THE SOCIETY
1904—St. Louis
Harte felt the ends of his patience fraying as the power of the Book churned inside of him. It had started the moment he’d looked up and found Esta standing there, her hair shorn and her eyes bright with anger. He wasn’t ready for her unexpected appearance, hadn’t prepared himself to hold the power back, and when he felt the fury radiating from her, the voice reared up, pushing toward the feeble boundaries he’d erected in his mind.
He could feel the sweat at his temples from the exertion of keeping that power in check. He wanted to throttle Julien just for looking at Esta, and doubly for the meandering explanation, but Harte managed to keep his voice somewhat calm when he spoke. “Who, exactly, is the Veiled Prophet?”
Julien considered the question. “The Veiled Prophet isn’t so much a who as a what.”
“If you don’t stop talking in riddles—” Harte started to growl, but he felt another sharp kick under the table. Across from him, Esta shot a warning look that had the power inside of him purring. It liked her anger—and it liked his even more so, because it distracted him. Made him weak. So he buttoned his temper back up the best he could.
“What Harte means to say,” Esta cut in, shooting him another look, “is that we’re in a bit of a bind. As you might have surmised from my new look, the police know I’m here in the city. We only took the risk of meeting you because we need the necklace. And since you don’t have it, we need to find it and get out of town—and out of your hair—before they find me. If there’s anything you can do to help, we’d be grateful.”
“See, Darrigan, this is how you deal with a friend.” Julien’s mouth curved up before he turned back to Esta. “The Veiled Prophet isn’t just a person. He’s an institution in this town—a figurehead of sorts—and the person who plays him changes,” he explained. “Each year the Society selects someone new to fill the role, but the identity of the Prophet himself is never revealed. So you see, the person I sold the necklace to could have been any number of people. I never saw his face.”
“What’s the Society?” Esta asked.
“The Veiled Prophet Society,” Julien explained.
“Never heard of them,” Harte told him, trying to keep his voice even.
“You’re new in town, so that’s not surprising,” Julien said with a shrug. “But you know how it is—the rich always have their little clubs. The Society’s not so different from the Order. Mostly, it’s a bunch of bankers and politicians who see themselves as a sort of group of the city fathers, and just like the Order back in New York, they model themselves as a philanthropic organization. Each Independence Day, they put on a big parade and throw a fancy ball to crown a debutante. Nothing—and I mean nothing—happens in this city without the Society knowing or having a hand in it.”
“Which is why you had to sell the necklace when they offered to buy it,” Esta said.
She was right. With the kind of act Julien did, he’d be a target. He’d need the Society behind him, not against him.
Julien nodded. His jaw was tight as he took another long swig of the whiskey in front of him. “It wasn’t just money they were offering,” he told her. “The Veiled Prophet himself came to me after one of my shows—showed up in the dressing room without an invitation, a lot like you two,” he said, but there was no real humor in his voice. “Said he’d pay a king’s ransom for the necklace, and when I refused—because honest to god, Darrigan, I never intended to part with the stupid thing—when I didn’t accept his offer right away, he made it clear that if I didn’t sell, I wouldn’t work in this town, maybe not in any other, ever again. But if I sold . . .”
“They offered you protection,” Harte finished.
Julien nodded tightly. “I’m this close to making it big, Darrigan. I’ve had people from the Orpheum Circuit checking out my act multiple times now, and I’ve even been talking to this bigwig in New York about developing a whole show for me, maybe even opening back on Broadway. But they aren’t completely sold on the idea yet. You know how it is. They’re waiting to see how the rest of this run goes. With the Exposition and all the visitors in town, it could go pretty well, but if the Society decided to make things hard, I could lose everything I’ve worked for. You understand?”
Harte nodded. He did understand. He knew what it was like to be on the edge of success, one step away from the grime of your past. Sometimes you did what you had to do. How often had Harte himself ignored the coincidence of a lucky break that came not long after a “favor” he’d done for Paul Kelly? Too many. So yes, Harte understood, but . . .
“It doesn’t change anything,” he told Julien. “We still need the necklace.”
“You have to understand, Darrigan. As much as I’d like to, I can’t help you. Not if the Society’s involved,” Julien said. “There’s too much at stake for me right now.”
Harte almost felt sorry for him. He definitely felt the twinges of guilt for his own part in the mess Julien was in, and he probably would have felt more than just twinges had Julien not gone against his explicit directions. “I’m afraid, Jules, that you don’t really have a choice.”
Julien’s brow furrowed. “You can’t force me to help you.”
He was wrong about that, of course. A simple handshake or tap, and Harte could force Julien to do whatever he wanted him to. From the tentative expression on Esta’s face, that was what she expected to happen. But he didn’t want to do things that way if he could help it. He didn’t want to treat an old friend like a common mark.
Harte leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Let me ask you a question—do you really think that J. P. Morgan gives a fig about some dead people on a train?”
Suddenly Julien looked wary and unsure. “What are you talking about?”
“The bounty on Esta’s head,” Harte told him. “It isn’t because of any train derailment. It’s because of what we took from the Order.”
“The Order denied that anything was stolen,” Julien said, but his voice wavered.
“They lied,” Esta said. “They couldn’t let anyone know what we did. It would have made them look like weak fools if word got out that they’d been taken so easily.”
“Their headquarters at Khafre Hall was basically a fortress,” Harte added, “and we still managed to relieve the Order of their most prized possessions, including the necklace.”
“No,” Julien said, his voice rising.
“Settle down, Jules,” Harte told him gently. His frustration had given way to pity—and to guilt. “People are starting to look.”
“You wouldn’t have put me at risk like that,” Julien said, his voice shaking. “Not after all I did for you.”
“I needed someone I could trust to keep the necklace safe for me,” Harte said. I needed someone good at keeping secrets. “And if you remember, I gave you specific instructions to keep it hidden unless you needed it for an emergency. An emergency—as in life or death. I didn’t tell you to go parading it out onstage because you got a new outfit.”
Julien’s hand trembled as he went for the cigars in his coat pocket. “I still don’t see how any of that’s my problem.” He tried to light one, but after fumbling for a moment with the matches, he gave up.
“Oh, come on, Jules. Don’t make me spell it out for you,” Harte said. “These rich men are all alike—and they talk. You don’t think eventually the Order is going to find out this Prophet has the necklace?”
“And if the Order finds out, they’re going to wonder if you know where the other things are,” Esta added. “They’re going to come after you.”
Julien’s face had gone ashen. “I knew it. I knew the second you appeared in my dressing room that you were going to bring me nothing but trouble. I should have let the Jefferson Guard have you last night, friends or not.”
“Maybe,” Harte agreed. “But be glad that you didn’t.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Julien said with narrowed eyes. “I wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”
“You made this mess when you wore the necklace onstage, but if you want to get out of it, you’re going to need to help us,” Harte said, remembering the strange items Esta had found in Julien’s dressing room. “We need someone on the inside, someone who knows the Society. You’re going to help us figure out where this Prophet of yours has the necklace, and then you’re going to help get us in so we can take it back before anyone else finds out.”