The Formula for Murder (30 page)

Then with my sweetest smile I end with, “But I wonder what Lord Winsworth will say when he reads in the papers about how his hired thug brought criminal charges and scandal to his door. If he lives up to his reputation, he’ll have your tongue cut out and fed to his parrot.”

Archer bursts out with that nerve-grating laugh of his and sits back down, slamming his palm back on the table. “By God, I declare, if I didn’t have my detecting career keeping me so busy, I’d take the time to show this saucy woman what she’d think about in her dreams tonight.”

“You mean in her nightmares,” Wells says, beating me to the line.

Archer pulls out a cigar, cuts off the tip, wets the end by popping it in and out of his mouth like a sucker, then lights it and leans back with a satisfied expression.

I glance at Wells, barely able to hold back a crack that Archer is about to tell us something, but not until he is puffed up and stage center so we’ll appreciate how clever he is.

“Your reporter friend was infatuated with Dr. Lacroix. Fell madly in love with him at first sight. Wrote down her most passionate feelings, detailing what she experienced for the doctor from the moment she met him. Sort of the corny romantic trite you’d expect to hear from much younger girls in the throes of puppy love.”

Even though I don’t doubt that is what Hailey wrote, it breaks my heart to hear it. My fear has been that she had become overly impressed with Lacroix, not only because of whatever sales pitch he gave her about his visions for helping mankind, but his appeal to women, especially one who reaches out to help a woman look and feel more attractive.

Her immaturity and inexperience in dealing with men in a romantic vein would have made her easy prey for Lacroix.

Not being able to resist the temptation, I ask a question I know will only feed his ego when he refuses to answer.

“What did you mean when you spoke of vampires?”

“It’ll shock you down to your pretty little toes, love, but that’ll have to wait until you and I get to know each other better.”

“She’s not going to get to know you any better,” Wells says, hotly. “She may trust you to travel with us, but I don’t. I’m wiring Lord Winsworth and will warn him to call off his dog or he can join you in jail.”

Archer lets out a ho-ho-ho laugh as he blows cigar smoke in Wells’s face.

“I don’t think your demand to Lord Winsworth will have much weight coming from one of his servants who’s been bobbing his wife.”

Wells turns a deep red and Archer leans forward to further impale him.

“His lordship found those love letters you sent off to his wife, thankin’ her for the money and babbling like another lovesick puppy about how much you enjoyed those pleasurable moments with her. If his wife had been bedding down with a gentleman, it wouldn’t have been so disgusting, but to know she laid with a domestic—”

“
Shut up!
” I snap at Archer. “One more word out of you and I will call the constable.”

Wells is rigid and almost purple. I’m sure he’s about to attack the much stronger man, not only getting a beating in return, but ruining our entire mission. “Please,” I whisper to him, “please don’t strike out at him, that’s what he wants. He’s baiting you. Please, for me and for Lady Winsworth and for that little girl, go up to the room.”

He rises slowly, never taking his eyes off of Archer, his fists clenched. I am in awful suspense because I’m certain he is ready to leap on the man.

“Don’t,” I warn Archer as he takes the cigar out of his mouth to make another crack.

Wells slowly walks away, stiffly, but with dignity.

As soon as Wells disappears up the stairs, I turn to the thug. “Mr. Archer, I do hope that after this is all over, you will visit me in New York.”

He gives me a smirking leer. “You like a man who handles himself, don’t you?”

“Actually, I think what you did to my friend was disgusting. The reason I’d like to have you visit is because there’s a bare-knuckles champ I want to have knock all your teeth out.”

I get up and smooth my dress. “We’ll leave here after breakfast in the morning. We’re taking the ten o’clock train to Exeter. Once we reach Exeter, I’ll tell you the next phase.”

He eyes me with suspicion. “If you’re planning to take a train, why’d you load up a carriage?”

“To haul to the station. I didn’t want to take the time to buy supplies in Exeter where the police might be interested in us. We’ll rent another carriage there for the next leg.”

“We’re going back to Linleigh-in-the-moor. That artist told you more than you’re letting on.”

“That artist told us more than I’m willing to tell you. And you know more than you’re telling me. So we both have our secrets. When I feel that you’ve been fair with us, I will share more with you.”

His features twist into a mean sneer. “You had better be careful. I don’t mind a bit of wordplay back and forth, but I expect results. If I don’t get them from you, you’re not going back home as pretty as you came.” He smirks. “You can let that boyfriend of yours know that the next time he faces me, I’ll cut off his balls and have them fried for dinner.”

Even though I am trembling with anger and disgust, I control my voice. “See you at nine in the morning? Or should we make our way to the station separately in case Lacroix’s people are looking for us?”

He chews on that for a moment. “Separately.” He jabs his cigar at me. “But don’t think you can lose me. I’ve caught up with you before and if I have to do it again, I won’t be my gentle self.”

“I’m trembling with fear.”

With a stiff back and head held high, I head for the steps, not giving him one ounce of satisfaction that he has frightened me, which he might have, just a little. What he has really done is anger me and I hope I’ve shown that.

My heart is heavy for Wells. He has been stripped of his dignity and his secret life. Even worse for a proud man, it was in front of a woman. How devastated he must be feeling right now. I wish I had someplace else to go. He needs time and privacy to sort his emotions. And he definitely doesn’t need to see me.

Never have I seen a friend more defeated than when Archer maliciously slashed with what appears to be the awful truth. The domestic class? A servant? That is mind boggling, since he is both a teacher and a scientific researcher.

England has a very structured society, based upon money and blood. The more the money, or the bluer the blood, the more doors are opened. The same is true in America, but to a much lesser degree—there it’s mostly just a question of the size of one’s bank account.

Hopefully my news to Wells that we will not be seeing Archer’s face again will cheer him up.

Despite what I said to Archer, I have no intention of being around in the morning to take the Exeter train.

50

Wells is standing at the window, staring out when I enter. He has taken off his coat, collar, and top shirt to prepare for bed. He doesn’t turn to look at me and I know he is hiding his embarrassment about the revelations Archer spit out so viciously.

Quietly I close the door behind me and go to him, putting my hand on his arm and turning him to me. His features are grave, with a grim set. Like most men, he considers it a weakness to reveal his hurt.

I caress his cheek with my fingers and brush his lips with mine. His lips open as I press mine against him and we melt together in a long, warm kiss.

Embedded female instincts make me break away.

“I find you to be a strange man in wonderful ways, Herbert George Wells. You are the most intelligent man I have ever sparred with.”

“Ah … so you will love me for my mind, but…”

“I do admire you for your fine mind … but if I am to love you, it will be because I sense that beneath the intellect is great passion, not just for life but for me.”

I look away, trying to organize my thoughts, for what I am about to say is against all I’ve been taught. It’s been a struggle, but I’ve come to realize I am a woman who has desires and needs and yet I don’t want to get married, at least not right now. However, I am not always able to lock away my feelings or desires. Nor do I want to.

“I have to give you fair warning,” I tell him. “I have fought long and hard to find a path in this world. I will never give up my freedom for a man—any man. The love I give today will still be in me tomorrow, but my body will be an ocean away.”

“I expect nothing less from you, Miss Nellie Bly.”

He turns to look out the window to give me privacy as I remove my jacket and my blouse. I don’t sleep in my outer clothes because they would become horribly wrinkled, but my underclothes are significantly modest, the type a woman would not be embarrassed for her father and brothers to see her in. He speaks to the window as I undress.

“Society has such ridged rules and laws that inhibit people from advancing and being what they want to be. As a woman, you cannot vote, or be equal to a man in work and love. I, as a man, am enslaved into a position in life because I was born into it. An accident of birth, like a king, except the benefits are a bit less.”

As he’s talking I have my back to him as I hang my clothes and brush them out.

“What did you and Archer talk about after I left?”

“We played cat and mouse about what information he was to give for what I gave in return. It ended up a stalemate. I asked him about his vampire remark and got the expected evasiveness.”

He turns back around. “We can hope that one of those vampires he keeps talking about will bite him.”

“He obviously knows, but it makes no difference. He is so instinctively dishonest and deceitful, no matter what we can’t rely upon anything he tells us.”

“You realize that when we find Lacroix, the greatest danger will be a knife in our backs by Archer. He’s not going to want to share the credit.”

“From what I’ve seen of the man, before turning Lacroix over to his employer, Archer will have a bidding war to see who will pay him the most.”

He leans back against the wall and stares at me. Not impolitely, or with lust, but with tenderness.

“I thought about Archer making a deal with Lacroix, too.” I make busy with the clothes, fighting my feelings, resisting the fiery urge I feel in my entire body. “Dealing with him will be a lost cause no matter how we go about it.”

Once again, I turn my back to him wondering how am I going to handle this.

“You are an incredible woman, Nellie Bly.”

“Thank you…” is all I can barely say.

I feel his warm breath behind me on my neck and my will power vanishes.

“I am going to make love to you, Nellie.”

“I know.”

51

Archer ordered his third double shot of whiskey at the inn’s bar. He was feeling good after the conversation with the reporter and her teacher companion. In the morning, he’d get off a wire to his employer and tell his lordship that he was making great progress and that he needed the pump primed with more money.

His nibs won’t be satisfied with Archer’s bare statement, of course. For some reason that delighted Archer and he chuckled to himself. No trust left in this world, and he could testify to that. He ceremonially saluted his whiskey to no one but himself and slugged it down. The booze was spreading good cheer in his mind and body.

He had needed something to tell Winsworth that would impress him enough to loosen the notoriously tight grip the baronet kept on his hoard of South African gold. Now he could claim he was closing in on Lacroix, but he knew Winsworth would wire back and want details—ones that Archer didn’t have yet, but was sure were in the bag.

“Another?” the bartender asked Archer.

“Keep them coming.”

Archer mulled over the conversation he had had with the two amateur detectives. That was how he thought of them, himself being a professional who once carried a badge. That American reporter is a dandy, to be sure. She trusted no one. Smart girl, but too smart for her own good. This gave him another chuckle. He had to admit, she was a good judge of his character.

She hadn’t revealed much, but neither had he, though he had whetted her appetite for information with his remark about vampires. He was confident that they were onto where Lacroix was hiding out. The laboratory had been the key all along. Now he had to get the information out of her … better yet, wait until they have Lacroix cornered and then he can take care of business all around.

Lord Winsworth knew a lab existed in Dartmoor because his late missus had told him there was one. Fortunately for Archer’s own pocketbook, she hadn’t told her husband where in Dartmoor, making it necessary for him to hire Archer.

He jerked down the whiskey and tapped the glass on the bar to signal for another. He was feeling good. Too bad the inn didn’t have any women for hire.

“Ah…” He got it. He knew what he would prime the pump with to get more quid out of his lordship. He’ll tell Winsworth that a child had suffered the same fate as his wife.

He mulled over how he would code the wire to his employer to convey Lacroix killed a kid, too, without raising Cain at the telegraph office.

He wondered why a man with as much gold as the baronet was so stingy about spending it. One thing was for certain, once he uncovered Lacroix’s secret place, Lord Winsworth would be giving him plenty more money, a fistful—before he revealed the location. That thought drew a deep sinister laugh from Archer.

He’d gotten no instructions from his employer as to exactly what the plan was once Lacroix had been located. Winsworth knew as well as he did that there was no real evidence to tie a crime around the doctor’s neck. Maybe with time and money, Winsworth could pull it off, but the baronet didn’t strike him as a patient man.

Finding a way to get an even bigger wad out of the situation had been brewing within Archer ever since he found the diary. That would require taking another step forward after finding Lacroix.

He had asked Winsworth what the game would be once he collared Lacroix and the man had stared at him for a moment and then said, “We’ll deal with that at the right time and place.”