admitted. “Though, I would appreciate your discretion in the matter. It is not a secret, but word spreads, and I would hate for opinions of me to be colored.”

  Charles nodded in understanding and let his eyes flutter closed, his hands clapped in a kind of praying position in front of him. “So, it is really over.”

  Suddenly, I understood the look on his face and the tone of his questions. Charles thought I had killed the one and only assassin. He believed his paranoia for the last several weeks had been for nothing. And I had to tell him otherwise.

  “Well, in fact,” I said softly. “I believe there may be another assassin.”

  He snapped his attention to me. “Another?”

  I shrugged. “Several more, actually. I can’t be sure. Before I killed him, the last assassin told me that he received a list of targets from a man calling himself ‘The American.’”

  “The American,” Charles repeated, his voice cracking. “As in, he lives in America?”

  “That is what I was led to believe,” I said. “I don’t know any more than that.”

  Charles rocked back and forth several times before standing up and pacing once again across the floor, fists wringing at his sides. “I am a good man. An honorable man. I’ve done my best to serve my country and the world. To look after the interests of those who could not help themselves. How am I deserving of this?”

  I crossed the room quickly and laid a hand on Charles’ shoulder. He shrugged it off but stopped pacing and faced me. “We do not know for certain that you are a target. You are right to be on high alert, but many people were at the conference, and—”

  “I had the ear of the Prime Minister. If these murders are connected with that conference then my name is certainly on an assassin’s list somewhere,” he said. Then, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a crisp white piece of paper folded down the center. “And I recently received this.”

  I plucked the note from his fingers. Written in an angular, tight script was a short message: You are a fitting sacrifice for my better world.

  “A fitting sacrifice.” I repeated the words under my breath, committing the letter to memory.

  Charles took it back and tucked it away in his jacket. “I do not believe this note can be misinterpreted.”

  I couldn’t disagree with him, though I wished I could. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to convince him he had nothing to worry about, but I could not. Mr. Beckingham had been murdered with a bomb in a public square. General Hughes had been hung from the rafter of a private club. The assassins were skilled at blending in and ingratiating themselves with their targets, but they were also prepared for random, violent attacks regardless of the bloodshed. Even with advance notice, there was every chance Charles could still be murdered.

  Charles went pale and slouched back into the sofa, his hand running down his face. “Part of me thought I was paranoid. Part of me hoped I had connected two random accidents and made something larger out of it. But I was right. Someone is coming for me. And that confirmation does nothing but make me more terrified.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could say something to help. All I can tell you is that I am doing my best to track down ‘The American,’ and when I do, I will know how many assassins there are.”

  “Why don’t we ask the police
?” Charles asked, sitting up suddenly.

  “A friend of mine alerted the authorities in Tangier, but nothing was done. And I tried to explain the true circumstances of General Hughes’ death to the authorities in Simla, but they refused to see it as anything but a suicide. We have no proof and the police would have nothing to base an investigation on. It is a waste of time.”

  “There has to be something we can do,” he muttered.

  “Stay safe,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Be vigilant and give me time to solve this case.”

  When his eyes met mine, they were not exactly brimming with confidence. He looked like an animal being led to slaughter. “And you will keep me updated on your progress?”

  I nodded. “Of course. You will be the first to know if I find anything.”

  “Thank you,” he said, sighing and slouching forward. He looked utterly crestfallen, and I hated to leave him alone.

  “Won’t you tell Catherine any of this?” I asked.

  Suddenly, he was sitting bolt upright, his eyes wide. “You can’t breathe a word of this to Catherine. You can’t. Promise me, Rose.”

  He reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it hard in his fingers. It was not a threat, but a plea.

  “She loves you, Charles. Her past has been tumultuous. I’m sure she has told you about her brother and his crimes. She can handle this.”

  “But she should not have to,” he said. “Besides, you of all people should know how dangerous this kind of information can be. Knowing anything about this puts her at risk, and I won’t allow that. Swear to me, Rose. Swear this conversation will not leave this room.”

  I had come to New York City to assist Catherine, and now I would have to lie to her. I did not enjoy the prospect, but I also could not discount the truth of Charles’ claims. Knowing anything about “The American” and his ring of assassins was dangerous, and the less Catherine knew, the safer she would be.

  “I swear it,” I said. “She will not hear a word of it from me.”

  Charles inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly, nodding the entire time. “Thank you, Rose. Thank you.”