A Sudden Passing

by Blythe Baker

  Suddenly, I heard his voice in my head. We all have to be willing to sacrifice in order to create the world we want. Do you understand?

  I stopped walking entirely, frozen in the middle of the sidewalk. Albion Rooker. The man I had met my second night in the city. The man who, during our first and only interaction, admitted to me that he was upset about the outcome of the conference and worried people were forgetting his sons who died in the war. Could he be “The American” commanding assassins to commit these murders?

  The idea had come to me so suddenly and seemed such a simple solution that I almost couldn’t trust myself. Was this a theory born from desperation and lack of sleep or did it hold merit? There was only one way to be certain.

  Already on Fifth Avenue, I was standing in front of Albion Rooker’s extravagant home in a matter of minutes.

  Albion’s house was made of the same polished stone as Aunt Sarah’s, but where her windows were thrown wide, making the home look open and welcoming, Albion’s windows were all drawn. It was early in the day, so perhaps the servants had not opened them yet, but thinking back, they had been drawn closed even on the evening of the party. The inside of the house, packed with people, had been illuminated only with candles and fireplaces.

  The house faced west, so the morning sunrise cast an ominous black shadow across the lawn. As I walked towards the front door, I shivered from the change in temperature.

  I didn’t have a plan for how to approach the situation. As I’d already told Charles, calling the police would solve nothing. If Albion was ‘The American,’ he would have connections with local police. And even if he didn’t, he had the wealth and power to divert their investigation elsewhere, especially since I had no proof. So, I had to talk to him. He had revealed a great deal about himself and his feelings about the Treaty of Versailles the first night I met him, so surely a longer conversation would provide something else incriminating. Or, at least, I hoped.

  The door was twice as tall as me and solid as I knocked on it, sounding more like stone than wood. When no one answered, I knocked again, bruising my knuckles against the intricately carved door. Angels decorated the higher corners, looking down at the knocker as though in judgment, and demons lurked along the bottom of the frame, clawed hands reaching out to pull unsuspecting visitors down to the depths. Even though I knew they were only carvings, I took a step back as I waited.

  The drapes on either side of the doorway were pulled closed, so I couldn’t see if there was movement inside, and the door was far too solid to hear any movement on the other side. I knocked a third time, waited an appropriate length of time, and then tried the handle for myself. To my surprise, the door opened.

  As children, my brother and I had broken into homes just for the excitement of it. Usually apartments we knew were vacant or where we knew the owners and had watched them leave for the day. The homes were always as rundown and bare of items of worth as our own. But Albion Rooker’s home was grand. I would have been afraid to even step on his lawn as a child, and now I was slipping into his darkened entryway and closing the door behind me, twisting the handle so the latch wouldn’t thud inside the frame.

  The door had been unlocked, but I didn’t think that had any bearing on the inappropriateness of the act. Clearly, Albion was not accepting visitors and anyone there for non-criminal purposes would have escorted themselves out. Yet, I walked in deeper.

  If I ran into a servant, I planned to tell them I was out for a walk and saw the door had been left open, and I’d come inside to check that Albion was well since I knew he had been in poor health. Aunt Sarah lived close enough that it was a plausible scenario, and even if Albion had his suspicions, he would not be able to prove otherwise. However, as I moved through the dining room and the grand sitting room where the jazz band and dance floor had been assembled, I didn’t see or hear another living soul. It was as if Albion’s small army of servants had all taken the same day off. No matter how often I stopped and strained my ears, I didn’t hear even a creak of floorboards in the entire mansion.

  When I made it to the kitchen and found the room entirely devoid of light or activity, I began to settle. Clearly, no one was home.

  Perhaps, Albion had retired to a country estate for a spell. Fresh air was often recommended for those in poor health, and the city offered very little of that. Maybe he’d left after his most recent party, taking his servants with him, and accidentally leaving his front door unlocked. As I continued through the first floor, seeing no sign of anyone having been in the house recently at all, this theory seemed more and more likely, and I lowered my guard.

  The first floor was wide and open. The ceilings were intimidatingly tall, doorways twice the width of my arm span thrown open, allowing for easy movement throughout the mansion. It was in direct opposition to the closed off nature of the exterior of his home, so I supposed, whatever he kept hidden from the outside world was no secret within the walls of his own home.

  Then, I reached a small door at the end of a narrow hallway. I dismissed it at first, thinking it a closet or storage room, but something propelled me forward. When I pulled the door open, revealing a small room lined with shelves and a desk in the center, I realized why the room had been discretely tucked away. It was Albion’s office. And, if he was indeed ‘The American,’ the place where I was most likely to find the evidence.

  I pulled the door closed behind me, leaving it slightly ajar to avoid the sound of the latch, and moved towards the desk. The rest of the house appeared in perfect order, but the office was clearly Albion’s private space, unvisited even by the servants. Papers spilled across the desk in no discernible arrangement, half-drunk cups of tea were leaving rings in the corners of the wood, and unlike the rest of the meticulously clean home, every surface was covered in dust and the signs of Albion’s papery fingers moving through it as he worked.

  But worked on what? He was an old, ailing man who survived on the wealth he had accumulated all his life. What work did he have left to do?

  I sat down behind the desk and began filing through his papers. Letters from friends, drafts of his responses, written in a shaking hand, and documentation of wages paid and owed to the many people who helped keep his home running. I skimmed over the letters, searching for anything of use, but Albion apparently wrote of nothing more interesting than the weather and state of the stock market with his friends because they spoke of little else. If he did write to them about the imminent rise of Germany due to what he considered a lackluster punishment, his friends did not feel compelled to write on the matter in their own letters.

  As I moved clockwise through his drawers, I began to worry I had broken into his home with no cause. I’d done my best to replace things on his desk where I had found them—though it was already such a mess I doubted he would notice—but the guilt of spying on a lonely, innocent old man left me feeling uneasy. Then, I reached the top right drawer in the desk. It was locked.

  For a man who had so much of his business spread openly across his desk, what could be worth hiding away in a locked drawer? The keyhole was small and iron, so I set about looking for the key to open it. I searched the bookshelves on the wall behind me, running my hand along the shelves near the ceiling in hopes of finding something. I even looked inside the cold fireplace in case the key could be hidden there, but found nothing. Finally, I flopped back down into the chair, discouraged, and I heard a metallic rattle. I got up at once and turned the chair over, discovering the source of the rattle. The key was hanging from a small metal chain around the wooden crossbeam of the chair. My sitting down had rattled it against the wooden leg. I thanked the Heavens for the clue, removed the key, and eagerly unlocked the drawer.

  Unlike the rest of the desk, this drawer was neat and organized. A single, short stack of papers sat in the center like someone had only just stacked them. I pulled the stack from the drawer carefully, sensing it was important. As soon as I read the first page, I knew it was.

  A list of names
stretched from the top to bottom, written in an angular, neat scrawl I vaguely recognized. Over half the names had angry dark slashes through them, and it was only when I saw ‘William Alexander Beckingham’ scratched out that I understood what I was looking at.

  A hit list.

  Beneath that was Charles Cresswell’s name, still unmarked. And further down, General Thomas Hughes was crossed out. Every slash was a life lost. A target eliminated.

  And why would Albion Rooker have this list if he had nothing to do with their deaths? If he was nothing more than an innocent old man? He wouldn’t. The list was all the proof I needed. I shuffled the stack together, planning to take it with me and peruse it in private at Aunt Sarah’s house, but before I could stand up, I heard the office door latch catch in the frame.

  I shot up, the pages falling from my hands and spilling across the floor, and looked up to see Albion Rooker, hunched and weak, standing in the room with me. He was smiling.

  16

  “Miss Beckingham,” Albion said, tipping his head.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered, looking at the pages cluttered around my feet. If I could grab the list of names, I could outrun the old man and keep my proof. But it was mixed in amongst the mess now. I couldn’t see it. “The front door was open, and I—”

  “Showed yourself in,” he finished, moving towards me. “Seems an odd thing to do. We’ve only met once before. How strange you should feel so comfortable here.”

  I backed away on instinct, moving to the far corner of the desk. The man was old, but he could wield a blade the same as anyone else. I did not want him getting too close. My own fingers itched to grab the blade hidden beneath my sweater.

  “It was not a sense of comfort that brought me inside, but concern,” I lied. “I worried perhaps something had happened to you, and—”

  “And you thought you would find the answer hidden in my desk drawers,” he interrupted again, still moving forward. “Once again, strange.”

  “I may have become distracted.” He came around the left side of the desk as I moved around the right, keeping the wooden table between us. But with every step, I moved further from the evidence I’d dropped on the floor.

  Albion moved around to the back of the desk and eyed the open desk drawer and the pages I’d dropped on the floor. He moved to pick them up, and despite the desire to chance it and grab as many of the pages as I could, I moved away. There would be no sense in finding proof of his crimes if I died in the process. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I think I am your distraction, pulling you from your mission. You came into this home for something specific, and I suspect you found it.” He looked up at me, his milky eyes narrowed. “You are lying to me.”

  Clearly, there was no reason to continue the charade. The man knew what I’d found. He knew what I was doing there. “Do not let it bother you, Albion. I lie to a great many people.”

  He stared at me for a moment and then laughed. The sound was dry and strangled, but filled with genuine amusement. “I’m sure you do.”

  He bent down slowly, groaning with the effort, and picked up a handful of the papers on the floor. He flipped through them silently, studying each one before throwing it down. Near the bottom of the handful, however, he separated one page from the rest, grabbed a match he had been carrying in his pocket, and struck it on the corner of the desk. Then, he lit the page on fire.

  As the flames neared his fingers, he turned and dropped the page into the cold fireplace, watching as it turned to ash. Then, he turned back to me with a smile on his face.

  “Why did you do that?” I asked. “What did that say?”

  “If I told you, then it would ruin my fun,” he said, still smiling.

  Before I could respond, the old man doubled over as a wet cough tore through him. He fell forward, gripping the edge of the desk, and despite what I was coming to learn about him, my instinct was still to reach out and keep him from falling. Even knowing he could very well be the leader of a ring of international assassins, I wanted to keep the old man from collapsing.

  Albion let the cough wrack through him, and then dropped down in his chair. His skin, deathly pale the first night I met him, looked almost yellow now. His eyes were bloodshot, and I could see the veins running under his skin.

  “Though, my fun is already coming to an end,” he said. “As I’m sure you can tell, I am dying.”

  “I heard you have been ill,” I said.

  He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. “To more important matters. Why were you snooping amongst my papers?”

  “I wasn’t—”

  He wagged a gnarled finger at me. “Do not lie to me. We’ve already discussed this. I stood there at the door and watched you look through my things for almost a minute before announcing my presence.”

  A shiver ran down me at the realization that I had been being watched. “Why would you do that?”

  He raised a gray eyebrow. “Don’t ask questions you know the answer to. It’s a waste of my valuable time.”

  “You’re ‘The American,’” I said clearly.

  Albion nodded. “See? Isn’t it much nicer when we both say what we mean?”

  “Why don’t you say what you mean,” I said. “Why did you do this? Why did you kill so many people? My family?”

  Albion bent forward, coughing into the crook of his elbow, and then leaned back on his side, breathing heavily. “If you are looking for sympathy for your loss, I will show you the same compassion your father showed me when I explained the loss of my sons.”

  “Mr. Beck—My father was a compassionate man,” I argued.

  “Was he?” Albion asked. “As a retired general, I was present during the Peace Conference. I was there to offer my wisdom, and I did just that. I advocated for harsher penalties for Germany to ensure a war on this scale would never happen again. To ensure that fine young men like my boys wouldn’t die in vain. But men like your father and everyone else on that list of names you just read argued against me. They pushed aside my wisdom in favor of their own brand of diluted justice. And I swore to them then that I would not forget. And so, I haven’t.”

  “Those men did not kill your sons. My father did not kill your sons.”

  “He may as well have,” Albion spat. “Germany is on the rise again. You heard the men talking at my party that night. They have joined the League of Nations, and it will not be long before their bloodlust will lead us into war again. I will not be alive to see it, but mark my words.”

  He sounded delusional, and to do what he had done—killing off innocent men whose only crimes were trying to bring about peace—he had to be delusional. There was no other rational explanation. He coughed again, the sound clawing its way out of his throat. He was even sicker than he’d been at the party. Whatever was wrong with him, it had accelerated.

  “Now,” he continued, wiping his mouth. I thought I saw red splatters on the white sleeve of his shirt, but he folded his hands in his lap before I could get a good look. “What did you see amongst my papers?”

  “A list of names,” I admitted. “The names of men you’ve had murdered.”

  “And is that all?”

  I did not want to admit that I hadn’t seen anything else. I wanted to convince Albion I’d seen everything so he would admit more to me and open up about the breadth of his operation.

  “Even if you don’t answer, I know you didn’t see anything else,” he said, appraising me. “I’d be able to tell if you had. You probably would not still be standing here.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said. “Why would I leave when you are the man leading a ring of assassins? The man responsible for threatening my future brother-in-law? Why would I leave when I finally found the man who was behind the murder of my family?”

  His smile was mocking, and I didn’t understand it. I’d caught him. He had admitted the truth to me. He should be trying to get rid of me. Or, at the very least, begging for his life.

  “I didn’t intend for the mur
der of your entire family,” he said, looking contemplative, though not apologetic. “Your father was targeted because he was instrumental in swaying the decisions of the then British Prime Minister. I told the assassin to do whatever he must to ensure your father died. He, unfortunately, chose a method that caused an uncomfortable amount of press for me. And, in the case of you, was not an actual guarantee of death. He thought there was no chance of survivors. And yet…” He extended his arm in my direction like he was a ringmaster showcasing a new freak in his show.

  “I don’t care to hear your reasoning,” I said. “I’m sending for the police.”

  “I would not bother,” he said, leaning back in the chair like sitting up was too difficult. His head lulled to one side as if his neck could no longer support the weight. “I’ll be dead before they arrive.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, and I could feel the handle of my blade pressing into my skin. There was no need for it here. Albion was weak and old. “I am not planning to kill you.”

  “It would not matter if you were,” he said. “I’ll be dead all the same. I’ve taken measures to end my own life.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, looking around the room for any signs of a gun or explosives. Whatever Albion had planned, I did not intend to be taken down with him.

  He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small vial. “I drank the contents while standing on the other side of that door. If the man who sold it to me was telling the truth, I’ll be dead in a matter of minutes.”

  I blinked several times, trying to process the information. “Why? Why would you kill yourself?”

  He shrugged as if the decision had been a simple one. “I am an old man, Rose. Sickly and, if I am being honest, lonely. Even if you had not come to my home today, I planned to die. My work is nearly finished, and I am tired.”