His guest looked at the silver tray of crystal decanters on the sideboard. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
Henry waved a hand toward the cabinet. “You know where it is.”
His visitor strolled over to the sideboard and plucked the stopper from the lid of one of the bottles, pouring a generous amount into a cut-glass tumbler. Holding it up to the light of the chandelier, he swirled the tawny liquid in the glass, catching the glow of gaslight. “Lovely, isn’t it?” he said, gulping down half the glass before settling languidly onto the love seat. “Don’t you want to know where I’ve been?”
“No!” Henry declared with a shudder.
“You know, I didn’t even plan the last one. It just happened. Though it was quite exciting, I must say.”
“Shut up,” said Henry.
“But I thought you liked my little stories.”
“Just stop talking.”
His visitor shrugged. They sat, silence heavy as chains between them, the only sound in the room the mechanical ticking of the mantel clock.
Finally Henry said, “Why did you come here? What do you want?”
“Tut-tut—is that any way to speak to your own flesh and blood?”
“You want money? An alibi? A change of clothes?” he added, with a glance at the bloodstained shirt.
His guest helped himself to a cigarette from a silver box on the end table. “I’m disappointed in you. I drop by for a friendly visit, and this is how you treat me. You wound me deeply, Henry.”
Henry rose abruptly from his chair and went to the window, pulling back the crimson brocade drapes to gaze into the street below. “This can’t go on, you know,” he said finally.
“What are you referring to? The inclement weather, this hotel—your engagement at the Theatre Royal?”
“You know very well what I mean.”
“Then why don’t you turn me in? Afraid of the adverse effect the publicity would have on your glittering career?”
Henry wheeled about with such a look of fury and loathing that the man on the sofa shrank back. Regaining his composure, he smiled arrogantly. “Tut-tut, Henry—or should I call you Monsieur Le Coq? I can plainly see what you’re thinking, but do you think you could get away with killing me? You’re bound to botch it in the end, and then you’ll be the one with a life behind bars.”
Henry clenched his fists and hissed through his teeth, “It would be worth it, by God, to rid the world of the likes of you.”
The other man laughed softly. “You’re not the killing type, Henry. Why don’t you leave it to those who are?”
Henry fixed his gaze deliberately upon his visitor, locking eyes with him. For a moment, the man on the sofa met his stare, his face blank. His shoulders relaxed, and his eyes began to glaze over, his cigarette dangling loose from his fingers, as though about to fall to the plush carpet beneath his feet.
“You do not really wish to kill anyone,” Henry said slowly. “You are sorry for those you have injured, and you will never hurt anyone again.”
His visitor grinned and sat up straight. “Do you really think your technique will work on me? How pathetic. I know all the tricks, better than you do!”
Henry turned away in disgust and looked out the window. People hurried along the street below, caught up in the mundane minutiae of their lives. He felt so removed from them, barely able to recall life’s everyday pleasures—a warm fire at the end of a day, a hot cup of cocoa on a winter’s night, the soft touch of a woman’s hand. He was an automaton going through the motions of living, as if he were on the other side of a mirror, looking in. Everything he had formerly enjoyed felt mechanical and meaningless. His only comfort now was cigarettes.
“You know,” his visitor remarked, “you have no right to scorn me. After all, someone had to play the villain. You should be grateful to me.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Henry hissed without turning around.
“It’s all his handiwork, you know. All those years, putting us at each other’s throats. What could he possibly expect—”
“Stop it!” Henry cried.
“Don’t tell me you ‘loved’ him!” he snorted. Cocking his head to one side, he gave a scornful smile. “You did! You actually cared for him, didn’t you? That’s disgusting. He was a monster.”
“You’re the monster,” Henry rasped, his voice thick with emotion. He wheeled around abruptly and strode over to a small safe secreted behind a romantic oil painting of a thatched cottage. Pushing the painting aside, he twirled the tumbler with trembling fingers, pulling open the heavy door. He fumbled inside and withdrew several bundles of bank bills.
“Here,” he said, thrusting them at his visitor. “Take this. Do what you will with it—but don’t come back.”
The other man crossed his arms and leaned back into the plush sofa cushions. “So now you’re going to buy me off. What about your own guilty soul—can you buy that off, too? Would any amount of money stop the nightmares, the dark thoughts, the river of sin that flows through your blood?”
Henry Wright bowed his head, anguish gripping his heart with a cold, hard grasp. His ears buzzed, and spots danced before his eyes. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth, his voice harsh and raspy, the words wrung out of him. “Take the money. I don’t want to know what you’re doing or where you are; just leave me in peace, for God’s sake!”
The other man drained the last of his whisky before rising from his seat. Taking the bills, he stuffed them into his coat pockets. “Very well,” he said stiffly, though Henry had the sense he was putting on an act, incapable of true emotion. “I will not darken your doorstep again—unless you do something foolish, of course.”
“You have made promises before,” Henry cried. “See that you keep this one!”
Without another word, his visitor slipped out of the room and into the night. In two strides Henry crossed to the window and closed the heavy drapes. He stood for a moment, staring blankly into space before pouring himself a stiff drink, which he downed in one gulp. Lighting another cigarette, he sank into the armchair by the fire and gazed at the licking orange flames with an expression of utter defeat and horror, as if he were staring into the fires of hell itself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next morning, Ian called upon Catherine Harley, niece of Eugene Harley, Esq., the late Stephen Wycherly’s employer. After calling in on her uncle first, Ian learned that Tuesday was her day off. The old man had delicately hinted that she might be sufficiently recovered from her shock at young Stephen’s death to answer questions. Ian showed up at her doorstep at precisely half past nine.
He was bustled into an elegant foyer full of hunting prints by a personage of considerable girth who appeared to function as lady’s maid, nanny, cook, and heaven knew what else. She wiped her hands on the tea towel at her waist before shoving a stray hairpin into her unruly red hair, all the while muttering to herself. The whole performance seemed geared toward giving the impression that he was an unwelcome complication to an already busy day.
“Wait here, Mr.—”