“That’s better,” Thelma said, her voice hardening. “Now go back into the shop.”
Still dazed from the stunning shock, Charlotte turned slowly and moved a short distance into the darkened room. Thelma followed quickly. She closed and locked the door.
“What is this about?” Charlotte asked. It took everything she had to keep her own voice calm.
“It’s about the Bridewell Engine,” Thelma snapped. “What did you think it was about, you silly woman?”
“What engine?”
“According to the old lab notebook, it looks something like a snow globe.”
Events came together with sickening clarity.
“You and Jeremy Gaines were working together,” Charlotte said.
“We were partners for more than three years until he decided to cut me out of the biggest deal of all.”
“You killed Jeremy?”
“We were going to split the profits from the Bridewell Engine. But Gaines got greedy.”
“I trust that didn’t come as a huge surprise,” Charlotte said.
“No, but I made the mistake of thinking that he understood that he needed me as much as I needed him.” Thelma snorted. “Unfortunately, he was too shortsighted to see that. He planned to grab the engine and sell it on his own.”
“Did you murder him with the Sylvester device?”
“Oh, no, I used the mirror on Gaines,” Thelma said. “I had to work quickly that night, you see.”
“I understand now. When I set out to find the snow globe for Jeremy I inadvertently led him to Mrs. Lambert. He realized that she was the collector who refused to sell.”
“He broke into her house one night but he couldn’t find the engine.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to find it even if he had known what it looks like because she kept it in a special vault.”
“He was going to break in again to look for it but by then Lambert had already made arrangements to give her glass collection to the Arcane museum,” Thelma said. “The staff packed up what we assumed were all of the objects. The glassware was taken away and stored in the museum’s vaults.”
“Then Mrs. Lambert suffered a heart attack and later died in the hospital,” Charlotte said.
“We tried to come up with a plan to break into the museum vaults but it looked impossible. J&J recently tightened security there. Then Gaines found a copy of the inventory of the items that Mrs. Lambert had given to the museum. There was no object resembling the Bridewell Engine on it. But he learned that some additional items had been bequeathed to you.”
“But by then the bequest that was coming to me was under lock and key in a vault at Lambert’s bank where it stayed until the estate was sorted out.”
“Gaines and I cooled our heels until you took possession of the bequest. During that time Gaines tried to seduce you.” Thelma looked disgusted. “He was accustomed to being able to charm women and everyone else. I swear, it was part of his talent. But he finally realized that you were not going to fall at his feet. So he sat back to wait for you to take possession of the Lambert bequest.”
“Then I screwed up his plans again by shipping the Lambert bequest along with most of the contents of my Frequency City shop here to the island.”
“He was furious,” Thelma said. “But that was when he finally decided to tell me about the side deal he had made for the Bridewell Engine. The customer had offered him a huge amount of money, more than either Gaines or I had ever made on a single sale. It was enough to retire on.”
“Why did he tell you about the deal he had arranged on his own?”
“When he found out the globe was here on the island, he realized that he would need my help,” Thelma said. “I’m quite sure he planned to kill me afterward.”
“But you murdered him first.”
“I came to the same conclusion he did,” Thelma said coldly. “I decided that I no longer needed a partner.”
“You killed him here in my shop so that if there was any sort of investigation, I would be the most likely suspect.”
“I wasn’t terribly worried about the new police chief,” Thelma said. “Attridge wouldn’t have wound up on Rainshadow in the first place if he was a good cop. But one does have to keep an eye out for Jones & Jones. Occasionally the agency insists on meddling. But fortunately everyone involved accepted the obvious cause of death. Heart attack. They also accepted the obvious reason for Gaines’s presence in your shop. He was supposedly stalking you.”
“But you couldn’t find the Bridewell Engine that night.”
Thelma’s face twisted with rage. “I work glasslight. I was sure that the energy in the engine would be powerful enough to stand out, even amid all these objects. But I was wrong.”
“Yes, you were. The engine doesn’t get hot until someone fires it up.”
Thelma’s eyes glittered. “You found it? Where is it?”
“I unpacked it,” Charlotte said soothingly. “I’ll get it for you.”
“If you try to trick me, I swear—”
“Do you want it or not?”
“Get it.”
Charlotte walked across the room to the old safe. She rezzed the code. When the mag-steel door opened she reached inside and took out the dull gray glass object.
“That’s not the Bridewell Engine,” Thelma barked. “It can’t be. It’s just an old paperweight.” She raised the mirror higher. “I warned you—”
“Watch,” Charlotte said softly.
She touched her pendant and pulsed a little energy into the heart of the globe. The dome started to glow. It grew first translucent and then clear. A storm of tiny glass particles fell like snow over the miniature Victorian landscape. Powerful currents of psi swirled in the atmosphere of the shop.
“That’s it,” Thelma breathed. “I can feel it now. Give it to me.”
“Be careful,” Charlotte said. “It’s psi-hot.”
“I told you, I can handle glass energy.”
Thelma seized the globe in her free hand. She gazed into it, transfixed.
“It’s incredible,” she said. “I can feel the power in it. Absolutely incredible.”
“Why is it worth murder?”
“Don’t you know?” Thelma did not take her eyes off the sparkling scene. “This was Millicent Bridewell’s greatest secret. According to the old notebook, this was the device she created that allowed her to infuse energy into glass in such a way that it could be used as a weapon.”
“She used the globe to create her clockwork curiosities?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“What?” Thelma seemed distracted by the crystal snow inside the globe. Her face tightened in concentration.
“I just wondered how you know for certain that’s the Bridewell Engine,” Charlotte repeated softly.
“It’s all in the notebook,” Thelma said absently. “That’s how I learned of the existence of the engine in the first place.” A visible tremor shivered through her. She gasped in response and frowned. “It’s incredibly powerful.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “How did you come by the notebook?”
“Your aunt found it for me, of course. After I deciphered it I realized that the rumors I had heard were true. One of the First Generation colonists had brought the Bridewell Engine through the Curtain. I told Gaines about it. He managed to locate the refurbished Sylvester doll but not the engine. I took a chance and asked your aunt to find a certain Nineteenth Century Old World snow globe. But she started to ask too many questions.”
Another frisson of intuition sliced across Charlotte’s senses.
“You killed Aunt Beatrix, didn’t you?” she asked.
“As I said, she was starting to get suspicions. My sons and I ran a very profitable business here on the island for several years, selling items out of Looking Glass to mainland collectors. Beatrix never had a clue. All she cared
