Deadlier Than the Pen (4 page)

"That's not the same thing," Diana protested.
"He may have been responsible for their deaths." Foxe attempted to look hurt and missed by a mile. "Is this the thanks I get? I came here to warn you before you left to resume following your quarry. You must be on your guard, Diana."
Foxe's attitude made it difficult for Diana to take him seriously. Common sense suggested he was up to something. Besides, two deaths in two cities Bathory had visited seemed scant evidence of any connection. Bathory's involvement was highly conjectural. She'd seen the itinerary for the tour he'd just completed. The man had performed at twenty-eight stands in less than four months, crisscrossing the entire continent. She reminded Foxe of that.
"And who's to say there aren't twenty-eight dead girls, one in each city?" His eyes gleamed. The unlit cigar between his teeth bobbled as he worked himself up to a new level of enthusiasm. "Think of it, Diana! What a story!"
In her agitation, she gripped the edge of the table with both hands. "I do not write fiction."
Foxe snatched up the telegrams and waved them in her face. "What if it's all true? It could be. Philadelphia, last November. A young woman stabbed." He glanced at the top telegram for details. "Belinda MacKay, found in an alley behind the Muse Lecture Hall. Did she attend Bathory's reading the previous evening? Then here in San Francisco." He shuffled the yellow pages and flourished the second telegram. "January 9th. Lenora Cosgrove. Age twenty-eight. She was found in an alley, too. And likewise stabbed."
"Coincidence. By your logic, any member of any acting company might as easily have committed these crimes. There are dozens of theater troupes on tour at any given time. In each of those cities five or six plays, at the least, would have been presented on the same nights Bathory read from his works. And that does not count singers and circus acts and -- "
"I take your point, Diana. But of all those performers, Bathory is the one who revels in blood and gore." He dropped his voice to a lower register. "And what if I were to tell you that both of these murders took place under a full moon?"
That suggestion elicited a gasp from Mrs. Curran but Diana's eyes narrowed with a sudden increase in her skepticism. "Did they?"
"Who knows?" Foxe chuckled and seemed to relax. He reached for another roll. "That's what I pay you to find out."
"This is the Saturday after he's completed a stand," Mrs. Curran murmured. "If he is the killer, does that mean he'll strike tonight?"
Foxe looked pleased at the thought.
"Where is your full moon?"
Foxe ignored Diana's sarcasm, making her reasonably certain that he had not made the special effort to come to Mrs. Curran's house because he thought one of his reporters was in danger. He'd wanted to catch her before she left. That much she believed. But his primary motivation had not been concern about her safety.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked.
"Keep following Bathory. Tonight, too. Do not let him out of your sight. No delegating this task to anyone else." He wagged an admonishing finger at her.
"You think Poke and the other street arabs missed something?"
"I think he's a clever lad accustomed to living by his wits. He's not above taking money from Bathory to edit what he tells you."
"You cannot ask this young lady to risk her life." Mrs. Curran glared at Foxe, warming Diana's heart. It was good to have caring, loving friends.
With an ingratiating smile for the older woman, Foxe rose from the table. "No risk. I have arranged for her to have a bodyguard." He shifted his gaze to Diana. "Today, when you follow Bathory, you are to let him see you. We'll draw him out. When he makes his move, we'll have our proof."
"When he tries to kill her? Are you daft?" Aghast, Mrs. Curran fanned herself, her gaze darting from Foxe's face to Diana's and back again.
Diana sighed. "This is likely to be a tempest in a teapot, Mrs. Curran. But if Mr. Foxe is right, I have an obligation to find out the truth. If Bathory was responsible for those deaths, he must be stopped."
Investigating Bathory as a potential criminal, she realized, would give her pursuit of him, her invasion of his privacy, a certain legitimacy. She shot Foxe a considering look. Was he providing her with what she'd said she wanted, the opportunity to go after real news? Or was this just another ploy to trick her into inventing scandal?
It was not until he'd left and she was preparing to set out for Bathory's hotel to relieve Poke, that Diana remembered a remark the elusive horror writer had made to her in his hotel room. He had encountered "a particularly annoying" female reporter near the start of his tour, he'd said.
Philadelphia had been one of his earliest stands.
In her head, in Bathory's deep, resonant voice, Diana heard again what else he'd said. _"I dealt with her,"_ he'd boasted, _"in a most satisfactory manner."_
But he'd only meant he'd taken her to bed ... hadn't he?

*Chapter Four*
Once again, the weather was bright and springlike. The temperature had quickly soared into the fifties and the only wind was a gentle southerly breeze.
Ben set out on foot at mid-morning to run a variety of errands, including a stop at a candy store. His mother had a weakness for a particular brand of imported chocolates difficult to obtain at home. In the mirrored wall behind the counter, he could see Mrs. Spaulding plainly. He had been right. She'd not given up. It was a good thing he'd made the arrangements he had for Aaron.
With the wisdom of hindsight, he knew he should never have agreed to this tour, but four months ago he'd had his own agenda -- good reasons, or so he'd believed, for visiting the country's major cities.
What a waste! He'd learned that no one knew more about madness than he did himself. Most physicians understood far less and treated their patients with an appalling lack of humanity.
Ben studied Mrs. Spaulding's reflection once more as he took his package from the sales clerk. It did no good to long for what might have been. He'd promised Damon Bathory's publisher to keep Bathory's identity a deep, dark secret. He could not reveal the truth without potentially dire consequences.
Eventually, though, someone would find out. Ben wondered if it would not be better to volunteer the information before that happened. For the moment, however, he had no choice but to honor his pledge.
Mrs. Spaulding ducked into a doorway when Ben left the candy shop. A fragment of his conversation with Aaron came back to him as she trailed along after him.
_"That woman following you is up to no good."_
"You let me deal with her."
"You'll take care of her?"
_"I'll take care of her."_
* * * *
While her quarry was in a barber shop, Diana waited outside, lulled by the very normality of his behavior this morning into discounting most of her earlier fears. She was inclined to dismiss Foxe's theory as wishful thinking on the part of a man desperate to unearth scandal. After all, if Bathory had meant to harm her, would he not have done so the first time they met, in that darkened lecture hall with no witnesses?
She continued to follow him throughout the morning and into the afternoon, all the while feeling more and more safe. And if, by chance, Foxe was right, then the bodyguard he'd promised her, a hulking brute named Bruno Webb, was not far behind. He'd been waiting on Diana's doorstep for her when she'd left Mrs. Curran's house.
When the afternoon began to wane, Bathory returned briefly to his hotel. He was dressed to the nines when he went out again. Looking neither left nor right, he proceeded to the Everett House. Diana did not dare follow him inside the brightly lit restaurant. Instead, she made do with watching him eat, staring at him through the window as her stomach growled.
Bruno disappeared briefly around the side of the establishment and returned wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Diana considered sending him back for something for her, but thought better of it. Bruno's job was to keep watch over her, not feed her.
When Bathory emerged, it was to stroll along the east side of Union Square. She hurried after him, confident he could not hear her footsteps in pursuit. High above their heads, perched on poles, noisy arc lights covered any sound she made. A troop of horsemen would have been hard put to make themselves heard over that incessant clicking and clacking.
Bathory appeared to be searching for an evening's entertainment. Someone would have taken his place at Heritage Hall, though Diana had no idea who. At Steinway Hall, there had been an afternoon concert but nothing was scheduled for tonight. The nearby Academy of Music was home to a pantomime called _Mazulm, the Night Owl_ and he might also select from a variety of legitimate plays, all within a few blocks of his hotel. Henry Irving's well-respected company of British actors was performing _Louis XI_ at the Star Theater. Diana noticed Bathory glance that way as he crossed 14th Street, but he proceeded on without turning, passing by the dark facade of the Union Square Theater.
Diana hurried by what remained of the structure, closed after the disastrous fire a few weeks earlier. Posters hopefully proclaimed that the theater would reopen in May, but that did not appear likely. Rebuilding had yet to begin.
* * * *
A pity Irving's company was not presenting _Faust_ tonight, Ben thought as he passed the ruins. He'd have been tempted to attend, if only to give Mrs. Spaulding pause for thought. The play would surely have struck her as appropriate fare for Damon Bathory. Even better would have been Richard Mansfield performing his virtuoso _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,_ but that talented thespian had left New York to tour.
Then he caught sight of the marquee of the 13th Street Theater. It offered the perfect choice, the very production of _The Duchess of Calabria_ he'd read about in Mrs. Spaulding's column on Monday. Blood and terror. Revenge and death. A fitting end to Damon Bathory's stay in the city. And it would have the added advantage of making Mrs. Spaulding squirm.
To force her to sit in the audience after printing such scandalous gossip about the performers seemed to Ben a fitting punishment for her sins. She had not enjoyed the production the first time. She would hate having to endure it again.
He affected not to notice when she was seated off to his right, an arrangement that enabled him to keep an eye on her during the performance. She spent a good deal of time scribbling in her notebook, as she had during his reading. He wondered why. It seemed a waste of print to attack the same play twice, but he supposed there was much she could still say about it if she chose.
The story had a number of difficulties, not the least of which was an adaptation that would have had the play's original 17th century author rolling over in his grave. The production was also severely marred by the fact that the leading lady kept losing her voice. It was obvious to Ben, if not to the others in the audience, that the Duchess suffered from a heavy cold. It would have been better -- for those who heard her as well as for her own health -- if she had allowed her understudy to go on.
Unfortunately for Ben, Mrs. Spaulding's earlier commentary had been unerringly accurate. Indeed, he now thought she'd gone easy on the actors. He suffered through to the end, but not without consequences. The sulfurous fumes from torches carried by characters on stage only increased a blazing headache brought on by the abysmal quality of the performance. That Mrs. Spaulding would once again take up her pursuit of him suddenly seemed intolerable to Ben. Where did the woman think he was going to lead her? Into some den of iniquity?
He'd tried scaring her with the Bathory ring at the lecture hall. He'd tried insulting her morals in his hotel room. He'd tried wearing her out by racing up one side of Manhattan and down the other. Nothing had worked. A new tactic was called for.
The crisp, bracing air outside the theater acted on him like a tonic. Anticipation simmered in his veins as he realized what it was he really wanted to do to about the tenacious Mrs. Spaulding.
Should he?
If he acted on the desire uppermost in his mind, he'd hide himself. When she reappeared, looking for him, he'd turn the tables on her and become the one in pursuit. He was certain an opportunity to confront her in private would not take long to present itself.
Grinning at the sheer folly of the idea, he slipped into the shadows, furtive as any villain lurking in the pages of a horror story.
* * * *
Diana was sick of following Damon Bathory. Not at all averse to losing sight of him "accidentally," she dawdled as long as she could on her way out of the auditorium, but this ploy created another problem. Several members of the cast, most of whom she knew well, had spotted her sitting in the audience. Nathan Todd, actor, director, and producer all in one, and an old friend, sent a note by way of the ticket seller to invite her to come backstage.
Under other circumstances, she'd have gone gladly, but ever since Foxe had made his additions to her review, she'd been avoiding an encounter with Lavinia Ross, the company's ingenue and the "Miss L. R." of the piece. Diana would want her wits about her when that confrontation came to pass. She owed the woman an explanation and an apology, and she intended that she would have one, but not tonight. After three hours of bad acting and smoking torches, her head pounded like surf during a storm.
Stopping at the box office, she scribbled a reply to Toddy's invitation, then took a deep breath and stepped outside. There was no sign of Damon Bathory, nor did she see Bruno Webb. She had the perfect excuse to give up and go home, but even as that thought crossed her mind, her sense of responsibility began to nag at her. Foxe had given her an assignment. More importantly, her readers had been promised a story.
Looking neither right nor left, Diana headed for "the Rialto," as 14th Street was called where it formed the south side of Union Square. There was still a chance she'd spot Damon Bathory before he got back to his hotel. Up ahead, the theater district was bustling. Hansom cabs and privately owned carriages vied with pedestrians for room to move. Hooves clattered on the cobbled streets. Wheels creaked. Adding to the din was a distant horse car bell, warning that a trolley was approaching on the tracks that ran down the middle of Broadway.
Diana had no warning before someone seized her arm and jerked her into the narrow passage that ran between the Star Theater and the fire-damaged brick building next to it. Before she could draw breath to scream, a hard hand covered in a rough wool glove clapped over her mouth.
Reacting on instinct, she kicked out with both feet and at the same time aimed a blow at her assailant's face with her handbag. He knocked it aside. She heard it fall to the ground even as she was dragged deeper into the shadows.
Bathory, she thought. He was a murderer and she was his next victim!
A sense of disbelief swamped her. How could this be happening when there were so many people nearby? Did no one see? Did no one hear?
Diana increased her efforts to break free, but nothing she did succeeded in loosening the grip on her arm or the hand over her mouth. Slowly, inexorably, she was dragged towards the far end of the alley. Blocked by packing crates, debris from the theater fire, and a high fence, it offered no avenue of escape.
More by luck than design, Diana's boot connected with her captor's shin. He retaliated instantly, releasing her but striking her so hard across the face that her hat tumbled off and was trampled underfoot.
She had no opportunity to scream. In the second she was free, she could manage nothing louder than a strangled croak, too faint to be heard from the street. Then he got hold of her again.
Breathing hard, he once more clamped his hand over her mouth. Certain he meant to kill her, Diana did the only thing she could. She bit him.
With a bellow of pain and rage, her captor flung her away. She landed flat on her back in the alley, too winded by the impact of the fall to cry out.
Her ears still ringing from the earlier blow, Diana stared dazedly up at the fire escape high above. It nearly touched the high brick wall on the other side.
She was in an alley in the theater district on the Saturday night following Damon Bathory's last reading in this city.
Diana sat up with an abruptness that only increased her dizziness and the pounding in her head. Her attacker was no more than a dark shape in the encroaching blackness, advancing, about to seize her again. Terrified, she opened her mouth to call for help, but no sound came out.
Seconds elongated into an eternity as she tried to tell herself that this was just another nightmare. The pain radiating from her bruised face argued otherwise. The ominous figure loomed over her, silently threatening. Why didn't he get it over with? She was at his mercy.
Thoroughly terrified, Diana at last managed to scream.
Footsteps pounded into the alley.
At the sound, Diana's assailant whirled to look behind him. On Horatio Foxe's orders, Bruno Webb had been keeping an eye on her. Somehow, he'd missed her abduction, but at her scream he'd come running.
"Look out!" she shouted as a flash of light reflected off the lethal-looking blade in her assailant's hand.
Bruno's rush never faltered. He was taller and heavier than the man in the alley. One good close look at him and the attacker turned and fled. As Bruno stopped to assist Diana to her feet, the miscreant began to scale a board fence at the far end of the alley.
"Stop him!" she gasped, giving Bruno a shove. She sat back down again, hard, then watched in dismay as her rescuer lumbered towards the fence. By the time he reached it, he could do no more than catch hold of the back of the fellow's coat. With a wriggle and a kick, the villain broke free and hauled himself the rest of the way over the top.
Diana was on her feet, dusting off the back of her skirt, when a lantern appeared at the entrance to the alley. At last there was enough illumination to see, but it came too late for Diana to get a good look at her attacker.
The new arrival was a police officer -- one Diana recognized.
The danger well and truly over now, she started to shake.
* * * *
The 15th Precinct station house was the home of Manhattan's elite Broadway squad. Diana had been there before, visiting the precinct house in search of tidbits for her column. She knew several of the officers, including the one who'd escorted her from the alley, lending her his long, many-buttoned blue coat when she couldn't stop trembling and settling her in a chair in his captain's office with a cup of hot coffee to hold onto.

"Just tell Captain Brogan everything you remember," Officer Hanlon said kindly. "Then you can go home."
It was warm in Brogan's small, cluttered office, but she shivered as she recalled what had happened.
"Why did someone attack you?" Brogan sat behind a desk. Diana was in the wooden armchair opposite. Above them, an overhead lamp burned low, two jets under each of two shades flickering in unison. Brogan picked up a pen and held it poised over a blank sheet of paper.
"I don't know."
"Any idea who he was?"
She shook her head. It was the truth. She had not recognized him, but the man in the alley had not been in evening dress. "He was dressed in rough, wool garments. Very plain."
A frown creased her forehead as she tried to remember more, making her face throb. Her whole head pounded. Concentrating required more effort than she had energy to expend, but she was now absolutely certain of one thing. It had not been Damon Bathory who'd assaulted her. He would not have had time after leaving the theater to make a costume change.
She almost smiled at her inadvertent choice of words. Obviously, she'd spent too much time around theatrical people. It seemed more natural to think in terms of costumes than clothes.
"What did he look like?" Brogan asked.
"It was too dark to see his features."
Should she give them Bathory's name and share the information from the telegrams Foxe had shown her? If she did, they'd bring him in for questioning. She was not certain why, but she did not want that to happen. She needed to sort everything out in her own mind before she made any accusations.
To stall for time, she sipped at the coffee. It was thick, oily, bitter, and laced with whiskey so potent that it made her eyes water. Drinking it had the desired restorative effect, however, warming her, while at the same time giving her a few moments' respite in which to consider how much she wanted to tell the police.
Fishing for a handkerchief to wipe her streaming eyes, Diana was distracted by the realization that something _was_ missing from her leather bag. Sadly worse for wear, both it and her mangled hat had been retrieved and returned to her.
"It's gone," she murmured.
"Money? His motive was theft?"
"There was no money in it." She'd tucked the five dollars Foxe had given her into her garter. That was for emergencies. But she'd used the last of her own money to buy a sandwich at the interval between the acts of the play. She'd been half starved by then.
"What is missing, Mrs. Spaulding?"
"My notebook."
"Perhaps it fell out when you dropped your bag."
"Yes. It must have. There was nothing important in it." Not even her notes on Damon Bathory. She'd filled the last notebook, similarly covered in green cloth, the previous day, and begun a new one tonight. The missing item contained only her scribblings during the performance. She'd not been writing a review, just jotting down random thoughts for future columns ... and trying to avoid being spotted by the man she'd been following.
Brogan continued to ask questions, several of them delicately put, aimed at determining whether or not her assailant had taken liberties of a personal nature. At the time, she'd feared for her life and given not a single thought to her virtue.
"Thank goodness for Bruno," she said.
"Yes." Brogan consulted his notes. "Bruno Webb. He says he's an associate of yours. Just happened by, he says." There was a question in the sympathetic gray eyes.
"Yes. He works for the _Independent Intelligencer_, as do I." She was careful to volunteer nothing more.
After a few more questions, all routine, Brogan seemed satisfied with her account. "You may be sure we will be extra vigilant for the remainder of the night," he assured her. "We'll keep an eye out for the blackguard."
"I am relieved to hear it." Diana stood, shrugging out of Officer Hanlon's coat and returning it to him, but at the door she stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Brogan. "Are there many such attacks on an average Saturday night in the theater district?"
That the police captain seemed reluctant to answer did not surprise Diana. Now that she'd regained her composure, they'd all remembered she worked for a newspaper. No doubt he envisioned a list of unsolved crimes blazoned across the front page.
"Not many." He made a vague gesture with one hand. "Bright lights are a deterrent."
If the theater had not burned down, the alley would not have been so dark. Diana understood that. But what now struck her as peculiar was that the villain had selected her. Out on the street, the light had been excellent. A thief should have been able to see that there were more prosperous-looking folk out and about at that hour. It seemed a remarkable coincidence that she'd been warned that Damon Bathory might be in the habit of attacking and killing young women and then, that very evening, been attacked herself.
When Diana left Brogan's office, she found Bruno waiting for her in front of the chest-high sergeant's desk in the lobby. He rose from a hard wooden bench to cross the wide plank floor and offer her his arm.
"Mr. Foxe will pay for a hack," he said.
She did not argue, though Mrs. Curran's house was an easy walk from the precinct house.
During the short drive, her bodyguard sat silently beside her in the cab. His stoic mien did not encourage questions.
* * * *
There were -- Diana had decided by the time she reached the sanctuary of her own room -- three possible explanations for what had happened tonight.
Damon Bathory had not been the man in the alley, but he could have hired some thug to do his dirty work. Poke had seen him give money to that man in the park. As far as Diana could determine, however, Bathory wasn't aware she'd been following him, so why would he set someone on her?
A more logical suspect was Horatio Foxe. Had he staged this whole performance to convince her to go after Bathory with renewed dedication? Diana wouldn't put such a scheme past him. He was desperate to win his "war" with the other newspapers.
On the whole, however, she was inclined to favor a third option, the one the police had suggested. It made much more sense to believe that the incident had been entirely random. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
* * * *
Ben did not intend to leave the darkened barroom of the Hotel Hungaria until he was certain Mrs. Spaulding had given up looking for him and gone home. He had no idea how long he'd been there. He'd ducked inside to avoid her pursuit, ordered a drink, and claimed a shadowy corner for himself. Once there, he'd become lost in his own dismal thoughts.
For one moment outside the theater, he'd been tempted to throw caution to the winds and voluntarily talk to his nemesis. Foolhardy. Imbecilic. Yet appealing. He was becoming obsessed with the woman. What was it about her? He tried to tell himself that she was ordinary, no one special, that he had simply been too long without a female companion. But there was something ... he shook his head and polished off his drink. Time to go back to the hotel and get a good night's sleep.
Union Square was quieter, almost peaceful at this early morning hour. The fresh air came as a welcome relief and he inhaled deeply. In spite of his tiredness, he decided to take the long way around the three-acre park to get back to his hotel, to let the mild exercise relax him.
His perambulation brought him past the heroic equestrian statue of George Washington that stood at the southeast corner of the square and the pitiful remains of the Union Square Theater. The latter sight triggered a vague recollection of talk overheard in the bar. Something about a woman being accosted in an alley between the ruins and the adjacent Star Theater.
He made his way to its mouth and peered into the darkness but saw nothing of interest. He had already moved on when more of the comments he'd overheard while he'd been brooding over his solitary drink came back to him.
They'd run the gamut from sympathetic to outraged to foul obscenity. No one had mentioned the victim's name, but several of the Hungaria's patrons had speculated that she must be a prostitute. What other sort of female, someone had asked, went out unescorted at night?
Ben suddenly knew the answer to that question.
A woman like Mrs. Spaulding.
As if compelled, he hurried back to the alley and ventured in. He did not expect to discover anything to tell him what had happened or to whom, but when his foot struck an object lying on the ground, he didn't hesitate to scoop it up and carry it back to the street to examine under better light.
The item was small and would have been easily overlooked. Perhaps the woman who'd been attacked had not even realized she'd dropped it during the struggle. Obviously the police had not found it afterward.
Ben stared at the green cloth cover. It was badly stained where it had fallen into a pile of refuse but he could not fail to recognize it. Standing under a lamppost, jaw clenched, he flipped it open to read the name and address neatly inscribed on the flyleaf.
* * * *
A telegram from Horatio Foxe awaited Diana when she awoke on Sunday morning. This fact did not surprise her. She'd expected Bruno Webb to go directly to their boss after escorting her home. The content of Foxe's wire, however, did take her aback.
"STAY ON BATHORY TRAIL," it read. "DO NOT WRITE ACCOUNT OF ATTACK."
Crumpling the cable in her hand, Diana bit back a curse. Of her three explanations, the one in which Foxe had been behind the entire business suddenly seemed by far the most plausible. It even provided a reason why Bruno had taken so long to show up when he was supposed to be right behind her.
She dragged a weary hand over her face, wincing when it came in contact with the bruise on her jaw. She'd have to use powder to cover it.
Diana sighed. She had not slept well. After the attack, she'd been calm on the surface, but as soon as her head hit the pillow, all her doubts and fears had been set free. In troubled dreams, she'd revisited last night's events in the alley, and unhappy incidents from her past, as well.
Evan had struck her once in a fit of frustration over his failure to do justice to a role. That was one of the dangers inherent in loving a man with a creative temperament.
She'd felt powerless then. Now she was just angry, and too exhausted to do more than damn Horatio Foxe for getting her into such an impossible situation. She had to go on. If she did not, her editor was desperate enough to create a sensational story that bore no resemblance to the truth. That was why he wanted to delay printing a first-person account of an attack on one of his own reporters. He had a bigger story in mind. A completely untrue story.
The corollary to her logic was that Damon Bathory was entirely innocent of any crime. That being the case, how could she be a party to a plot to defame his character? She had no choice but to go to Bathory, not to demand an interview, but to warn him what Foxe had planned.
In the light of a new day, even one that was a bit overcast, Diana managed to convince herself that Foxe's threat to fire her for insubordination was all bluster. She could always appeal to his sister. Under threat of Rowena's nagging, he'd surely relent, forgive Diana, and take her back into the fold.
With luck that might even happen before she became destitute.
No effort of will could quite shut out the memory of near starvation after Evan had left Toddy's company to strike out on his own -- and made a hash of it. They'd been down to their last two bits when he'd gotten into the poker game that had ended up costing him his life. Diana never had learned if he'd really been cheating. It had hardly mattered after he was shot by the disgruntled gambler who claimed he was.
Diana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Evan had not survived, but she had. If worse came to worst, she supposed she could always go on the stage. The fact that she had not an ounce of theatrical talent shouldn't hold her back. The lack of acting ability certainly had not stopped Lavinia Ross from pursuing her career.
Diana's vision of a future in which she successfully played miscellaneous maids and waiting women, the female equivalent of spear carriers, amused her enough to allow her to consume her usual hearty breakfast with good appetite. After she'd eaten, she set out for the Palace Hotel at a brisk pace, determined to get this meeting over with. She did not realize that she'd just passed Bathory, on the other side of the street and heading in the opposite direction, until he was a good distance beyond her. Apparently lost in thought, he'd taken no note of her, either.
Doubling back, Diana had almost caught up with him when he joined the cluster of parishioners entering Grace Church for morning worship. Diana followed the crowd, momentarily bemused by the notion that the man who wrote such demonic stories should attend Sunday services. Once inside, she spotted him easily, but there was no room for her in his pew. She settled into one near the back of the church, prepared to wait for the end of services to speak with him.
More than an hour later, Diana stepped out of Grace Church into an afternoon that was still overcast but not yet stormy. She positioned herself near the wrought iron fence to wait for Bathory to emerge.
He was easy to spot -- he was the only man not wearing a hat. Diana was about to call out to him when she saw him reach into the pocket of his coat and extract a small object. She had to bite back a gasp when she recognized her notebook, the one she'd lost in the alley.