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TWENTY-NINE

T his dreadful creature is trying to blackmail me,” Ursula said. She gave Otford a disgusted look. “I came here today to stop him.”

“You were going to shoot me.” Otford stared at her in shocked disbelief. “In cold blood. How could you do such a thing?”

Otford was in his late thirties. He had pale blue eyes, lank, reddish-blond hair and a ruddy complexion.

His clothes had seen better days. The sleeves of his coat and the cuffs of his trousers were frayed.

His shirt had once been white but it was now a dingy shade of yellow. Threads dangled from his limp tie.

Otford was not a career criminal, Slater concluded, rather, a desperate man. Such individuals might be inept but that did not make them any less dangerous.

“I wasn’t going to shoot you—well, not unless I was left with no alternative,” Ursula said. “I merely wished to discover your identity.”

Otford eyed her with grim suspicion. “Why did you want to learn my name unless you intended to kill me?”

“So that I could go to the police, of course,” Ursula said. She gave Otford a steely smile. “I’m quite certain that a man who would stoop so low as to blackmail a lady would have a few secrets of his own he’d want to keep hidden.”

Slater looked at Griffith, who was watching Ursula with undisguised admiration.

Slater was not entirely certain how he, himself, felt about the situation.

He was still trying to cope with the knowledge that Ursula had found it necessary to own a gun.

He had never met a lady who carried one.

Granted, it was a very small handgun but at close range it was a potentially deadly weapon.

And to think that he had begun to believe that he knew Ursula well enough not to be surprised by anything she did. He had been very much mistaken.

“Well, I’ve got news for you, Mrs. Kern, I don’t have any secrets to conceal.” Otford straightened his thin shoulders. “I’m a journalist.”

Ursula ignored that. “You recognized me from the trial, didn’t you? I remember your face in the crowd. You sat right in front every single day like a vulture waiting to tear apart dead meat.”

“I covered the Picton divorce trial, yes.” Otford raised his chin. “It was my duty as a journalist.”

“Rubbish. You were one of the so-called gentlemen of the press who ruined my good name and made it necessary for me to adopt a new identity. I very nearly ended up in the workhouse or on the street because of you, Mr. Otford. And now you have the nerve to try to blackmail me?”

“I asked for only a couple of pounds,” Otford shot back.

He waved a hand at her gown and hat. “It looks like you’ve done quite well for yourself, madam.

Whereas I am the one in danger of starving.

I’m going to be thrown out of my lodgings at the end of the week if I don’t come up with the rent.

I’ve been eating at a charity kitchen for the past month. ”

“But you’ve got a job.” Ursula narrowed her eyes. “Have you become a gambler, sir? Is that why you are going hungry?”

Otford exhaled deeply. His shoulders collapsed.

“No, I haven’t fallen prey to the vice of gambling.

My editor let me go. He said I hadn’t brought in anything the public actually wanted to read in months.

Not earning my keep, he told me. I’m working on a plan to publish a weekly magazine that covers the news of the criminal class and the police but setting up in that business takes money. ”

“So you decided to try to extort money from me,” Ursula said. “Who else are you blackmailing, Mr. Otford?”

Otford was clearly offended. “I don’t intend to make a career out of extortion, madam. It was just a little something to tide me over.”

“It’s been two years since the Picton trial,” Ursula said. “I took great pains to disappear. How did you find me?”

A flash of intuition crackled through Slater.

“That,” he said, “is a very good question.” He took Ursula’s arm and nodded to Griffith, who clamped a hand around Otford’s shoulder. “I suggest we retire to another location to discuss the answer. There’s no reason to stand out here in the street.”