“It exists.” Mr. Slade took another drink.
“By the by,” Lord Unwin drawled, “I have news for you. A message from Birmingham came this morning. Joseph Lock is dead.”
“What?” Shock jolted the exclamation out of Mr. Slade. “When? How?”
“Steady, my good man, steady now.” Lord Unwin made a calming gesture, but his eyes gleamed with spite. “Yesterday, Mr. Lock put a bullet into his head. It seems that your options are disappearing in rapid succession.”
Mr. Slade clenched his jaws. With Joseph Lock and Isabel White dead and the book missing, he faced the ruin of the most important venture of his life.
“Just how do you plan to finish the job now?” Lord Unwin demanded, but a tinge of apprehension colored his authoritative bluster.
“There was a witness to Isabel White’s murder,” Mr. Slade said. “Her name is Charlotte Bronte. She and Isabel traveled together on the train from Yorkshire to London. Perhaps Isabel told Miss Bronte something of value to us.”
“Then you had better pursue Miss Bronte, hadn’t you?” Lord Unwin pushed aside his glass. He took from his pocket a thick envelope and flung it across the table to Mr. Slade.
Mr. Slade inspected the banknotes in the envelope, then rose. He and Lord Unwin exchanged a stare of mutual dislike and reluctant conspiracy. “I fully intend to,” he replied.
6
Who was John Slade? What had he been to Isabel White, and what were his intentions regarding me? The answers to those questions will emerge in due course. For now I shall resume my own story.
In my room at the Chapter Coffee House, I vomited into a basin for the fourth time since Isabel’s death. Anne held my head, which pounded with thunderous pain. Finally I lay back on the bed, exhausted from my violent reaction to the trials of the past two days.
“Poor Charlotte,” Anne said, gently wiping my face with a damp cloth. “I’m sorry that you are suffering so badly.”
Sallow dusk glowed through the windows. The room was hot and stuffy. The Chapter Coffee House had once been a haunt of booksellers, publishers, writers, and critics. Later it became an inn frequented by university men and country clerics who were up in London. My father, who had stayed there during his days as a divinity student, had brought Emily and me here when he took us to school in Belgium. But that morning, upon our arrival, the proprietor had informed us that the Chapter Coffee House seldom accommodated overnight guests at present. Seeing our distress, he had graciously allowed us to stay and given us this dingy room upstairs. The inn was an empty, desolate place.
“My suffering is nothing compared to that of Isabel White,” I said, tossing feverishly. “That such a beautiful creature should be cut down in the prime of her life!”
“She is now at peace with God,” Anne said.
Faith had sustained our family through many troubles, but I drew meager solace from it now. “Isabel White came to Paternoster Row to see me!”
When I returned to the inn after speaking to the constable, the proprietor told me that Isabel had called for me a short time earlier. She had seemed upset to learn that I was out, he said, and had hurried away. Her killer must have attacked her immediately afterward.
“I knew she was in trouble, and I told her where to find me if she needed my help.” I winced at the agony of my headache. “It’s my fault that she met her death here.”
“Oh, Charlotte, you mustn’t blame yourself,” Anne said, bathing my face with cool water. “You were trying to do good. The blame belongs to the evil person who killed Miss White.”
Although I recognized the wisdom of my sister’s words, she could not dispel my guilt. “I’m certain that the police will do nothing to find the killer. Most probably, they consider it not worth their effort.”
“Perhaps the killer was a swell mobsman, as the constable suggested,” Anne said. “Perhaps he’ll be caught by the police in the course of his subsequent crimes, and punished then.”
“I cannot believe that the murder was but an accident of fate, and I cannot bear to simply wait and hope that another accident of fate will bring justice,” I cried with a passion. “No! I must try to discover who killed Isabel White.”
“You?” Anne was astonished. “My dear Charlotte!”
“It’s the least I can do for Miss White.”
“But it is police business, not yours. You’ve neither the right nor the means to investigate murder. What could you possibly do?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “But I must know the real story of what happened to Isabel. If I weren’t so ill, perhaps I could devise a plan.”
With uncharacteristic acerbity Anne said, “I begin to think that your illness has affected your mind.”
“My mind is perfectly sound.” I sat up, nettled by her suggestion.
“What other than mental aberration could explain these peculiar notions?” Rising, Anne twisted her hands in anxiety, but a rare defiant spark lit her eyes.
“You may be content to wait passively for matters to arrange themselves, but I am not,” I snapped. While I knew that my wish to find Isabel White’s killer sounded unreasonable, I resented my younger sister’s challenging me. “Why, if I hadn’t decided upon selling our writing, and persuaded you and Emily to join me in sending our work to publishers, we would have published nothing.”
“Too much initiative is as bad as too little.” Anne’s voice was breathless; she grasped the chair for support, but her gaze held mine. “I daresay that the murder isn’t the only thing that has impaired your judgment. Perhaps your literary success has rendered you foolishly bold.”
Sputtering in astonished indignation, I said, “Perhaps you envy my success and wish me to do nothing more than spend my life in idle, dull obscurity; but remember this: If not for my foolish boldness, we wouldn’t be where we are now!”
Tears shimmered in Anne’s eyes. Averting her face, she said, “I wish we were not.”
Now I was ashamed because I had hurt Anne. The murder must have been as upsetting to her as to me, but while I had collapsed, she had nursed me. She also had stood loyally by me during our expedition to Smith, Elder amp; Company. I felt guilty that I often gave Anne short shrift because she had never been my favorite sister. I loved Anne dearly, of course, but compared to Emily, brilliant and original of mind, Anne seemed dully inferior. I was suddenly horrified at how we had turned against each other. The rift between my sisters and me was growing. I climbed off the bed and hobbled over to Anne, who stood, head bowed, beside the window.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, taking her hand. “I shouldn’t have spoken as I did. Can you forgive me?”
Anne sniffed, managed a tremulous smile, and nodded. “If you will forgive me for speaking harshly to you.”
We embraced in mutual relief. Still, I harbored a need to learn the truth about Isabel White’s murder. A persistent curiosity gnawed at my mind, as though I’d been reading an engrossing book and had it snatched away from me before I could reach the end. I desired to obtain justice for this stranger who had engaged my interest and my sympathy. I could only hope that somehow an opportunity would present itself.
“Mr. Smith and his sisters will be coming to call soon,” I said. “We’d better prepare ourselves.”
After another hour’s rest, we washed, then dressed in fresh clothes. My sickness abated, though I still felt very shaky. When I peered in the mirror, my face looked as though it had aged ten years. Turning away from my ghastly reflection, I went with Anne downstairs to meet George Smith and two young ladies, whom he introduced as his sisters. They were brown-haired, fair, and lively like himself. They were very elegantly dressed in white silk gowns.
“I am pleased to present Miss Charlotte Brown and Miss Anne Brown, my friends from Yorkshire,” George Smith said, keeping his promise to conceal the our true identities.
He looked quite handsome and distinguished in tailcoat and white gloves, carrying a tall black hat. I
