The Connicle Curse (16 page)

W
e were waiting in a grand outer office with rich oak wainscoting climbing halfway up the walls and maroon velvet-flocked wallpaper with a subtle French pattern covering the rest. The parquet floor was a darker oak and had several plush area rugs placed about that looked like they came from someone's château in the Loire Valley of France. The furniture was substantial and covered in tufted leather the color of port. Each piece was so massive that even Colin, with his broad shoulders and powerful arms, looked about to be swallowed whole by the wing-backed chair he was trying to fill. But the single item that spoke most to the level of Columbia Financial's success was that the whole building had been converted to electric lighting.

“Mr. Tessler will see you now.” A thin, stoic young man beckoned us to follow him. His deportment was so flawless that it seemed the firm must surely belong to him. At least until he brought us to a set of double doors, where he knocked once before swinging them open to reveal a huge office with room enough for several couches, a small bar beneath one of the windows, and an enormous desk behind which sat a barrel-chested man of middle years with dark features. “Mr. Tessler,” our young escort said with the practiced ease of one who had done this a thousand times, “I have Mr. Colin Pendragon and Mr. Ethan Pruitt of Scotland Yard.”

Colin cringed as Mr. Tessler came over to us and shook our hands with a ready smile. Mr. Tessler stood about three inches taller than Colin and possessed a swarthy handsomeness crowned by a raven-black nest of hair. “Gentlemen.” His voice was as solid and resonant as his handshake was meant to impress. “Welcome to Columbia Financial Services.”

“I'll bring some tea,” the young man announced.

“You mustn't,” Colin said at once. “We won't stay but a few minutes.” The lad nodded and let himself out, pulling the doors shut. “We do appreciate your willingness to meet us without notice,” Colin said as we followed Mr. Tessler to the couches. They were arranged in an open-sided square to create a sort of conversation area but in actuality reminded me of the seating at the Earl of Arnifour's opium den.

“I would be remiss not to,” Mr. Tessler replied easily. “I assume this has something to do with Edmond Connicle's terrible death?”

“He was a founding partner, was he not?” Colin asked, ignoring the question.

“Indeed he was. Frankly, without Edmond there wouldn't be a Columbia Financial. He was the majority stakeholder in the beginning. It was only after we began making some real money about a dozen years ago that he finally became just another overpaid senior partner.” He gave a light chuckle that quickly died in his throat. “It's all so horrid. Especially given his wife's delicate nature.” Mr. Tessler shook his head. “Edmond made me the executor of his estate after she was hospitalized some years back. She spent several months at Needham Hills after suffering a terrible bout of hysteria. It took quite a toll on her.”

“Yes. I have experienced the residue from that place myself,” Colin said, and I was relieved when he did not elaborate. “What would you think if I told you she believes she spotted her husband near Covington Market yesterday?”

Mr. Tessler blanched as he stared back at Colin. “That would be dreadful news. Poor Annabelle.”

“And what if I told you that I now suspect she may be right?”

Mr. Tessler's brow furrowed as he flicked his eyes from Colin to me in the space of an instant. It was as though he were checking to see whether Colin might be playing some awful joke on him. “Mr. Pendragon . . . ?” was all he said.

“Is it possible Edmond Connicle is off on some business?”

Mr. Tessler shook his head. “No. I would know that. Our business rarely takes us out of the city.”

“Can you think of any reason he might want to disappear in such a way?”

“Such a way?”

“To be perceived of as dead,” Colin said flatly, as though speaking about the weather.

“No. Never.” Mr. Tessler continued to shift his eyes from Colin to me. “Are you jesting?”

“I do not jest when it comes to murder,” Colin said as he stood up and wandered over to the large windows along one side of the office. “Was he having any trouble here at the office? Funds gone unaccounted for? A soured business deal? An angry client? A young lady come to call too often?”

Mr. Tessler looked noticeably uncomfortable, though by which suggestion I could not be sure. “Edmond was a considered and thoughtful man, which is what made him such an outstanding leader at this company. His ethics were beyond reproach. Everyone admired him. What you are suggesting is just”—he seemed quite beside himself as he searched for the right word—“impossible.”

Colin nodded as he turned from the window. “Impossible . . .” he repeated, coming back over to stand behind me. “Such a curious word. Rather like a challenge. Tell me, Mr. Tessler, did he have any business dealings with Arthur Hutton?”

“Oh my.” He drew in a breath and shook his head. “Another terrible tragedy. But Arthur was my client. I took care of him and Charlotte personally. Are you thinking there could be some correlation between what's happened to the two of them?”

Colin forced a hollow smile. “Beyond the wisp of a doubt.”

“But what about that African? You cannot possibly think his death related to Edmond and Arthur?”

“You would be amazed at some of the things I think.” He flashed a tight smile. “Did Edmond Connicle have
anything
to do with the Hutton accounts?”

“Never.”

“Then what do you make of her assertion that her husband had grown displeased with the way their money was being managed ?”

Mr. Tessler allowed the semblance of a smile to cross his lips. “Arthur made some foolish choices and he was not a man to own up to it very easily. I have no idea what he told his wife, but you know how women are about business. They haven't the first notion of any of it.”

“And yet most manage a household quite handily,” Colin shot back with an easy grin. “I do believe we've taken enough of your time.” He nodded and headed for the door. “If you will permit me one last request . . . ?”

“Whatever I can do to help,” Mr. Tessler answered smoothly.

“I should very much like to get a look at the Connicles' financial ledgers tomorrow morning, and perhaps those of the Huttons as well.”

“I'm afraid I won't be here in the morning.” He flung open the doors and walked us back through the waiting area. “I'm going out to pay my respects to Mrs. Hutton. You're free to come in the afternoon, but you'll not find anything of interest. You can be assured of that.”

“Very well then.” Colin smiled amiably. “We shall be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“As you wish.” Mr. Tessler shrugged, pulling the door to the suite open and offering his hand. And though his grip remained absurdly firm, it was the first time I noticed he did not meet my gaze.

D
inner had been dispensed with, Mrs. Behmoth's preeminent corned beef and cabbage, and Colin was already throwing his dumbbells about. He was pacing in front of the fireplace, his arms straining against the weights, which seemed quite lost on him, given the otherworldly look clouding his eyes. He had said little during dinner, though there was much I was curious to ask. I settled into my chair and pretended to read the newspaper for a few minutes, Colin's pacing and huffing as steady as the clock on the mantel, before finally giving up my ruse.

“Do you suppose Varcoe is ever going to find out who the body we thought was Edmond Connicle really is?”

The dumbbells pistoned toward the ceiling, one after the other. “I shouldn't think so. Just ask yourself how many people could disappear in this city without causing a ripple?”

I nodded. He was right. Nobody knew that better than I.

“Someone, very likely Edmond Connicle himself, has been playing the Yard
and us
for fools all this time. Leading us like lemmings.” Colin set the dumbbells down but did not stop his pacing. “I don't like being made a fool.”

“How do you mean?”

“The body we thought was Edmond Connicle was burned beyond recognition for what we now know are obvious reasons, while the fetishes beneath it had been conspicuously buried to ensure they would be found. Yet when it came to the murder of Arthur Hutton the fetishes were shoved in his mouth because now we were
looking
for them, while his body was barely burnt. It didn't need to be.” He dropped into the seat beside me. “Somebody is working very hard to point us right where they intend for us to look.”

“At the Connicles' scullery maid, Alexa.”

“Precisely.”

“And you think that might be Edmond Connicle?”

“Almost certainly. But to what end? And who else might be working with him? He cannot be doing all of this alone.”

“Is Varcoe doing enough to try and find him?”

Colin stood up and stalked back to the fireplace, poking at the embers arbitrarily. “He's got a small task force trolling the East End and the wharfs, and he's sending a few more to stake out the Covington Market area, but I doubt that'll yield anything. Edmond Connicle couldn't be daft enough to show up there twice.” He shoved the poker back into place and turned to face me. “Which is why we're going to have a look at his financial ledgers tomorrow. See if we can figure out what he might be up to. Beyond that . . .” He shook his head wearily. “I'm going to bed.” He headed down the hall toward the back of the flat.

I heaved a sigh myself and decided bringing an end to this day might be just the thing when a sudden pounding drifted up from the door below.

“I'm not home!”
Colin hollered.

I chuckled as I heard Mrs. Behmoth make her way to the door. I was fairly certain she would find young Paul on our front steps looking for another crown or two after his daylong siege shadowing Sunny Guitnu, but when I peeked over the balustrade onto the foyer below I found myself staring down at Inspector Varcoe's snow-white head.

“Where's Pendragon?” he barked at Mrs. Behmoth.

“And a ruddy good evenin' ta you too,” she sallied right back.

Varcoe's eyes shot up and landed on me. “You'll want to hear this, Pruitt. You're both going to want to hear this.” The thick foreboding in his voice made me immediately nod and wave him up. This confounding case, I realized, was about to get worse.

“I suppose you'll be wantin' tea!” Mrs. Behmoth groused as she shut the door and trundled back to the kitchen.

I did not bother to answer her but headed back to rally Colin even as I heard the inspector bounding up the stairs behind me. He would just have to make himself comfortable while I did so. I opened the door to our room just in time to find Colin flinging his undergarments into a pile near our armoire. “We've company,” I said.

“The only company I want”—he looked back at me with half-lidded eyes—“is you.”

“Would you settle for Emmett Varcoe?”

“Not when I'm starkers.” He hurried across the room and began pulling his clothes back on. “Did he say what it's about?”

“He says he has something to tell us. Something we'll both want to hear.”

“Interesting.” Colin draped his tie around his neck and shrugged his coat on, not bothering with shoes as he pecked my cheek and yanked the door open. “Then let us see what our partner has to say for himself,” he said as he padded off for the study.

“Pendragon!” the inspector bellowed the moment he saw Colin. Despite his being disheveled and in stocking feet, it earned him nary a flea's hesitation from Varcoe. “You are not going to believe who has just appeared from out of nowhere!”

“Edmond Connicle?” Colin responded without inflection.

Varcoe's jaw unhinged as he stared at Colin. “How could you know that? Are you keeping information from me?”

“Don't get yourself in an uproar. Whom else could you be here at such an hour to announce? It's fundamental. Now wherever did you find him?”

“Just past Tower Bridge by the Thames. A couple of my men came upon him being beaten nearly to death by some bloke whom they let get away. He's in hospital now. He hadn't regained consciousness when I left there to head over here. I've got him three armed guards posted outside his room.” Varcoe's eyebrows furrowed as he bolted back to his feet. “This bloody case is going to be the end of me.”

“Then we haven't a moment to lose.” Colin snickered as he rushed back down the hall for his shoes. “And we'll need to make a stop in Holland Park on the way.”

There was little I could do but give Varcoe a shrug. The fact that his normal pallor had shifted to something closer to cherry was not lost on me.

E
dmond Connicle's face, neck, and shoulders were horribly swollen and discolored in angry shades of purple, blue, magenta, and black. If the rest of his body was equally assaulted I feared he might not live through the night. Miss Porter had already been by to positively identify him, which was good, given that I could easily have been convinced that he was one of a thousand other brown-haired men, and even Varcoe wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

Edmond was slender and of modest proportions, but other than the color and fullness of his hair I could draw no conclusions. His eyes were mere slits, pinched shut and oozing from within the confines of eye sockets so inflamed that they rose well above his brow. His nose seemed to stretch from one cheek to the next and I could tell that it was broken just above the bridge. I suspected his right cheekbone had also been fractured, given the peculiar angle at which it disappeared under his hairline, but we would not know until the swelling had at least partially receded. The worst of it, however, was his labored breathing, rattling from deep within his chest. Edmond Connicle, a man thought to have been already dead, was now perilously close.

“Was he conscious when your men found him?” Colin asked Varcoe as he leaned in close.

“He was muttering some at first, but nothing anyone could make out.”

“And what of the man who did this? Could they describe him?”

Varcoe gave a foul expression as he shook his head. “Average height. Solid build. Not much else. They said it was too dark and he ran off down the quay as soon as my men saw what was going on. They had no idea the victim was Mr. Connicle until they got him down here and went through his pockets. That's when they sent for me,” he added with a note of pride.

“Does Mrs. Connicle know?” I asked, anxious for her to know that she was right even as much as I did not want her to see her husband's present state.

“Nah. Just that Porter woman. I'm hoping they keep that balmy wife of his sedated until he recovers.”

“That seems a bit harsh, given that she was the first to insist her husband was still alive,” I scolded.

He shrugged dismissively and folded his arms across his chest. “Then you and Pendragon can tend to her when she gets here.” He pulled some papers out of his pocket and handed them over to Colin. “They found these in his pockets. They're receipts.”

Colin thumbed through them quickly before passing them over to me. “They're all dated in the future. . . .”

I glanced down and found four hotel receipts covering a week's stay each. One for a hotel in Paris, one from Lyon, one from Lausanne, and one from Geneva. And true to Colin's word, all of them were dated with consecutively running future dates, starting with the hotel in Paris and ending with the one in Lausanne. “How can that be?” I looked at the both of them. “Receipts for dates that haven't even happened yet?”

Varcoe curled his lips and shook his head. “We found 'em; you figure the damn things out. Now I'm going to finish up with my men. I won't be but a minute. If Connicle here wakes up you'd better not ask him one single question until I get back.” He glared at us from the doorway. “And I'm not bloody well kidding.”

“He is infuriating,” Colin exhaled the moment the door slid shut.

“Never mind that. Just get what you need from him and solve this case. That's all that matters.”

“Always so optimistic,” he grumbled.

“I try.”

“It can be annoying, you know.”

I chose to ignore him and return to keener matters. “What did you tell Paul when we stopped in Holland Park at the Guitnus'?”

“I told him to see if he can ferret out any information on this attack. Edmond Connicle didn't disappear into the East End only to suffer some random beating. This was premeditated. Which means that someone down there knows something.”

“But he's just a boy! You can't send him snooping about with that rabble. Besides, who'll keep an eye on Sunny Guitnu? Make sure she doesn't run off with that Cillian lad?”

Colin waved me off. “She's not going anywhere. And do you really think that boy is going to abandon his mother?” He shook his head. “They'll be fine for one night. He can head out there again tomorrow morning. Tonight our clever lad should see what he can drum up. He said he lives near Saint Paul's. That means he'll be familiar with the area and the locals.”

“Colin, he's too young. I'll go. You know I spent a fair many years amongst that sort of crowd and—”

He held up a single hand. “Stop.”

Whatever else he was about to say was abruptly interrupted when the door swung wide and Annabelle Connicle came bursting in with Miss Porter, Wynn Tessler, and Dr. Renholme on her heels.

“It's true!” She swooned as she raced to the bed. “Edmond.
Edmond!
” She collapsed at the side of the bed, her hands clinging to his nearer arm as though receiving sustenance from it. “What have they done to you?” Her voice broke and she began to sob as Miss Porter, ashen and shaking, knelt beside her.

“It really is true. . . .” Mr. Tessler muttered as he sidled next to us. “I couldn't believe Miss Porter's words when she came back to the house. I simply had to come and see for myself.”

“You can be sure there will be no further errors or presumptions on this case,” Colin answered peevishly. I touched his elbow in an effort to encourage him to withhold his annoyance, but he only took a half step away from me. “How is it that you happened to be at the Connicle house when Miss Porter returned with her news?”

“What?” He shifted his eyes from Mrs. Connicle's prostrate form, Miss Porter crumpled on one side of her and Dr. Renholme on the other, and looked at Colin. “I was having her sign some documents,” he said absently. “I . . .” He glanced down at his briefcase and shook his head, his eyes filled with confusion. “I guess there'll be no need now. . . .”

Colin released a labored sigh and turned his back to the women and Dr. Renholme. “I'm afraid his condition is very grave. You might just keep what you have prepared.”

“Oh.” He sagged slightly, his expression a mirror of the astonishment we were all feeling. “Of course.”

“Where was he found, Mr. Pendragon?” Mrs. Connicle startled us as she turned from her husband.

Colin's lips drew tight and I could see his discomfort at the unsettling answer. “Along the Thames near Tower Bridge.”

“Tower Bridge?” she repeated, clearly trying to fathom what he might have been doing in such a place, just as we were.

“A couple men from the Yard were on their rounds when they spotted your husband having been set upon. They haven't made an arrest yet, but we remain ever hopeful.” He gave a tight grin that I was certain could not have soothed her. “It's fair to say that Inspector Varcoe's men surely saved your husband's life.”

“Oh, thank god,” she gasped.

“Are they looking for anyone?” Mr. Tessler's face came alive with his question. “Do they have a suspect?”

Colin shook his head as he glanced at Mrs. Connicle, seeing that she had turned her attentions back to her husband. “They do not,” he answered quietly. “But they can be resourceful. And Mr. Pruitt and I are well into this now.”

“Of course,” Mr. Tessler said, but his voice was tainted with doubt.

“We will be on our way then,” Colin said with what bravado he could muster. “Mrs. Connicle . . .” He stepped toward her, but she remained rigidly turned away, so he gave a quick and perfunctory shake of Mr. Tessler's hand.

“Please let me know as soon as you learn anything,” Mr. Tessler said. “I shall stay with Mrs. Connicle awhile.”

Colin gave an aggrieved sort of smile and nodded his head, and before I could properly bid farewell myself he pivoted backwards and barreled out of the room.