Thing of Darkness: A 1920s Historical Mystery (A Smith Investigates Mystery)

  Thing of Darkness

  A Smith Investigates Book

  Beth Byers

  Contents

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Sneak Peek of Death By the Book

  Also by Beth Byers

  Summary

  Smith knows a lot of things. He knows about crimes and why they occur. He knows where to find the best pint of ale and the coffee houses that cater to the criminal class. He knows where to find people who don’t want to be found. And he has--somehow--come to know about the lives of the spoiled and well-connected.

  What he doesn’t know is how someone even he finds objectionable has also slithered into the lives of his friends. Nor does he know when they became friends or why he’s worrying about them. Or what to do about their antics when it comes to his enemy.

  He only wishes he were surprised when his wife, Beatrice, knows exactly what to do.

  Chapter 1

  Three stories up on a beautiful red brick building with decorative gray corner stones and a gray stone ledge, I slid my way along the jutted-out stone with only inches of my toes and feet secure. The wind crackled around the building, at times seeming to push me closer to the wall and safety and at other times feeling like invisible fingers pulling me to my death.

  “Why did I ever marry you?” I hissed over the wind. Mentally, I ordered myself, Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t! Look! Down!

  “There’s no accounting for taste,” he answered. “I consider it your only major fault. The utter lack of wit in marrying me is representative of an overall problem, I should say.”

  It was well past midnight, and I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear the grin in his tone. Only Smith could be hanging over possible death and certain paralysis and tease me.

  “I hate you,” I repeated for at least the millionth time since we’d been married.

  “You love me.” He did laugh that time, though it was low and under his breath. “Devil knows why.”

  “The phrase—” I started and then stopped. Smith knew what the phrase was, and he’d said it wrong purposefully. Heaven did know why I’d married him. Smith was charming and alluring, and he pulled at all the parts of me, and oh! I had known better than to marry him. Far better. I had known it would come to this: me doing something ineffably idiotic, and Smith blithely doing the same thing at the same moment, but somehow making it seem effortless. “When I die—”

  “You probably won’t die.” His tone was so casual as to deliberately rile me up. I dug my fingers into the stone as much as I could, but my fingernails were no match for the bricks. I shook with strain, pressing down as hard as possible as though a fingertip’s worth of pressure and a few inches of toes would save me from death.

  “I’ll haunt you.” It was a solemn promise. A covenant, really. Between him, me, and God, I would haunt him if this killed me. “Why do you need me here?”

  “You’ll probably just break your legs, and you’ll see,” he replied and answered both. The amusement in his tone was more than I could stand, and given the opportunity I would have elbowed him hard. Unfortunately, I was clinging onto the side of a building for my life.

  “Worse than death if I am broken. You’ll have to fetch and carry for me.”

  “This is why we have Mrs. Woodhouse. I’ll carry on. Young and beautiful women will only throw themselves at me more when they realize that I work to support my poor, disabled wife and our housekeeper.”

  “I hate her too.” I wasn’t going to acknowledge his desire to taunt me with all those women who wanted him, even after they knew he was married.

  “But she does the washing,” Smith said, with a smirk that was too hard to see in the dark. “If we lose Mrs. Woodhouse—”

  “We’ll send out our laundry,” I snapped. Only my toe slipped, and I yelped. I dug my nails into the bricks, but they had no hold. I sucked in a breath as a horrifying scream pressed against my throat. I felt the stone pull away as the wind caught me, but before I could let loose, Smith casually grabbed my arm. His strength helped me to find purchase again and I clutched the wall, frozen.

  “I hate you,” I whispered, my nose pressed into the brick as I tried to determine whether I would ever recover. My heart was racing, my limbs were trembling, and I wasn’t sure I would make it the last few feet.

  “Are you all right?” For a moment, real love radiated from him, more real than if he’d simply said the words.

  I wanted to elbow him hard for putting me in this position, but I also wanted to throw myself in his arms for his timely rescue. Instead, I clamped down on my bottom lip, nodded against the brick, and followed after Smith. Only a few feet later, he opened a window and jumped inside. The lack of his warmth made me certain I would die, but then I felt his hands on my wrist pulling me towards him until his grip shifted to my waist, and he lifted me to safety.

  I clutched the side of the windowsill for long moments, catching my breath before I turned and met Smith’s gaze. His deep brown eyes warmed. He pressed a kiss to my forehead. I straightened my back, forcing my will through me, and surveyed the room.

  “Why are we here? What am I looking for?”

  The light in the hall cast the wan light into the room, leaving much of it in shadows. I could see clearly enough to note the desks for office workers, covered typewriters, and filing cabinets I was prepared to go through.

  I crossed to the first, opening a desk drawer. Stamp, stamp pad, pencils. I looked up at Smith and found him watching me curiously. “Is there something on my face?”

  “Your face is perfection,” he lied.

  Even still, I smiled at him. It was his face that was perfection. High cheekbones, a sharp jawline, a straight nose, perfectly asymmetrical features, full lips. He was the very personification of angelic beauty.

  “I need you to run down the stairs and out the door, screaming as if the very hounds of hell are after you.”

  I took the sudden command in stride. If only anything he said was ever surprising. “I don’t like that.”

  “You’ll be fine. You’ve got an excellent scream.”

  My head tilted as I looked for some sign that he was teasing. Nothing.

  I waited.

  “There’s a black cab waiting for you.”

  “A random black cab waiting for a woman to run screaming out of a building and then scoop her up from whoever she’s putting on the performance for?”

  “I’ve arranged everything. Don’t you trust me?”

  I wanted to say yes while also saying no. When I searched my heart, however, there was only one answer, and it was yes. “And do you trust the driver?”

  “It’s your uncle.”

  I blinked. “Hargreaves?”

  “Who else?”

  Who else indeed. I stared at those perfect features that gave nothing away. If Hargreaves was on one end of this and Smith on the other, I was sure I’d be fine. “And if I’m caught?”

  “You won’t be.” He lifted a brow. “Don’t you have any faith in yourself?”

  “I hate you,” I couldn’t help but repeat. Even as I did, I stretched my neck and
tired arms, then my legs, which were already cramping from the climb.

  “The stairs for the building are at the end of the hall. Take them down three floors. Then, you’ll need to run to the far end of the hall at the center of the building and go down the grand staircase. There’s a desk at the bottom of the stairs. Run past it, ignore the guard, and go out the front doors.”

  “Surely they’ll be locked.”

  “Maybe so.” He pressed another kiss on the top of my head. “Or maybe I’ve thought of that.”

  I eyed the tiniest smile on his mouth. He conveyed so much humor through a half-twist of his lips. He kissed me soundly on the lips, turned me to the door, patted my bottom, and said, “Run fast. Ignore anyone who follows you.”

  I did not find his amusement nearly as entertaining as he did.

  “Run fast,” I muttered to myself, walking quietly down the hall. The doors were generally closed as I moved down the hallway, looking in each for the stairwell. Three flights. I could do this. I tried walking as quietly as Smith, but it was impossible. One probably needed a preternatural ability to move as he did. I was chased by the click-click of my own shoes until I slipped them off. I didn’t want anyone to see me or hear me until I was ready to run. Who was going to chase me? Smith had said someone would. Why? Was it because he trusted them? Was he setting the scene? Or was it because he was drawing out some criminal?

  Was I only a distraction? He hadn’t said what he wanted from inside the building, and honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I could only hope that whoever chased me would be watchmen leaving their posts and not someone I truly needed to fear.

  “How,” I whispered aloud, “does he get me to do whatever he wants?”

  Even still, I straightened my skirt, tucked my hair out of my face, and smoothed my blouse. After a moment, I pulled the blouse from the waist of my skirt, put on my shoes, and started running.

  I made it halfway down the first flight of stairs before I let out the first scream. Like the hounds of hell, Smith had said, and I tried to add horror to my voice.

  “Help!” I screeched, hitting the first landing. Two to go.

  “Help me! Help!” I screamed, reaching new highs in octave before struggling for breath. I was going to need to add running to my sit-ups and pushups every morning.

  I held my side as I hit the next landing. One to go, then the main staircase. It was then that I heard the clatter of steps after mine.

  “Girl! Girl!”

  Woman, I wanted to correct, but I only had the breath for screaming. I hit the bottom flight so fast, I slammed against the wall, threw the door open, and ran down the hallway towards the promised grand staircase.

  What expensive business ran in this building?

  “Girl!” the man called behind me. “It’s all right. What’s wrong?”

  I wiped my hand over my mouth as I ran, deliberately smearing my lipstick, and then I saw the opening to the center stairs.

  “Wait!” the man behind me shouted as I reached the staircase. Only one man in the whole of the building?

  Ha, I thought as I ran harder, pushing through the sudden stitch. Perhaps I shouldn’t have eaten a full basket of chips along with that fish pie this afternoon. I pushed on, letting out the most unholy wail I could imagine, reaching for one of Vi’s fictional ingenues.

  The grand staircase was marble and wide with wrought iron decorative railing. A security guard sat at a desk at the bottom of the stairs, and he stood as I flew down the marble steps, not letting up my screams even when my voice cracked hoarsely.

  “What’s wrong?” the guard demanded, holding the billy club on his waist.

  I shook my head with feigned terror, working at the undulating scream and dared to glance behind me. I lost my shoe as I did so but I saw who was chasing me. He was close, given his longer legs. Conventionally and forgettably handsome but tall and fast. Someone who wasn’t Smith. He almost had me, and my next scream had more real fear than theatrics.

  I landed at the bottom of the stairs with true fear urging me onward, and burst through the glass doors at the front of the building, thankful they weren’t locked or I would have either knocked myself out on the glass or broken right through them, neither a good ending to my theatrics. Another glance back, and I saw the guard had stopped tall, dark, and handsome. The two were arguing, but I didn’t linger.

  Instead, I darted out of the building and down the cement steps just as a black cab halted in front of me, a door thrown open from the inside as I reached it.

  “Uncle Hargreaves?” I asked, panting. Smith had made me paranoid.

  “Get in, Bea,” he urged calmly.

  I leapt inside, slamming the door behind me.

  “You seem to be without a shoe.” My uncle could be maddingly stoic in his observations.

  “I’m trying on Cinderella for size.” I was gasping, and I slumped back onto the seat to wait for the pain in my side to ease and my air to come without a struggle.

  Uncle Hargreaves laughed.

  “Are you coming back for him?” I asked.

  “I’m sure he’ll find his own way home.”

  Chapter 2

  We’d moved out of Vi’s house only recently, and our house still felt more like a place let for a few weeks while on holidays than our actual home. Especially given that everything inside was new. The leather chairs squeaked when we sat, no paintings or photographs were hung on the bare walls, the new bookshelves were mostly empty, the few books were placed haphazardly rather than with care, and the disorganization was driving me mad.

  An upright piano against one wall that Smith played shockingly well was littered with papers. There was an excess of house plants that had come from a gardener cousin who had unloaded much of his excess in my house in all available spaces. My living space looked more like an old eccentric’s conservatory mixed with a library.

  It was nearly 3:00 a.m. My throat was dry and sore from my run. I wanted nothing so much as a chilled glass of wine, a book, and my husband to lean against. Instead, I picked up the white cat winding her way around my ankles and opened the icebox, pulling out my favorite wine and wishing I was in any way surprised to find myself alone.

  Once the wine was gone, I curled onto my side, slipping into sleep with all the things I needed to do the next day ricocheting around my head while I avoided thinking about where Smith was, what he was up to, and what had been so important inside that building. It seemed that working and being a wife wasn’t easy, especially Smith’s wife. I wasn’t sure how I was going to add a baby in, but I knew that I wanted nothing less than three or four ridiculously handsome little beasts. I fell asleep dreaming of them climbing the walls, literally, as a proud papa looked on.

  As I left the offices of Vi’s money manager, I saw Smith leaning against a black cab across the street. I considered ignoring him until I saw the cup of coffee. My mouth watered for the energy that would bring after such a late night. Vi’s addiction to Turkish coffee had become contagious.

  “What took you so long?” I asked as I took the coffee. I tried to casually make sure he was uninjured. I was not surprised that he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday and yet was entirely unruffled.

  “I was sidetracked.”

  I narrowed my eyes. There was unquestionably more to that story.

  Smith didn’t bother waiting for my inquiry. “I hid in a closet until I had a chance to leave, which turned out to be a mid-morning tea break for the office.”

  I pressed my lips together to hide a grin, but he knew.

  “Did you get what you needed?”

  He shrugged.

  It turned out that being endlessly mysterious was only entertaining in books and movies. He probably didn’t want to admit he had taken on a job chasing another thieving employee or cheating housewife. I took the coffee and joined him in the black cab.

  “Whose is this?” I looked around the interior of the cab. While most black cabs were the same type of automobile, this one se
emed more familiar. Like the scuff on the dashboard and the small tear on the edge of the seat.

  He only shrugged.

  I had to pause before I dared ask. “Did you steal it?”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He grinned in reply, not answering all at once. “Perhaps. But then, I wouldn’t have put your uncle behind the wheel. I promise, dear wife, whatever madness I might dare, I won’t put him at risk.”

  I eyed him for a moment before rolling my eyes. “And me?”

  “I estimate that by marrying me, you’ve already determined to slide into my prison cell to keep me company when we’re inevitably caught.”

  “That definitely means you’re buying me lunch.”

  “I suppose I could manage that.” He took my hand, running his thumb along the back of my wrist.

  “And,” I added mischievously, “you’re going to that party that Vi is having on Friday.”

  “I was told there will be roller-skates.”

  “There will be, and I think you’ll need to use them along with me.”

  “This doesn’t sound fair at all.”

  “Then you aren’t remembering last night correctly.”

  “What’s climbing a fire escape, strolling along the ledge of a building, and then unlawful entering among husband and wife?”

  “Ginny’s home,” Lila told me after picking me up from my office later that afternoon. We were on our way on a shopping excursion. “Vi’s all madness and worries because, alas, the wart is also in town.”

  “Were they making eyes at each other?”