Forty

He’s hit in the arm. Help me get him up,” Whitbread said. He’d handcuffed Babe Greer, and handed her to one of the uniformed men, before kneeling over Fitz.

I got out of the way, as Whitbread and the other officer struggled to get Fitz onto the loveseat.

“Help me get his jacket off, then get me some towels,” Whitbread said to his officer.

I moved in beside Fitz to prop him up while they pulled off his jacket and Whitbread ripped off his shirt sleeve.

Fitz groaned. His big head slipped onto my shoulder, as Whitbread and his man wrapped his arm tightly to stop the bleeding. The white silk of the loveseat was now stained with blood.

“She got me,” Fitz said.

“You’ll be all right,” Whitbread replied. He took Fitz’s unharmed left hand and placed it on the improvised bandage. “Hold that tight. It’ll stop the bleeding. The bullet went straight through. You’ll live.”

Fitz closed his eyes as he squeezed his arm.

When Whitbread went off to order one of his men to find a doctor, I remembered what Stephen had said that morning. No wonder he’d warned me to look out for Fitz. Fitz opened his eyes.

“How did you come to be here?” I asked. “She would have killed me. You saved my life.”

He smiled, then winced at the pain in his arm. Babe was weeping crocodile tears when Whitbread returned and directed that she be taken down to the waiting police van.

“It was Whitey,” Fitz said. “He knew if he told you not to see Babe Greer, it would make you more determined to do exactly that.” He sighed deeply and insisted on sitting up. I helped him.

Whitbread had purposely forbidden me to talk to Babe Greer, knowing I’d disobey him. I felt the roots of my hair tingle as a blush rose up my face. “Why?” I asked.

“Because, of course, Miss Greer would claim that she was also a victim of the blackmailer,” Whitbread said.

A spectacled man carrying a leather satchel arrived, then pulled up a chair and began to unwrap the towel around Fitz’s arm.

“This is Dr. Church. He’ll patch you up,” Whitbread explained.

“Oww,” was Fitz’s reply.

Whitbread frowned at him. “Relax, man, you’ll be fine.”

As the doctor worked on Fitz, the big Irishman got grumpy. Looking at the detective, he said, “You could have got her killed, Whitbread.”

“She should have been safe enough. I had her followed, but my man lost her in the lobby. Nonetheless, we were back in the adjoining room, as planned, before anything happened.”

“You said we’d have to wait,” Fitz said.

“I had no idea she was already in the building.”

“We could have been too late.”

I looked up at Whitbread, who stood with his legs wide and his hands on his hips. “Why did you think she’d attack me?” I asked. I was glad Whitbread had expected it. I never would have been able to prove Babe Greer’s guilt, even after I figured her story out. And I hadn’t expected an attack. I’d been on the wrong track altogether, thinking Col. Selig was responsible. “How did you know she was the blackmailer?”

“Tell her about Alonzo Swift,” Fitz said, then he set his teeth in a grimace as the doctor worked on him, cleaning the wound.

“Mr. Swift admitted to us that Babe Greer threatened to both expose the existence of his family back in Maryland and to get his films censored, if he didn’t find a way to divorce his wife and become engaged to her.”

“You knew that, before we brought you the photograph,” I said. I remembered that we’d seen Alonzo Swift leaving the interview room at the police station when we arrived to present the photograph to Whitbread.

“Swift had seen her with the censor. He thought she was using Hyde to ruin the career of Miss Williams. He had no idea the man was actually her husband. If he’d known that, he could have resisted her threats by exposing her own marriage. She told him he would get the same treatment from the censor as Miss Williams if he didn’t go along with their supposed romance…the romance that was designed to boost her career.”

Fitz turned away from the doctor to look at me. His big face was unusually white. “Whitbread whipped her up when we came to show her the wedding picture. He knew how to get under her skin. He got her worried about what you might know and do, then he warned her that you might attack her. He put the idea in her head that she could get away with shooting you and say it was self-defense.”

“Perhaps,” Whitbread said. “But Mrs. Chapman was not shot and Alden can be released now. That is what you wanted, isn’t it, Mrs. Chapman?”

Fitz looked up at the tall detective then winced again as the doctor began to stitch his wound.

I looked at Whitbread. He was standing with his arms folded across his chest. It was a cold stare he turned on me, not a friendly one, but I realized he’d staged this scene as the only way to clear my brother. “Thank you,” I said.

“And now, Mrs. Chapman, you and your family are free to leave for the summer. I believe you planned to spend time at Woods Hole? I suggest, I very strongly suggest, that both you and Alden take your families and leave the city as soon as he’s released. There are multiple witnesses to Miss Greer’s confession. I assure you, you’re not needed.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left the room. I felt a vacuum when he was gone, as if he’d taken all the air with him and I had to struggle to breathe. Still, there was a lightness in my heart when I turned back to comfort Fitz. Whitbread was right. We could leave now and he was doing me a favor by letting me go. I was sad because I suspected it was more to get me out of his sight than as a favor that he’d released me, but I was relieved, nonetheless.