Andrew tried to hide his discomfort as he glanced around the room. The heavy velvet drapes were tied back to let in the noon light, the tall windows cracked in an attempt to clear the previous night’s cigar smoke. With its plush furniture and dark wood, it was the sort of room one might expect to find in any wealthy home, except… were those nymphs or cherubs in the painting on the far wall? Nymphs, he decided after a closer look. There were some things cherubs certainly would not do.
Two days had passed since the confrontation in Andrew’s office. Jonas had stopped by his office the day before, his face stony, to ask Andrew to meet this morning in one of the club’s private supper rooms. He said it was so they could be sure of speaking undisturbed, but Andrew suspected Jonas had chosen the venue to make him uncomfortable.
He supposed he deserved it. In truth, he would have been uncomfortable anywhere after what he’d done. Andrew still wasn’t certain whether the bargain he’d struck was justified by the circumstances or an unforgivable act of extortion. Either way, he felt he’d had no choice. He needed their help, and he’d done what was necessary to secure it, despite the flush of shame that roiled him every time he recalled Amelia’s face when she realized what he was saying. He crushed the feeling with a ruthless fist.
He had to find Julia. Amelia could help. Nothing else could be allowed to matter.
As Jonas rummaged through the bakery box Andrew had brought, Andrew cast another glance at the cavorting figures on the canvas. Whatever his misgivings, he was committed now.
Jonas muttered something around a mouthful of pastry.
“I beg your pardon?” Andrew asked.
Jonas swallowed and spoke again, his voice studiedly neutral. “I said you should sit down. You look like someone’s maiden aunt, standing there frowning. We have more important things to talk about than vulgar paintings. Besides,” he added in a more practical tone, “if you think that one is bad, you should see some of what’s hanging on the third floor.”
Andrew’s eyes strayed to the ceiling before he could stop them.
Jonas went on. “We need to talk about the rest of the plan.”
Andrew wrenched his attention back to the matter at hand. “The plan?”
“Yes. Amelia’s given you a month to let you use her like some sort of human dowsing rod.”
Andrew drew an irritated breath, but Jonas left him no opening, going on without pause. “You know how I feel about it. But as a purely practical matter, we need to come at this from more than one direction. We still don’t know what Amelia’s able to do, or what it will cost her. There are far too many patients for her to sort through on her own, and we have no idea how many staff may be involved. I don’t want her on that island one minute longer than she has to be, and I don’t want to give you any room to imply we haven’t held up our end of the deal.”
“What are you thinking?” Andrew asked, trying to ignore the insult.
“My first thought was to pay a visit to our wayward husbands.”
Though Andrew wouldn’t have imagined it was possible, Jonas’s expression went even grimmer.
“Given adequate time, I’m sure I could persuade Daniel Miner or Bryce Weaver to cooperate,” Jonas continued. “We could have this whole thing unraveled in short order.”
“I can think of several problems with that idea,” Andrew said.
“As can I,” Jonas said. “Even aside from the fact that Daniel Miner isn’t in New York any longer. I went to the courthouse before my shift yesterday. It seems he sold some property a few months back—a house. One he had recently inherited from his wife.”
“Inherited?”
“Daniel Miner reported his wife missing—the day after ‘Anne Fox’ arrived at the asylum, in what might be called a fairly extraordinary coincidence. A few weeks later, a woman’s body was found in a vacant lot, badly decomposed. He somehow still managed to identify it as that of his wife.”
“I don’t understand.” Andrew tried to follow. “Are you saying the woman in the asylum isn’t Elizabeth Miner?”
Jonas shook his head. “No, I’m sure she is. The body was probably a vagrant or a prostitute—god knows corpses are common enough in this city. Probably just a lucky coincidence, from Miner’s perspective. It certainly sped up the court proceedings. He had Elizabeth declared dead, and all her property transferred to him. He sold every scrap and decamped within the week for parts unknown. Left some debts behind, too, so I doubt he’d be easy to find.
“So Miner is out of reach. And beating the daylights out of Bryce Weaver might be satisfying, but it carries its own risks, so we’ll set that option aside for now. The other possibility is less exciting, but I think it will work.” He looked at Andrew. “All asylum admissions are approved by a judge, correct?”
“Yes. Every patient file has a copy of the order inside.”
“Then get me a list of names, and I’ll go to the courthouse and match patients to their court records. They’re public. If there’s no record of a particular admission, then perhaps it means I’ve found someone who’s been admitted through unofficial channels.”
Andrew frowned. “You said yourself, there are too many patients.”
Jonas nodded. “Yes. But it’s the most obvious way to search without anyone on the island knowing it’s happening. And I’d need to spend some time at the courthouse anyway. We can’t say there’s not a judge involved in this somewhere.”
“If anyone discovers what you’re doing—”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jonas said. “You and Amelia are the ones who have to be careful. I consider every single person on that island to be a danger to her, one way or another.” He looked at Andrew, his eyes hard. “If anything happens to Amelia because she’s helping you…”
Andrew forced himself not to drop his gaze from the larger man’s. “I understand.”
“And you’re going to have to ask some questions yourself,” Jonas went on, in an only slightly less weighty tone. “We need to know what really happened to Blounton.”
A chill of unease prickled down Andrew’s back at the mention of the young doctor.
Jonas continued, saying aloud what Andrew had spent quite a bit of time trying to ignore. “If he knew about Julia and Elizabeth, if that is his handwriting you found, then he was involved some way—he was either part of the plot, or else he discovered it. And if it was the latter, well then, how convenient, his dying when he did.”
The words, with their matter-of-fact tone, dropped into the room like stones into a pond. They fell through the silence and were swallowed up, leaving the air around them rippled and unquiet.
It was on the tip of Andrew’s tongue to apologize for having dragged the pair of them into this mess. Before he could say anything, though, Jonas shoved back his chair and stood.
“That’s everything, then. Get me the list as soon as you can. We’ve a great deal of work to do, and waiting won’t make it any easier.”