Well, Arthur Horace was about to get a piece of her mind. He was going to know just who he was dealing—
The elevator doors clanged back open, and Genevieve stepped into chaos.
The newsroom was in an uproar. Secretaries were rushing from desk to desk, frantically gathering files, transferring them to the appropriate reporters, and delivering what appeared to be urgent telegrams. One journalist was shouting into the newspaper’s telephone while others barked orders at their assistants. Genevieve walked in amazement to her desk, dodging newsboys and secretaries. Once there, she slowly removed her yellow gloves and surveyed the scene. A quick glance through the glass doors of Mr. Horace’s office revealed that Clive was standing in front of the editor’s desk, nodding while the older man gestured wildly.
To her surprise, Luther was in there as well.
What on earth was going on?
Genevieve grabbed the elbow of a secretary hurrying past, her arms full of files. “What happened?”
The shorter, bright-blonde woman looked at Genevieve in impatient excitement. “Robin Hood struck again. The letter arrived on Mr. Horace’s desk not five minutes ago.”
Genevieve gasped. “Who? Who did he rob this time?” she demanded, her eyes flying back to the door. Luther’s presence in Arthur’s office took on new meaning.
Luther covered homicide. Had someone been killed?
“The Bradleys. Miss, I’ve got to get these to Mr. Huxton …” The secretary pulled her elbow out of Genevieve’s grasp and scuttled across the room, files precariously slipping.
A thousand possibilities, a thousand suspects, flashed in her mind’s eye.
Anyone who had been at the ball could be the thief. Anyone.
Who had died?
She sat down with a clunk, keeping an eye on the door to Arthur’s office. Both reporters with him were now nodding as Arthur pointed a finger first at one, then the other. She picked up a pencil and thrummed it against her desk out of sheer nerves.
Finally, the door opened. She turned to a stack of papers piled before her, pretending to be engrossed as Clive passed with a smirk, but looked up and caught Luther’s attention with a little wave.
“Hey, toots.” Her friend sat heavily on the edge of her desk. He removed a blue handkerchief from an inner pocket and mopped his brow.
“Robin Hood? At the Bradleys’?” It almost felt as though she should be whispering, even though the entire newsroom had heard.
“Yeah,” confirmed Luther, looking at her somberly.
“But why were you in the meeting? Luther, has someone …?” It was hard to form the question.
He nodded soundlessly.
Genevieve’s breath caught in her throat. “Who?”
“Elmira Bradley.” Luther blew out a breath and looked back toward Arthur’s office. “This all just got a lot more serious, Genevieve.”
“No,” she gasped. Again, unbidden images from Saturday night popped into her head. Amos, shaking his finger in Elmira’s face. Mr. Meade, narrowing his eyes at his hostess from the stairs. Esmie, spitting the word “Mother” in such contempt. Elmira’s narrow back, peacock feathers bobbing, retreating down a long hallway toward the front entrance of the Bradley mansion. “Murdered?”
“Oh yeah.” He did lower his voice to a whisper. “Her throat was slit. It’s not public yet, so keep it quiet.”
Genevieve stifled a second gasp. Unbelievable. Mrs. Bradley dead. She hadn’t liked the woman, but she hadn’t wished murder—a cut throat—upon her.
“When?”
“They found her early this morning and called the police.”
A shudder passed through her. It was hard to shake the image of Elmira lying dead, her neck a gaping wound. “The ball was Saturday. The police think she was killed sometime Sunday night?”
“Or early this morning. The coroner will try to determine a more precise time of death.”
The language of murder—time of death, coroner, throat slit—was making Genevieve’s head spin. She knew that for Luther these terms were bread and butter, but they were a far cry from the hats and parasols in which she normally traded.
Genevieve straightened in her chair and removed her hand from her mouth, where it had flown of its own accord. If this was what she wanted to do, she had better get used to such language.
“But was Robin Hood involved? What does the letter say?”
Luther shrugged a bit. “The same. That’s the weird thing. The sins of greed, ostentatiousness, you know. What the Hood always says. Doesn’t say anything about killing anyone.” He peered at Genevieve gravely.
Her mind instantly jumped to Reginald Cotswold. She thought of what her colleagues at the paper didn’t know, and what the police had chosen to ignore as the rantings of a grief-stricken elderly lady. That something had been taken from his house. That Reginald had not died in bed but was found in the room where that something had been kept.
“What was stolen?”
He shook his head. “We don’t know yet. The family reported the death, and I guess they’re being questioned by the police at home right now. They didn’t mention anything having been stolen, so far as we know. But we have the letter; the Hood says he was there.”
“Do the police know yet?”
“They must by now. Arthur telegraphed as soon as the letter arrived.”
As if on cue, the elevator doors opened noisily and silence hushed the office, the newspaper employees watching in unison as Commissioner Simons strode through the doors and marched between the desks toward Arthur’s office, his face clenched in apparent rage. He slammed the door behind him so hard the glass panes seemed to tremble, and the wooden blinds within shut with a furious snap, blocking the workers’ curious eyes. The muffled sounds of raised voices soon permeated the walls, and the noise in the office began to creep back toward its regular level.
“Blimey,” Luther said, gazing at the closed door in awe. “He looked about to pop, he was so mad.”
Genevieve exhaled, still trying to reconcile herself to this new reality. The one in which whoever was Robin Hood might be capable of murder.
And not just
