“Let me guess,” I said. “She was not agreeable.”
George sighed. “She telephoned the exchange, which was more than I expected. The message she left was not repeatable and nearly caused my assistant to resign.”
“You didn’t exactly treat her well over the years.”
“I realize that now,” he said to me. “If I had played my part differently, if I had communicated with Gloria regularly, I would have had more influence.” He looked at my face. “I suppose that seems cold to you, Miss Winter, as she was my sister. I assure you, I deal with issues on a daily basis that have much larger consequences than whether or not my family is offended.”
“Fine,” I said. “What did you do when she refused you?”
“I wanted to leave it. I did. It was more fanciful than a hunch—it was a wild guess. But it kept coming back to me. If there was even the faintest chance that her powers were as real as the tests seemed to reveal . . . If she could be persuaded to help us, to find the Black Dog and prevent more deaths . . . If there was even a chance that Colin had read that article and had her in his sights . . . I had to get to her before he did.”
The wind picked up again, as if in response. It was cold now, and the sun was almost gone, making George Sutter hard to see against the background of the trees. “Why here?” I said. “Why the elaborate ruse to bring her here?”
“She would never have agreed if I’d approached her directly,” George said. He stood unmoving, and I could not tell whether the cold affected him. “I’d seen that already. I made contact with that odious drug-peddling lover of hers, and had him set it up. I wanted her to come here because this is a safe house, Miss Winter. It is set up for the use of any of our agents who need it. Agents who have come back from assignment and require debriefing, agents whose cover has been compromised, agents who have been . . . injured in the line of duty. We’ve had this house in place for years.”
“Who are the Dubbses?” James asked.
“Agents, of course,” was the reply. “We use a man and a woman, we give them a cover story that keeps them frequently in London, and we have them come and go from time to time so the neighborhood and the few live-out servants we hire don’t get suspicious. The location gives us the utmost secrecy without appearing out of place. The cover doesn’t hold up well under expert investigation, which was part of the reason I read Inspector Merriken’s reports so closely. He missed it at first glance, probably because there were so many other potential suspects to sift through. But I think he would have figured it out rather rapidly, even if Miss Winter hadn’t prompted him, and then I would have had to decide how to keep him under control.”
“He wouldn’t have liked that,” I observed.
“He wouldn’t have had a choice. In any case, I thought Gloria would be safe if she came here. The agents were to collect her from the train station, and I’d arrive myself, and then Gloria would have no choice but to talk to me. I’d persuade her to help, to become one of us—after she’d come under our protection, of course. If my wild hunch was anywhere close to being correct, I did not want her to go home.” He shook his head. “That was when everything went wrong. My motorcar broke down, and I was delayed. At the train station, my agents discovered that Fitzroy Todd and that odious fortune-teller had decided to tag along and wouldn’t leave. All of them were drinking, and Gloria was in an uncontrollable mood. Before my agents could handle the situation, Gloria was dead.”
James’s hands were clenched into fists at his sides. My own bewilderment was turning to anger, swift and heated. “You knew from the very beginning,” I said to George. “You knew who killed her, and you knew why. Why in the world did you recruit me and bring me into this? Why did you set him on me?”
“Miss Winter, I’m telling you, I didn’t know. Even after she was killed, I had only a paper-thin theory. I’d had to improvise the entire meeting, because my superiors would have had none of it. I’d have been locked up in Bedlam. I told them I wanted to interview Gloria as a potential recruit because of her client list—nothing about the Black Dog at all. It was an incredible risk. And when it all went wrong, I still didn’t know. Fitzroy Todd could have killed her, or that drug addict he brought along, or someone else entirely—a lover or a customer. I needed you, Miss Winter, to go where I couldn’t go, and ask questions. To find out if my gamble was correct.”
“And if Colin came after her next, so much the better.” James’s voice was rough, furious.
“What do you want me to say?” George’s composure cracked finally, and he let loose a flare of pure anger. “It was a possibility. I met with Miss Winter in the middle of Trafalgar Square so that if Colin was watching, he could easily see us without being seen. Then I had one of my men tail her everywhere she went.”
“Oh, my God.” My headache throbbed again. It had all been a lie, even that meeting in London. “And I lost your man right before I stumbled on Colin murdering Ramona.”
“We could have had him then.” George’s voice still simmered with anger. “We were that close. My methods may not meet with your approval, but they work. I don’t know if Colin knew how close he came, not then. I’d lay my bets that he knows now.”
Something twigged at me, something not quite right. James’s paper had listed my powers as unproven, and the newspaper article, obsessed with Gloria, had not mentioned me at all. Why would Colin pursue me if he thought my powers were fake? What interest could I possibly be to him? I opened my mouth to ask the question, but I never got the chance.
Far off to the west, past the pond and the trees, a single shot sounded.
I flinched, but James only turned. “That’s a rifle,” he said.
Two more shots followed, echoing in quick succession.