Touched by Angels (20 page)

“And you are?”

“Lady Emma DeVere.”

She kicked Robert lightly on the ankle, as she saw his head suddenly turn.

“And this is Robert DeVere, sole heir to the family fortune, since his father, Major General Oliver De Vere, was killed at Ladysmith, fighting the Boers.”

“I see. My condolences. My name is Jackson Quint. Why are you visiting America?”

“To start a new life. But…”

She let her eyes drop to the swaying deck, as
Carpathia
eased into the Cunard pier.

“It’s so humiliating. To have been so stupid, to have let my guard drop. I thought, as I expect you did, that Englishmen were gentlemen but…”

“What happened?”

Robert piped up without warning, “Some bastard nicked all our lolly!”

She cringed, though after managing a polite laugh, and construing the term ‘lolly’, she explained that her son had, unfortunately, been in contact with the steerage passengers.

As the gangplank was being lowered, she said quietly, “I had intended that as little attention be drawn to us as possible, but I suppose in view of what has happened, we
are
desperate. Helpless too. What my son told you is true. Since the sale of the family seat in Berkshire, all our worldly goods are in the suitcase the thief carries, mostly cash and jewellery. He stole it from us as the ship was sinking. As of now, we are penniless, with not even the means to escape back home.”

She saw the thief, hopping impatiently from foot to foot as he waited, stuck behind a man with bandaged feet being carried slowly from the ship.

Then, just as he reached the pier, a man with a camera stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder.

Lil heard him say, “I’m John Gleason, Sir,
Hartford Times.
Have you a story for me?”

As he was trying to blather his way out, she said quickly to Quint, “He’s the man who took our money. It’s in the suitcase. Help me get it back and there will be a reward.”

She noticed Quint watching the man the whole time, as if absorbing as much detail as he could.

The thief must have guessed he was being watched, as she saw him snap something at the reporter, before stalking off, inside the pier itself where everything was lit by huge spot lights.

***

Quint ran after him, fully aware that Lady DeVere, if that
was
her real title, could be lying through her teeth. They were on his heels as he gave chase.

The thief was almost running by now, as he charged through the crowd, pushing people out of the way.

By now, as Quint followed him out onto the road, where thousands had gathered, the man took off in the rain, down the road and into the docks.

Quint followed, scared the police might be on his tracks.

“Stay where you are,” he shouted. He pulled his revolver from under his jacket, as the man ran into the jungle of concrete and iron that Quint knew like the back of his hand.

***

Lil soon stopped running, her hands on her knees, as she panted for breath. A stitch dug like a hot blade in her side. Her ankle-length dress and block heels were not conducive to running anyway, and she didn’t like the look of the place Quint had given chase into.

“Mum, come on!”

“No!” There was a coppery taste at the back of her throat. “We’ll… we’ll wait… He’ll be back.”

She could only stand and watch, as she saw a hazy outline of Quint against distant lights. She was sure they would never see their money again.

Fifty

Quint stopped and listened hard, as rain trickled from the front of his hat.

There was a dead end ahead, with derelict warehouses to his left and a tall wall extending right across to where it ended, twenty feet above the icy water of the Hudson River.

The man was trapped, unless he jumped, which would be as good as suicide. After the scuttling of rats had stopped, he could hear the soft patter of rain, and the low whistle of the wind, as it streamed through shattered windows and broken roof slates.

The vigil went on for another quarter hour, until he saw a dark shape skulking along, low against the dim distant lights of New Jersey, stopping every so often.

He was wearing a long coat that was swinging pendulously, as if heavy.

Quint made his way diagonally across, quickly, to be ahead, so he could intercept him. As he grabbed the collar of his coat, the man gave a terrified squawk as Quint drew back the hammer on his gun.

Quint watched him gazing along the long barrel of the weapon, pressed against the skin between his eyes, and when he gasped, “Have it, for God’s sake! Just let me go, please,” Quint frowned, having not expected such quick and easy compliance, even if allowances
were
made for his gun.

As his eyes flicked sideways to where he could see the suitcase being lowered to the ground, he said, “You’d better get running, and if you do anything dumb, like telling the cops, believe me, I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you.”

“I won’t, honest, just…” He bolted.

Quint grinned as he heard him trip, followed by a splashing sound and cursing, as he sprawled face first in a puddle. He lowered the hammer on his gun and slid it back into its holster, as he looked around to be sure that apart from the writhing form in the wet, he was still alone.

Easy pickings
, he thought, as he undid the two straps holding the suitcase shut. It was too dark to make the contents out and he daren’t light a match, for fear of being seen. He groped around inside, and although half expecting it, cursed as he felt nothing but layer after layer of clothing.

He was about to threaten the thief again, but then, remembering that his coat had looked ridiculously heavy, he had another idea.

Amused, he watched as the thief shook the worst of the water off.

Just as he started limping away, Quint made his way quickly to him and pressed the barrel of the gun into the nape of his neck, cocked it once more, and said, “Take off your coat.”

“Eh!” Utter shock. “What do you want my clothes for?”

Quint pressed the gun harder.

“All right… all right. I’ll do it.” He removed the heavy garment.

“Now put it on the ground and start walking.”

He started off in the direction of the pier. Instead, Quint pushed him in the direction of the river.

When they got to the edge, Quint said, “Now jump.”

“What! But it’s….”

“That or a big hole in your neck.”

He dithered, so Quint gave him a shove. He squealed in terror, his arms pin-wheeling, before hitting the black water with a huge splash.

Quint made his way back to the coat, seeing the woman and boy sitting on a low wall, about a hundred yards off, still waiting.

Knowing they couldn’t see
him
, he started going through the pockets and found several dozen small leather bags.

He opened one, tipped the contents into his hand and felt his eyes start from his head. It was a necklace of some sort, which he knew from the glittering and weight was worth hundreds of dollars. Other bags held similar treasures.

When he put his hand in the other pocket, and pulled out three inch-thick wads of English one-pound notes, he knew he’d stumbled upon the biggest catch of his life. Then his luck got better still, as he found that even after divesting all the pockets, the coat was still absurdly heavy. He groped over the lining. After finding block after block of notes, and even more jewellery, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

He put everything back in the coat, except the three wads of notes he had found in the pocket.

These he put back in the suitcase, in the middle of the clothing. After this, he looked around for somewhere to hide the coat, where it would stay while he carried out the next part of his plan. He found it in the form of a small wooden barrel.

Then, after adjusting his hat, and calming himself down, he wandered back grinning and looking excited.

“Where’s the boy?” he asked Lady DeVere.

“Gone to look at the ships.”

He shrugged.

“So, a reward?”

“Yes, of course.”

He passed the suitcase across, sat and rubbed his hands together.

She clicked it open and groped around the clothing inside, pulling out garment after garment. It took just a second to find the three wads.

“Where’s the rest?”

“Rest of what?”

“The rest of the money?”

He laughed good-naturedly.

“Ma’am, that… that’s a fortune. There must be upwards of what… six hundred bucks there? In this town, a seamstress will get just five for a sixty-hour week. There’s more…”

“Oh, shut up, Quint!” She threw the clothes on the ground. “We left England with tens of
thousands
more than that. You must have removed the rest…”

He looked wounded and opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed choked on the words. He looked off into the void like a martyr.

After about a minute, seething with temper and unable to prove a thing, she broke open a wad with a trembling hand, pulled away about a sixth and handed it to him.

“I’m very sorry,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I expect that awful man was in league with somebody else and they have it stashed elsewhere, where neither of us can get it.”

He struggled to find his voice, before saying quietly, “I guess so.” He seemed quickly mollified though, as he took the slim wad, flicked through it, and slipped it in an inside pocket, before pulling out a thin cigar.

He bit off the end and put it in his mouth, striking a match on the wall. “You’ve more than enough to get a passage home,” he assured her. “I hope you make out.” He lit the cigar as he stood, exhaled a cloud of smoke and walked off grinning.

***

A few minutes later, Lil turned to see Robert hidden between several stacks of crates, holding the coat the thief had been wearing and knew then that her suspicions were confirmed.

She gazed in the direction Quint had walked, but could see no sign of him.

She heard Robert clambering towards her and whispered, “No, stay where you are. I’ll follow.”

It didn’t take them long to take the money and jewels from the coat and put them in the case. By now the rain had stopped and day was breaking over the harbour.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

“There is only one thing we
can
do. We must book a passage home.”

His face dropped, so she explained. “We can’t stay here. It’s far too dangerous, especially when that man discovers we’ve double-crossed him. In any case, this is a wild country. They carry guns and they aren’t afraid to use them.” She hugged him.

“Don’t worry. We’ll not go back to London. Perhaps we’ll settle in Plymouth, somewhere like that, away from the smoke.”

He smiled hugging her back tight.

She knew though that boarding another ship was not going to be easy. Questions might be asked, and papers demanded. What if the luggage was searched? How would she explain such a fortune away and what if they confiscated it?

After a little hard thinking, she knew there was only one option, and that was to travel home illegitimately, by stowing away, though quite how they were going to do that eluded her for now.

“Come on,” she told him, hearing the sounds of early morning activity beyond the docks. “We’ll be much safer among the crowds, especially if we change these clothes for new ones.”

***

As they were swallowed up in the strange town, Jack Quint took one last puff of his cigar, as he made his way over to the barrel where he had stuffed the coat.

His thumbs twitched, as he groped around inside. When he found it empty, he felt as though somebody had thrown ice-cold water in his face. He was so shocked, he even upturned it, so he could confirm its emptiness with his own eyes.

He growled, “Shit!” before kicking it. Rats squealed as it landed ten yards away.

He looked in circles, thinking at first that the thief must have survived his fall into the Hudson after all. If so, with no change of clothes, he would be in a sorry state and couldn’t have got far.

When he walked to the edge however, he saw the drop was even further down than he remembered and that, as far as he could see, which extended at least to the Cunard Pier, a good three hundred yards away, there was no means of climbing back up.

He looked over the
Carpathia
too, though he could see no obvious means of scaling that either. Then he remembered that as the woman had been alone when he had left her, so perhaps the kid had taken the money.

He walked over to where she had been sitting and it didn’t take him long to spot the discarded coat.

He didn’t even bother picking it up, as he stood there, fuming, gazing beyond the docks, seeing the tall buildings on the edge of the city.

His
city.

Fifty-one

Red-eyed with exhaustion and wanting nothing more than to sleep, Lil and Robert walked into a bank, intending first and foremost to convert some English currency into dollars, but what she saw next, on one of the walls, stopped her dead in her tracks.

There was a large poster, recently printed by the White Star Line, with whom she had sailed. Underneath, in equally large letters, were the words, “To whom it might concern.”

Beneath this was a reward of one hundred English pounds for information as to the whereabouts of the thief who had robbed so many people on the ship. There was a sketch of the suspect too, a good one, and she prickled with recognition; but it wasn’t that of the waiter. It was somebody else she had met, albeit very briefly. Robert recognised him too, but she told him to keep a still tongue.

News had travelled fast indeed, which wasn’t, she supposed, surprising, considering the immense standing of some of the people who had sailed. Money clearly talked, and the more there was, the louder it talked. Some of these people were among the richest in the world.

She looked around to see if she was being watched, before taking the poster down and rolling it up. She slipped it inside a coat pocket.