Grace and Disgrace (26 page)

“Leave the investigating to the experts,” said Tuohay.

“Is that supposed to be you? Then explain to me why you were fired from the RIC only weeks after the jewel theft, and yet claim to be an investigator still working for them? And why it is that Father Donnelly was found dead the morning after you interviewed him?” The room itself seemed hush at the mention of the dead priest, as if his spirit were listening.

“And then Kip Crippen found dead,
by you
, after gunshots were heard in Sara’s house. You claimed it was who—Anna? And then Miss Hart’s poisoning. I’m not sure how you did that, but you were present. And so was she.” Thayer pointed at Eliza. “Hidden in the crowd. I recognize her face.”

“I was there, that’s right,” said Eliza. “But as an investigator.”

“No, no,” said Thayer. “I haven’t figured it all out yet, but I know you’re behind this—you being here to tonight proves it!” His breathing was short, his nerves on edge. “Father Aiden
trusted
you, Mr. Tuohay. He believed you were a good man. And all along… all along you were betraying his trust, just like all of the other scoundrels he faced.”

“You have it wrong, Vestor,” said Tuohay. “There is a misunderstanding here.”

“I’ve got to take you to the police. They’re looking for you anyway.”

“And what will you tell them? That you stumbled across us while you were breaking into a dead man’s study?” Tuohay shook his head. “We can talk this through—”

“
No
.” Thayer raised the gun. “I’m not sure what I’ll tell the authorities yet, but the fact of the matter is that I have the man responsible for the theft of the Templar Diamond, and for the deaths of at least three people. Step around the desk, if you will—”

A gravelly voice broke from the darkness. “Now just a moment.”

It startled the group, and Thayer whirled around, his eyes wide. “Who’s there?”

“Just me,” was the reply. The voice was both assuring and authoritative.

“Mac,” said Thayer, surprise and relief flooding his voice. “What are you doing here?”

The sound of McNamara’s limp resounded through the room as he approached. His looming figure broke into the moonlight, and his grizzled face was dark and angry.

“None of you are to blame,” he growled. “So just put down the gun, Vestor.”

“But—”

“Do it. Tuohay and the woman are on the up and up.”

“Hey, I have a name, thank you very much.” Eliza’s voice rang with defiance.

Thayer seemed confused, but he dropped his arms to his side. A short silence followed. Tuohay took the opportunity to address the old officer. “How in God’s name did you find us here?”

“I told you I’m a bloodhound,” replied McNamara with a grim smile. “I may not have wanted to help you raid that poor priest’s grave, but I wasn’t goin’ to let you just wander off on your own either. I knew you’d get yourself into trouble soon enough—though this was even sooner than I expected.”

“You followed us,” said Tuohay.

“And more trouble’s coming,” McNamara added. Even as he spoke, a light appeared in the courtyard below, accompanied by the hollow echo of voices.

“Constables,” Eliza warned, carefully peering out the window.

McNamara nodded as if expecting nothing less. “Time to go.”

*

Tuohay peered out the window of the fast-moving carriage with tired eyes, the gray of morning casting a pallor across his face. In the distance the sea glittered like a silver thread, the sun still below the horizon but showering the edge of the world with the promise of new gold. A wind leaned on the high sea-grass, shifting their embodiment of solitude from stillness to a slight ripple.

The companions had escaped their predicament through little more than sheer luck, retreating through the front of the rectory as the Plymouth constables circled around to the smashed door in the back. From there it had been a quick discussion about leaving Plymouth immediately, and Tuohay taking McNamara and a reluctant Thayer on board the carriage awaiting them at the train station.

Eliza was taking an alternate route to avoid being seen together.

Tuohay turned his attention to his cigarette case, and procured a clove cigarette and lighter. A flash emitted from Tuohay’s fingertips as the lighter gave birth to flame, startling the darkness into flight for an instant. He lit his cigarette and inhaled, flicking the ash upon the trembling floor.

McNamara and Thayer sat across from him, the former snoring into his scarf. Thayer was slouched on his side of the passenger bench, his arms crossed, his chin pressed against his chest. The spark of Tuohay’s cigarette diverted his attention away from the passing landscape.

Tuohay exhaled lightly. “Shall we talk?”

“The only reason I didn’t turn you in is because of Mac,” said Thayer, glancing at the slumbering form beside him. “If there’s anyone I trust, it’s him.”

“Then I’m glad he came when he did.”

“But it still doesn’t mean I trust
you
or your intentions,” Thayer continued. “I’ve dealt with a lot of slippery clients in my time as a lawyer, and can sniff out deception.”

“And what do you smell now?”

“Other than cloves, you mean?” Thayer straightened his posture, smoothing his long coat as he did so. “I smell the foul scent of a man who dug up a priest’s grave. At least according to old Mac here.”

“He’s right about that,” Tuohay acknowledged. “But the point is this—I believe the priest was not in the coffin.”

Thayer’s visage remained unchanged, almost as if he had expected some kind of outlandish reply. “But I suppose the famous Templar Diamond was?”

“No. More likely there was a pile of heavy stones roughly equal to the weight of a man.” Tuohay exhaled a veil of smoke through his nostrils. “Let me ask you something, Mr. Thayer. When did you receive your invitation in silver lettering to the chase?”

Thayer’s gaze narrowed. “I told you before that I did not receive one. I was made privy to Sara’s and to Father Aiden Kearney’s as their legal counsel, but that was the extent of it.”

“You are staying with that claim?”

“I am.”

“Then I would like to know exactly what you were doing in Father Donnelly’s study last night.”

“It’s simple, really,” Thayer responded, more quickly than Tuohay had expected. “I was looking for the missing affidavits—the affidavits given by Mary Hart and Kathryn Dwyer to me and Mr. McBarron at the law firm.”

“You shared that with me already. I am more interested in
why
.”

“I accompanied Mary Hart from Foxborough to Plymouth on the day she was poisoned,” Thayer began. “Despite everything that man had done to her, the way he treated her—”

“Father Donnelly?”

“Yes,” said Thayer. “Regardless of that, she was nearly inconsolable when she heard he was dead. And there was nothing Mac or I could say to change her mind about going to the funeral. So we did the only thing we could—we tried to keep her safe during her journey.”

“McNamara stayed in Foxborough because he had received a telegram about my impending visit, and meanwhile you accompanied Mary to Plymouth.”

“That was the way of it,” Thayer acknowledged. “During the passage, she confided in me. More than that, she implored me for help. She was emotional, and perhaps even… frightened.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Mary confessed that prior to the interview you had with Sara Conall at the law firm, Sara had inquired to Mary about the location of the affidavits. Mary knew it was a strange question, but Sara simply said she wanted to know that they were safe, so that she would not fret over them. Mary knew we kept them in the safe at the law firm, and told her as much.”

“Sara Conall was interested in the affidavits?” Tuohay reached into his jacket for his flask and offered a drink to Thayer, who declined with a motion of his hand. Tuohay took a swig as Thayer continued his account.

“Of course I did not think anything of it at the time, but I recently realized that I had given the keys to the law firm to Sara so she could get in for the interview with you. But the key ring also had the key to the safe on it, and the affidavits were discovered to be missing the morning after the interview.”

“But why would Sara have any interest in the affidavits?”

“Mary told me that Sara had recently begun dredging up the years of hardships her family endured because of the trial between Aiden Kearney and Archbishop Walsh, and how it had devastated their wellbeing. Evidently, Sara implored Mary, even before the death of her uncles, to consider the negative impact of an appeal. The mud-slinging press, enduring the scorn of an entire city, and so on. As strange as it may seem to you, I understand Sara’s point of view. My own career suffered, as did the law firm of McBarronThayer itself, from that folly of a trial.”

Tuohay’s gaze narrowed. “You are saying the Mary Hart believed that Sara did not want an appeal to occur.”

“That is right. In fact, Mary confided in me on our trip to Plymouth—as I said, the very day she was poisoned—that Sara demanded to know if Mary intended on furthering Aiden’s cause for truth. Father Donnelly was now dead, the affidavits were missing, and Aiden Kearney, the very man who had been wronged in the first place, was three months buried. Sara’s point to Mary was that it
did not matter anymore
, and it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. Simply put, Sara didn’t want any more trouble.”

“And Mary’s response to her?”

“Mary was
still
intent on finding a way to tell the truth, and she told Sara that. In her account to me, Mary said she felt a chill from Sara after she said that.”

Tuohay considered what he had heard for a moment, glancing out the window. Without adjusting his gaze, he inquired, “And how did Mary ask you for help?”

“First of all, she asked me to help in my capacity as a solicitor. She still wanted to expose the archbishop’s role in her being forced to lie at the trial, and in her being locked away in the Danvers asylum. But deeper still, she wanted to see justice served for Inspector Frost in the aforementioned activities and, in her belief, the murder of her friend Kathryn Dwyer. ” 

Tuohay turned his gaze back to Thayer. Weary though it was, a glimmer burned within. “I see. But what about the affidavits, as you mentioned? How does Sara’s involvement connect you to Father Donnelly’s study last night?”

“There was one more bit of information Mary shared with me that had come from Sara.”

“Yes?”

“Sara told Mary there were other ways to handle those that had betrayed her uncle Aiden. That they could use the affidavits in another manner, as a threat to hang over Father Donnelly’s head—”

“Blackmail.” Tuohay pondered as he exhaled another cloud of blue-tinted smoke. “Perhaps over the archbishop, and even Inspector Frost as well. It seems a dangerous game for Sara to play.”

“Mary would have none of it,” said Thayer with a lasting frown, “but Sara told her it had already begun. Sara said that Father Donnelly was a wealthy man, more wealthy than even Mary knew, and that had already paid his first installment to keep Sara from sending the affidavits to the press.”

“So you believe Sara sold him… one of the affidavits? And kept the second?”

“I was not certain,” Thayer shrugged. “After Mary was poisoned, I was at a loss. I could not let these crimes go unanswered, and… seeing the way she died, it changed me. My resolve. I know it was a long shot, but if I found evidence of the affidavits in Father Donnelly’s study, I would have known there was truth to Mary’s claims. What else could I do?”

“Stayed out of it, for one. It is not your place to put yourself in the midst of an investigation such as this.”

The carriage hit a rut in the road, causing a loud, wet snore to emit from McNamara. The carriage continued to rattle for several seconds before reverting back to a mere trembling.

Thayer glared at Tuohay. “And what about you? What was your reason for being there last night? And with the constables after you, it seems.”

“My partner and I were looking for
actual
evidence,” Tuohay replied evenly. He tapped the medical journal resting at his side for emphasis.

Thayer raised an inquisitive brow, but Tuohay turned his gaze back to the window, throwing a blanket of silence across them.

“You are not the only one with actual evidence,” Thayer said, breaking the silence. The soft tone in his voice caused Tuohay to turn back.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Has your investigation uncovered the existence of a young man by the name of Colin Allotrope?”

“It has,” Tuohay replied carefully. “What of him?”

“Then you must know who his father is.”

Again Tuohay’s response was guarded. “Yes.”

“Father Abrams Valentine.” Thayer studied Tuohay closely. “But what about the boy’s
mother
?”

Tuohay stared at Thayer. “You know who she is?”

Thayer met Tuohay’s gaze, wavered, and then grew resolute. “I do. The young man’s mother is Anna Conall, Sara’s sister.”