Getting a quiet message to a blind man in the middle of a boisterous party would be a challenge, but the servant inclined his head and spread out a hand, waiting.
Once Conrad had left the room to meet the two unexpected visitors, it didn’t take long to explain the situation. While Jack read the summons out loud he canted his head to listen.
Dr. Anna Savard and Dr. Sophie Savard are hereby summoned to appear before Lorenzo Hawthorn, Coroner of the City of New York, on the 28th day of May, 1883, at two o’clock, in his office then and there to answer questions in the matter of the death of Mrs. Janine Campbell.
“Do you know this Hawthorn?” Jack asked Conrad.
“I’ve heard the name, but I’ve never dealt with the man. Damn me if I’m going to break up this wedding luncheon. Hawthorn will have to wait. Will one of you talk to him? Captain Baker? Tell him we’ll be there by four.” He turned toward Oscar and said, “Would you be so kind as to send a telegram to Cunard and let them know that Mr. and Mrs. Verhoeven won’t be sailing today? Mrs. Harrison will have to do something about the luggage that’s gone ahead.”
Just that easily Belmont had gotten both men out of the house, and then he turned on Jack. He let out a deep sigh and pressed three fingers to his brow as if to locate a headache. “You’re not on duty.”
Jack said, “No. My allegiance here is to Anna and Sophie, and Cap.”
“Good. Good.” He was silent for another long moment. Jack could almost hear him thinking, his mind sorting through hundreds of questions and options. Jack had more than a few of his own, but he could bide his time.
“Go back to the luncheon, please, and tell them it’s a business matter that wouldn’t wait. You’ll have to convince Anna to stay where she is, then come find me in Cap’s study. There’s a lot to do before four o’clock.”
Conrad Belmont was a first-class litigator and brilliant attorney, but he didn’t know the Savard women, not really. He seemed to think they could be kept in the dark while the men acted on their behalf.
“You’ll want Anna,” Jack said. “She’d be unhappy—more than unhappy—to be excluded from this business. Sophie, too, under other circumstances.”
“I mean to protect them,” Belmont said, clearly surprised.
“They won’t thank you for it.”
He lifted a hand in surrender. “Tell Anna to come along to the study, but I want to keep Sophie and Cap out of this for as long as possible.”
? ? ?
THE COMING AND going did not escape Sophie, who kept her place beside Cap at the head of the table while her uncle Adam talked. First Jack, then Conrad, and finally Anna had disappeared into the hall. She watched the door but none of them came back.
Cap didn’t seem to have noticed, which was proof of what she had known for the last hour: he could take no more. She herself was so weary that she could not formulate even the vaguest plan on how to put a polite end to the celebration.
Aunt Quinlan was saying, “On behalf of my beloved niece Sophie and her new husband, I thank you all for your good wishes and welcome company today. It’s time that the newlyweds withdraw. They need to get ready for the adventure just ahead of them, and then I invite you all to a garden party on Waverly Place.”
Aunt Quinlan had seen and understood and acted. Sophie commanded herself not to weep with relief and thankfulness.
? ? ?
WHEN THE ROOM was empty—even the servants had withdrawn to leave Cap and Sophie alone for as long as they wanted privacy—Cap let out a long, hoarse sigh. He was trying to smile, and Sophie was trying not to cry. They made an excellent couple.
The only time he had touched her today had been the moment he put the ring on her finger, but now as they rose he took her elbow. His grip was firmer than she would have expected.
“My body is failing me,” he told her. “But my mind is still as it ever was. Tell me what’s going on that took Conrad, Jack, and Anna out of the room.”
She grimaced. “I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”
“Then we have a mystery to solve. I suspect my study is the place to start.”
? ? ?
ANNA SAT AT the long worktable in Cap’s study and ran her hands over the polished oak. Once the whole surface had been covered with a riot of papers and pens and books; now a single sheet of paper had been laid in the middle. A summons, with her own name on it.