The sight that greeted her stopped her in her tracks.
Callie, wrapped in one of Genevieve’s dressing gowns with a blanket over her shoulders for good measure, was huddled on the sofa, shaking hands clutching a cup of coffee. Genevieve rushed to her friend’s side as Dr. Needler, their family physician, stood up from where he’d been kneeling beside Callie.
“Just a bump on the head, I believe. Shouldn’t cause any lasting damage. But I’d like you to rest, young lady.”
Callie nodded, looking small and vulnerable under the blanket. Genevieve wrapped her arms around her friend and squeezed her tight as her mother showed Dr. Needler to the door.
“What happened?” she asked, smoothing back Callie’s hair.
“Robin Hood is what happened, miss,” said a different officer, who was standing in the corner of the room with her father. Wilbur nodded gravely at her. Genevieve hugged Callie tighter.
“I came home from the ball around two thirty and went to bed,” Callie explained, pulling back a bit to take a sip of coffee. “About an hour later I heard something fall downstairs. I went to check, as we’ve had, um, some problems with mice lately,” she admitted, small patches of color flaring in her otherwise wan face. “The house was dark, but I saw the shadow of a figure in the front parlor.” Genevieve could feel her friend begin to tremble. “When I turned to run away, I tripped over a piece of loose rug and struck my head on a table. I heard them run out the kitchen.”
Genevieve’s hand floated to her mouth, horrified. Then a new, more horrifying thought occurred. “Where is your grandmother?” she cried.
“Still asleep, hopefully.” Callie took a deep breath and ventured another drink from her china cup. “She was when I left. I didn’t have the heart to wake her. Once I saw she was fine, I ran over here as fast as I could. Woke up the whole house, I’m afraid.” She gave Wilbur a watery smile, who moved closer to pat her shoulder.
“Think nothing of it, my dear,” he murmured.
“An officer is guarding the front of the Maple house now, ma’am,” the second officer noted.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Miss Stewart,” Officer Jackson said, the gleam in his eye letting her know he hadn’t missed her bedraggled appearance. “Miss Maple was quite surprised you weren’t at home. She swore you left the ball hours ago.”
Callie shot her a miserable look.
“I’m sure Miss Maple simply didn’t see my daughter before she left,” Anna said in a steely voice, daring the officer to voice his implication.
“Yes.” Genevieve picked up the cue. “I was stuck in the ladies’ retiring room for some time, helping Mrs. Stansfield with her costume.” She turned to Callie. “You saw it, remember? She was outfitted as a skyscraper, complete with electric lights woven throughout. Quite cunning. But the lights began blinking erratically, and several of us spent at least forty-five minutes in there with her, trying to work out the wiring under her skirts—”
“That’s fine, Miss Stewart,” the other officer interrupted, looking pained.
“Are we sure it was Robin Hood?” Genevieve asked, wanting to move the subject away from her whereabouts for the past few hours. Officer Jackson said nothing but eyed her speculatively.
“It must be.” Callie’s eyes filled with tears. “The diamonds, Genevieve. They’re gone.”
“Once more unto the breach, indeed,” Genevieve muttered to herself, wiping her filthy hands on her skirt. She frowned at the brown marks now marring the yellow wool, then at the indifferent facade of the last file cabinet she had to tackle.
A ball of pain was gathering at the base of her skull. It had been a long and tiring two days. The police had accompanied Callie, in a dress borrowed from Genevieve with its hem dragging in the mud, back to her own house, where they told her grandmother the distressing news about the theft. The older woman was so overcome that she collapsed on the spot and was taken to the hospital, where arrangements were made for the family to stay with Eliza and her father until the Maple women felt strong enough to return to their own home. Genevieve assisted in all of this, and once she ascertained that Callie was safely ensconced with Eliza (when she was not with her grandmother at the hospital), she managed to meet up with her brother Charles for their appointment. Despite having had no sleep Saturday night and enduring an emotional and taxing Sunday, Genevieve found it almost impossible to fall asleep Sunday night, her anxious mind swirling with myriad theories about Robin Hood, Lexington Industries, and Daniel. She supposed she finally drifted off to sleep sometime in the wee hours of the morning, for she woke at ten o’clock to a gray, wintry light suffusing her bedroom, the damp and foggy morning matching her mood.
She’d spent hours painstakingly combing the files at the municipal archives, which felt like digging for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The clerk at the archives had handled her multiple requests professionally enough to begin with, but by her twelfth call slip she’d noticed a distinct tightening of the clerk’s lips as the other woman tried and failed to hold in an aggrieved sigh. But Genevieve was glad she’d persevered, for it was in the final file that she had struck gold.
She knew who was funding Lexington Industries. She knew what they really did.
In the interest of thoroughness, she’d come to the newspaper’s records room to double-check her information against the paper’s files and see if she could ferret out anything new.
It was unnerving, to say the least, to be down the hall from where she had almost lost her life. And none of the secretaries had been able to accompany her, though Verna, who had been there the night she was attacked, had flashed her an understanding look and said she’d come up in an hour to check on her. To her relief, the tenth floor
