Chapter Seventeen

With renewed energy, Meg followed the corridor until it brought her into Hiram’s old study.

Nate halted in the doorway behind her. “I’m as curious as you are, but if I get involved in this, my job is on the line. Escorting you to Grosvenor’s office was one thing, but actively searching like this—my editor wouldn’t like it.”

She turned to frown at him. “Since when is investigating outside the bounds of journalism?”

“He thinks I’m biased. He says I’m too close to the story.” But his bearing looked willing to take another step. His lean frame made clean lines as he shifted his weight to his front foot. Even the cuffs of his sleeves now fit him, and she wondered if he had wielded needle and thread himself, or if Edith had done it for him.

She wondered what it would be like to paint him, to trace the contours of his cheek and jaw with her brush, and which colors she would mix for that particular blue of his eyes.

She shook the thought free. “And are you? Too close to the story?”

His lips pressed together as he considered his answer. He shook his head. “If you ask me, I’m not close enough.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” She smiled. “Let’s get to work.”

While Nate searched in the drawers and trays of the massive desk, Meg took quick measure of the rest of the room. The day shed scant light through the window, but it was enough to gleam on the silver candlesticks on the mantel. A cigar box inlaid with mother-of-pearl sat between them. She lifted its lid and felt inside. Empty.

She spent the next quarter of an hour pulling books from a low shelf and flipping through the pages for anything that might be hidden inside. Other than a few pressed leaves and flowers, she found nothing.

Until she looked inside a Chinese vase and saw an envelope. She reached inside to fish it out, then passed it to Nate. “If you please,” she said. Pulling out the contents was too much for just one hand.

He removed a sheet of foolscap rather than a formal legal document.

“Not the will,” she presumed.

He turned it toward her. “Take a look.”

“Look at what?” Jasper entered the room, cheeks still ruddy from the cold outside. Sylvie could not have stood closer to him if her arm were looped through his. Meg wondered when Jasper had started escorting her home from the church. “You were searching for the will?”

“We’ve had a setback, Jasper,” she replied. “The attorney, Mr. Grosvenor, was shot and killed for curfew violation last night. Your only hope to stay in this house lies in finding the will yourself.”

“I see.” Jasper removed his hat and tossed it on the desk, the white line of his scar stark on his brow. His gaze darted toward the paper in Nate’s hand. “May I?”

Nate gave it to him.

Eyebrows knitting together, Jasper read it aloud. “It says, ‘You ruined me. You ruined my name, my future, and my family. You’re guilty as sin, Hiram Sloane. You’ll pay for what you’ve done. Someday, when you least expect it, you’ll pay your debt, and with interest.’ It’s signed, ‘Otto Schneider.’”

The room was already cold without a fire in the hearth, but the chill Meg felt was something else.

Nate looked from one face to another. “The name is familiar, but I’m missing something here. What happened between Schneider and Sloane?”

Briefly, Meg relayed the story. “Years ago, Schneider sued Hiram, saying he’d been tricked into selling stocks to him, and that Hiram’s fortune ought to be his. Legal fees bankrupted him, and his reputation was ruined. He had a wife and baby at the time. The child can’t be more than eleven years old now. But he has an alibi for the night of the fire. He was already in prison.”

“Schneider. Schneider. I know that name.” Nate circled the desk and leaned his elbows on the back of the leather wingback chair, hands clasped. “He’s been in and out of trouble with the law for some time now.”

“And he seemed a likely suspect until I went to the police and found out he’s already in prison,” Meg repeated.

Nate straightened. “Now I remember where I’ve seen the name before. It was on the list of prisoners freed from the jail below the courthouse the night of the fire. They were all in for minor crimes like theft, drunkenness, or vagrancy. There was an Otto Schneider among them. He was in jail, not in prison. Whoever you spoke to at the police station was misinformed.”

Meg replayed that day in her mind. Mr. Gruber hadn’t been working there long, and the papers all over his desk were the picture of chaos. It would have been easy for him to mistake the list or simply use the wrong word. “This changes things,” she breathed. “We have a new suspect.”

Nate held up a hand. “Let’s not rush to pin a murder on him because he wasn’t behind bars that night after all. If he had done it—which would have been quite a feat on such a night—wouldn’t he try to steal from Hiram too? There was no burglary in the house that night or any time after. Revenge is one thing, but this revenge was all about money.”

“Maybe he didn’t care about the money anymore,” Sylvie guessed. “Maybe he saw an opportunity to kill Hiram and took it in a fit of passion.”

Jasper framed himself in the window, staring out. Sunlight dappled the wrought-iron fences and the soldiers patrolling the neighborhood. “No one stops caring about money, unless he has so much of it he can afford to think about other things. But a man like Schneider, if he really blames his financial ruin on my uncle, he wouldn’t have stopped with murder. He’d have tried to get a piece of his riches too.” Then, snapping his fingers, he spun around. “Schneider couldn’t have robbed this house even if he tried. The night of the fire, Uncle Hiram wandered out of the safety of this neighborhood. When Schneider killed him—”

“Allegedly killed him.” Nate nodded for him to continue.

“Allegedly, then. Schneider would have fled the scene of the crime, and the fire would have prevented him from coming here. He’d have had to preserve his own life and plan to come back later, assuming the house was empty except for the servants. But Prairie Avenue has been under armed guard around the clock ever since. He wouldn’t have been able to get past the soldiers.”

Meg caught Sylvie’s gaze, gauging her reaction. She looked as weak as Meg felt.

Sylvie turned to Jasper and tilted her head. “But if he came straight from the jail, he wouldn’t have had a weapon on him.”

“True.” Jasper crossed his arms. “But it wouldn’t have been hard to find one, given the chaos and the thousands of people in the street.”

Meg’s heartbeat tapped against her chest. Stephen had dropped his gun, and someone else had found it. It would be too much of a coincidence to believe that someone was Otto Schneider. But the criminal could have found or taken anyone else’s.

A few beats of silence passed, marked only by the muffled ticking of the timepiece in Nate’s vest. “The police are already looking for the prisoners they set free,” he said. “If they apprehend him, he can be questioned. I warn you against false hope, however. It may not turn up anything useful.”

“Then again, it might,” Meg whispered, and to her amazement, her sister nodded and smiled.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, rest assured I will.” Jasper touched Sylvie’s shoulder, bringing an instant bloom to her cheeks.