“This is extraordinary work,” he said.
“The data from Scotland is not mine, sir, although I found it to be very well done and thus used the same format for my reports.”
Xavier laughed harshly. “Plagiarism is the sincerest form of appreciation, is that not so, Stone?”
Vic glared at him. “I did not plagiarize, I merely used his form.”
Finally, the inspector looked up. “I am serious if you wish to work here, the door is always open.”
“I pay him a hundred pounds a month. What can you offer?” Xavier challenged.
Stone choked. “Perhaps you should remain where you are, if he actually pays the amazing sum.”
Vic glared at Xavier. “Which reminds me. My pay check was due yesterday.”
Xavier scowled. “And when you finally get my clients to pay me on time, I will pay you on time.” He turned his anger towards Stone. “So are you going to do anything with Vic’s hard work or not?”
“I will visit Lord Conrad as soon as I can.”
“Now, would be appreciated. My foolish pup taunted the man when he showed up at my office today, and I would prefer to have Conrad arrested before he pays someone to kill the only secretary I have ever kept more than a week.”
All of Stone’s admiration disappeared in an instant as he stared at Vic. “What were you thinking?”
She blushed with shame. “I thought him an evil man crashing down to his demise, yet so arrogant he couldn’t see he was falling.”
Stone grew agitated. “Well, even if this evidence holds up, men of his wealth and position can still wiggle free. Xavier is quite right to be put out with you. You have put your life into danger.”
Xavier interrupted his scolding. “Yes, yes, he knows that. Now are you going to go save him or must I?”
“Let me handle this.” Stone escorted them out of the office, snapping orders to his men to begin a review of the documents in the box on his desk. They made their way to the lobby, where Stone ordered a paddy wagon to accompany his carriage, and in short time he sped away.
***
“I’m sorry for taunting Lord Conrad,” she said as Davy drove them to her house.
“So am I,” Xavier replied, “because until Lord Conrad hangs from a rope, you are fired.”
“What?”
“Lord Conrad only knows where you work. As long as you don’t work there, no one can murder you.”
She stared at him in shock. Dear God, was he serious? “Xavier, please don’t do this.”
“I will spend as much time as I can with you.” He tried to kiss her hand, but she yanked it free.
“How long am I to be punished?”
“I believe justice will move quickly on this, perhaps a month or two…unless Conrad manages to avoid the noose, and if that’s the case we may need to move the office to France. How’s your French?”
“C’est horrible,” she grumbled.
“Yes, it is. But cheer up, your future remains in your own hands, since the strength of your research will determine if Conrad hangs or walks.”
Xavier pulled her onto his lap and kissed her on her temple. “Stay in the house or gardens. I will return as soon as I possibly can.”
She nodded and climbed down from the carriage and ran inside.
Claire ceased playing the piano upon sight of her. “Vic, what has happened?”
“I’ve been fired!” Vic bawled.
***
Before Gregory could storm out and threaten Xavier with fisticuffs, Vic confessed her act of foolishness. In one giant swoosh of the cosmic compass, their opinions of Xavier turned a hundred and eighty degrees. He went from scoundrel to protector, while she moved from victim to imbecile.
Claire became so upset with her she left the room and ran to Jonas for comfort. Gregory, unfortunately, felt no need to run. He remained at her side, lecturing her endlessly until Xavier returned late in the afternoon.
Gregory and Claire demanded an update. Xavier gave her a scolding glare for telling them anything at all, but politely replied. “Matters appear very promising. Inspector Stone arrived at Lord Conrad’s house to discover him lying on the floor bleeding from a minor cut. Lord Conrad mistook him for a doctor who had asked for payment upfront. Conrad proceeded to threaten to kill Stone, while confessing to other murders to impress him he was not a man to cross.”
“But how do we know he did not hire a man before the Inspector arrived?” Claire asked.
“I personally questioned Lord Conrad’s butler. To his knowledge, only a message boy, the doctor, and the Inspector had visited Lord Conrad since his return.”
“What if he hired an assassin before he returned?”
“I questioned his driver as well. He made no stops after my office. The time elapsed between when he left my office and arrived home would imply the same.”
Xavier pulled his sullen pup to his side. “The prosecuting attorney has reviewed your material and believes, when combined with Meyer’s former work, the case against Conrad is very strong indeed. They are charging him with nine murders.”
Claire stared at Vic in outrage. “You taunted a man who had murdered nine people?”
Vic almost replied he had murdered far more than nine; these murders simply had the strongest evidence supporting them. However, given the outrage on Claire and Gregory’s faces, she remained quiet.
“This is far more serious than we understood,” Gregory said. “I’m sorry, Vic, but if you do not have better sense than this, I believe you need to take a job at the bank.”
“No!” Vic grabbed Xavier’s arm and silently pleaded for him to save her…to save them both.
“Vic and I had a very serious discussion about his actions today. We have both promised not to take unnecessary risks in the future. We recognize we each have an obligation, for neither of us would survive without the other. I believe this is the last life-endangering foolishness we will see from Vic.”
Vic smiled at him with adoration for his compelling speech. Neither Gregory nor Claire appeared to be very ‘compelled’ so he added, “And if he ever does anything half so foolhardy again, I have connections and can find him a post at the bank.”
Chapter 45
No one was happier to see Robert Conrad hang than Vic. To her dismay, Gregory and Claire had sided with Xavier that she could not leave the house until the man was dead. Thus, she spent a month at home with nothing to do.
Fortunately in this situation, justice moved with amazing swiftness as those who had been under his thumb for years worked hard to see him hanged as quickly as possible.
Xavier had never expected Conrad would actually make it to the hangman’s noose, since several of the men being blackmailed had the ability to see him assassinated while in jail. What saved Conrad for hanging was the decision to keep him in silent isolation. Orders came from above that Conrad was to be held in solitary confinement with no visitors, fed by a deaf mute, and except for his once-a-day meal, he was to remain gagged at all times. Thus, the incredible amount of secrets Conrad had gathered over the last fifteen years remained within him to the end.
The crowd gathered for the hanging was a diverse group cutting through all social levels from the First Minister and most of the cabinet to shopkeepers and white-slavers. However, the clapping began with Vic, who celebrated the return of her life the moment the rope encircled his neck. Once started, the applause took hold and soon most of the crowd cheered Lord Conrad’s death.
One of the few who didn’t was Seth Sojourn. Xavier had thought it odd Seth had managed to kill the Schuhmeister while guarded by the Queen’s Rifles. That had been a level of power the crime lord had never possessed before. But Conrad certainly did.
So you lost a valuable ally today, Seth. Glad to know it. Most glad indeed.
Once the hanging was over, Xavier took Vic back to the office and set her loose to complain about the mess he had made in her absence.
“It will take me weeks to straighten this out!” s
he declared with a happy smile on her face.
“It had better not!” Xavier snapped. “For we have several cases pending, not to mention the innumerable skills you still lack.”
Her smile disappeared. “Cases! You haven’t told me about any cases. You were supposed to bring them home to me. Do you have any idea how bored I’ve been this last month reading nothing but how to treat battle wounds?”
“Evidently not enough to make you review your prior cases and conclude you had botched one entirely,” he snapped.
“Botched what?” Her brow furrowed. “Oh, you mean the bank robbery and the fact that Miss Hell required someone inside the bank to help in the theft.”
“And when did you realize that?”
“When we were leaving from our interrogations, but I feared if I mentioned it, I would be sent back in to answer more questions. So I kept my mouth shut.”
“I was training you to be wary of the police, not me, you dunce!” he bellowed. “You must always tell me! Instead, I’m left to solve the matter on my own and conclude you were not half as bright as I had thought.”
“Well, evidently I am not, for I have no idea who did it, other than it had to be a person packing the money bags.”
“Ha! Your intuition has failed you, and had you ever peeked inside the money bag you would know why.”
“There had to be iron or something of a similar nature in the bag for neither paper nor silver are attracted to magnets.”
“Most illogical! Do you believe they placed an iron bar into every bag of money? Unless you’ve changed your mind as to the innocence of the guards then the selection of the bag was random,” Xavier challenged. “So how was it done, Vic? Surely after a month of contemplation you know the answer.”
She did not, because she had refused to think about the case, fearing if she knew who did it, she would feel compelled to tell Inspector Stone regardless of the consequences to herself.
“Well?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Perhaps if I tell you what I found when I perused all the bags of money.”
She suspected he withheld pertinent information. “If you would,” she growled.
“There was no coinage in the bags, only bundled paper money.”
“There was no metal anywhere in the bag?” she clarified, for without a metal like iron, the theft should not have worked.
Xavier smiled. “Each bundle was held by a shiny iron band.”
“Who authorized the use of these bands?”
“The bank president, Mr. Jeffreys, a well-respected gentleman, who I should mention is a client who pays his bills without second promptings.”
Vic frowned. “Who suggested the bands to Mr. Jeffreys?”
“Very good, Vic. I am pleased to see your intuitive skills have not completely withered away during your month sabbatical. A recently hired branch manager had recommended the change. An iron works foundry offered to make the bands at an amazingly low cost. Jeffreys investigated the matter and decided to try them out in a single branch.”
“The same branch as the man who recommended them?”
“No. He asked his most trusted branch manager to evaluate them so he could have a second opinion of their usefulness.”
“If you’re telling me the truth, I don’t understand the purpose of this theft at all,” Vic admitted. “It sounds as if the thieves sold the iron clasps for less than their costs. To cover their investment, they would need to steal far more than a single bag of money.”
“Absolutely, and had Jeffreys not been so slow to put the bands into all his branches, they might have been successful with their robbery plan. However, due to the man’s cautious nature, the thieves found themselves in a common problem known to all new businesses: a cash shortage. They had borrowed money to make the bands, and the man who loaned them the money grew to believe he’d been swindled.”
“Who was this man?”
“Someone I don’t even want you knowing about. Suffice it to say, when they weren’t able to repay the loan plus substantial interest on time, they were in grave danger of losing their lives, so they renegotiated a new deal. They would lie low until the bank implemented the bands and when the theft occurred all monies would go to this man to repay their loan plus ever accruing interest.”
“They agreed to take all the risk and give all the money to this man who had done nothing except loan them money? That’s hardly fair!”
“Evidently, Miss Hell agreed with you. With their lucrative butcher shop running on meager margins due to threats from a bothersome young gent and now their future stolen by this unfair agreement, she concluded it was time to leave London.”
“And wanted to take a bit of money with her.” Vic smiled. “Do you think she wanted to reveal the trick so this unnamed man of yours would not be able to carry out the theft on a larger scale?”
“No,” he said with certainty, “And had you ever met the man, you would know that, as well. No one purposely crosses the fellow. Miss Hell was running and hoped to siphon off a single bag of money to set them up somewhere new. She did not expect to get caught nor anyone to guess how the bag of cut paper ended up in the bank vault.”
“Did they arrest the bank manager who suggested the bands?” Vic asked.
“They brought him in for questioning, and eventually, despite his fear of the man to whom he owes money, he broke down and confessed.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“All the same, in the future you will provide full disclosure to me. You’ve a valuable mind, and I will not be cheated from its full use. Right now, you need to focus on your work. Once you catch up on your official duties, you have a new case. However, if you take a full week to straighten out your desk, your client will no doubt be dead and thus unable to pay his bill, and it will come out of your pay. Which means, I want this office running to its prior precision before tomorrow morning, even if it means staying up the entire night.”
“I’ll…” She almost said ‘try’. “…see it done, sir,” she said.
“See that you do,” Xavier replied and entered his office wondering how long it would take her to discover he had confiscated the stamps, the ledger, the deposit slips and changed the combination of his safe.
He leaned back in his chair and smiled in anticipation.
The End
If you enjoyed this book, please write a review on Amazon.
They are candy to an author’s soul.
Other books by Liza O’Connor
HISTORICAL
The Adventures of Xavier & Vic
Humorous, Late Victorian Sleuth Series
The Troublesome Apprentice
The Missing Partner
A Right to Love (a romantic spinoff)
The Mesmerist
Well Kept Secrets
Pack of Trouble
The Darkest Days
SINGLE HISTORICAL NOVELS
Untamed & Unabashed
Spinoff from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice
CONTEMPORARY
A Long Road to Love Series
Humorous Contemporary Disaster Romance
Worst Week Ever
Oh Stupid Heart
Coming to Reason
Climbing Out of Hell
The Hardest Love
CONTEMPORARY SUSPENSE
White Oak Mafia Series
Snarky, Romantic, Suspense Thriller
A Fortune to Die For
Unexpected Love — Coming Soon
Dance or Die — Coming Soon
Requires Rescue Series
Often Humorous, Contemporary, Romance/Suspense
Standalone books with a special twist
Even the strong can use a helping hand when life gets hard.
Saving Casey
Saving Molly – Coming Soon
SINGLE CONTEMPORARY BOOKS
Ghost Lover
Humorous, Contemporary Romance with Ghost & Ghost cat
SCIENCE FICTION
The Multiverse Series
Sci-Fi Soap Opera with humor, romance, and science
The Gods of Probabilities
Surviving Outbound
Surviving Terranue
Surviving Sojourn
Artificial Intelligence Series
Sci-Fi/Romance
Public Secrets
Birth of Adam
The Troublesome Apprentice (The Adventures of Xavier & Vic Book 1) Page 32
