“What does a kidnapper and murderer look like?”
I picked up my teacup. “I’ll let you know when I see one.”
Miss Wheeler cast a sympathetic gaze at me. “Professor, it’s a commendable trait to think well of everyone. I wish I was like you. Alas, I have seen evil lurk in the hearts of people others call good. Some hide that dark side of themselves very well, and it’s not until they lower their guard that it’s exposed. You are fortunate that it’s rarely exposed to you.”
Meaning it had been exposed to her often. As a dark-skinned woman, I didn’t doubt it. In the short space of time we’d been together, I’d seen the way some people looked at her. I couldn’t begin to imagine what she’d experienced in her lifetime. Oscar and I had faced evil in the form of Lord Coyle, but Miss Wheeler might have faced it much more frequently.
I felt foolish for being so naïve. “I apologize, Miss Wheeler. You’re right. Redmayne may be hiding his true nature. Kinloch, too.”
“We shall see,” was all she said.
I hoped stopping for a light luncheon hadn’t been our downfall, giving our suspects time to make new plans to cover their tracks. If Mr. Kinloch or Redmayne somehow learned that we’d made inquiries at the station about the paintings, they might move to create false alibis to throw us off their trail.
I was about to mention this when a flash of metal in the shadowy recess further along the alley caught my eye. At that moment, a gunshot rang out.
I dropped to the pavement, but Oscar and Miss Wheeler did the opposite. They ran toward the recess. I was about to shout at them to take cover when I realized the gunman had left his hiding place and was running toward the bright daylight at the exit of the lane. Even so, it was madness to chase him.
My worst fear came to fruition. The gunman raised his arm and aimed the gun over his shoulder at his pursuers.
“Oscar!” I cried.
Oscar dove at Miss Wheeler, slamming her into the brick wall. It may have saved both their lives if the gunman had fired another shot. He did not. Two people entered the alley ahead of him. He ran straight past them, and neither took any notice of him as they laughed at a shared joke.
“Idiot!” Miss Wheeler shoved Oscar. “Move out of the way!”
In a swift, practiced act that took less than a moment, she’d removed a leather pouch from her skirt pocket, whipped off her right glove, and dipped her bare hand into the pouch. She removed a fistful of something, then spoke some words that I couldn’t hear as she opened her fist. White dust lifted off her palm and darted after the gunman.
No, not dust. Chalk. She was a chalk magician.
Oscar ran to the end of the alley only to stop at the exit. He shook his head and waited for Miss Wheeler and me to join him.
I picked up his hat and her umbrella on my way—both forgotten in the excitement—and ran to catch up to Miss Wheeler. “Are you all right?” I asked her.
“Yes, yes.” She’d already returned the pouch of chalk dust to her pocket and was in the process of thrusting her hand back into her glove. So that was why she wore them at all times. She couldn’t go around with chalk on her hands. Indeed, the fact that she kept chalk dust on her in anticipation of using it as a weapon was wise.
She continued past Oscar, her strides purposeful. “Hurry along, both of you. We have him now.”
Oscar and I exchanged glances. Then we trailed after her, dodging tourists and other pedestrians ambling along the Royal Mile, until we finally caught up to her as she passed a tobacconist shop. I wasn’t sure she noticed us. Her singular focus was dead ahead, yet no matter how much I strained to look, I couldn’t see anyone who looked suspicious. Indeed, what was I even looking for? The gunman was neither short nor tall and had worn men’s clothing. There was nothing to distinguish him from the hundreds of others in the busy vicinity.
“Can you see your chalk dust on someone’s clothing?” I asked her.
She didn’t respond, too intent was she on her quarry.
“I doubt it reached him,” Oscar said, his tone apologetic. “I’m sorry I pushed you out of the way, Miss Wheeler. I didn’t know what you had planned. I didn’t know you were a chalk magician. If you’d told us?—"
She put up a hand to stop him. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Then slow down.”
“Do you want your umbrella?” I held it out to her.
“Not yet.” She lifted her face, as if feeling the air on her cheeks and nose, then suddenly turned into a side street.
Oscar had watched her, frowning, but now his face cleared. “You weren’t trying to dust his clothes with it, were you?”
“No,” she said. “I was trying to create a trail to follow him.”
“But we can’t see the chalk,” I said.
