Fogarty was waiting outside the cemetery chapel for us, rubbing his gloved hands together. The wind howled around the building as if in mourning. “Would you like me to lead the way?” he asked.
Anne Drake nodded, and I fell into step with her behind Fogarty.
“It’d be a pretty day if the wind would just stop,” he muttered after a vicious push by a hard gust of air.
Fortunately, we had only a short walk to the raw grave piled over with dirt. Fogarty stepped aside and let us go forward. Anne stared down at the soil, her soggy handkerchief pressed to her mouth.
I let my mind and gaze wander around the graveyard, giving her some privacy for her grief. I noticed movement behind a huge marble tombstone with an angel perched on top about thirty yards away. Keeping my head still, I watched the spot out of the corner of my eye. Finally, a man stepped out from behind the monument. Scruffy, needing a haircut and shave, and wearing clothes that hung limp on his body, but still recognizable from his photograph.
Nicholas Drake.
Chapter Fifteen
I GLANCED back at Fogarty and made a small gesture toward the monument. He looked in the direction I indicated, and I saw his eyes narrow. Then, as Drake moved to his right, Fogarty took a step backward and to his left. His quarry didn’t appear aware of his movements, giving Fogarty the opportunity to cut the thief off before he escaped the cemetery.
Fogarty had only taken a half dozen steps when Drake glanced our way and then dodged behind tombstones, disappearing from sight. The ex–police sergeant took off after him, moving quickly around the large ornamental monuments despite his limp. Unfortunately, Drake had a head start.
I watched Anne, who appeared unaware of all the movement around her. How would she react when she discovered Drake was still alive? And who was the poor fellow who had been destined to lie under Drake’s name for eternity?
Anne reached down and picked up a clod of dirt and threw it on the hump of loose soil covering Drake’s coffin. Brushing her gloves together, she said, “We might as well walk back to the station. I feel like everything is finished.”
Then she sniffed and leaned her body against the wind to march away from the gravesite, her widow’s veil streaming out behind her. I dodged the black fabric as we walked toward the chapel and, beyond the small brick and columned structure, the main road. I kept my head bent down, fighting for every breath as I moved forward into the blustery gusts, but I tried to search the cemetery with my eyes for Fogarty or Drake. Neither man appeared.
When we neared the chapel, I heard Anne gasp. Then she said, “Go ahead to the station. I want to stop in the chapel for a moment to say a last prayer.” Rather than sorrow, she seemed to be hiding some great joy. Her eyes sparkled and the corners of her mouth twitched upward.
I caught a glimpse of a shadow near one of the pillars and guessed immediately who was waiting there. “Won’t you introduce me to your husband?”
Anne Drake’s gaze darted from the chapel to me before she demanded, “You know my husband’s alive?”
“Yes. I saw him at the gravesite. Who’s in the grave?”
Her eyes widened. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s ask your husband.” I took her arm and strode toward the chapel porch. I expected Nicholas Drake, after hiding so long and so well, to disappear before we arrived, but he waited in the shadows until we stood on the porch.
Anne flew to him, her arms outstretched. He took her into an embrace when she reached him and shushed her cries of delight. Then he stepped forward, an arm around Anne, and demanded, “Who are you?”
He looked good for a corpse. Actually, he looked good, period. Even better than his photograph. He had a nice height and a pleasant face, which currently looked delighted to see his wife.
She gazed back at him with devotion. “I hired the Archivist Society to find you. To save you from your abductors. You must tell her everything so they can stop these attacks. Oh, Nicholas, I want you safe.”
He gave her a squeeze and turned to me.
“I’m Georgia Fenchurch, a member of the Archivist Society. How many people are you blackmailing?”
Anne Drake looked at me with fury, but he grinned roguishly and said, “Please, Miss Fenchurch. You make it sound like I’m some sort of evil creature. I’m not, I assure you. I’m the one who should be the victim in that grave.”
I couldn’t decide if it was the smile, knowing and willing to please, the voice, deep and smooth as a caress, or his eyes, twinkling with sexual promise, that was the most devastating. I could see why others found him so charming. I glanced around the cemetery. “Who died in your house?”
“Ah, that would be Harry. He found me in the Red Lion and said he needed to lie low for a few days. Something about some confidence trick that went bad. I sent him on to the house and finished up at the pub. While I was walking home, I suddenly heard a boom and then the sky lit up over my house. Someone must have blown up my house. Harry didn’t stand a chance.”
“Couldn’t it have been an accident?”
“You don’t get an explosion like that from a fireplace or an oil lamp. The house was out in the countryside where we lack modern conveniences like gas lighting.”
I shivered, both from the chilly air and from the knowledge that now we were dealing with a murder much like my parents’. “And the blood on your entry hall floor?”
“It’s from one of the three goons sent to drag me off. When they forced their way in and grabbed me, I stabbed one man in the gut. I know my way around the house in the dark, so I was able to run to the basement and hide. They searched the house but didn’t find me. In too big a hurry to get their friend to a doctor, I’d guess.”
“Who’s doing this?”
“I don’t know.” He looked genuinely baffled in a seductive way.
“I’ve been so worried,” Anne broke in. Her widow’s veil whipped to the side of her head in a gust of wind.
He focused his charm on her. “I know, love. I would have told you, but I was afraid I’d lead them to your door. I can’t let anything happen to you.”
I didn’t believe him. About his not knowing who was after him, about his being worried for Anne’s well-being, about his innocence. “You have a pretty long list of people who would be coming after you, Mr. Drake. Blackmail victims all, I’d guess. Who are they? And where are their letters?”
“Aristocrats all. Their letters are perfectly safe, and most of them have finished paying me.” He smirked. He’d stolen from these people and then threatened them with what he had taken, and he had the nerve to laugh about what he’d done.
I stepped close to him, glaring into his face as I thought of his victims’ fear of exposure. “I don’t believe you’d let the wealthy loose from your grip so easily.”
“It’s not a matter of letting them out from under my control; it’s a matter of circumstances changing so their letters no longer have value. Aristocrats have a talent for making new alliances to keep themselves above common gossip. That’s the reason they’ve stayed in power for a thousand years.”
I watched his face, searching for clues. He was bitter about something, but did it have anything to do with his attacker? “If the letters have no value, why don’t you return them?”
“Because I don’t know what will again become valuable.” He smiled, as if we spoke of shares of a company and not the private correspondence of ladies and gentlemen.
I was so disgusted I could taste ashes. “But you still have them? They weren’t destroyed in the fire?”