20
James
Mary would understand why he'd had to leave without saying goodbye. When it came to distractions, angry conversations were the best, and he'd stirred up a hornet's nest. She had to understand, if she'd heard the conversation—and he knew that she had. That didn't make James feel any better about it.
He let out a long breath and watched the world whip by as he took the train to Canterbury. He'd thought it might be smart for him to take Mary's transcribed copy of the address where they could find this "Pearl" person.
In the end, he'd been right. He hadn't gotten another chance at it. Lucky for him that he hadn't needed a second shot at it. Mark one for preparedness.
He'd been away from her barely a few hours, and he missed her already. It tore at his gut, but he couldn't do anything but keep the promise he'd made her as he left. He'd get his proof, even if it killed him.
He surprised himself when he tried to think of her as someone else's wife, and couldn't. She was his, whether he deserved her or not. Before, he'd thought it was a purely sexual attraction, and he'd regretted every minute they'd spent together the past two nights.
But now, he was beginning to wonder if there weren't something more to it. He felt something deep inside him stirring, and he pushed it away. There would be a time when he would be able to take a look at his feelings and figure out what he had on his hands.
Until then, he needed to be focused on the task at hand. Distractions were dangerous, for himself and for Mary.
The sun was already dipping on the horizon, when the train pulled into the station. It wouldn't be the least bit polite to call, unannounced, so late in the evening. The trip would need to take another night, though the thought of putting off seeing Mary again burned in his chest.
He set his bag down on the bed and sat back. He was tired, run ragged, exhausted, even. He'd had some of the most exciting nights of his life, the past couple of days. But the constant excitement and anxiety had been taking its toll, the same way it had in Belgium.
For a months, he'd just gotten used to not sleeping, and occasionally closing his eyes for a moment and opening them to find that he'd lost an hour. It had almost seemed normal, after a while.
He'd gotten shot in his leg, and when they offered him an honorable discharge he'd taken it in a heartbeat. He had promised himself that he was done with that part of his life. He went to uni, he'd healed up nicely, and now he almost felt as if he fit in.
It seemed as if the minute he'd been ready to move on with his life, to put that part of his past behind him, the war had come back to get him. He sat back against the headboard of the bed, sized for two, and set his eyes in the darkness. Then he was back in the trenches and getting ready for the trouble that the morning would bring.
When he opened his eyes again, he couldn't remember what time he'd fallen asleep. He couldn't tell what time it was, either, except that the sun had risen and was being inadequately blocked by a thin curtain.
He pushed himself off the bed and straightened his clothes. The mirror showed that he looked shabby, but it wasn't as if he had another set of clothes with him. It had all been left in the Geis house.
Perhaps it could serve as his excuse for returning when he'd talked to Pearl. Then the trap would spring, and he'd finally be able to sleep again.
There was a man behind the counter of the hotel he'd picked, in a uniform and a plastered-on, unconvincing smile.
"I need help finding an address, could you give me directions?"
For a moment, the man didn't register what he was saying, and James almost repeated himself before realization dawned.
"Ah, yes, sir, of course."
James showed him the address, and he gave directions. They were simple, but James had him write them down anyways.
The weather was cool and damp, and with his jacket on it was just right for a walk. He didn't have time to enjoy it, though. He needed to get back to what was important, before she got hurt.
The directions were good. It was a scant thirty minutes' walk, and the place was just where he'd said. Good lad.
When he arrived, James saw that it wasn't actually a single building at all, but rather a line of buildings, all in a row, and over one of the doors was written "Law Office." James's heart stopped when he looked at the door beneath.
Someone had kicked it in, hadn't even bothered to hide it. The frame was utterly destroyed. That the police hadn't arrived yet meant that either it was very recent, or that the police were very slow.
He stood outside the door and called in. He didn't receive an answer. Calling out again, he stepped inside. The front room was a wreck. Papers all across the floor, a table flipped. There was a hole in the wall that was sized for a large man's shoulder.
James frowned. This was all wrong. Pearl had been a secret. Nobody knew except him and Mary. Neither of them would have given it away, and even if they had, James wondered, who could have gotten here before him?
He took a deep breath and looked around the room. Two doors, plus the one he'd taken in. He tried the first and found it locked. The second was a water closet.
There was an office on the end of the row of buildings, and James went inside. A woman was there, reading a magazine, and she didn't look up when he came in.
"Excuse me, is this the landlord's office, for this row of offices?"
She hummed in agreement that it was.
"May I speak to him?"
She set her magazine down unhappily and knocked on the door.
"Yeah?" A voice boomed from behind the door.
"Someone to see you, sir," the woman croaked out with a voice like a toad's.
A moment later, a portly red-faced man opened the door.
"I think there's been a robbery."
"What?" The man said it as if he needed James to repeat it, but he turned and grabbed a ring of keys from the wall and motioned for James to lead the way.
He stepped in cautiously, calling out for a third time, and for a third time there was no answer. The landlord, who James had learned was called Marley, had little patience for these sorts of antics.
"I'm worried there might have been some sort of struggle, the room's in a terrible state. There's a locked room in the back, and I thought perhaps someone might be hurt in there."
Marley gave him a sideways look. A look that asked how he knew this or why he cared. Then he shrugged and unlocked the door. The knob turned, but the door was stuck, as if something were propping it shut. James had to put his shoulder into it before it would move.
There had been something propped against the door. A man in his middle ages, who the landlord identified to police as Pearl Langdon, a lawyer of no particular renown. He'd been shot twice in the chest, and had apparently locked himself into the room.
James had been brought in. They'd thought his story seemed awfully strange, at first. He had to admit that it sounded odd to him, as well. The fact that he had to adjust the truth to keep Mary's name out of it made the story stranger.
In the end, though, he'd had no gun, and the body was still warm when they'd found it. It seemed he'd been shot some time that morning. When James offered that he had been speaking to a concierge forty minutes before he'd spoken to the landlord, and they went to the hotel to confirm, they let him go without much fuss.
James was glad they'd done it that way, because he had a train to catch back to Dover. He didn't know what Oliver Geis was involved in, and he didn't know how he'd found Pearl Langdon.
What James did know, and what sent a chill racing down his spine, was that he wasn't just throwing money or threats around any more. A forty three year old bachelor was lying on a slab somewhere in a morgue in Canterbury.
He was dead because he'd known a Baron named Thomas Geis, and it was possible that Lord Geis had told him some dangerous information.
And to James, the most important thing in the world was the safety of the baron's daughter.