Page 64 of By Any Means

“Do help yourself.” The footman hadn’t been available in Brasher’s absence, and even if he had been, Chary wouldn’t have bothered. Not for the sake of this man. He checked his wristlet watch, rude but completely uncaring. Ten-oh-five. Brasher had come back and gone some time before and had taken the Caddy. Chary desperately wanted to speak to August again, but he was likely on a train to New York already, and thank goodness.

There was no sign of traitor Laurie Tulley, nothing all morning. He had scurried out of his room earlier, leaving delivered in his place the all-knowing snake who’d hired him.

The worst part was that yesterday, Laurie had been right. Chary had trusted him. Let Laurie take care of him. He’d kissed him. Kissed him! Now he knew why he had done all of it. What he truly wanted. Modus operandi indeed. Chary had been warned, hadn’t he?

Like a clairvoyant all-knowing, Sarah stepped through the breakfast room door, although this time, she had no coffeepot. Instead, she walked straight over to Chary and whispered:

“Mr. Moore is waiting for you, sir. With Mrs. Simon.”

Chary had no words for that, and apparently, none were needed. Sarah went out as fast as she had come, ignoring Raberding’s pointed throat-clears.

“Well?” he asked. “What did she want?”

Chary seethed. As though he were privy to Chary’s private business? More than he already had been? August was safe for the time being; Tjofabier Raberding could do nothing there now but taunt. This was now between him and Laurie.

“Excuse me.” When he stood, Chary’s chair scraped and almost clattered to the floor. He caught it before it did.

As he exited, Raberding called, “Give my love to my reporter.”

He found Laurie two rooms away, in the kitchens, seated at the center worktable across from Mrs. Simon and digging into a quarter-pie-sized slice of kept-back blueberry galette. He ate with a fork only, cutting flaking crust with the side of it in a rocking motion, and beside his pie plate was a glass of milk. To top everything off, he was dressed like a farmer, boots to cap. His smile was easy and genuine.

He belonged.

For some reason, this made Chary angrier still. How dare he? How dare he?

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

Not helping matters was that Chary’s first reaction upon seeing him had, in fact, been flooding relief; even less that Laurie, looking up, seemed to mirror that relief in the slant of his eyes.

Then he shrugged. “Eating a delicious pie, with a fork, in a relatively soundproof room that a typical rich man wouldn’t dare enter.” He demonstrated with a healthy bite.

Mrs. Simon stood. “I’ll see Mrs. Leonard send in Mikhail to wait on him, Mr. Tulley, just in case.” She turned to Chary. “Don’t you’ve let that Brooklyn boy of a man turn you around, Mr. Wright. Give the man a chance.” She hung up her apron, then slipped out the exterior door to the yard.

Mr. Tulley? When had Laurie given his true name to the staff? From the start?

Chary was stunned but also not inclined to go so far as he’d been advised, even by Mrs. Simon. Give Laurie a chance? He’d betrayed them all.

“There was… p-pie in the breakfast room”—for you—“if you’d bothered showing up. You needn’t eat the staff’s.” Before Laurie could say anything indignant—he saw it bubble up against his swallow—he went on: “And if you worried for your ability to face the man paying you, without giving up the ghost to me, you needn’t. Raberding’s told me everything already.”

“Ah…” Laurie seemed wary but not necessarily as defensive and guilty as he rightfully should’ve. He did not, however, looked surprised to be told of Tjofabier Raberding’s presence. “What’s ‘everything’?”

“I will keep it short. I was stupid to let you stay in my home, even for a second. Stupider to think I could trust you with my brother’s life. I k-kissed you, Lawrence Tulley, and the whole time, you were snooping for Tjofabier Raberding.”

Laurie cursed. “Raberding knows for certain, then, that August is alive?”

He said it so easily, as though he’d always known. No denial, but also as though he himself hadn’t done the making-certain. Chary reeled.

“He knows because you told him! He paid you to tell him everything, and so you have. You have upended our lives, and you will do it again when your story breaks. How can you even bear to show your face here again?”

Laurie leaned back from the table, cool as a man who knew he was in the right. Or a smart, sharp man who was very good at playing a right one.

“Well,” he said, “the obvious how is because I haven’t done any of that, because Raberding’s a dirty liar. The less-obvious how is that I ran into Brasher on the way back here and was worried about you alone in the house with that shark. Least obvious—or maybe not?—is that I’m hungry and we have a long train ride ahead of us.”

“What? Train ride? I beg your pardon. I’m not going anywhere with you. And—there’re no passenger departures from Berryfield until the evening.”

“Your brother took the automobile. They’ll be in Bangor sooner than later, if Brasher drives fast, and then as many departures as one could want. You wanna find him before Raberding or not?”

“August is the driver,” Chary said absently. And horrifically quick, too; thirty miles per hour. “How’d you know they took the auto?”