The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (30 page)

“You don't
let
me do anything, Jasper Forth!” Merinda growled. “I am a free woman. Now, help me think where he might have taken
them.” She inhaled sharply. “The theatre! The Winter Garden! It has to be there!”

Jasper shook his head. “There's likely to be a show there on Saturday, Merinda.”

“He's not remarkably intelligent,” she said.

“I don't think it's the Winter Garden. Not today. That would be sloppy. Every criminal has an inherent need to put their thumbprint on whatever they do. Your M.C. Wheaton says that. Crawley won't be careless about this.”

Merinda flopped backward on the settee and closed her eyes tight, torn between her desire to race about the city looking for Jem and her need to think this through logically, to understand the mind of a killer. Sherlock Holmes compared his brain to an attic, with different compartments storing necessary information. He didn't keep any information in there that would obscure the most essential facts. Merinda imagined herself in an attic looking through boxes. She went back to the box from the very beginning of their association with Gavin.

The Elgin Theatre.

The Election Gala.

The Ward.

The hidden Winter Garden Theatre.

Spenser's.

Jem falling for DeLuca, ever so slowly. Ever so obviously.

Jem looking through DeLuca's journal—

She sat up.
DeLuca's Journal.
She followed that thought for a moment, pressing the heels of her palms into her closed eyes. The man in one of the entries had had impeccable manners and a clipped voice. He'd talked about a garden and girl. A garden, a girl, and a
tunnel
Ray had thought existed only in fables.

Then she thought about the tunnel: the dampness of Fiona's clothes when they found her, the sediment under her fingernails.

She grabbed Jasper's arm so tightly she cut off its circulation. “I know where they are.”

Jem thought it rather unfortunate that Gavin Crawley was holding a gun to her head. After all, she had only recently had a life-affirming moment at St. James. Tippy was there too, held tightly by Forbes. It was further unfortunate that Merinda wasn't there to fill her with confidence—or to strike these men across the head with her blasted crowbar.

She didn't know which cold, uninhabited building Gavin had brought them to, thanks to the blindfolds they'd used on her and Tippy. They'd taken Jem's off now that they were here, wherever ‘here' was, and they were taking Tippy's off too. But the girl stumbled, forcing both Forbes and Gavin to reach to steady her, and it was then that Jem saw her chance.

She kicked Gavin's shin and darted off. It was only a moment before she realized that her too-high heels were slowing her down, and they made a horrid noise that was too easy to follow. She kicked them off and ran silently into the darkness.

They shouted and at least one of them gave chase, but she had the advantage for the moment. She raced down a corridor and ducked into a narrow spot beside a tall cabinet, forcing herself to breathe quietly. Forbes went through several doorways looking for her, but always he returned to the corridor where she hid. Finally he drew even with her cabinet. She held her breath.

In the end, it was a rat that ratted her out. As Forbes passed, he startled the rat from some hiding place. It dropped from a vent shaft above Jem and fell onto her head. Its horrible body and wormy tail snaked across her shoulder and its claws got tangled in her hair. And Jem could hardly be blamed for letting loose an involuntary shriek that echoed across the corridor.

“Hello there.” Forbes grabbed her arm and tugged her into the half-light of the corridor. He brandished his pistol at her. “Let's get you back to—”

Jem lowered her head and bit his knuckles. It probably wasn't the pain so much as the surprise that made him drop the gun. It clattered to the floor and Jem was afraid it would go off. But it didn't, so she grabbed it and pointed it at his face. “I'm going to use it!” Jem's voice quaked. She threatened and pointed, just as she had learned from Jasper.
*

“Stop that.” Forbes reached out and snatched it from her. He pointed it at her nose and forced her back toward Gavin.

“Rats!” she squeaked.

Where is Merinda?
Jem squeezed her eyes shut. This was the second time in as many months she had been held at the whim of a man several times larger than herself while Merinda enjoyed the fresh air.
†
Tippy was tied up not far from her, and Gavin was rapping his pistol on his expensive trousers. What were they planning to do with them? Jem imagined a thousand scenarios, but they all ended in death. Or at least a good deal of discomfort.

The gag cut the corners of her mouth, and her feet and hands were bound. She tried to pull free, but all she managed to do was squirm. She cursed her poor, bound frame affixed to the upturned crate.

She thought about Ray. She thought about Merinda and Jasper. Then she thought about her childhood and the letter she had just ripped up admonishing her imprudent behavior. It
was
imprudent, wasn't it? What right did she have to color so far outside the lines of propriety?

Then she thought about Tippy, and she gazed at the poor girl, tied up and as good as dead now. Jem and Merinda had put themselves
in danger willingly. But Tippy had approached them to
avoid
danger. And now look at her.

Gavin moved closer and traced her neckline with his finger. Jem's eyes never left the revolver at his hip level, even as he lowered his mouth, removed the bind from her lips, and brushed her with a kiss. “I've no trouble disposing of disposable women, Jemima. What I'm deciding,” he said, raising the gun to her temple, “is exactly how to do it.”

*
After a lesson in which Merinda failed to empty the bullets out of the pistol they used for practice, Jasper declined to help any further.

†
Jem recorded that first adventure in the story “A Singular and Whimsical Problem.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The bank layers three levels. The lifts are to the right. Down the shaft there is a path to Victoria Street. A subterranean tunnel, built in case of siege in the City of York in the nineteenth century, begins under its foyer and snakes underneath, coming just outside Massey Hall. The tunnels are closely encased, narrow, and suffocating. So old, indeed, that no one can be sure that time and wear have not crumbled it into a dirt avalanche.

From Toronto Architecture of the New Century, William Flanders, ed.

M
erinda had changed into tweed, cotton, and suspenders and was rapping her walking stick on her palm. “I'd really rather do this alone,” she said for the third time as she and Jasper sat in the cab heading toward Yonge.

Gavin Crawley had bragged in a prison cell that he knew the inner workings of Dominion Bank, so they were headed there now.

“Yes,” Jasper said, also for the third time, “but then you'd actually have to
use
that ridiculous tunnel. You'd perhaps suffocate from crumbling dirt, and even if you made your way to the bank, you'd have no sure way of getting inside.”

The cab deposited them at the Dominion Bank, and Jasper's identification got them past one of the two guards on duty on a Saturday.
Inside, the other guard was holding a bloody cloth to his forehead. “There's been a break in.”

“I can see that,” Jasper said. “I'm with the police. Your friend outside will see you get medical attention. Then both of you please call the station for backup.”

The man gazed at him dizzily. “They broke in.”

Jasper led Merinda across the grand foyer, their steps echoing on the tile. A few desks, sequestered with iron grates, lined each side of the bank lobby.

“The security here isn't wonderful, is it?” Merinda sniffed. “If I had an account here, I would close it.”

Boom.

Jasper held Merinda back. “Hush. Someone's breaking into the safe.”

Given the cavernous acoustics of the place, it was impossible to deduce whether the sound had come from above or below. Merinda only hoped it wasn't anywhere near Tippy and Jem. She still didn't know for sure that Gavin had brought them here, but the break-in at this time seemed unlikely to be coincidental.

Jasper turned to Merinda. “You go try to find Jem. I'll follow the sound and try to stop the robbery.”

Merinda nodded and went out again into the grand entrance of the bank. Maybe there would be some clue there as to where Gavin had taken Jem. She'd been there less than thirty seconds when a side door opened, and she scuttled behind a pillar as a figure emerged.

Forbes.

He didn't scan the lobby at all, or he would've seen her. Instead, he concentrated on pulling the door shut behind him—it didn't want to stay latched—while he held a pistol in the other hand.

He tucked the pistol under his arm and yanked the door shut again and again, his anger growing. And Merinda seized her opportunity.

She crossed the distance quickly, silently. And when she was upon him, she dropped her walking stick and leaped onto Forbes's back.
The gun fell to the floor and he struggled to fling Merinda off, but she tightened her grip around his neck. She was strong, but he was bigger—and unpredictable. She could never calculate which way he would turn next.