“But she already seems to know a little about the, ah, clandestine activities you participate in when you’re not assuming the role of upstanding member of the Four Hundred.”
“Iaman upstanding member of the Four Hundred.”
“Did I not just imply, Miss Duveen, how adept Gideon is at avoiding topics he doesn’t care to discuss?” Camilla asked before Adelaide could respond. “I’m sure he would like us to now divert the conversation to his position within society, but since that’s not actually in question, allow me to return to this Frank person and what you, Gideon, learned after you interrogated the man.”
“I’m beginning to feel decidedly outnumbered” was Gideon’s only response to that.
“And I’m sure I should feel sorry about that, but, no, I don’t,” Camilla said. “I feel more sorry for poor Miss Duveen, who must be becoming rather chilled by now. That state is only going to increase until she can become suitably clothed again, something I’m going to assume isn’t going to happen until you explain what transpired with Frank, at which point she’ll then agree to get out of the tree, and then we can continue on with other matters from there.”
Gideon released a bit of a grunt. “Fine. Since the two of you are apparently in unreasonable frames of mind, because Adelaide wouldn’t need to be chilled at all if she’d simply climb down now, here’s what I can tell you about Frank’s motives ... absolutely nothing. I never got an opportunity to question him. After I secured him in my carriage, I returned to the dinner party to check on Adelaide, and by the time I returned, I discovered that my men had been set upon by Frank’s men. My men were overpowered, Frank was whisked away, and that was the end of it.”
“He got away?” Adelaide asked.
“Indeed.”
“That certainly puts a concerning twist on the situation,” she said. “May I hope you were at least able to speak with Sophia last night and that she lent valuable insight as to why Frank might have wanted to speak with her?”
“All Sophia told me, after I caught up with her at her permanent suite of rooms at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which I couldn’t do until almost midnight since I had to take my men to the doctor for stitches, was that she’d never heard of Frank Fitzsimmons. She then insisted she had no idea why a known criminal would want to meet with her. After that, she told me it was very late and that she had an early rehearsal come morning before she had one of her many bodyguards show me to the door.”
“Didn’t she want you to have Frank investigated further in order to discover exactly why he wanted to meet with her?”
“She had me shown out before I could suggest that.”
“A suspicious action if there ever was one,” Adelaide said.
“I thought so,” Gideon agreed. “But since Sophia employs an entire brigade of bodyguards, I’m not overly concerned about her safety, although the accounting firm will begin looking into Frank, whether Sophia wants us to or not.”
“Because you didn’t believe Sophia when she said she didn’t know why a criminal would want to speak with her?”
“Exactly, although I also need to run Frank down because his men were responsible for injuring two associates of the firm.”
“How will you do that?”
“We have contacts on the street, but I’ll also assign a few men to do some surveillance on Sophia. Frank went to extraordinary lengths to meet with her, and even though he was thwarted last night, I doubt that will be the end of the matter.”
Adelaide leaned forward. “I imagine surveillance work would be right up my alley.”
“Absolutely not,” Gideon didn’t hesitate to shoot back.
“But no one would suspect me, a harmless wallflower, of dabbling in reconnaissance work, which would be to your advantage,” Adelaide argued. “Besides, my family owns a box at the Metropolitan Opera House, which means there really wouldn’t be anything suspicious about me taking in a few of Sophia’s performances.”
“An excellent argument,” Camilla said, piping up. “And along those same lines, I must point out once again that no one would suspect me of involving myself in matters of deception either, what with my reputation of being the consummate lady who never puts a toe out of line. Plus, if you were to agree to allow Miss Duveen and me to take on a few surveillance projects together, you would no longer need to worry about the ennui I’ve been suffering. And if we worked together,there’d be little danger to either of us since there’s safety in numbers.”
“I shudder at the thought of you and Adelaide pairing up. And besides that, I’ve already provided you with a project to stave off your boredom,” Gideon said. “Believe me, given the subject matter you’ve agreed to take on, tedium will no longer be a problem.”
Adelaide pushed aside the two leaves that were left on the branch she was perched on, her gaze settling on Gideon, then drifting to Camilla, who was whispering something to Gideon she couldn’t quite catch, but something she was quite convinced revolved around her. She cleared her throat.
“I don’t happen to be that subject matter you just mentioned, am I?” she called.
“We’ll discuss that after you return to the ground,” Gideon said.
“Which sounds like a yes to me, so I’ll be down in a jiffy.”
“I’ll station myself at the bottom of the tree as you make your descent in case you fall.”
“I won’t fall.”
“Given your history, I say you have at least a seventy percent chance of doing exactly that.”
