Otherwise Engaged (15 page)

H
e could not have mangled the business more thoroughly if he had set out to do precisely that, Benedict thought.

He had not intended to make love to Amity tonight, but he had been thinking about taking her to bed ever since he had met her. The problem was that he had not made a plan. Instead, he had acted on impulse. When the opportunity arose, he had been unable to resist. Desire was a powerful drug. And now he was paying the price.

No worse than riding a camel.

What did you expect?
he wondered. You made love to her in a stable
.

The only thing he could say about the matter now was that it had certainly seemed like a profoundly brilliant notion at the time.

The carriage jolted to a halt in front of his town house. The windows were darkened. Mr. and Mrs. Hodges had drawn the drapes for the night and retired to their bed.

Benedict opened the door, got down and sent the coachman on his way. The vehicle rumbled off into the fog.

He took his key out of his pocket, went up the steps and opened the door. The house seemed even quieter than usual. Darker, too, he thought. All of the lights were turned down low, including those in the hall.

He shrugged out of his coat, pausing to take a deep breath when he caught Amity’s scent. He immediately grew hard again. The aching need stirred deep inside him, stronger than ever even though he had slaked his desire once tonight. Perhaps it was because he now knew just how satisfying it was to sink into Amity’s wet, tight body.

The coat would certainly never be the same and neither would he.

What he needed now was a strong, medicinal dose of brandy. He slung the coat over one shoulder and went along the hall toward the door of his study. He reached up automatically to loosen his tie and then stopped, smiling a little, when he discovered that the strips of silk were still hanging around his neck. He had neglected to retie them because he had been fixed on the goal of getting Amity away from the Gilmore house before anyone noticed that she was in a state of enchanting dishabille.

He was so consumed with the sweet, hot memories that he did not notice anything amiss until he heard an odd, strangely muffled sound coming from a dark corner of the room.

He turned swiftly, his hand seeking the gun inside his coat. Mrs. Hodges was sitting rigidly in a ladder-back kitchen chair. Hodges was equally upright in a matching chair. Neither the chairs nor the Hodges belonged in the study at that hour of the night.

“What the devil are you doing there in the corner?”

Hodges made another strange noise. There was just enough light from the low-burning lamp on the desk to reveal the gag in his
mouth. His hands and ankles were bound with rope. Mrs. Hodges was secured in the same fashion. Hodges stared, wide-eyed, at Benedict and made more desperate sounds deep in his throat.

The room had been ransacked. Books had been pulled from the shelves and dropped on the floor. The drawers of the desk stood open. The pictures on the walls had been moved aside, no doubt in search of a concealed wall safe.

“Good lord, man.” Benedict removed the gun from the pocket of his coat, tossed the coat aside and turned up the lamp. “What the hell happened?”

The curtains shifted in the corner near the French doors. Benedict turned quickly, gun in hand.

A man moved out from behind the heavy velvet drapery. The light gleamed on the revolver in his hand. The lower half of his face was covered by a black scarf tied at the back of his head.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Stanbridge,” he said.

The accent was unmistakably American. It stirred a shipboard memory. It took only a second for Benedict to put it together with the physical aspects of the intruder—slender, sandy-haired, young and male.

“Declan Garraway,” Benedict said. He shook his head in disgust. “The expert on psychology. So you’re the spy. I should have known. I suppose the two careers do complement each other.”

“I was afraid you would recognize me.” Declan yanked the scarf away, revealing his deceptively earnest, honest face. “It’s the accent, isn’t it? For your information, I’m not a damn spy. I’m a private investigator. Sort of.”

“A fine distinction, I’m sure. Who are you working for?”

“That’s none of your damn business. Where is Foxcroft’s notebook?”

Benedict looked around the study, affecting mild surprise. “You mean you didn’t find it?”

“Get it or so help me, I’ll—”

“What? Shoot me and my butler and maybe my housekeeper before I shoot you? I doubt it. I’m no expert with a gun, but I have practiced a bit and at this distance it would be hard to miss. Even if you got lucky on your first shots, how far do you think you’ll get after committing several murders in a quiet, respectable neighborhood like this? Trust me, someone will have noticed you when you arrived.”

“No one saw me come here,” Declan said quickly.

“What about the hansom that dropped you off nearby? Do you really think the driver won’t remember that he had an American in his cab tonight? One who got out close to the scene of the killings?”

“How did you know I came in a hansom?” Declan sounded appalled.

“How else would you have been able to find this street? I doubt that you know London well.”

“Forget the hansom. I’m not here to kill anyone. Your butler interrupted me as I was starting to search the place. I had to tie him up. He was going to summon the police. And then the housekeeper showed up. I had to do something. Give me the notebook and I’ll leave.”

“You’re an idiot, Garraway. Did you really think I’d leave it lying around in my study?”

Benedict took the small leather-bound notebook out of the pocket of his coat. He flipped it open and shut very quickly, just long enough to reveal the pages covered with cryptic notes and sketches.

“Is that it? That little notebook?” Doubt creased Declan’s forehead. He took a step closer. “I thought it would be much bigger.”

“Foxcroft kept his notes in a small, convenient notebook that could be carried in his pocket.”

Benedict tossed the notebook into the low-burning fire.

“No.”
Declan dashed across the room, heading for the fireplace.

Benedict seized a poker and swung it in a low arc that took Declan’s legs out from under him. He tumbled to the floor. The gun landed on the carpet. Benedict scooped it up.

“Damn you, damn you, damn you.” Anguished, Declan sat up slowly and dropped his head into his hands. “You’ve ruined everything.”

“What, exactly, have I ruined?” Benedict used the poker to draw the little notebook out of the embers. The small volume was somewhat singed around the edges but otherwise unharmed.

“My father sent me to get that blasted notebook.” Declan watched Benedict set the notebook on the desk. “It was my last chance to prove to him that I had what it takes to join the family business.”

“Must be a rather unusual business.” Benedict went to Mrs. Hodges and untied the gag. “Are you injured, Mrs. Hodges?”

“No, sir,” she said.

Benedict removed Hodges’s gag. “What about you?”

“Only my pride, sir.”

Benedict went to work first on Mrs. Hodges’s bindings. Declan sat on the floor and gazed morosely at the notebook.

“Don’t look so woebegone, Garraway.” Benedict finished untying the ropes that bound Mrs. Hodges’s ankles. “That isn’t Foxcroft’s notebook. It’s one of my own personal notebooks. There is nothing of earthshaking importance in it.”

Declan groaned. “I should have known. You tricked me.”

“I’m afraid so. What exactly is your family business?”

“Oil,” Declan muttered. “My father and his brother own the
Garraway Oil Company. They’re getting ready to drill some wells in California near Los Angeles. They’re convinced there’s a vast quantity of oil in the ground, waiting to be pumped out. You can see the stuff seeping up from the floor of the ocean just offshore in some locations on the coast.”

Mrs. Hodges got to her feet, massaging her wrists.

“I’ll see to Mr. Hodges, sir,” she said.

“Thank you,” Benedict said. He turned back to Declan. “What does Garraway Oil want with a device designed to utilize the power of the sun?” But the answer came hard on the heels of the question. “Oh, right. They don’t want to steal the design for Foxcroft’s system in order to manufacture and sell it. Your father and uncle want to keep the engine and the battery off the market. Is that correct?”

“They say that if everyone can go to the local hardware store and purchase a solar system that can capture the free energy of the sun, the market for oil will collapse before there is an opportunity to prove how useful it is. My father and my uncle say the future is in oil. They want to make certain it stays that way.”

“Because they’ve invested heavily in that future.”

Declan shrugged.

Benedict looked at Hodges. “You’re certain you are unhurt?”

“Quite fit, thank you, sir,” Hodges said. “But it’s going to take some time to put your study to rights.”

“That young scalawag made a dreadful mess,” Mrs. Hodges said. She glared at Declan. “You should be ashamed of yourself, sir.”

Declan had the grace to hang his head.

Benedict angled himself on the corner of his desk and contemplated Declan. “Obviously you are not aware of the latest developments.”

“What are you talking about?” Declan asked.

“Someone stole the Foxcroft notebook. The good news for you is that, given the fact that you came here tonight to search for it, I must assume you are not the thief.”

“Son of a bitch.” Declan looked baffled. “It’s gone? But who took it?”

“An interesting question. I don’t know the answer. And as you don’t appear to have the answer, either, I don’t think there’s any reason to continue the conversation. Hodges, please summon the nearest constable.”

“With pleasure, sir,” Hodges said. He started toward the door.

Declan stiffened in fresh alarm. “You’re not going to call the police.”

“Why not?” Benedict asked pleasantly.

“Because we’re both after the same thing,” Declan said, exasperated. “Look, if you’re telling me the truth when you say the notebook has been stolen—”

“It’s the truth.”

“Then perhaps we can help each other. My father and my uncle will make it worth your while, I swear it. They are very rich.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Benedict said. “But, you see, here’s the thing—I’m rich, too. I don’t need their money.”

“Is that so?” Declan’s expression turned shrewd. “Then why did you travel all the way to St. Clare and then go on to meet with Foxcroft in Los Angeles? I know you went there, by the way. When I discovered that you had purchased a ticket on a train bound for California, I guessed where you were headed. But by the time I arrived you had already left with Foxcroft’s notebook.” Declan paused. “He’s dead, you know. The cancer took him less than forty-eight hours after he gave you his notebook.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Benedict said. “He was a brilliant engineer.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me exactly what happened on St. Clare? Everyone on board the
Northern Star
said that you had been attacked by a thief, but I never believed that story. I think you were there for the same reason I sailed to the island—to examine Alden Cork’s solar cannon. But it was gone and Cork was dead by the time I found him.”

“When did you arrive at Cork’s laboratory?”

Declan looked grim. “Not long after you did, evidently. Cork’s body was still on the floor. But the local police had arrived and were starting to ask questions. It was obvious they had settled on the notion that Cork had been killed by a foreigner, someone off one of the ships that was in the harbor that day. I thought it best not to be seen so I immediately returned to the
Star
.”

“And took a shot at me along the way, perhaps?” Benedict asked.

“No, I swear it. I’m not the one who shot you. I’ve been one step behind you at every turn. It wasn’t until I followed you to Foxcroft’s laboratory in Los Angeles that I realized the importance of his solar engine system, though. The cannon won’t function without it, will it?”

“No. How did you come to be familiar with Cork’s and Foxcroft’s inventions?”

“An agent of the United States came to see my father and my uncle. The agent wanted to know if a cannon fueled by the energy of the sun and powerful enough to serve as a battleship weapon was technically feasible. He said there were rumors that such a device had been constructed by a British inventor named Alden Cork who had established a laboratory somewhere in the Caribbean. My father and uncle
were familiar with Cork’s work, of course, but they weren’t particularly worried about it.”

“The world of inventors working on solar energy devices is a small one,” Benedict said.

“As I said, my father and my uncle didn’t think Cork’s design could function as a battleship gun, but they were sufficiently concerned to send me to St. Clare to take a look at it. When I learned that you had been shot, my first assumption was that you were the person who had murdered Cork and that you had been wounded in the process. Later, when you took the train to Los Angeles after we docked in New York, I realized that in all probability you were on your way to see Elijah Foxcroft. So I followed you. Again I was too late.”