“On holiday,” I said, grateful for an easy deflection. “He did not intend to return for a week or so. He instructed me to take the time off and he would reach out when he came back.”
At the door, the constable made a disbelieving sound and glowered harder.
“Where?” Supford asked.
“He did not share that with me.”
Detective Supford sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “Did you make the travel arrangements, as his secretary?”
I shook my head. “He only informed me the day before. It struck me as a personal matter—no, I have no details.”
“Were you aware that your employer’s office has been ransacked?”
I had the presence of mind to feign startlement. “No! I—Oh no. Why? Who would do such a thing?”
“Those are questions we hoped you could answer.” Supford’s demeanor shifted then, from general inquiry to a grim conviction. “As you were seen entering and exiting the office several times in the last two days.”
I resisted the urge to scrub my face in despair. I shifted the movement into a casual adjustment of my hat, discreetlyloosening the hatpin. The weight of Mr. Stoke’s pearl-handled revolver was heavy in my pocket.
It did not occur to me to wonder, just then, if they had observed Mr. Wake at Mr. Stoke’s office as well.
“There is also the matter of this.” Supford pulled a familiar envelope from a pocket inside his coat and set it down on the coffee table between us.
Lewis’s and my savings, carefully stowed over the past two years, puffed the envelope wide. A small fortune, and nearly every penny we had.
“You searched my rooms!” I accused. “You had no right!”
“We had every right.” A second reach into his pocket, and the man produced a typewritten warrant, then a picture. My picture of my sisters and I, a prized possession which I had stashed with my money. “Miss Ottilie Rushforth, Rogue Eventide Adept.”
I was rendered speechless.
That moment was my undoing. Detective Supford sat back, his air one of satisfaction and conviction. At the door, the constable widened his stance and twitched his baton.
“Why would you say that?” I managed.
“This”—he pointed to Madge, in the picture—“is Margaret Rushforth, recently arrived in Harrow. It is the constabulary’s business to know every Guild representative currently in this city—for their protection, you understand.”
I managed not to snort, but only just.
“The Rushforths, as you well know, are infamous,” the detective went on. “Your ambassador mother. Her string of powerful husbands. Your sister Pretoria and her tragic death. And this”—he indicated me in the photograph—“is you. I could not be certain until I saw you myself, but now I have no doubt.”
“That is hardly me,” I said. “She is years younger than I, far thinner and her hair is too dark. Our jaw lines are different. And if I were found dead in a swimming costume that gaudy, I would come back to life just to burn it.”
Supford was not amused. “The photo graph is obviously dated. The fact that you have aged is not a defense.”
“I am not Ottilia Rushforth.”
The detective raised his voice, his patience beginning to fray. “No, you areOttilieRushforth, and if you have any dignity, you will cease to play the fool. You are a Rogue Entwined, unchecked, uncontrolled. You are in possession of a great deal of money, in cash, while your employer’s safe is empty, his offices rife with the signs of violence, and he has vanished.”
Rage threatened to blind me, and my senses narrowed. The increasing thud of my heart. Closed room. The constable’s baton.
Unchecked. Uncontrolled. He did not know the meaning of those words.
“The money is my wages—I neither trust nor require banks,” I began, speaking with deathly calm. “I purchased the picture at the novelty market in Honeywell because I thought it entertaining and reminded me of my own sisters, who I have not seen in some time, which depresses me. Yes, I did know Mr. Stoke’s offices had been searched, but I am being blackmailed by a rather thuggish employee of Lord Stillwell, who contracted Mr. Stoke to track down a certain artifact, which went missing along with Mr. Stoke. Did you not see him at the office, too? This thug threatened to kill me if I contacted the police, so for the last two days I have been searching for him and the artifact quite desperately, in fear for my life. I am simply a secretary, sir, a secretary who does not trust banks because I will not allow my hard-earned wages to pad the pockets of indolent well-to-dos. I am a victim of horrible circumstance, and I am certainly no Entwined.”
Silence followed my rant. The constable muttered something under his breath and the detective raised a quelling hand.
Briefly, I thought I may have won my case. My mind raced ahead, planning my next steps. I would pack a hasty bag, find Hieronymus—damn, I had forgotten to buy a travelling basket, I would need to do that, too. We would flee and hide before the frustratingly astute Supford found enough evidence to arrest me.
