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Chapter Twenty-One

A Reveal

Percival and Beatrice moved up the stairs, through the Rose, and toward the iron gates as a cluster of men in masks pursued them. Beatrice could hear nothing but her pulse pounding in her ears as she flung herself at the gate—but it was locked.

“Stop!” Gregory yelled at them, but his instruction was not needed: They could run no farther without the key.

“I can’t die!” Percival cried. “What will become of the Sweet Majestic? Of Figaro ? My understudy is pitchy !”

“Leave it to me,” Beatrice assured him. She used Miss Bolton’s brooch once more, this time as a lock pick.

She struggled to see the tiny opening in the scant moonlight. She had to feel, rather than see, as she worked the brooch’s sharp pin into the gate.

“It’s the most secure gate in the city. You’ll never—” Percival began, but broke off when the lock clicked.

They sprang free just as the men approached the gates, and Beatrice slammed it shut behind them, the lock engaging once more.

“Get the key!” Gregory yelled, but the men merely rattled the bars in confusion.

“Who has it?” someone asked.

“I thought you did!”

Their voices faded as Beatrice and Percival rushed back through the hedge maze, pushing their way through crowds of masquerade attendees. Beatrice searched the crowd for a familiar face, but all she saw were blank stares behind masks.

She had to get Percival to safety, before he was recognized and apprehended. Before the NAGS sprang free.

She stared around wildly, feeling helpless, the crowd blending together in a whirl of colors and sparkles and fabrics and masks.

Until she spotted the beautiful sight of a tassel ground into the dirt. And then, several feet in front of it, another tassel.

Bless Miss Bolton and her fashion choices, Beatrice thought. And bless her own poor skill at sewing, for she had helped to affix the tassels to Miss Bolton’s masquerade gown. So naturally, Miss Bolton was shedding them wherever she went.

Creating a clear path so Beatrice might find her chaperone.

Beatrice grabbed Percival’s hand and pulled him down the tassel path. Before long, Beatrice was—for the first time—utterly relieved to see a squirrel blocking her way.

“Miss Bolton!” she cried, rushing toward her chaperone. She practically pushed Percival into the small woman’s arms. “Get him somewhere safe,” she instructed.

“You’re abandoning me?” Percival cried.

“Take him to the town house,” Beatrice continued. “Don’t let anyone see.”

“It would be my honor,” Miss Bolton said at once. “But—are you not coming with us? Where have you been? What is going on?”

In reply, Beatrice held up the jar of severed hand. Miss Bolton recoiled.

“I must take care of something,” she told Miss Bolton. “We have to part ways.”

For a moment she thought Miss Bolton would protest. She thought the woman would insist that they stick together—that she accompany Beatrice wherever she might go. But to her relief, Miss Bolton nodded.

“Of course,” she said. Miss Bolton removed her acorn hat and covered Percival’s bald head with it, obscuring his identity from view. “I will take care of our star. You go—just do not let anything happen to you, Beatrice, or your mother will be very angry with me.”

At that moment, someone hurtled toward them.

Gregory Dunne, his moth mask askew, was rushing at Beatrice, face twisted in anger. Just before he reached them, Miss Bolton held out her foot and tripped him. He crumpled to the ground in a heap of cape and mask and sideburns.

“A good chaperone knows when to put her foot down,” Miss Bolton said proudly. “Now, Beatrice— run !”

Beatrice did not have to be told twice. She turned on her heel and rushed through the crowd, dodging jugglers, clowns, and mimes.

Gasping for breath, Beatrice finally made it to the other end of the pleasure garden, where a row of hired vehicles waited to take partygoers back to their homes at the end of the night.

She and her chaperone had walked to the event, since Miss Bolton’s hat was too high to fit into a carriage compartment—but perhaps Beatrice might co-opt someone else’s vehicle?

Before she could attempt such a thing, the door of one of the carriages banged open.

“Get in,” Inspector Drake instructed.

Without question, Beatrice flung herself into the carriage. The driver took off.

It was a small cabin, and Beatrice found herself seated across from Drake, who looked utterly panic-stricken.

“You got into a carriage? Willingly?” she asked incredulously.

Drake nodded but couldn’t seem to say more.

“I am sure the driver is capable,” she assured him, but he shook his head.

“It’s not my fear of carriages—well, that is always present—but your face.”

“It was a silly costume,” Beatrice said, tearing off her mustache. Drake still looked concerned, and Beatrice was now aware of a stinging sensation. She lifted her hand to her cheek and withdrewit.

Blood.

“Oh, that. I was stabbed!” she said excitedly. “And look what I found!”

She held up the severed hand in triumph, and Drake drew back in disgust.

“What is that ?”

“I am fairly certain it is the hand of Oliver Beauchamp,” she told him. “You see this?” She pointed at the garnet ring on the skeletal finger. “Diana Vane has one just like it.”

“Clearly you are far ahead of me. I shall require more explanation,” Drake said, looking from the bloody garnets to Beatrice’s bloodstained face.

“Horace Vane, Cecil Nightingale, and Walter Shrewsbury had a bond, going back to their school days. I believe they formed a sort of secret society,” she told him.

“The NAGS,” he said, but she shook her head.

“They were the founders of that group, yes, but I believe they had an inner circle within the larger group. Gregory discovered it, since he was always hanging about them…. The NAGS are just the surface. The fires destroying local art, the squirrel infestations, these are all the works of the inner circle,” she explained. “The Brotherhood of the Moth.”

“The moth,” Drake repeated, his eye wide. “Their tattoo.”

“A symbol of their secret,” Beatrice said, nodding.

“For years they operated in the shadows, surreptitiously enacting the darkest wishes of their members. But then the three of them received threatening letters, telling them to confess or die. But what did the blackmailer want them to confess? A simple fire or encouragement of unwanted squirrels is not bad enough for blackmail. Murder, on the other hand…” She shook the jar.

“Perhaps we might put away this prop,” Drake said, taking the jar from her grasp and setting it aside with a shiver.

“Oliver Beauchamp was a poet,” Beatrice went on. “He and Diana were meant to be married, until Oliver went ‘off to the colonies,’ or so it was said…. I believe that was a load of hogwash. Horace, Cecil, and Walter killed him.”

She and Drake shared a grim, yet victorious, look. Any past annoyance, any tension between them, had gone.

They were back.

“They killed him…and kept his hand?” Drake said, prompting Beatrice to continue.

“No doubt they chopped off the limb he used to pen such perfect poetry,” she told him. “Horace Vane said it himself…he saved trophies of his conquests.”

“Miss Steele,” Drake said, his brows knit together in concern, “sometimes I fear the places your mind goes.”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said, then went on: “Mr. Vane could have convinced Cecil and Walter to help him commit the murder. For him, it was personal, but he knew that Cecil and Walter hated artists like Oliver. No doubt he played upon this prejudice. I saw just now how far some of these gentlemen are willing to go to keep their power when they think it is at risk. But someone found out about Oliver and blackmailed the three of them. ‘Confess, or die,’?” she quoted from the nefarious note.

“Would they have faced any consequences, had the truth come out?” Inspector Drake pointed out. “It might be cynical to say, but I doubt the authorities would prosecute three upstanding gentlemen over the death of a poet most people have forgotten. Sometimes even murder is not enough.”

“Yes,” Beatrice agreed, “but love is. If the truth came out, Mr. Vane would have lost Diana. She is the reason he did all of this in the first place. She loved Oliver, and Mr. Vane killed him. That knowledge would certainly have put a damper on their relationship. It’s almost romantic,” she added thoughtfully.

“Mr. Vane loved Diana so much that he was willing to kill in order to marry her.”

“I shudder to think what kind of romance you are reading,” Drake replied.

“None at all, Inspector,” Beatrice said with a small smile. “You know I only care for the crime columns.”

He returned her smile, but then his expression turned grim once more. “So they killed Oliver, and someone found out. Why would Cecil and Walter agree to keep quiet when their lives were on the line? They did not have loves to lose. They had nothing to lose, really, by speaking up.”

“I think you are right. I think they wanted to speak up,” Beatrice said, her heart pounding, palms sweating, as she put the pieces together.

Her entire body was awash with the thrill of answers—at long last. “That is why I think that Horace Vane killed Walter Shrewsbury and Cecil Nightingale to stop them from confessing.”

“He was on the scene for both murders,” Drake said, considering this.

“He knew that Cecil Nightingale was dead, without confirming that fact,” Beatrice reminded him.

“We saw how he professed the death so quickly. He bashed in their faces first, because he felt guilty for killing his friends. He could not bear to look at them while doing the deed….” She shivered at the thought, then went on.

“Mr. Vane also could have planted the evidence against Percival Nash and Caroline Wynn. Thus he would get rid of his problem—two men who knew a secret which could ruin him—and frame artists he detested in the meantime. A perfect plot,” she pronounced.